[NCLUG] Desire suggestions for college laptop

[BJ Tiemessen]

As a college student I was mostly concerned with price to performance 
ratio when I purchased my laptop.  Unfortunately many of the programs 
used in a college environment only run on Windoze so this ruled out the 
Apple iBook.  I knew I would dual boot my laptop so each model I looked 
at I also looked online to read success and failure stories of other 
peoples Linux installation on that particular model.  I previously 
worked for a company that leased all their 300 workstations, laptops, 
servers, and printers through Dell so I was already familiar with their 
tech support and this was a big factor in my decision.  I decided to go 
with the Latitude C series because of the media bays and Dells tech 
support.  The Latitude line is typically much bulkier than the Insperon 
line but I had access to a C/Dock and some media modules from a friend 
so I can live with a little extra weight.  Dell sells all the equipment 
that comes back to them after a companies lease is up through their 
auction site and some systems they refurbish and sell through DFS direct 
sales.  I decided to go for a refurbished system because of the cost.  
Every Dell system has a service tag number and you can use this number 
on their site to find out everything about that system from original 
configuration, original date of shipping, drivers, service contract, 
etc.  I looked through the systems on their site and found a Latitude 
C840 (1.8 Ghz P4, 15.1" display, Gforce2go video, 512 ram, 20 gig hd, 
cd-r/rw/dvd-rom combo drive) that had 2 years left on the On-site 
service plan for $1100.  If you go with Dell the best recommendation I 
can make is to get the On-site service plan.  I had a problem with my cd 
drive so I called them up and they asked me if I wanted them to send 
someone out to replace it for me, but this is just a matter of popping 
it out and back in so I said no, but they overnighted the new drive to 
me so when I woke up the next morning the new drive was sitting on my 
door step.  Every time I have dealt with Dell on an issue they send 
someone out the next day to fix the problem.  I am very happy with this 
laptop, it performs great and I have had no issues with Linux on it.  
Like I said my decision was mostly affected by my budget and tech 
support so this may not be the case for you.  Good luck with your hunting,

BJ

bsimpson at att.net wrote:

>My daughter has just graduated from high school and will
>be going to college in August.  I would like to furnish
>her with a new laptop, and am looking for ideas on what
>to get.  Some of my considerations:
>
>- Can't be too flimsy, as it will be a college environment
>  (though she does take good care of her possessions).
>
>- A major brand is probably more desirable, as it would
>  probably be easier/quicker to get repaired.  Which
>  brands should I consider?
>
>- Want wifi, but this may be a non-issue as I am presuming
>  that most new laptops are likely to have this.
>
>- Probably another non-issue is a hard drive large
>  enough to add a decent OS (Linux).
>
>- She's not going into Computer Science, and so the main
>  use will be term papers, games, misc. school work...
>  Therefore high-price/high-performance is much less
>  important than dependability.
>
>What other things should I consider?  What brands?
>Stores (e.g. Best Buy) vs catalog (e.g. Dell)?  I would
>appreciate any suggestions.  Thanks!
>
>Brian Simpson
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-- 
****************************************
BJ Tiemessen
Computer Science
Colorado State University
Benjamin.Tiemessen at ColoState.edu
Tiemesse at cs.ColoState.edu
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