Freshman college student, what laptop to get?

Question

Okay so one of my scholarships and a Government grant just kicked in! I have about $1,500 dollars and am planning on spending it on a laptop. My question to you is, what brand should I get?

I will primarily be using programs that are included in Microsoft Office (Word, Powerpoint, Excel... etc) and the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign... etc)

My major is Psychology and am minoring in Computer Graphics....

I am debating over a Mac or PC, although my skills are with PC I have heard really good things about Mac's and am debating on which one to buy (Oh and I will have to buy Microsoft Office separate if I chose a Mac too) Please help! Any personal experiences with either will be appreciated.

Thanks!

Answer 1

hi dont pay too much attention to the brand, just make sure it's small if you travel, has around 2gb of ram, dual core processor, AMD Turion 64 x2 if you want to save some money, more below, as for a Mac or PC stick to what you know, we support both platforms and have many people purchasing macs because they look so good, but getting some software packages can be an issue.

Answer 2

Do not go for the design like Sony VAIO, but rather stick with performance, spend your money on HP, but not DELL, it has so many problems, trust me I had some good experience ... well... it is your choice, pick the best gaming laptop, and it will assure you that it will usable for another 10 years, cause normal laptops for example business editions are getting old very quickly..

good luck pal.

Answer 3

I have a macbook and its great just make sure you buy microsoft office for MAC because you will sure make use of the program in college

Answer 4

Don't worry about skills. If you know how  to use iTunes, you know how to use a Mac. I've never  seen a Windows user who can't sit down and figure  out how to use my MacBook with in 5 min.

Adobe Creative Suites is the type of stuff Macs are made for. Microsoft Office should run just as good on a Mac. If you need anything else, you can install Windows using Boot Camp.

Answer 5

The cheapest one you can afford from www.newegg.com

Even the cheapest one can run any of the programs you mentioned and having a slower PC will keep you away from the killers of college dreams - gaming, p**n, etc.

It may not be fun, but it's for the best. Only you can judge how important your future is.

Answer 6

If you want to spend your money in good looks, go for a mac. In other cases buy a PC.

The brand does not matter at all, technical specs do. Any new laptop will be fast enough for MSOffice, but you'll want to have at least these to run Photoshop smoothly:

- 2 GB of RAM

- 2GHz CPU

- A screen with good colors and a resolution of 1280x1024 or higher

Spend some time comparing different setups in your budget range. You can get a great deal on a decent used laptop in eBay too.

As Adobe CS itself will probably take a big munch off your wallet I'd recommend to skip MS Office and download the free OpenOffice. It's just as good (if not better) and has pretty much all the features as MS Office. OpenOffice can save and open MS Office files too and if I recall correctly, there's an OpenOffice build for OS X too.

Answer 7

Go to the different store and hear some advice.. just tell what you want to do with your lap top.

Answer 8

Compaq.

Easy to carry/handle and quite a good brand.

Answer 9

Well my sister is  at college doing compuer graphics and she has a compaq something

she says it is really good and cost her $1,200

came with all the microsoft office programs

Has Wireless and 360 MG memory or KB...whatever ine is beigger

good luck at college