New Laptop for Grad. School

[wintersbane]

Check out the Dell Venue Pro 8. Its an 8" Win8.1 tablet with one of the new Atom chips in it and an active digitizer, so it'll run all the traditional Windows programs you need. Unfortunately its Synaptic and not Wacom, but apparently is pretty good after a recent driver update. Runs $280 for 32 gig or $330 for 64 gig on Amazon right now, not sure if the pen comes with it or you have to get one separately though.

 

Edit: This was at MassAppeal, messed up the quote. Also, might have to look into a Bluetooth keyboard if you're gonna be typing a lot.

Edited November 21, 2013 by wintersbane

[Bleep_Bloop]

(1) Get a Mac. Just buy Microsoft Office for Mac for compatibility. Pricey, sure, but quality and no viruses or antivirus slowdowns

You'll still need antivirus software on a Mac. Even If you don't think you need it, every campus I've been on has required antivirus software on a Mac to be able to register it on the network. Not that I'm anti-Mac, I'm just sad that there are more and more viruses being written for their OS given it's growth in popularity.

[Sigaba]

. . .specifically a T430s from the Lenovo Outlet (returns and refurbished models).

 

Agreed. My R61 series bought the farm after five years and I was able to get a refurbished T430 at a decent price.

 

Carefully read the lenovo forums and elsewhere about any lenovo you are thinking about, many have serious design flaws that are not apparent until after a few months of use (for example overheating and cracking soldering or frying chipsets is a very common problem becuase of poor heat sink design common in Lenovo laptops).

 

 

One could take Usmivka's guidance to the next level by searching tech-related BBs for components within a lap top. As it happens, my aforementioned laptop had a defective graphics card that impacted HP and Dell laptops more often than Lenovos. I did not learn of this defect until after the machine died but I was fortunate that it lasted for five years and was still running well enough that I didn't need to do any upgrades to the OS, the RAM, or the HDD.

 

 

I've never had a problem in over a decade of using IBM/Lenovo warranty service.  A 200 dollar warranty service versus having to outsource the problem (with no guarantee that it'll be fixed) - no thanks.

 

As for your machine being a hunk of junk in a few years - bah.  I think people toss this "obsolete" word around with a bit too much abandon.  "No longer best in class for [insert task]" might be the better phrase to use.  My Thinkpad R61 can still do the marginal stuff my T430s is currently doing.  It just does it a bit slower (depending on what you are using it for).

 

As for aesthetic issues, no one is ever going to call the Thinkpad series "bold. . ." in design (except for the Carbon).  These are business class laptops however - Lenovo makes a line for individuals who are "design concious. . ."  However, compared to Samsung or Apple - Lenovo isn't going to win any awards from the undegrad set.  

 

If you care about a solid, well built affordable machine - it's really hard to get wrong with the T series.

 

 

Although it is conventional wisdom for consumers to not purchase extended warranties, it was my experience working at a software R&D lab that businesses frequently do. The reason why is to have in place a plan for getting machines up and running again with minimal down time.

 

While there's a good chance that you won't ever need the warranty and there's also a smaller chance that the repairs won't work, ask yourself if you want to be in graduate school without a warranty and be on the hook in terms of money and time if SHTF.

 

IRT to OS, I recommend that if you're in the market for a computer, wait until you get to your department and see what everyone else is using.

 

My $0.02