Laptop suggestions

Greetings all,

I’m shopping around for a new laptop and have done some research but I’m looking for some longer term information. I am not a computer wizard so my knowledge is limited.

I’m still in college so I’m not looking to go overboard ($1200+) but I am also looking for something that may last me quite some time.
I’ve looked at thr MacBooks and I love how they look and what not but they’re not my cup of tea due to one, way overpriced for what you’re getting, no USB standard a, lack of ability to have Microsoft office and what not.
Recently I have been looking into the Microsoft Surface Laptop and went to check them out at Best Buy and I really liked them. Paying $1100 for 8GB of ram and a 256GB SSD seems pretty steep but that seems to be the new trend. I have also looked at dells XPS laptops but they’re up there with MacBooks and don’t have th standard A USB port.

Any recommendations? I’m not looking for a cheap college laptop, nor an expensive NASA computer; just somewhere in between.

Thanks in advance.

 

IMO I bought a $140 acer chromebook and it's working just fine for the past 2 years in college. Have no doubt it'll be more than enough till graduation. Does excel, powerpoint, windows, and all the online blackboard crap that college requires.

edit: I know you said no cheap college laptop but in my experience that is what you want. College as you know can be a lot of studying with energy drinks/coffee sitting next to the laptop, or eating and cramming at the same time. I have my bomb ass gaming computer that stays at home infinitely and my cheap laptop that I use solely for school and beating up. Plus, people have sticky fingers and I tend to use the restroom and leave my stuff behind. A surface pro is eye catching, a glorified tablet with a keyboard is disgusting to most college students. Plus I ride my motorcycle to school and it gets banged around a lot in the backpack.

 

I buy each of my kids (boatload of them) a new MacBook Air as they start college and they have been great. They get MS Office for Mac free at school and it works just fine. The Pages apps also save documents in Word format. I quit buying Windows based laptops and PCs years ago because they were too glitchy and simply didn’t last. Our iMac is 9 years old and still going. No issues at all with the MacBooks, apart from a HD crash and Apple fixed it for free outside of warranty. Apple is releasing a new MacBook Air on 9/12 at a lower price point.

 

Are you looking for the form factor of a surface? IE a tablet with attachable keyboard? If so, open the wallet wide. If you want an actual laptop, I am a big fan of lenovo - they've got one for every price range.

 

I am not interested in the surface pros, those things are pointless. I’m talking about the Microsoft Surface Laptop, not a tablet/2 in 1 deal. I do hear you though. I’ve thought about purchasing a cheap laptop and buying a iMac sorta thing, whatever the HP/Dell ones are called.

 

So seems there is a way now to get MS office on macs? The only down side is that they don’t have the standard A USB port which may not seem like a big deal but can be extremely useful for transferring data as most computers don’t have the type C USB port.

 

No tablets.

The surface laptop is an actual laptop, it’s Microsoft’s first laptop. It’s extremely nice. Has the look of a MacBook but more perks.

 

It seems I have confused you all with the surface laptop. I am not referencing the surface pro tablets.

I am referring to the actual Microsoft laptop.

 

Ultimately it's what you prefer, if it's something that you'd like to keep and use for post graduation and career then spend some money. I plan on giving mine to my niece and buying what I want so mines a disposable camera at this point so suffering with a low performance cheap laptop is ok. Macbooks are usually the safe choice but students in my class sometimes have trouble submitting homework files in the correct file format or even having trouble opening presentations that the instructors provide us. Depends how your school leans toward one operating system or the other.

 

Yep, it’s free for most college students. It works well but my kids say they prefer Pages and the Mac software versions (but that’s what they are used to). Pages saves docs as Word docs without issue. I just go with whatever Mac has now because we got so tired of burning through Windows based PCs and laptops.

 

That’s the issue I’ve heard a lot. A lot of professors at my university have MacBooks but don’t assign any homework in regards to them. Everything is through Microsoft Office/windows based.

 

I may keep that in mind. They are just spendy for not a whole lot of bang is my case. I have a Dell Inspiron that’s lasted me about 5 years now and it’s been great. It seems to be getting to the end of its life though as it is bogged down (even with an i5 core) and for some reason disconnects from my WiFi ever so often.

 

I just got tired of all the crap with Windows and then PCs in general. I always bought them because they had more bells and whistles for the money but they would always either not last or be a constant pain. After going Mac I’ll never own a PC or Windows based system of any kind again. I admit you get more features with those systems but I’m more into my stuff working well. My father in law is still buying Windows stuff and still going through a PC about every 18 months. That was about how long we were getting out of most of ours as well before we switched. The kids always found a way to screw them up. LOL. You should a Mac and I think you’ll like it.

 

At my work I lead the end user tech support team for a really big organization, (40,000 Mac, PC's and chrome books) I've been using a Mac for 10 years and I'll tell you what I tell the people at work when they ask what kind of computer to buy. Go to Costco and pick up a Window's based laptop from them. Don't buy a Mac, seriously they are not one bit better than a PC and they are designed by idiots. I just got a new Macbook pro with the USB-C ports only and it is a freaking headache, dongles to do everything. To add insult to injury the pig cost $2,600. The Mac fanboys with try and tell you Macs will last longer and be more stable than a PC, but that's not true. Under the covers Macs are pretty much the same as every other laptop.

Here's your shopping list to get an awesome laptop:
Must have's

• SSD drive -256 gig minimum, but more is better if you're doing videos (This is the single most important option. DO not use a spinning hard drive. If you buy a laptop with a spinner replace it immediately with an SSD.)
• 8 - 16 gig ram - that's all you need.
• Intel i5 processor. Get an i7 if you want to splurge.
• USB-A and USB-C and HDMI ports
• 802.11 AC wifi

There's really not much more than that. Pick the size you are willing to lug around, 13, 15 or 17 are common. Also don't buy into the belief that one brand is necessarily better than another. All the name brands are pretty much the same. If one is more or less expensive than another look for different features.

Be super, super careful if you shop at BestBuy because they will have several generation old computers sitting right next to current gen systems for basically the same price. The reason I recommend Costco is they don't play games with with their stock like others and they've got a great return policy.

Good luck!

 

Thank you for the solid advice, it is much much appreciated. I’ve been shopping around Costco, but I’ve found that for the Microsoft surface laptop it’s a better deal to go through Best Buy as it’s anout $300 less. I have look e at Costco’s laptops and their XPS 13 by Dell really got my attention as well so I’m going to be keeping an eye on it to see if it goes on sale.

 

Real pleased with my surface laptop...got it a month ago. Battery life is fantastic, keyboard, hardware are all quality. I know Microsoft has been running a student discount of $300 off on surface laptops if interested.

 

I'm just saying- the surface pro is way more useful than the surface book. One is a convertible that is an excellent laptop and tablet both, the other is just a windows laptop that costs too much for the hardware. I replaced my main laptop with a surface pro years ago and have been happy, and I do some pretty demanding stuff on my machines. It's also sweet for d&d lol.

As stated, Microsoft gives student discounts on surfaces. You can also get office for Mac and have been able to for several years, fyi

 

And I’ve been reading if you don’t like their new Windows S, you can upgrade to Windows 10 for free within a year. Is that true?

 

I’ve looked into them but I’m just not super into the whole tablet/laptop gig. I’ve also read that the keyboard feels empty when typing on your lap and feels like it bends and what not. I get the idea behind it, but I just can’t buy into it. They run for the same amount with the same specs as a surface laptop I’ve found. I’m waiting for Black Friday before I pull the trigger on anything. We’re so close to it and it seems like my best bet to score a deal on one the devices.