affordable laptop for research

[Roll Right]

Hey folks,

I'm expecting my Acer laptop to die in the next year. I was wondering if anyone could recommend an affordable laptop ($600ish) which is windows based and has enough memory and processing power to analyze up to 30 million cases with statistical software (mainly SPSS). Can anyone make recommendations? Thanks in advance.

[QASP]

One possibility, refurbished ThinkPad laptops from IBM. Basically they were top of the line 2-3 years ago and still are extremely high quality in comparison to what you could get new at that price. They should be more than up to the task. Even better, they are having a $100.00 off sale right now, through the first week or two of June. http://www-304.ibm.com/shop/americas/content/home/store_IBMPublicUSA/en_US/laptops.html

[juilletmercredi]

In my experience, spending a little extra on the laptop saves you money in the long run.  When I did cheap laptops they were dying within two years, maybe three on the long end.  I have a MacBook Pro now, it's a bit over 2 years old and still running strong (only issue I ever had is one of my USB ports has failed).  I know people who have had Macs and top-line PCs for 4-5 years with few issues. I run SPSS and Stata on my MacBook with no problems.

I agree with the ThinkPad laptops - I had one in college and gave it to my aunt, and it ran for 6 years.  Lenovo is the brand that bought out IBM's computer business; I have heard that Lenovo's ThinkPads are still good but not on par with the original IBM laptops, but that their home/student designed laptops - IdeaPads - don't have the same longevity.  Still, I've heard decent things about the quality of Lenovo IdeaPads.  I would also recommend Toshibas; they're built like tanks.  My husband had a Toshiba that lasted him 5 years.  I have also heard good things about Asus computers.

I would stay away from Dell (except their business line) and Sony.

Most current laptops have enough processing power to analyze the average social scientists or even epidemiologist's stuff in SPSS.  But 30 million cases?  Are you sure you'll ever be working with a data set that large?  I work in health sciences with some pretty big data sets and even some of the largest we work with are in the tens, maybe low hundreds of thousands.  Nowhere near a million, much less 10 percent of the U.S. population.  I think you'd need a supercomputer to process that kind of information.

[victorydance]

For me, longevity is more tied to the user than any specific brand or type of laptop. But I agree with the sentiment that spending a little more will get you a better product with better mileage. If you can afford it, I would look for computers with at least a quad-core processor, 1TB hardrive (or a nice SSD), and 4GB of memory.

 

Lots of people talk smack about Dell. However, I have only ever had two laptops and they have both been Dell. My first one (Inspiron 1525) lasted over 4 years and then it was stolen when it was still going pretty good. The one I have now (Inspiron 15R SE) is a beast and I love it to death, have had it for about 2 years now. Both ran about $900 at time of purchase. 

[Roll Right]

In my experience, spending a little extra on the laptop saves you money in the long run. When I did cheap laptops they were dying within two years, maybe three on the long end. I have a MacBook Pro now, it's a bit over 2 years old and still running strong (only issue I ever had is one of my USB ports has failed). I know people who have had Macs and top-line PCs for 4-5 years with few issues. I run SPSS and Stata on my MacBook with no problems.

I agree with the ThinkPad laptops - I had one in college and gave it to my aunt, and it ran for 6 years. Lenovo is the brand that bought out IBM's computer business; I have heard that Lenovo's ThinkPads are still good but not on par with the original IBM laptops, but that their home/student designed laptops - IdeaPads - don't have the same longevity. Still, I've heard decent things about the quality of Lenovo IdeaPads. I would also recommend Toshibas; they're built like tanks. My husband had a Toshiba that lasted him 5 years. I have also heard good things about Asus computers.

I would stay away from Dell (except their business line) and Sony.

Most current laptops have enough processing power to analyze the average social scientists or even epidemiologist's stuff in SPSS. But 30 million cases? Are you sure you'll ever be working with a data set that large? I work in health sciences with some pretty big data sets and even some of the largest we work with are in the tens, maybe low hundreds of thousands. Nowhere near a million, much less 10 percent of the U.S. population. I think you'd need a supercomputer to process that kind of information.

No, not a supercomputer, just something with more than 4 gig of ram. But yeah, I work with multiple cross sections of decennial cenus data and American community survey data, so its easy to get up to 30 million cases. The 2006-2010 american community survey sample has 15 million cases alone.

[juilletmercredi]

Jesus Christ, I had no idea.  I've worked with data from the ACS before but much smaller subsets, but yes, I guess it makes sense that the ACS (and Census) would have that many cases.

 

Oh, well finding something with 8+ GB of RAM is pretty easy these days.

 

Here are some:

14" Lenovo Z40 - 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 6GB RAM, 500GB standard HD + 8 GB SSD, up to 5 hours of battery life - $679 (http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/z-series/z40/)
15.6" Lenovo G510 - 3.10 GHz Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, 1 TB HDD, up to 6 hours of battery life - $579 (http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/g-series/g510/)
15.6" Toshiba Satellite L50 - Intel Core i3 processor, 8GB RAM, 1 TB HDD - $480 (http://www.toshiba.com/us/customlanding.to?page=Satellite_L_Series)
A variety of Dell Inspiron 15" laptops (new Inspiron 15 3000 with an i5 processor, 8GB of memory and 1TB of HDD space is $550)

You can customize an HP Pavilion 15" to be about $600 with specs pretty close to the ones above.  The HP Envy laptops are around this price with 6 GB of RAM and 750 GB of HDD space.

 

I would also check out Amazon.com and Newegg.com - they both usually have discounts on Windows-based machines.  There you can find Asus notebooks (which I have heard good things about).

 

Lots of people talk smack about Dell. However, I have only ever had two laptops and they have both been Dell. My first one (Inspiron 1525) lasted over 4 years and then it was stolen when it was still going pretty good. The one I have now (Inspiron 15R SE) is a beast and I love it to death, have had it for about 2 years now. Both ran about $900 at time of purchase.

 

I think this is one of those YMMV things.  I've had two Dells and everyone in my family has had a Dell at some point, and I don't think any of them lasted longer than 3 years.  They were all from the Inspiron line.  However, we did get the cheaper versions (around $500-600) so that may have something to do with it.  I've heard people to say stay away from Toshiba and HP while others love the brands.

[GeoDUDE!]

To be honest, at that price range, there really isn't a difference between the brands. People like to make cases based on singular experiences or slightly larger sample sizes, but none of them are large enough to resolve any meaningful stats. You would think, as graduate students, we could look at this objectively. 

 

People liked the thinkpad lines, but when lenovo bought them, within 2 years, customer satisifaction went way down.

 

Asus is probably the best OEM considering they build most of their stuff in house, different than dell,lenovo,hp, and samsung.

 

Computers arent complicated: go on amazon/newegg, select your price range, look through the various models and buy one that is well reviewed that is closest to what you want.

 

600 seems more than enough to do what you want.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Asus-R510LA-RS51-ASUS-15-6-Inch-Laptop/dp/B00HWI5KRG/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1401656621&sr=8-7&keywords=asus+i5+laptop

Edited June 1, 2014 by GeoDUDE!

[Monochrome Spring]

Whatever you decision, definitely get an SSD in your laptop instead of the older spinning hard drive. I've had so many hard drive failures in a short amount of time, mostly due to the spinning components of the hard drive. I recently had my old computer upgraded to one with an SSD and I'm very happy. The peace of mind that I won't lose my work (even if I back up regularly) is worth it. You can get a 256GB SSD for about $150 on Amazon if you want to upgrade your computer later, too.

 

My 2 cents (I like MacBooks): I know it's a bit out of your price range, but the 13" MacBook Air is about $780 if you get refurbished. 4GB RAM and 126GB SSD (you can get a 1TB external for $60).

[Sigaba]

One possibility, refurbished ThinkPad laptops from IBM. Basically they were top of the line 2-3 years ago and still are extremely high quality in comparison to what you could get new at that price. They should be more than up to the task. Even better, they are having a $100.00 off sale right now, through the first week or two of June. http://www-304.ibm.com/shop/americas/content/home/store_IBMPublicUSA/en_US/laptops.html

 

I went that route on my current laptop and I'm regretting it.

 

The deal is that Lenovo has been refreshing many of its Thinkpad models and the growing pains are tremendous. To be clear, I got a very good deal on a Thinkpad T430s BUT every fourth or fifth time I power it up, it will crash and two thirds of the time, the touch pad simply doesn't work. I may have found a work around for the latter issue but the former evades resolution.