Laptops

[clinpsy001]

Hi everyone, 

I'm starting graduate school in the Fall and currently on the market for a new, reliable laptop. Unfortunately, I know nothing about laptops/technology (I've been using a MacBook since 2009 for leisure and work laptops for data analysis and paper/poster presentation) and would really appreciate some advice! Here's some qualifications:

1) Inexpensive, because come on. I'm going to be a grad student. 

2) Lightweight. I really hate using heavy laptops and would love to have a lightweight laptop that can be easily transported. 

3) Battery life. I'm currently in an LDR and would like to be able to work on the plane. My current (work) laptop dies within an hour, so ~5-7 hours of battery life would be ideal. 

4) DVD drive. I'm planning on coding interviews that are stored on DVDs, so this is a necessity. I am interested in various Chromebooks, but realize they (and many new/thin laptops) come without these. How is buying external DVD drives for use in laptops like this?

5) It needs a decent processor because I will be using SPSS, R, and Mplus. 

I really appreciate anyone's help on this!!! 

[rising_star]

Most laptops that are lightweight and have long battery life will not come with a DVD drive. External DVD drives which are connected through the USB port is pretty common these days and easy to do. 

Everything else is really about preferences. I dislike the keyboard layout and feel of certain brands of laptops for example, so I don't have one of those. I suppose if you have the money, you could get a Surface or something similar.

[fernandes]

It won't be really easy to find a cheap laptop that matches your needs, unless that you call a MacBook inexpensive. As rising_star said, the MS Surface could be a great option as well as a MacBook Air, though they are not inexpensive. The other important thing to consider is that high-performance computers tend to have shorter battery life. In my opinion the only laptop manufacturer that can couple both characteristics well is Apple.

There are inexpensive options among brands such as ASUS, Lenovo and Dell. I had an ASUS and I loved it. Here are a few options:

ASUS ZenBook: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BMERZJ6/ref=twister_B0142V5YHG?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

ASUS K501UX: http://www.amazon.com/K501LX-Laptop-GeForce-Upgrade-Windows/dp/B00YR6BMS2

The most inexpensive laptop I have seen might be Chromebooks, as they usually have a price range from 150 to 300 dollars. They are light-weight and usually have really good battery life, though they are not high-performance computers. Here are some options:

ASUS Chromebook: http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-Chromebook-Gigabit-Storage-Light/dp/B015ZD6ZH8/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1461530881&sr=1-5&keywords=chromebook

Lenovo Chromebook: http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-100s-11-6-Inch-Chromebook-80QN0009US/dp/B014MIBQXA/ref=sr_1_17?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1461530881&sr=1-17&keywords=chromebook

Edited April 24, 2016 by fernandes
Added info about Chromebooks

[juilletmercredi]

A Chromebook isn't an option for you if you want to run statistical software packages directly from your laptop, as none of the ones you mentioned are available for ChromeOS (and a Chromebook won't have the RAM to make this worthwhile). One option is to buy a more powerful desktop computer that runs Windows or Mac OS, and then use a remote desktop client to run SPSS or R or MPlus from your Chromebook. That might be the cheapest way to get what you want - you can get a good solid powerful desktop that costs around $500-700 with everything you need to run intensive statistical software. A good desktop in that range can last you through your entire doctoral program - one because you never have to take it anywhere, and two because most desktops these days are customizable and will allow you to upgrade the processor, video card, hard drive and other components yourself as yours go obsolete. Then you could buy an inexpensive Chromebook - the Asus Chromebook is a good example, as it runs $250. Your total could still be less than buying an ultrabook or a MacBook Pro, which can easily run $1200-1500.

But my guess is that if you want to be able to run these programs directly from your laptop you should invest in a more expensive laptop. For running those programs the processor is sort of important but any decent Core i5 should be able to handle it. What you really want is the RAM - and you really want at least 8 GB of it. 4 GB will run the programs but trying to multitask will be a pain in the neck.

I have an HP Spectre x360 that I bought for $800; it has a 256 GB SSD, 8 GB of RAM, a touch screen and it's 3.67 lbs (very light). I can't remember what the processor is - it's an i5, probably somewhere around 2.4 GHz. I run Stata on it occasionally and it works absolutely fine for that purpose. Occasionally it hangs if I'm doing something that consumes a lot of RAM like having 26 Firefox tabs open. My work computer rarely does that.

My work computer is a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (issued by my company). It's an excellent work computer - sturdy, reliable, fast, slim and light, even lighter than my Spectre at 2.87 lbs (the new ones are like 2.6 lbs). It's an excellent workhorse computer - spill-resistant backlit keyboard, fingerprint scanner for easy login, durable construction, long battery life (they advertise 10 hours. I call bullshit - I've used it in the labs before to take notes and have forgotten to plug it in, and it usually dies well before the end of a 9-hour day in the labs. But I can get 6-7 hours out of it). They're not cheap, though; they start at $1150. However, the $1150 configuration is probably everything you need (it has 128 GB of space on the SSD, which is not great, but you can use OneDrive or some other online cloud storage solution. You get 1 TB of OneDrive storage when you get an Office 365 subscription.)

Our last iteration of work machines were Asus Zenbooks, I believe, and people seemed to like those as well. I have heard decent things about the Dell XPS 13, and those are less expensive; you can get a decently configured one for $1000.

A Surface Pro 4 would be the lightest option and turns into a tablet, but that's not cheap - the lowest configuration you'd likely need to run those programs would be $1300 and that's not including the Type Cover (which I think is $100-130).

I have a bias towards Windows machines - I really like the Windows 10 operating system - but Apple makes excellent computers as well. Towards the end of graduate school and in my postdoc I had an Apple MacBook Pro - one of the non-Retina ones that was about 5 lbs. The newer ones are much slimmer and lighter, and have the processing power that you need to do what you want to do. I ran R and SPSS on that computer just fine.

And yeah, external DVD drives are cheap - I bought one for $40 when I needed to use one - so don't base the computer on these.

[ediblestranger]

This is what I have: http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-S41-14-Inch-Laptop-80JU000UUS/dp/B00WR286FU?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00

It meets most of your criteria as far as being inexpensive (less than $600), lightweight (3.7 lbs), and having a decent processor (i5-5200U).  The battery life is not great (around 4 hours), but it sounds like it's better than what you have currently.  There is no DVD drive, but I have never had a problem using an external drive.  It also has 8GB RAM and 1TB HD.  There are better laptops out there, but I think this one is the most balanced in terms of being powerful, lightweight, and cost effective that you can find on the market at this time.  Anything lighter you are going to end up paying a premium for, especially if you are looking for something with similar tech specs.