The Best Laptop For College, Which Laptop Should I Buy?

The best laptop for college isn't necessarily the "best deal" laptop or a laptop on sale. What are cheap laptop deals and what laptop is best for you could be different things.

There was a good deal on a laptop, a Gateway MD7826u. The price was $699.99 with $1.99 shipping.

I've used this computer. I think its a great computer. The owner thinks its a great computer. It has everything you want for college, a fast processor, a large hard drive, an a/b/g/n wireless card, and a video card that will let you play most games at close to the highest settings.

Two girls saw this computer on a table next to a 15.6 inch (same size) screen Dell Inspiron. They would always get the Dell instead. $250 more for a slightly worse one, $350 more for a slightly better one or the same price for a way worse one, they would always want the Dell instead of the Gateway. The Gateway is 1/4 inch thicker, 1/2 inch longer and 3/4 inch wider and "huge."

These girls weren't going to college, and they weren't really spending their money, but they do make an important point. Performance isn't everything. If it was, most of the people buying laptop computers would get desktops.

Performance

Performance isn't everything, but it should be an important consideration when choosing a laptop, the best laptop for college.

Unless a student is planning on bringing both a desktop and a laptop to college, the laptop will be the students primary computer. It must be powerful enough to do everything the student needs to do with a computer, and have the capability to store all the files the student needs.

Look And Feel

Most people seem to care more about the look and feel of the laptop they are buying than the actual performance of the computer. Smaller seems to be better. People seem ready to pay more to get almost as good performance in a smaller package. Ultra small laptop computers are very popular. Don't get carried away by small, though. The smallest laptop computer I know of is way to small for me. Net books or mini laptop computers are small and cool and do most of the things most people do with laptop most of the time pretty well. They aren't designed to be a person's primary computer though. Graphics aren't good and screens are small. Portable mini laptops are cool, but way faster 14 to 16 inch laptops only cost a little more than the upgraded mini-laptop you would need to even approach something close to what you should have at college.

Small laptop computers, 12 and 13 inch laptops could do for you, but don't expect to play games on them. Generally, even if you get discrete graphics in them, the card isn't good enough to play most games the way you want to. The cases are too small to handle the heat of good graphics.

Your best bet is a machine like the Gateway up above. A P7xxx or higher (P8xxx or 9xxx) processor will give you good speed and a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 or any Nvidia GeForce 9600M video card in a 14 to 16 inch laptop will give you the performance you need in the best laptop for college. Be sure to get WXGA, 4 Gig of Ram and a big enough hard drive though.

The computer OEMs hope to sell you this year though is an ultra thin laptop.

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