College Notebook Recommendations Plz

THE LAPTOP, to me, is the xps2 but you dont game so scratch that. Does screen size matter? The 9300 might be good. I say might because I dont really know what you want.

-jcll2002

your requirements:
60gb 7200rpm - i think only hitachi's travelstar is your only option here, mostly only customizable notebooks have these
tv tuner
widescreen
good battery life

not that many laptops come with tv tuners..
but you don't seem to be too picky.. most laptops have what you want except for tv tuner..

just look for one with a pentium M processor, 60gb 7200rpm, widescreen

No college actually REQUIRES you to have gigabit ethernet, they'll probably cap your speeds at around 10mbps.

Well, i think the 9300 doesnt have gigabit ethernet but im not sure.

you can always get a USB tv tuner, don't worry about that. and I thought the rumor was that it would be months until there were more Hitachi 7k60's available.

whats your price limit??

Take a look at the ASUS line at ProPortable.com and the Sager line at PCTorque.com.

Just get a 5400RPM drive...you should be ok with that.

He may have to get a 5400rpm drive if he needs it soon. The Hitachi 7k60 drives are sold out til May/June... maybe even later, because, presumably when they get it in there will be such a pent up demand that they will sell out very quickly - maybe even from waiting lists, etc.

The speeds of an 80gig 5400rpm are pretty close to the 60gig 7200rpm so I wouldn't worry about that. What noone has askedso far is what kind of games you plan on playing? Big difference btw. sims and doom3 right? I would love to see what the actual application to the standard student of gigabit is. Maybe if you need to xfer huge files around the campus network a lot, but in terms of internet, bandwidth is relatively expensive still and everyone would be bittorrenting themselves to death on that line if they actually had that huge a pipe out for everyone to use.

actually, i can sorta understand the req for gigabit. They broadcast a couple classes at my school online, and if you have gigabit hooked up you can load a much higher res version of the stream. Well worth it if thats your thing

as a possibility:
PROPortable Z71V Centrino Notebook
Chipset: Intel Alviso 915 PM
Graphics: Dedicated Nvidia 6600go w/ 128mb VRAM
Screen: 15.4" WSXGA+ LCD
Network: Gigabit LAN and Intel PRO/Wireless support
Audio: Intel Azalia audio chip
Extras: ALS (Ambient Light Sensor) - controls screen brightness automatically
4-in-1 Memory Card Reader
Modular Optical Bay - can be swapped for 2nd battery, 2nd hard drive, travelers drawer
Dimensions: 14.04" (L) x 10.85" (W) x 1.38" (H); 6.6lbs
1. Intel® Pentium® M w/ 2MB Cache; 533MHz FSB : 750 - 1.86GHz; 533MHz FSB; w/ 2MB Cache -Standard
2. DDR2 533 so-Dimm : 1024 ddr2 533 (1024mb x 1) - Corsair
3. Hard Drives 2.5" ATA100 : Seagate Momentus 80GB 5400 RPM w/ 8MB Buffer
4. Optical Drive : 8x DVD Dual Layer / Dual Format Burner (+/- R/RW)
5. Internal Wireless Card (Required for Centrino) : Intel PRO/2915 Wireless 802.11a/b/g MiniPCI
6. Operating Systems : No Operating System (Barebone)
7. Warranties : 2 years parts & labor w/ 1 way paid shipping
----
Total = $1,838.72

you could play with that config to get it down, but thats a pretty nice laptop for the price.

it does have gigabit ethernet, battery life people have said 3.5-4 hours with general usage i believe? gaming kills that however.

prices certainly shouldn't go UP unless availability becomes a problem. There's a rumor that the new versions of the Pentium M will be released this summer, adn that would probably drive prices down a little. I don't know of anything other than that

That's the problem.. no one knows... generally yes, they'll drop...or.. in two months, you canget more for your money..but thats a continuous cycle.

x600 will get eaten up by the 6600 go.

The Chembook 2070 has the x600 vid card, which i HEAR, not from personal use, but hear, you wanna stay away from. From what i can see, other than that, the only other difference would be maybe Durability? Customer Support? I hear alot of good things about Asus reliability, and customer support from their resellers, the best of which i hear is ISTNC, where I ordered from, but havent received yet, but should soon. Just ordered last Wednesday, and Rick and Gwen(?) are excellent.

I would look at dell because of the outstanding customer care. Look at the education and business sites, and get Latitudes. That is what college wants. Besides, once at a U, even if you have a super duper laptop, Computer network services (a generic term for Campus It managers and their slaves, will be responsible for you lan requirements). Also, why I recommend dell? because sometimes the Universities have contract with these companies and train the people to use their machines (and you get freebies, software firewall, antivirus, etc). Why? Napster. Ares, etc. Since you are using their bandwith, you become their liability. So, out of this you may have reached the conclusion that I have inside information of the University procedures.... let's say I do and more than that, and leave it there. SO, find out first what does Western case recommends (go above those requirements) but if you want them to pay attention to any problem you have or "cause unwillingly" to the U, you need to have something (they won't say it in writing) that they can manage. Apple, Compaq, Dell, Gateway, HP, IBM, Sony... other than that you are setting yourself up to be, unfortunately "technically discriminated". That is my advise for you in purchasing something to use while at the University for the next four years. See what they have and go a step up from there (Intel Sonoma or P4 M). Sager, Chembook, Acer, etc... fine (for personal use, gaming, etc.. ). Some schools may have fiber optics and use that, the two prong crap, others have the cat5 in dorms... think beyond the first two years. Universities use Mac Servers (& Lynux) with dual or redundant firewalls... you may have a gigabyte lan but you are slowed down, as someone said here for security reasons. And that is what I have to say, dude.