Finding the Right Laptop for College: 2-3.5k Budget

[Tom McCurdy]

I am going to be getting a laptop for when I go off to college... probably going to spend around 2-3.5k on it. I am thinking that i want to get a tablet, it seems like for me going into engineering that it would be nice to be able to quickly draw something and have it stored int the comp rather than scanning it or having to draw it in photoshop or something... If you have any suggestions please feel free. Right now I am looking at some Toshiba laptops.

 

[Tom McCurdy]

And before anyone suggests a powerbooks... i hate them. My friends all got brand new powerbooks and I still don't like them. Macs are stable yet seem slow to me. They got the new 17inch through 12 inch versions... they look nice... but I still think they suck.

 

[robphy]

If you want a slate, I think
Motion http://www.motioncomputing.com/ and
HP http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/tabletpc/
are the best. (Of course, you can get a keyboard component that makes it laptop-like.)

If you want a convertible, I think
Toshiba http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/pc/pc_tabletPcDetail.jsp?comm=CS,
Fujitsu http://www.fujitsupc.com/www/products_pentablets.shtml , and
(probably) IBM/Lenova http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/thinkpad/xseries/tablet/
are good.
Acer http://global.acer.com/products/tablet_pc/ may be okay... but the new ones I've seen seem too heavy for me.

Visit the resources and forums on
http://studenttabletpc.blogs.com/
http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/ (look at the activity on their forum page to see what is popular)

When the tablets were just coming out, the Toshiba was the most powerful tabletpc on the market... but I heard that it had a disappointingly short battery life. Maybe things have changed since then.

Personally, I like the slate. They are lightweight and have fewer moving parts (hinges may wear down... my M1200 doesn't even have a fan). I think Motion is leading the innovations: view-anywhere option, array-microphones, biometrics.

I suggest you go to CompUSA to play with some of these tablets (e.g. Toshiba, Acer). Franklin Covey used to sell and have an HP on display. This company http://www.alltp.com/mobile.htm offers a 48-hour trial of the Motion. (Learn more about this on the tabletpcbuzz site.)

As a student, you may be able to get a student discount on some of these machines.

My $0.02.

 

[The_Professional]

(probably) IBM/Lenova http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/thinkpad/xseries/tablet/
are good.
My $0.02.

I really like the convertible IBM tablet. When it comes to security, quality and durability go for that.

 

[Emieno]

I think only a security chipset installed doesn't mean you can run away from hackers
Tablet is new and quite expensive to me.

Tom, if your purpose of buying a notebook is nothing except what you said in your post, I think Apple is good enough, it is much cheaper than IBM's. You can choose a 12" with option to increase your ram to 512, bluetooth module so to only pay around $1250. Nothing differing that much between 12" and 14", 17". I advise students to buy 12".
I don't know how people will think about Toshiba, but I advise not to pick it, as well as FMV, Melbius, dynabook, hp, dell. These are not really very good although they are cheaper...

 

[robphy]

My reading of the initial post is that he wants to "quickly draw" [with a pen, i presume].

Here are some examples to show off the tabletpc:

AutoCAD supports the TabletPC (these blog entries are from 2003, 2004)
http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/2004/02/autocad_users_w.html
http://journals.tuxreports.com/lch/archives/000507.html

project in the works at Cornell
http://www.mae.cornell.edu/ccsl/research/sketch/index.html (watch the video)

MathJournal
http://www.xthink.com/mathjournal_videos.html

Things that are probably easier on a tablet pc
http://www.maplesoft.com/products/maple/features/easy/handwriting.aspx
http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/84/8442.html

The first TabletPCs were first available in Fall 2002. So, compared to laptops, they are new. However, for example, Motion is already on the fourth version of its tablet http://www.motioncomputing.com/products/tablet_pc_le1600.asp .



In another thread, I asked this (still unanswered) question concerning the powerbooks:

"Given the recent Apple-Intel announcement, is [buying a powerbook] a good idea (unless one needs it now)?
[I don't really know the details on timelines. I just googled and found these articles:
http://www.powerbookcentral.com/col...e/roadmap.shtml and http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-20050608.ars ].
"

 

[Anttech]

no its probably not a good idea... if you can wait then wait, I haven't seen anything that says that apple will discontinue support for the powerpc but its kinda inevitable... Which means application support will also die on powerpc...

I maybe wrong, just my 2 cents