Small Town Geeks

As the final days of summer break wind down for many entering College in the fall, both parents and students are looking for the perfect laptop that is going to carry them through their studies (and all of those important videogames and iTunes downloads professor-assigned documents and downloads).

So needless to say, I’ve talked to a fair share of both students and parents, and want to help anyone else out with a few tips.

1. Apple or Microsoft?

When you talk to a fan of either brand, they’ll immediately tell you that their preferred system is the best – I personally use both, having a MacBook Pro and a Dell Latitude E6400.  What you need to keep in mind when choosing Mac or PC is the intended use.  If you are graphics-intensive; either by design or by photo or video editing, then a Mac is an easy choice – it is also what I consider a best-fit for those in the Liberal Arts study track, providing a reliable machine that needs minimal maintenance and allows you to get the maximum amount of work done.  However, if you are math or engineering oriented, then a PC may be the best machine for you – sometimes proprietary software just works better on a PC than it does on windows via mac.  Cost makes the biggest difference when comparing these two common operating systems – Mac machines can be twice as expensive up-front.

However, when looking at costs, look at longevity as well – Mac machines can stay current for three times as long as any windows-based hardware – dividing that cost out over a longer period makes the Mac just as affordable.

2. Battery Life?

While most people assume that all laptops are created equal in this regard, very little is more important to a College student than how long they can go on their laptop without plugging in to charge.  When considering sitting through both indoor and outdoor classes, study sessions, or even working outside – battery life always factors in.  Most consumer laptops sold through Bestbuy and other vendors like RadioShack/ The SHACK and Walmart all ship with a standard battery that is good for about 3 hours with VERY light usage – this usually means with the wireless card switched off and the screen so dim that you can barely read it.  Solution?  Look for laptops with available extended batteries, like Dell’s Latitude series (orderable with a 9-cell 4 or 5 hour heavy use battery), Apple’s MacBook Pro line – with between 7 and 8 hours of battery life between charges, or an HP with an optional ‘extended battery’.

3. Brains (Processor)

With so many different configurations of computers out there, and all of the software available, how do you decide what ‘brain’ the computer needs?  Well, for starters, stick with an Intel or AMD dual-core processor (AMD uses X2 and Intel calls them Core Duo).  The better processors?  Probably Intel’s Centrino line of laptop-optimized processors.

Avoid Celeron processors like the plague. Just do it.

4. What about RAM?

Well, RAM allows you to multitask on your computer, so the more RAM you have, the more you can do and the faster you can do it.  As of today, I wouldn’t settle for less that 4GB of RAM in any laptop that I buy (for value, you could live with 2 or 3GB, but you’ll prefer the 4, trust me.

5. Storage?

When looking at laptops and storage capacities, remember what important tv, movie, and music files that college students need to store today.  My rule of thumb is that you should estimate your current needs by looking at your current laptop, and then double it.  Right now the maximum capacity of a laptop hard drive is about 500GB, so reasonably expect to get a laptop with NO LESS than a 250GB drive.

Consider this – a TV show downloaded from iTunes is 1/2 of a Gigabyte in Standard Definition, 1GB in High-Def.  Movies can vary from 2-6GB in size, depending on Standard or High Definition versions).  there are about 160 iTunes songs to 1GB of storage as well (based on 6MB per song in DRM-Free format)

Any other questions?  Feel free to email me at ryanminnick@smalltowngeeks.net