laptop computer---best bang for the buck?

[watermedic]

Hey folks,
My daughter is starting college this fall. She needs to get a laptop for school, and it needs to be wireless ready. She has limitted money to spend. Who has the best bang for the buck? Anyone out there have any good connections for discounted units?

Thanks

[Shibby1485]

i'm shopping around for a laptop for my younger brother as we speak as well! he's starting college in the fall also.

our only parameters are DVD burner, 80 GB hard drive or more, and 512 MB DDR ram or more....

we've been looking around ALOT... we missed out on a killer deal few weeks ago, guess toshiba was cleanring out house on an old model and it sold out all over the northeast in a matter of a few hours.

we're waiting for july 4th sales now... that's when we'll pick on up i think.

don't get a celerson processor!!

either Centrino Pentium M, or pentium 4...... you get ALOT better battery life with the Pentium M Centrino setup.. but generally speaking the pentium 4 will be faster but will be thicker and heavier.

for basic college computing, internet, papers, instant messanger and music and such... the Pentium M Centrino will work fine for your dauighter.

where is she going to college?

[watermedic]

Thanks Shib!
Ohio Valley University. It's a small private university. Pretty close to home, but far enough to get her out of the house

[11]

As a newly revealed Mac addict I am compeled to advice an ibook, fool proof OS, no virus, no spyware, no games so perfect WORK computer.

HP makes the best bang for the buck Windows laptop, just make sure it's a Centrino with at least 512mb of Ram like Shibby says.
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[11]

but generally speaking the pentium 4 will be faster but will be thicker and heavier.

Well I beg to differ, the P4 is really not running comfortable in a laptop because of not enough current and high operating temps that SERIOUSLY penalise performance.
At such a level that the new generation of Centrinos, even though their clock speeds are significantly slower (typically half) besically rip the P4 laptop a new butthole in actual performance.

My Qosmio 1.7 mhz Centrino gets 15 to 20% better benchmarks than the best 3.2 P4 laptops on the market.

I also have a PB17 1.5 mhz that is faster on Photoshop files than the Toshiba, even though it runs even slower.
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[watermedic]

Thanks for the replies. Guess it's time to start looking for good deals

[11]

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_a.../sortby=priceA

Focus on Toshiba, HP and Sony, Centrino 1.5 and 512 Ram minimum.

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_a...A#jsenabled=no

G4 1.0 Ghz minimum.

[watermedic]

Cool. Thanks again for the info.

[SuzanGPR]

Check out Dell too! I have a Dell and it works great. They're always running internet specials and most of the specials include a free printer. Good Luck!!

[watermedic]

Thanks for all the input
Definitely need to shop. At least this will narrow the search a little. Paying an arm and a leg for college, and don't want to loose any other body parts for a computer