Laptops for College

[drfsupercenter]

So guys...

I'm ready to buy a laptop for college. I have around $1500 total to spend, including operating systems, etc.

I was initially going to get the 15" Dell XPS laptop, customize it a bit, and then use the Dell OEM XP Pro CD I bought on eBay. The problem is that the XPS is so popular all the colors are now sold out except pink.
I don't want to wait all summer for black to come back, especially since it might not.

So I found some other options. I need you all to give me suggestions, since these are pre-built, if they're good or not, or what you'd suggest.

Here is one a friend of mine found on NewEgg, and currently it looks like the best one to go with:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152099

The thing is, just about all laptops now come with Windows Vistrash installed. That's obviously a bad choice, I want to put XP Pro on. Assuming I add the $159 cost of an OEM XP Pro CD... I need to be sure that I can find drivers that will work on XP. I have no idea about that MSI one.

So I found this one at Micro Center. The price is incredibly cheap compared to the other, and it comes with an XP downgrade CD (meaning I wouldn't need to buy a separate OS disc). The only downside is it only has 2GB of RAM... while that's more than what I have on my desktop, I'd probably spend another $100 or so to buy some more RAM sticks, and use the 4GB max you can put in it. I would also probably put in a 500GB hard drive.

Does anybody else have any ideas I could look at? I don't really want to spend *more* than $1500 (though I could go a hundred or two over if I really have to)... and any left over I can use to buy software etc.

--EDIT--

Oh. I want one with a 15" screen (most of these are 15.4). That's why I'm not going with the 13" XPS... and it's no coincidence both of the ones I linked have a 15.4" screen.

--EDIT 2--

Oh yeah. I kinda want a Blu-Ray drive... since my desktop is IDE-only and I really can't find one for this. Since I'll be getting enough RAM to actually PLAY the HD stuff, I figure I mayaswell have one. I know the Sony doesn't have one built in (shocker, considering the company)... would it be feasable to buy one and manually install it?

[atifsh]

15 inch laptops will be heavy and too big for college thats my thought, u will be hanging it around wont u..!

13.3 are just perfect for screen and keyboard, and 14" are perfect as they got full sized keyboards.

u cannot get 15" laptops now unless u get a square screen one, some business laptops are still comes as that option. newer 16:9 laptops are 15.6".

stay away from XPS if ur checking the older 1530 and 1330 ones they got faulty nvidia chips. too many dead systems ppl have including me.

why dont u check inspiron 15 from dell.com customized and ull get 1080 screen blueray for 1200$, or for 1400 u can get studio XPS 16" laptop at 720P, both got ATi chips.

[atifsh]

for under 1000 u get vaio NS with blueray.
u can check HP aswell but their new line is little flashy not in a bad way though. i hated the touch pads of their last dv series. and they too had issues with nvidia chips not as bad as dell. now they comes with ATi aswell.

now ur other problem, Vista, give it a break, im assuming u actually never have used it, now they comes with sp1 by default which makes vista pretty much good, u can later get sp2 now to get real good performance. ur getting a newer system with lot of ram and power and the plain rtm vista will run just fine left alone the sp1 n sp2 version.

sp2 integrated i just installed on my other system and ram usage is as good as 7's at 1 gb it runs real good. trust me on this.

[drfsupercenter]

why dont u check inspiron 15 from dell.com customized and ull get 1080 screen blueray for 1200$, or for 1400 u can get studio XPS 16" laptop at 720P, both got ATi chips.

I heard Inspiron sucks... and Studio XPS is way too heavy, those things are at least twice the weight of the normal XPS!

now ur other problem, Vista, give it a break, im assuming u actually never have used it, now they comes with sp1 by default which makes vista pretty much good, u can later get sp2 now to get real good performance. ur getting a newer system with lot of ram and power and the plain rtm vista will run just fine left alone the sp1 n sp2 version.

I've used Vista... I don't feel like giving permission to use Internet Explorer or built-in programs every 2 seconds... It's also a CPU and RAM hog... it doesn't do anything XP doesn't, but requires a ton more memory. It may work fine and look pretty, but I prefer XP as that's actually a better OS when it comes down to it.

I don't think the 15.4" laptops are too big... That one on NewEgg even comes with a backpack that I can carry it around in. The ones I've seen are 16:10, only the super-deluxe ones are 16:9 (which to me just seems a bit too wide...)

[atifsh]

ok first ur vaio cs is 5.9 lbs, msi is 5.9 lbs, inspiron 15 is 5.9 lbs, studio 15 is 5.6 lbs to 6.11 lbs, studio xps a 16" is 6.53 lbs. old xps 1530 was 5.9 lbs

studio15 is 0.11 lbs more, xps studio 16 is 0.5 lbs more if that too heavy im not sure

second.. inspiron 15 is the new generation now, old inspiron were big bulky one and thas why sucked, not because of performance. new inspiron is a copy of studio.

[atifsh]

I've used Vista... I don't feel like giving permission to use Internet Explorer or built-in programs every 2 seconds...)

just turn off UAC, and it will be what ur used to on xp.

It's also a CPU and RAM hog

ram hog yes install sp1 and sp2 and try again....cpu hog how?

apparently the first models of inspiron 15 and studio 15 were with intel x3100 graphics, but now they offer x4500MHD means newer chip n board. so if u go of store, check that out.

[copyless]

You could look at the HP dv6t series, it has a 16" HD display (if you want 15"+), you can get it with the 500GB HDD, 512mb ATI HD 4530 card, 4 GB ram, HDTV tuner, Intel core duo T6600 @2.2Ghz, BD ROM supermulti DVD, web cam, wireless card, and Vista 64 bit OS, it weighs about 6.4lbs. This is basically everything you wanted for 1399 delivered, you may find it cheaper, I haven't looked. You could upgrade the RAM or change this setup around if there are other things you may or may not want on it.

The only thing it has that you continually gripe and complain about is the Vista OS, the problem is Vista does none of the things you always say about it. I would actually give it a chance and try it, not just say you have used it, I believe you have tried it but not actually used it. You may be surprised at what it is capable of.

[atifsh]

yeah everything in u didnt missed a thing, so much for a portable college laptop

You may be surprised at what it is capable of.

includes optional spanking either way lol

[copyless]

The thing is, if he is not willing to go down to a truly portable laptop with a 13 inch screen to bring it down to around 12lbs, he might as well get a 16 HD screen, I mean 1/2lb is not going to make a difference like the 3 or 4lbs he could save.

I think he really wants a portable desktop that he can call a college laptop, and I can understand this for him.

Also I don't know if HP has changed their design but when I was searching for a new laptop (because my old was was in a car accident where the car was totalled) I looked at everything to find the most durable one without going to a toughbook. My comparison revealed at the time that HP had the very best design in mounting the display to the body at the time, which is where every laptop I have ever seen or had broke. I actually just shelled out the several thousand dollars and bought the toughbook, but if I would have had to stay around 1500 or less, I would have bought the HP for this main reason.

[drfsupercenter]

Well the laptops I was seeing are like around 5 pounds... here these studio XPS ones, when customized the way I wanted them, were 10+...

It's not that I want 15" or bigger, I basically want 15". 16 and bigger seems to be pushing it, it would be less portable that way...

As far as using Vista is concerned, I have never used it on a PC that I own, though I have used my friends' laptops and computers that do have Vista... I know Vista doesn't support native FTP like XP does, I told my friend to type the ftp://stuff in Internet Explorer, and it just kept on not working.

Plus ew, removing the Start - Run command... how else would you do it?

I might try Windows 7, I heard that was what Vista should have been... but I think a triple-booting scheme of XP, Ubuntu, and Windows 7 would work best... Vista and Windows 7 are too similar.

[copyless]

Plus ew, removing the Start - Run command... how else would you do it?

Again something that is not a problem, the Run command is there, and if it is not, it can easily be fixed, by just turning it on in the customize start menu screen. Vista just does not usually have it turned on when loaded because the search function on Vista is far superior to other search bars. The following screenshot is from one of my Vista 64bit machines and as you can clearly see the Run command is right there

[drfsupercenter]

Ah... well I've only ever used Vista "out of the box", and it had no Run command.

To start a darn command prompt, I had to open My Computer, and type "cmd.exe" in the address bar.

So, can I put a XP skin on Vista? I'm also not too keen on the whole changed GUI, how they call My Computer "Computer" (What, is it no longer mine... it's all Microsoft's property now?)

I mean, I'd consider using Vista if I can indeed make it look and work like my XP, but even then, why not just use XP? I don't think Vista truly does anything XP can't... and I know it uses like 2GB RAM just sitting idle... I'm using XP without even a single gigabyte of RAM, so I know for a fact XP doesn't do that.

[atifsh]

and I know it uses like 2GB RAM just sitting idle....

here screen shots of my 7 and vista computers sitting idle...

[atifsh]

So, can I put a XP skin on Vista? I'm also not too keen on the whole changed GUI, how they call My Computer "Computer" (What, is it no longer mine... it's all Microsoft's property now?)

I mean, I'd consider using Vista if I can indeed make it look and work like my XP, but even then, why not just use XP?.

man how old are u 70 ?

otherthen that, yes u can use xp its a good OS, u may get in trouble finding drivers for certain laptops so look into that also.

[atifsh]

I know Vista doesn't support native FTP like XP does, I told my friend to type the ftp://stuff in Internet Explorer, and it just kept on not working..