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B School Laptop

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Notwithstanding Clarity's problems with Dell, in 2000 Ohio State did an extensive study of computers, analyzing their total cost of operating and their reliability. On both counts, Dell computers beat all comers. Because of that, the Fisher College of Business would not buy anything but Dell. I am not sure how that has changed since.

I think the question is more likely which operating system. I am a business school professor and I would STRONGLY encourage you to get a MS Windows compatible machine. A lot of the CDs that come with textbooks and much of the special software that profs like to prescribe runs on Windows.

The other thing I would encourage is get the fastest chipset and the biggest screen you can afford. As said earlier in the thread, working on complex spreadsheets or stats programs and not being able to see the entire block of cells you want to see can be a real drag.

Good luck in B-School. By the way, the Fisher College of Business is the most under-rated B-School in the world. They have some really top profs.
 
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Steve19 said:
The other thing I would encourage is get the fastest chipset and the biggest screen you can afford. As said earlier in the thread, working on complex spreadsheets or stats programs and not being able to see the entire block of cells you want to see can be a real drag.
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I wouldn't worry about that overly much, even the biggest excel file is not going to stress a modern CPU.
 
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Big screens are nice, until you have to lug the damn thing anywhere. 13" may be too small 14"-15" may be alright, anything bigger and you gain weight and lose battery life.

The IBM X-41 you have at work is made for portability. The graphics chipset is intergrated, the processor is slower and the first hard drives were the slowest possible. I would look at a T-40 or T-60. I just had a key pop off my keyboard and IBM sent me a new keyboard the next day. A co worker just had his laptop die, another IBM going over 5 years, and he got a $1500 T-60. He is a developer.

Your CPU will sit idle most of the time, but faster is always better. Get the most memory possible, I use crucial. A faster hard drive is better, 7200 RPM as opposed to 5400 or the 4200 your X-41 came with.

My laptop travels close to 100K miles a year. Lots of being thrown in and out of overhead bins, rental cars and hotels. I get 3-4 years out of mine and then they come home to surf the net around the house.

As I have mentioned I have had no luck with Dell or Compaq laptops. I do have a Dell server as my home PC and have no problem with it. The price, perfomance, portability issues will narrow things down.
 
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Thanks for all suggestions....

Nola - this one will strictly be for b school, and then probably given to a needy undergrad relative....I understand exactly where you are coming from. Someday when I travel more I will take your advice on the smaller screen (under 17") and pliant warranty.


Good luck in B-School. By the way, the Fisher College of Business is the most under-rated B-School in the world. They have some really top profs.
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Thanks! I agree with your assessment of Fisher too.

BrutMax: Thanks for the links.....very helpful. I'll let you know in the next couple of months what I decide.
 
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Steve19 said:
No, but the new version of Windows will run slower than snake shit with a slow clockspeed chip!:biggrin:
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Exactly, most labtops will have next to nothing in the GPU department, probably some integrated intel, or (if lucky) nforce chipset. That being said the stronger your processor is the less headaches you'll incur if you ever do install vista. A 64bit processor would be a good start, 64 bit dual core processor would be even better.
 
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I figured this would be as good as any other thread to thread jack...

I will be purchasing a new laptop soon (sound familiar with the other 100 threads on the same topic:tongue2: ), any suggestions? What to look for, what's not important, good brands, bad brands, etc.

I've been a Dell guy for a while (due to the fact I'm a cheap bastard :biggrin: ), and have yet to have any major problems (although I hear of horror stories all the time). Long story short, my company told us we can all go out and purchase laptops and they will reimburse us (it sounds like the reimbursement will be around the $1,500 possibly up to $2,000 level). It's Christmas in July... What to get??:biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:

I don't travel very often, size isn't very important (although I don't want a monster), I'd prefer a "longer" batter life, I'd like a "high quality" screen, I'd like a min. of 1Gig RAM, (clueless on processors, speed, type, etc.), I will run some software that takes a while to process calculations, I'd like wireless integrated (no "outside" card to plug in), I'd like a "higher" quality machine (not made with junk parts), The ability to "burn" video and audio is important, a decent hard drive (I will prob. use this as a replacement of my desktop... lots of "stuff" saved on the desktop over the years)...

Any suggestions?
 
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Are you an OSU student? Cause you get 36% off Lenovo Thinkpads. Arguably some of the best laptops on the market. Granted, they're expensive, but with 36% off, its much better. Link

If you need something that has a lot of processing power, definitely get a laptop with the Intel Core Duo processor in it. You can't go wrong. In August, Intel will be releasing a new processor, aptly named the Core 2 Duo, which will be faster - so look out for that. Everything has wireless built in nowadays, so that isn't a concern. Huge hard drives on laptops get kinda pricey as its hard to fit a lot of space on a tiny drive. Best option if you need like 200+ GB of space is to get an external hard drive of some sort. Anything with a 4x or 8x DVD burner will be fine. Don't think you can get much faster than 8x on laptops. Dell makes a solid Core Duo laptop, and of course so does Lenovo. I personally have an Apple Macbook (which has a 2.0 Ghz Core Duo) and it flies.
 
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