How am I bent? Durrr...

 

Well, my first word of advice is to wait until the summer to buy it for a few reasons:

1) Back to school sales are second only to post-Thanksgiving ones, and it could save you a couple hundred
2) Technology will improve by then, making it even cheaper
3) You may have more/less money than you thought, but probably the latter


As for computers, I have a few recommendations (as someone who designs them):

1) Brands - I bought one made by Asus (leading motherboard manufacturer) and would recommend them very highly, if you have the money. After a lot of research, I ordered through www.jncs.com and they're top notch. If you've never owned a computer though, you may want to go with something else because they are bare as far as software. I also like Toshiba and Dell a lot. Toshibas are really getting better and better, and Dell usually offers on-campus repair services (and are not out-of-date, depending on what you buy). HP and Compaq are lagging a bit right now. Sony is overpriced.

2) Features - Use this time to decide exactly what you want. I have no use for a DVD-RW, so I saved a few hundred when I bought my computer. Also decide whether you want fullscreen/widescreen, screen size, etc.

3) Hardware - Make sure you don't get old technology:
Processor - Don't settle for a Pentium Celeron or Athlon 64, no matter what the speed. Instead go for Pentium M or an Athlon 64 Turion. Celerons use inferior technology, and non-Turion 64s were not designed for notebooks specifically.
RAM - Make sure it's DDR2, and make sure you have either 1 GB (or more) because the most common computer mistake is to assume processor speed is what limits performance. Most of the time, it's RAM. Also, it is very important to get a single stick rather than two sticks (such as one 1GB stick rather than two 512MB sticks) for future expansion, especially if you initially opt for less than 1GB.
Hard Drive - If you are going to store movies, TV episodes, or a lot of music on your computer, upgrade to as large a hard drive as possible. External hard drives are bulky, and it costs too much to replace a hard drive with a new one later.
Video Card - Get at least a 128MB. These are often omitted in the specs and can limit gaming. Architecture is as important as memory size for these, so be wary of non-name brand card companies.
Input/Output - You'll probably want s-video output at some point, and to convert from serial to s-video is very expensive.
Wireless Card - Don't skimp here, or you'll be very annoyed at your range. Also, it may save you from having to pay for internet in the future if you can pick up a neighbor's broadband wireless signal : )
Other - Try to listen to fan noise in the store. You may be displeased with how your notebook whines a year later. Also be sure to look up battery life. It will degrade over time.

Good luck!

 

i got a dell and i love it

 

i agree with him about the asus. my pc right now is running the A7n8x and i have nother running the Deluxe version! great boards! they were pretty good like 2 years ago lol.

anyway, make sure the system your buying has an asus and is AMD.

 

I also use an Asus notebook. I have teh Z71V, its great i havent had any probelms yet, all otehr comps in teh house are dells and we have problems with most of them

 

yep. dell and the rest of the companys suck major *****.

the only good dell ive had was my Celeron 600mhz from the year 2000. that was a nice machine.

ive made good use of it, its currently a file storage server running Red hat 9

 

The fact remains, for someone without the experience to biuld their own system, and for someone who's not going to be pushing the absolute limits of graphics, Dells do offer the best features and included peripherals of turnkey systems for a reasonable price. Sure, you're not going to have the most baller system out there, but if all you're doing is using word to write papers and playing some AOE3 every now and then, it's hard to justify spending more for something that you're not going to get the most out of. Most strategy games don't even push the limits of their minimum system requirements until you have a few hundred units on the map.

So even if some more hardcore "geek" PCs are better buys overall, that doesn't mean that it makes sense to get one in his situation. Why buy a McLaren F1 if you never go over 100mph?

I would still say get a Dell. $600 will get you a desktop that will do more than you need based on what you've said, and great notebooks can be had for under $1000, easily, though if you do intend to expand your gaming repertoire, a desktop is the only way to go and you sohld just deal with having to use school workstations occasionally. Besides, comp labs can be great places to meet scholastic honeys.

 

make sure its not refurbished!!

 

I would say no Laptop but that is me.
A lot of classes will let you have them in the classroom though.
Business, Spend about 600 on you computer and then dump the rest into getting EXCEL and Minitab and whatever they use.

I got mine from Magic Micro Computers, www.magicmicro.com

80 gig hd, 512 mb ram, AMD K7 2600 *I like AMD*, 256 MB graphics card, Cd burner
547 out the door shipped. (47 dollars shipping)

Has been running 2 years now has a three year warranty. No monitor though.

 

Oh, and software-wise, do not buy Office (or XP, if you can hold out) until you check with your it department at college because you can probably get Office for around $50 and XP for around $35. It also looks like you can get discounts on Dells: GVSU Purchasing