Laptop advice

[tibiazak]

So I'm going to be heading off to college soon, and my current laptop is out of commission. I've been shopping around for laptops for a while now, and so far the one that's caught my eye is an ACER Aspire (I'll get a model number when I'm back on my other computer where I have a link to it), but I figured I'd see if you guys had any suggestions.

Requirements:
4GB of ram (at least)
2ghz dual core (at least)
dedicated graphics chip is optional
And preferably in the $500-$700(ish) range.

[Asskickulater]

I dont have any suggestions of what you should buy, but I'm going to suggest that you should stay away from HP, I have 2 friends that have completely different HP laptops and both over heat after 10 minutes of use and shut down

[thebocaj]

I dont have any suggestions of what you should buy, but I'm going to suggest that you should stay away from HP, I have 2 friends that have completely different HP laptops and both over heat after 10 minutes of use and shut down

My dad has a HP laptop and the battery exploded, destroying my chair. :(

[Belisario93]

I got a Lenovo G550 in the Spring from my school on behalf of Google (they gave my school 4 computers for their best students and I somehow got one), it has an intel graphics card, 3GB of RAM, 2.1 GHz Dual Core Pentium Processor, and when I checked the price when I got it, it was somewhere within the $400-$500 range (I think). It actually surprised me in terms of being able to play games (though I can't use very high graphics settings on most games), as I thought the graphics card would be worthless. So basically the point of this post is try a Lenovo. I've never really had any problems with this one, and there wasn't too much software preloaded.

[slashfan7964]

We had an HP laptop and the battery died and wouldn't charge. Don't get one.

[crazy.neo]

Lenovo, Clevo and Acer are the brands you should be looking forward to. Acer is my personal recommendation but check the offers based on your price range.
You can probably get a decent dedicated card for little over 700$. If you're going to college far away from home, believe me, don't skimp out on the laptop. Also, if you're planning to use your laptop in calls, all day, keep in mind tat what you're looking for is a netbook. A serious laptop can't stand being on all that time without running out of juice, and looking for power plugs sucks.

[aander91]

I'd highly recommend Asus. You get awesome hardware for a good price, and they're very sturdy hardware wise. I've had my Asus for a year now and can run just about every game available on Max settings. PNC also has my laptop I believe, so I'm sure he'll say something similar.

I'm sort of surprised that everyone's recommending Acer. I've always thought they were flimsy little bargain bin computers. Never really seen much from them that impressed me. I suppose they're fine for a basic user, someone who is just looking for email and internet, but I know you're looking for more than just the basics.

My friend got a really nice Asus for $850 or so. So if you're fine with pushing your limit a bit, definitely get an Asus.

[crazy.neo]

http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/model/LX.R6U02.014

Here's an i3 @ 2.2GHz, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB HDD and a nVidia GT420 to top it all off. Just 30 bucks over your budget. If willing to go to 750$, you can get an i5 instead, but this is already a pretty good laptop for the price.

[porknchili]

I'd highly recommend Asus. You get awesome hardware for a good price, and they're very sturdy hardware wise. I've had my Asus for a year now and can run just about every game available on Max settings. PNC also has my laptop I believe, so I'm sure he'll say something similar.

I'm sort of surprised that everyone's recommending Acer. I've always thought they were flimsy little bargain bin computers. Never really seen much from them that impressed me. I suppose they're fine for a basic user, someone who is just looking for email and internet, but I know you're looking for more than just the basics.

My friend got a really nice Asus for $850 or so. So if you're fine with pushing your limit a bit, definitely get an Asus.

Yes Asus's are awesome as hell (I love my G51VX although I need to get a new battery for it). Also, I would recommend MSI since their laptops are quite awesome as well.

Here are some ones I'd recommend between $500 and $700:
Asus UL20
MSI CR620
Asus G71 (it's been refurbished and is a SUPER good laptop [much nicer than me and Aander's G51 TBH])

[aander91]

My friend actually got the 71. It's freaking awesome.

[mitch951]

You'll want a commodore 64 for all of your home entertainment needs.

[Rapt0r]

You'll want a commodore 64 for all of your home entertainment needs.

This so much

[warhol]

Man, college is demanding.

[Rapt0r]

AFter my experiences of trying ot use a laptop for both gaming and school, I vote just get a nice fast laptop (under $500) with some cheap intel card and build yourself a desktop with the rest of your money.

[tibiazak]

AFter my experiences of trying ot use a laptop for both gaming and school, I vote just get a nice fast laptop (under $500) with some cheap intel card and build yourself a desktop with the rest of your money.

Kinda happening. Desktop is being built to fulfill a sort of miscellaneous high school graduation requirement, but both the colleges I'm looking at don't have dorms large enough for a desktop computer to work (as near as I can tell). Gaming is secondary, I'd like some gaming capability but really I want a laptop that will perform well for college stuff (notes, papers, programming classes) first and a laptop for gaming second.

Also, thanks for the recommendations guys, I'm checking them out.

And correction to my first post, the laptop I was thinking of was an Asus, not an Acer... and it's a couple hundred over my estimated budget.