You guys are great with computer ideas, so...

[Rondar]

My son called me and needs a laptop for college classes.  He decided to go back and get his RN  stuff.  Anyway with his family and all, he needs a computer good enough for school but he doesnt plan on running it for games at least for 2 years if any after that.  He said their textbooks are on software, and will use the laptop daily as their books.  Mostly it will be for reading, a little bit of photo work and some audio files he said.  The laptop needs to be in the 8-900 dollar range  if possible.  The specs he would like is 2-3 gig of ram, 160 gig hd or so, 15.4" screen and would need to last for 2-4 hours a day on a battery in class. 

What would you guys think he should get?  I'm going to surprise him and buy it for him but I need to be able to buy it over the phone/internet and have it shipped to where he lives in Oklahoma.

Thanks

[Dragon]

Go to H, er Dell.  Usually a decent price and plenty of choices in your price range. 

[BaldEagl]

Toshiba Satellite or Satellite Pro.  Best laptop I ever had.

[Fulmar]

Toshibas are nice, Dell's would be my 2nd recommendation.  If you want to maximize your battery life a smaller screen helps a bunch.  You're gonna be stuck with vista either way, so get as much ram as you can (3gb max).

[wabbit]

When you find a laptop you like, do a search for reviews on that laptop, looking for both commercial reviews, and those posted by people who've bought the unit.

That can help you avoid problem laptops, and find the best one for your son's needs.

One thing to keep in mind, if your son's looking to play online games, you'll have to pay more attention to the video option on a laptop, as many aren't very good for gaming without spending 'The Bucks'.




Wabbit

[llama]

I bought a Lenovo IdeaPad Y510 for $529 after rebate earlier this year.

It has:

15.4" Widescreen
250GB hard drive
2GB RAM
DVD Burner
Pentium Dual Core Pentium @ 1.6 GHz (think Core 2 Duo @ 1.6 with half the cache)
Intel chipset and embedded video
2.5 hour battery life with normal, real-world use
Great Lenovo keyboard
Drivers for XP are downloadable, but it comes with Vista home premuim.

I don't game on it, but I do professional writing, note taking, software testing, and software development on it, and it is plenty fast for this. In fact, it benchmarks 30% faster than my 4 year old Pentium 4 @ 3GHz.

On top of this, it is extremely well built - no cheap plastic, no flexing, no creaking. The only problem is the screen is too close to the keyboard when the unit is closed, but a piece of lint-free cloth placed over the keyboard before closing it takes care of that problem (most Mac users are familiar with this problem too.)

I've bought Vostro Notebooks from Dell for a few clients this year too. They are perfectly fine, and can still be had with XP for a small additional charge. I must tell you that I think the IdeaPad is a more pleasant notebook to use, but the Vostros I'm responsible for have been holding up well and are priced very well.

Hope this helps,
Llama

[humble]

Toshiba Satellite or Satellite Pro.  Best laptop I ever had.

I use a toshiba R15 Satellite (tablet notebook) as my business laptop. I'd highly recommend both the toshiba and a tablet notebook...

[Rondar]

Thank you guys for your reply's.  My son and family lives 400 miles from me so couldn't just jump in the van and go looking with him.  Nor did they really have the money to go for unneccessary gas driving all over on their own.  His local choices to shop at are Walmart 5 miles away or a Staples 22 miles and its on the way to his classes.  Nothing else unless he drives into OKC or Lawton. 

Anyway Staples in Chickasha had an Acer that looks like it has what he needs and it was in stock.  Staples online were out of what he wanted and Walmart just didnt have much choice and was low end at the store he looked at.  Staples had a few dell laptops but he said they had a smaller screen, smaller hard drive and were a hair higher than the Acer.  So I bought him an Acer.  He is tickled and so am I.

Glad we can help the kids out once in a while and glad you guys take the time to help us out sometimes too. <S>