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Thread: Buying a Laptop

  1. #1
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    Default Buying a Laptop

    Best place to buy a Laptop? I’ve bought several in the past from Best Buy but would rather not go that route again. Son is needing one for college and has a specific model HP picked out that he will need for his major.

  2. #2
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    I'm not a fan of Best Buy either but I do know that they have some kind of student discount that might be worth looking at. I have no idea if it is a good deal or not but you might find it to be worth going through BB.

  3. #3
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    Oh and Amazon sometimes has good deals.

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    last two laptops I bought were purchased from a computer store. BBS computers in Summerville. Told them what I wanted and the built it, cheaper and better than I could buy from any big box.

  5. #5
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    Apple store

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    you can always get refurbished ones from Apple online that are basically redone by Apple for a good bit cheaper than new

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    Newegg.com

    Good product reviews, options, and support/ policy.

  8. #8
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    Check with the College he is going to. Many schools offer discounted purchases that include some type of free insurance and support for student computers.

  9. #9
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    Mac book hands down. Windows just does not compare. However if he is doing a major with a windows proprietary software, I would go hp or Alienware.

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    We use Dell because of their customer support. Get the 3 yr warranty and thank me later due to battery life, glitches etc. Tell them what you want and they will build anything your Son wants
    Gettin old is for pussies! AND MY NEW TRUE people say like Capt. Tom >>>>>>>>>/
    "Wow, often imitated but never duplicated. No one can do it like the master. My hat is off to you DRDUCK!"

  11. #11
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    He’s had a MacBook in the last and says it will not work for what he will be doing. He’s picked out an HP that you can’t even buy at Best Buy. Amazon and a few other places have it but want to make sure he’s on the right path before I drop $1200 on a laptop.

  12. #12
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    MacBook

    Edit: didn’t see the last post, nevermind
    Last edited by Coastal Woodie; 10-08-2019 at 01:01 PM.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by 4THEGIRLS View Post
    Check with the College he is going to. Many schools offer discounted purchases that include some type of free insurance and support for student computers.
    this
    Ugh. Stupid people piss me off.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by 2thDoc View Post
    this
    This and get the ins., believe me it pays off, , don't ask me how I know. They take to be repaired , get a loaner and all is good.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by SCHUNTINFANATIC View Post
    He’s had a MacBook in the last and says it will not work for what he will be doing. He’s picked out an HP that you can’t even buy at Best Buy. Amazon and a few other places have it but want to make sure he’s on the right path before I drop $1200 on a laptop.
    I would look at what he specifically is needing it to do. Boot camp is free or run parallels to run windows. Still get a better laptop that way. Hell, I use a 2010 macbook pro for work with a ssd drive. Still runs everything at 9 years old quite well. How many hp laptops can say that?
    Last edited by mello_collins; 10-11-2019 at 08:30 PM. Reason: my crappy punctuation


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  16. #16
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    Are Thinkpads still cool?

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    What is his major? What school?

  18. #18
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    If he’s not an engineer, get a Mac. If he’s an engineer get a high quality gaming laptop to run the programs. I had an MSI gt70 when I was in school. Ran Matlab, Cad, SolidWorks and a couple major specific programs that also required it. If he’s an engineer I would get a minimum of 1 Tb HD, 12 gigs of Memory, i7 quad core, and a good graphics card. It’s a PIA if you’re running engineering programs with a slow computer. If he’s not an engineer, hands down MacBook Pro.

    To answer you’re question though, order it online if you don’t want to get some store specific extended warranty. Every dime you save you can put towards adding things to it, or textbooks.
    Last edited by cam1195; 10-11-2019 at 09:13 PM.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by cam1195 View Post
    If he’s not an engineer, get a Mac. If he’s an engineer get a high quality gaming laptop to run the programs. I had an MSI gt70 when I was in school. Ran Matlab, Cad, SolidWorks and a couple major specific programs that also required it. If he’s an engineer I would get a minimum of 1 Tb HD, 12 gigs of Memory, i7 quad core, and a good graphics card. It’s a PIA if you’re running engineering programs with a slow computer. If he’s not an engineer, hands down MacBook Pro.
    Along with a gaming machine with dedicated video card and 16GB of RAM memory, I would get a 512MB (or larger) NVMe M.2 drive as the primary (boot) drive (3,500MB/s Seq. Read 2,300MB/s Seq. write for a Samsung stick).

    Then you can add another 500GB or 1TB solid state drive (SSD) to store stuff on. Buy a Samsung SSD after getting the computer or you will pay about double for the off the street cost and maybe a lesser brand of SSD.

    The Samsung SSD reads/writes at about 550 MB/s, so the NVMe drive is about 6 times as fast (read) and over 4x writing data.

    For comparison, a traditional 2.5" laptop 5,400rpm hard drive reads/writes at about 125 MB/s (or about 1/4 the speed of a SSD and 1/28th the speed of the NVMe drive).

  20. #20
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    My wife has a surface for doing crafts and going back to school. Had it 18 months and no issues at all. I have a surface book 2 and run CAD and large data processing files no problem.

    I’ve had macs, dells, HP, Toshiba in last 10 years. I like the Surface as good as any.

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