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My daughter wants/needs one for her Uni studies, (double degree in psychology and biology,) one she can carry back and forth each day. I'm not really up to speed with current spec, trustworthy brands, capabilities, speeds, and availability, so would some kind person point us in the right direction of a good buy?
Many thanks in advance.
Many thanks in advance.
In reply to wilkie14c:
We're all on Windows at home, so I'd prefer her to stay with that. Additionally, she's never used a Mac, so the learning curve would be an added burden at the start of her first Uni term. (Started yesterday.)
As for money? Well, while it's not "no object", I'd rather fork out for something that will go the distance, and last her the course, than scrimp.
We're all on Windows at home, so I'd prefer her to stay with that. Additionally, she's never used a Mac, so the learning curve would be an added burden at the start of her first Uni term. (Started yesterday.)
As for money? Well, while it's not "no object", I'd rather fork out for something that will go the distance, and last her the course, than scrimp.
In reply to stroppygob:
Macbook Air .
Simply the best . Brilliant build quality , outstanding power . Amazingly light and thin .
You get what you pay for .
Macbook Air .
Simply the best . Brilliant build quality , outstanding power . Amazingly light and thin .
You get what you pay for .
In reply to stroppygob:
Samsung, Dell, Asus all good for the money, HP & Compaq have been plauged by faulty nvidia chips in the past but over that now. Is she a gamer? If not don't worry too much about spec. a second hand windows 7 64 bit machine with 750 gig <or more> hdd and 4 gig RAM would be perfect and the money you saved could go towards buying MS Office, most new machines come with Windows 8 and a lot of folk don't get on with it at all plus the office programme is normally a 60 day trial.
You'd get something very nice for £250 - £300 prob with box and it looking brand new.
Samsung, Dell, Asus all good for the money, HP & Compaq have been plauged by faulty nvidia chips in the past but over that now. Is she a gamer? If not don't worry too much about spec. a second hand windows 7 64 bit machine with 750 gig <or more> hdd and 4 gig RAM would be perfect and the money you saved could go towards buying MS Office, most new machines come with Windows 8 and a lot of folk don't get on with it at all plus the office programme is normally a 60 day trial.
You'd get something very nice for £250 - £300 prob with box and it looking brand new.
In reply to stroppygob:
There isn't really one - it may take five minutes to work out which different buttons do what, but that's about it really! There's very few problems going between macs and pc these days - and there is freeware that will work with all Microsoft Office file types.
> so the learning curve would be an added burden
There isn't really one - it may take five minutes to work out which different buttons do what, but that's about it really! There's very few problems going between macs and pc these days - and there is freeware that will work with all Microsoft Office file types.
In reply to wilkie14c:
Thanks. I'd prefer to buy new though.
What spec is good currently? Chip, RAM, drive capacity etc?
Thanks. I'd prefer to buy new though.
What spec is good currently? Chip, RAM, drive capacity etc?
In reply to stroppygob:
4 gig of RAM is pretty standard now days. CPU's are intels i3 or i5 chips according to how much cash you want to spend, AMD have the equivilents of course. a terabyte hard drive is pretty standard too on new machines, note that all of that wont be available to use, it is normal now to have a recovery partition on the HDD that takes up space but it does mean you can sort problems without having to have the windows disc to hand. Decent sound is something to consider, if your daughter is staying away at uni the laptop with prob be her main form of telly, catch up, dvds etc. Sound can ruin laptops but its getting better. You can switch windows 8 into windows 7 compatablility mode so that'll help if she doesn't get on with 8. There is usually loads of 'bloatware' on new machines too so first job is to uninstall all the crap.
Just look at these specs for £400 though -
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-...
4 gig of RAM is pretty standard now days. CPU's are intels i3 or i5 chips according to how much cash you want to spend, AMD have the equivilents of course. a terabyte hard drive is pretty standard too on new machines, note that all of that wont be available to use, it is normal now to have a recovery partition on the HDD that takes up space but it does mean you can sort problems without having to have the windows disc to hand. Decent sound is something to consider, if your daughter is staying away at uni the laptop with prob be her main form of telly, catch up, dvds etc. Sound can ruin laptops but its getting better. You can switch windows 8 into windows 7 compatablility mode so that'll help if she doesn't get on with 8. There is usually loads of 'bloatware' on new machines too so first job is to uninstall all the crap.
Just look at these specs for £400 though -
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-...
In reply to stroppygob:
I'd be thinking an i5 with 6-8GB of RAM, with an SSD.
Look at stuff in the ultra book category, they often compare well with macbook airs. (They'll be around 1-2.5k).
I have a Asus ux21e I bought a while ago. Very nice device. Glad that I didn't get a macbook air instead. (The ux21e initially ran win7, but now exclusively linux.)
I'd be thinking an i5 with 6-8GB of RAM, with an SSD.
Look at stuff in the ultra book category, they often compare well with macbook airs. (They'll be around 1-2.5k).
I have a Asus ux21e I bought a while ago. Very nice device. Glad that I didn't get a macbook air instead. (The ux21e initially ran win7, but now exclusively linux.)
Post edited at 23:08
In reply to stroppygob:
I bought an HP Envy in the Christmas sales. Not cheap, but lightweight, reasonable battery life and very powerful. Its touchscreen makes Windows 8 almost bearable too.
I bought an HP Envy in the Christmas sales. Not cheap, but lightweight, reasonable battery life and very powerful. Its touchscreen makes Windows 8 almost bearable too.
In reply to stroppygob:
The 'best' windows laptop is probably still the MacBook Air. If need be then you can always install Windows on it. The hardware is just 'optimised', assuming you want light, strong, fast, screen, trackpad, battery life all to be very good. I have a couple of died in the wool PC using colleagues who have ended up with them and just run Windows on them. Seems like a waste to me, but there you go.
The thing that equates to 'fast' is a solid state drive for storage rather than a (spinning) hard disk drive. MacBook Airs only have SSDs, so they all feel fast even if the numbers of processors seem higher in other competitors.
Other machines are available but it is commonly held that the MBA is the best balance of all the above (especially the trackpad, light and fast bits). If she has a desk then a cheap external monitor, keyboard and mouse are easy enough to set up.
If she is doing a double honours degree she can cope with the couple of hours needed to learn a few tricks to the new OS. There's very little new out there - a good Linux distro, Windows 8, and OSX Mavericks all work pretty much the same from the point of view of a busy undergrad.
The University should be able to provide the requisite software at bulk license costs - it sounds like she will need a few things.
For a science undergrad then she will clearly need Microsoft Office but may not need stats beyond Excel. If she does then SPSS is often bulk funded by the Uni (much better than the 1000s of dollars charged per license otherwise). EndNote is handy if it can be got on a bulk deal but again not worth the 5k or whatever it is they charge these days for it.
If going down the Mac route then I would absolutely recommend 'Papers' for managing scholarly articles and citations - much cheaper than EndNote, much easier to use. Keynote is like Powerpoint but a zillion times better and again good value at about 25AUD. But advanced stats and complex citation managers are more postgrad stuff usually.
Almost all Unis will require antivirus software to be installed and should provide this (probably for free). Not an issue with Linux and to be fair not much of an issue on Macs.
Also put some money to one side for a backup solution that really works. Otherwise disaster will strike, usually just when the project is due in... I look upon this as being something Macs do quite well - in as much as it can all happen automatically without user effort.
Hope you find something that fits
Cheers
b
The 'best' windows laptop is probably still the MacBook Air. If need be then you can always install Windows on it. The hardware is just 'optimised', assuming you want light, strong, fast, screen, trackpad, battery life all to be very good. I have a couple of died in the wool PC using colleagues who have ended up with them and just run Windows on them. Seems like a waste to me, but there you go.
The thing that equates to 'fast' is a solid state drive for storage rather than a (spinning) hard disk drive. MacBook Airs only have SSDs, so they all feel fast even if the numbers of processors seem higher in other competitors.
Other machines are available but it is commonly held that the MBA is the best balance of all the above (especially the trackpad, light and fast bits). If she has a desk then a cheap external monitor, keyboard and mouse are easy enough to set up.
If she is doing a double honours degree she can cope with the couple of hours needed to learn a few tricks to the new OS. There's very little new out there - a good Linux distro, Windows 8, and OSX Mavericks all work pretty much the same from the point of view of a busy undergrad.
The University should be able to provide the requisite software at bulk license costs - it sounds like she will need a few things.
For a science undergrad then she will clearly need Microsoft Office but may not need stats beyond Excel. If she does then SPSS is often bulk funded by the Uni (much better than the 1000s of dollars charged per license otherwise). EndNote is handy if it can be got on a bulk deal but again not worth the 5k or whatever it is they charge these days for it.
If going down the Mac route then I would absolutely recommend 'Papers' for managing scholarly articles and citations - much cheaper than EndNote, much easier to use. Keynote is like Powerpoint but a zillion times better and again good value at about 25AUD. But advanced stats and complex citation managers are more postgrad stuff usually.
Almost all Unis will require antivirus software to be installed and should provide this (probably for free). Not an issue with Linux and to be fair not much of an issue on Macs.
Also put some money to one side for a backup solution that really works. Otherwise disaster will strike, usually just when the project is due in... I look upon this as being something Macs do quite well - in as much as it can all happen automatically without user effort.
Hope you find something that fits
Cheers
b
In reply to stroppygob:
I have a Samsung series 9 Ultrabook which I love, and my partner has an Asus Zenbook which is also very nice. I can recommend both. The only downside to both is that the hard drive is quite small (this is the price you pay for going solid state) so if you go down this route you might need to get her an external hard drive as well to keep everything on.
Depending on how fussy your daughter is, it is worth looking around for a good deal. I got mine for about a third of the list price because it had been returned due to a single dead pixel at the edge of the screen.
I have a Samsung series 9 Ultrabook which I love, and my partner has an Asus Zenbook which is also very nice. I can recommend both. The only downside to both is that the hard drive is quite small (this is the price you pay for going solid state) so if you go down this route you might need to get her an external hard drive as well to keep everything on.
Depending on how fussy your daughter is, it is worth looking around for a good deal. I got mine for about a third of the list price because it had been returned due to a single dead pixel at the edge of the screen.
In reply to stroppygob:
Something in the Fujitsu Lifebook range would probably do the job. Fairly cheap prices, decent builds (easy to repair) and their warranty tends to be longer and cheaper than other companies.
Have her store all her stuff on external drives, that way you don't need to be bothering with backup software. Something cheap and cheerful for antivi, I use MSE on my installs. Libreoffice is free for your office replacement.
Avoid HP/Dell and don't spend twice what you need to in order to buy a mac. No one needs a mac for facebook and word processing.
Stick with Win7 if you can, don't burden her with win8.
Something in the Fujitsu Lifebook range would probably do the job. Fairly cheap prices, decent builds (easy to repair) and their warranty tends to be longer and cheaper than other companies.
Have her store all her stuff on external drives, that way you don't need to be bothering with backup software. Something cheap and cheerful for antivi, I use MSE on my installs. Libreoffice is free for your office replacement.
Avoid HP/Dell and don't spend twice what you need to in order to buy a mac. No one needs a mac for facebook and word processing.
Stick with Win7 if you can, don't burden her with win8.
In reply to stroppygob:
Have you thought about something like the asus t100? Much lighter than a 13.3" ultrabook. It is a tablet/laptop hybrid running full windows 8.1 (not rt) comes with office and has an 11 hour batttery life so would easily last through a full uni day. Not ideal if your daughter wants to be doing photo/video editing or gaming, however if paired with an external hard drive it would be fine for writing reports, general browsing, videos and music.
Have you thought about something like the asus t100? Much lighter than a 13.3" ultrabook. It is a tablet/laptop hybrid running full windows 8.1 (not rt) comes with office and has an 11 hour batttery life so would easily last through a full uni day. Not ideal if your daughter wants to be doing photo/video editing or gaming, however if paired with an external hard drive it would be fine for writing reports, general browsing, videos and music.
In reply to stroppygob:
I use a ~£250 Samsung netbook I've had for years. It's small, light, tough, has a good battery life and is perfectly capable of anything I use it for... Watching films, shouting at the internet, spreadsheets, wordprocessing, CAD (a bit slow for 3d but it copes). It's not flashy but then again, if I step on it or it gets lost/nicked then I'll just get another one. The HDD isn't huge but purging a couple of video series or a Google-drive/Drop-box would sort that out.
Given the courses she's doing she's not likely to need high performance computing!
jk
I use a ~£250 Samsung netbook I've had for years. It's small, light, tough, has a good battery life and is perfectly capable of anything I use it for... Watching films, shouting at the internet, spreadsheets, wordprocessing, CAD (a bit slow for 3d but it copes). It's not flashy but then again, if I step on it or it gets lost/nicked then I'll just get another one. The HDD isn't huge but purging a couple of video series or a Google-drive/Drop-box would sort that out.
Given the courses she's doing she's not likely to need high performance computing!
jk
Post edited at 11:18
In reply to jkarran:
I wouldn't be so sure of this for biology any more - our high performance cluster is now taking more jobs from the school of biology than anywhere else.
Having said that, the infrastructure for high performance computing should be provided by the University - a standard laptop should be fine for day to day browsing/note taking/essay writing requirements.
> Given the courses she's doing she's not likely to need high performance computing!
I wouldn't be so sure of this for biology any more - our high performance cluster is now taking more jobs from the school of biology than anywhere else.
Having said that, the infrastructure for high performance computing should be provided by the University - a standard laptop should be fine for day to day browsing/note taking/essay writing requirements.
In reply to stroppygob:
Go Asus Zenbook and you wont regret it. Incredible build (aluminium, not shiny apple plastic), much cheaper, SSD/Hardrive hybrid so super fast boot up but if she (somehow) fills the disk you can always stick a new SSD in. 13.3 inches- more than big enough to work on but amazingly transportable. I bought mine for uni having looked at everything suggested so far (including the macs) and the Zenbook just fit the bill perfectly. It was recommended to me by a good friend who is an IT tech who recommends them to all of his customers who need a new laptop and has a couple himself. For university work I can't think of anything better sub £1000 (and mine cost me £550 so thats a quite a saving). Also- a minor point but for me a massive bonus- the Bang & Olufsen speakers are the best I've ever heard from a laptop, really top quality.
Anyway I shall stop ranting...
Go Asus Zenbook and you wont regret it. Incredible build (aluminium, not shiny apple plastic), much cheaper, SSD/Hardrive hybrid so super fast boot up but if she (somehow) fills the disk you can always stick a new SSD in. 13.3 inches- more than big enough to work on but amazingly transportable. I bought mine for uni having looked at everything suggested so far (including the macs) and the Zenbook just fit the bill perfectly. It was recommended to me by a good friend who is an IT tech who recommends them to all of his customers who need a new laptop and has a couple himself. For university work I can't think of anything better sub £1000 (and mine cost me £550 so thats a quite a saving). Also- a minor point but for me a massive bonus- the Bang & Olufsen speakers are the best I've ever heard from a laptop, really top quality.
Anyway I shall stop ranting...
In reply to stroppygob:
Thanks everyone, but, embarrassingly, I have to admit that last night I was informed by her boyfriend that he's buying her one for her birthday, (next week.)
He's an ubber-geek, does programming for CSIRO and codes as a hobby in his spare time, so should know what to get her.
Thanks everyone, but, embarrassingly, I have to admit that last night I was informed by her boyfriend that he's buying her one for her birthday, (next week.)
He's an ubber-geek, does programming for CSIRO and codes as a hobby in his spare time, so should know what to get her.
Post edited at 21:21
In reply to stroppygob:
Techies are often the worst people to ask, as they have no idea what needs or functionality mean.
Look at microsoft, made by geeks but suffered by the rest of us.
> Thanks everyone, but, embarrassingly, I have to admit that last night I was informed by her boyfriend that he's buying her one for her birthday, (next week.)
> He's an ubber-geek, does programming for CSIRO and codes as a hobby in his spare time, so should know what to get her.
Techies are often the worst people to ask, as they have no idea what needs or functionality mean.
Look at microsoft, made by geeks but suffered by the rest of us.
In reply to stroppygob:
I've just bought a Lenovo. Dual core i5 processor, 8mb Ram and 1 x TB disk for £360. Build quality is excellent. Be warned Windows 8 takes some getting used to.
I've just bought a Lenovo. Dual core i5 processor, 8mb Ram and 1 x TB disk for £360. Build quality is excellent. Be warned Windows 8 takes some getting used to.
In reply to winhill:
You'll probably find in big enough organisations the real techies don't get to make much in the way of big user interface decisions. Those go to managers or UI concept people. Hell I suspect marketing guys had more sway than the guys who actually wrote the win8 interface.
You'll probably find in big enough organisations the real techies don't get to make much in the way of big user interface decisions. Those go to managers or UI concept people. Hell I suspect marketing guys had more sway than the guys who actually wrote the win8 interface.
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