Case colors and other miscelaneous questions... - Page 2

I also use my lappy at college (although I'll be done soon yay!), but when it came to my decision on what to purchase, I went balls to the wall. I'm a big guy so I don't really mind the weight, but it can get difficult on long trips lugging it around airports.

In short: Area-51m = brute beast
Sentia = lithe predator

if you want to play CS, make sure you get the larger notebook. The sentia model uses a low-end, integrated graphics card. I play in cal-main, and I get 100fps contant with my 3.2 ghz area-51m on 640x480. I havent really tried the higher resolutions because I am not interested in how it looks when I am competing, only in playablity

CS does not require much to play.

do you mean sticks of RAM?

PC 2700 i believe runs at 333, while 3200 runs at 400... i may be worng but i think those are correct.

well can you plug it in in the classroom??

i had my dell laptop last year in college and just plugged it in in class.

i wouldnt be suprised if your already carrying well over the 7.5 lbs the laptop weighs...

and it may replace some of your books.

i'd assume they do, purdue is a big school, with all the presentaton and what not and all the new tech equipment its kinda hard nott oo...

may want to invest ina 6' extension cord.

depends... fi you are financing its like an extra 1$ a month.... if not then its probably kinda expensive....

i went with the other bag, not hte backpack....

but you can find a ton of good bags from targus.

Purdue and college classroom outlets

I went to pudue for Electrical Engineering. Yes of course classrooms have outlets but it' still not convienent to plug your laptop into one unless the chair is very close to the wall. Most of the classrooms I have been in the chairs are too far from the wall. Another thing to consider is that if you do manage to stretch your power supply over to the wall then the cord or whole power supply willl be laying on the floor for people to step on. Maybe they will attempt to step over it, who knows. Plugging in your laptop in the classroom might not even be allowed in some instances.

Depending on your major your first two years will be spent in large lecture halls like Class of '50 buiding, Chemistry and EE , MSEE and Physics buiding lecture halls. These rooms seat several hundred and you can't plug in anywhere except up front where the professor is lecturing. I'm sure you will find exceptions but that is not what you were asking. Mostly you will be ****-out-of-luck in the classroom.

A little related anecdote:

I was in Barnes & Nobles bookstore a few months ago. You know how they have those comfortable chairs all around the store? Well this guy decided he wanted to use his laptop while seated in one of the comfy chairs. He plugged in his laptop in an outlet located on a column facing him. I was roaming the computer section and saw his power supply and cord stretched out across the floor leading over to the outlet. I was thinking, "Man somebody is going to trip on that. Why the hell does he HAVE to be plugged in right there?" Sure enough here comes a little girl and steps right on his cord and power supply. Then not even 2 minutes later here comes a guy who gets his feet tangled in the cord. That could have ripped the power supply right from his laptop and caused extensive damage. It didn't; lucky for him. That little incident did finally convince him to move somewhere more appropriate.

This is something to consider when you start plugging in your laptop in the classroom. Nobody will care more about your laptop than you do so be careful.

Yhea if i was going to school and using it for that purpose I would definatly go for something smaller with longer battery life. Although if you carry this thnig around fromclass to class all day you wont have to wory about going to the gym!

My personal suggestion get the Sentina for notetaking and build your own desktop with the money you saveed buying the sentina! Your back and sholders will thank you.

Well I have no problem with power as there are outlets everywhere, and many common areas on campus have desks all over as well as ethernet and wireless LAN. I can get a shade under two hours with my battery, but that is just word processing and browsing...not gaming. Gaming hard, less than an hour (so far, but I max everything out). I can't see battery life as that big a deal as it'll last through most classes, unless you're in one of those one day a week three hour ones. I didn't go for the Alienware pack but got a Targus one. It IS heavy, and I walk to school (about 15 minutes one way) so that makes it even more fun. I've found myself driving a lot more lately... Good luck.

Sentina? Are you saying this is the female version of the a51m. Yeah, I know, still working on mastering the english language and that beautiful keyboard

I'm going to leave now, I've crapped on this thread enough, Sorry Tony

O.K. I'm back
If battery life becomes the main issue, I would buy an extra battery for the a51m. They're only an extra $98 and the weight probably isn't much (but it doesn't say on the site, do you know how much they weigh Goo?). For the investment you're making, thats cheap. You could also recharge in between classes if you have a break. Plus since you're a college student, you want something that will get you through the rest of your years at college. The upgradability of the a51m allows that. As far as the weight, you will be able to sh**can alot of you other supplies, in place of the pc, I would imagine. If not you can get a roller bag, don't know if that would fit the college norm, its been 15 years. You may look like a professor and have women dropping at your feet


edit 1 - plus the battery life in classes will be considerably higher because of the apps you run, unless you plan on playing games in class, but then its college you could stay home and do that

Unless you can type like the wind ( I can't ), taking the laptop to lecture would defeat the purpose of going to lecture - you'd miss all the important stuff. It'd be good for presentations and group work and such. I got the 51m cuz I needed a laptop that could run CAD software. My vote is: go for the 51m.



University of Washington ME Dept.

The 60 drains the battery faster because of the 7200rpm. You could actually get the 80 for the same price as the 60. Which would drain the battery less than the 60, but games and such would load a little slower than the 60 initially. You may consider paying a little extra and go to 512 mb with 1 dimm so you could upgrade to 1024 with 1 more chip for cheaper at a later time. If you go with the 40mb HD, you could get an external Firewire/USB2 at a later time, they usually run under $200 for 120-160mb, and are fairly fast.