The Ideal Law School Laptop

[clara]

I'm a Mac person, but my school has some issues with Macs. I know about Boot Camp, but...one computer just for school isn't the worst idea.

Got a Dell XPS 1330. It's light, fast, and Dell is desperate for your cash so i got a pretty good deal. It's compact and with a little tweaking, Vista really isn't bad at all. I don't really need to call support much so i might reconsider if i ever have trouble, but...I'm happy with the thing. Also, the battery life is pretty good...lasts three hours on one charge without much trouble.

Since i expect Zombie Steve Jobs and his legion of Apple fanboys to show up at my door, don't worry, i still have an iPod and a Mac desktop.

[vut]

So whats the deal with everyone being all into the Thinkpads? Why not an HP or something? Costco.com has some great deals on refurbished laptop.

Because they meet the MIL-SPEC (military specification), which means they are used by people in law enforcement, construction, etc. Basically, we're talking about machines built specifically for professionals on the go. Machines from HP, Dell, Apple, and even the IdeaPads are too shiny and pretty in comparison; they refuse to get dirty, and cannot take a beating like the Thinkpads.

[enygma]

I just put in my 120 GB OCZ SSD last night. I haven't had much of a chance to play around with it, but so far the speed difference is pretty damn noticeable. Safari and firefox open pretty much instantly. it's pretty damn sweet.

I also noticed something funny: they must calculate the space different than most hard disk companies. Most guys do it so that 1k, 1M, 1G, etc. aren't actually 1024 times larger than the previous unit, but 1000. So a 120 Gig hard drive would actually wind up being somewhere around 110-112 gigs. But my OCZ hard drive ended up being just a hair under 120. I think it's just the same size as most other 128 giggers, they just believe in accurate advertising - so good for them.

[LawandOrder]

I just put in my 120 GB OCZ SSD last night. I haven't had much of a chance to play around with it, but so far the speed difference is pretty damn noticeable. Safari and firefox open pretty much instantly. it's pretty damn sweet.

I also noticed something funny: they must calculate the space different than most hard disk companies. Most guys do it so that 1k, 1M, 1G, etc. aren't actually 1024 times larger than the previous unit, but 1000. So a 120 Gig hard drive would actually wind up being somewhere around 110-112 gigs. But my OCZ hard drive ended up being just a hair under 120. I think it's just the same size as most other 128 giggers, they just believe in accurate advertising - so good for them.

I am thinking I'll end up getting a SSD eventually when prices come down a bit. At the moment, I need storage more than speed for the most part, and I'm already worried about filling up my 1TB HD.

[enygma]

I just put in my 120 GB OCZ SSD last night. I haven't had much of a chance to play around with it, but so far the speed difference is pretty damn noticeable. Safari and firefox open pretty much instantly. it's pretty damn sweet.

I also noticed something funny: they must calculate the space different than most hard disk companies. Most guys do it so that 1k, 1M, 1G, etc. aren't actually 1024 times larger than the previous unit, but 1000. So a 120 Gig hard drive would actually wind up being somewhere around 110-112 gigs. But my OCZ hard drive ended up being just a hair under 120. I think it's just the same size as most other 128 giggers, they just believe in accurate advertising - so good for them.

I am thinking I'll end up getting a SSD eventually when prices come down a bit. At the moment, I need storage more than speed for the most part, and I'm already worried about filling up my 1TB HD.

well, this may only be for the people who are relatively networking-inclined. But I've set up a NAS on my home network, and I'm thinking about setting up a VPN for my laptop so that I can still access the system from school, etc.

[Rocinante]

If I had it to do over again, I would buy something lighter. I went about the purchase all wrong. My idea was to get the best hardware specifications for the money. What I didn't count on was that all I was going to be using the thing for is taking notes. Bad ass desktop (built it last year) at home for entertainment purposes.

Should have gone with a Macbook Air.

[ddp]

If I had it to do over again, I would buy something lighter. I went about the purchase all wrong. My idea was to get the best hardware specifications for the money. What I didn't count on was that all I was going to be using the thing for is taking notes. Bad ass desktop (built it last year) at home for entertainment purposes.

Should have gone with a Macbook Air.

every time i even see the words "macbook air" i cream my pants.

[LawandOrder]

If I had it to do over again, I would buy something lighter. I went about the purchase all wrong. My idea was to get the best hardware specifications for the money. What I didn't count on was that all I was going to be using the thing for is taking notes. Bad ass desktop (built it last year) at home for entertainment purposes.

Should have gone with a Macbook Air.

every time i even see the words "macbook air" i cream my pants.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air?intcmp=AIC-WWW-NAUS-K2-BUYNOW-MACBOOKAIR-INDEX

$1500 for dual core, 2gigs of ram, and a 120GB harddrive? LOL! What a joke. I've heard Mac prices are silly, but I never looked it up myself. Now I know.

[sullidop]

Just got my 13" mbp and it's light, fast and goes ridicuously long on a charge. Coming from windows I was not prepared for the 30 second boot time. Ridiculous.

[missv463]

i've had my lenovo T400 laptop and S10 netbook for a few weeks now, and so far, so good. i'm glad i got the netbook because the T400 is heavy, especially with the bigger battery.

[LawandOrder]

Just got my 13" mbp and it's light, fast and goes ridicuously long on a charge. Coming from windows I was not prepared for the 30 second boot time. Ridiculous.

Every new computer boots fast as hell. Then you start loading up stuff and more and more crap starts getting added to the "Load at boot" list and it just slows down a ton.

[cconnoll]

If I had it to do over again, I would buy something lighter. I went about the purchase all wrong. My idea was to get the best hardware specifications for the money. What I didn't count on was that all I was going to be using the thing for is taking notes. Bad ass desktop (built it last year) at home for entertainment purposes.

Should have gone with a Macbook Air.

every time i even see the words "macbook air" i cream my pants.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air?intcmp=AIC-WWW-NAUS-K2-BUYNOW-MACBOOKAIR-INDEX

$1500 for dual core, 2gigs of ram, and a 120GB harddrive? LOL! What a joke. I've heard Mac prices are silly, but I never looked it up myself. Now I know.

TITCR. I got this 17.4" HP with twice as much ram, 3X as much harddrive space for only $650. And its performance thus far is great.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 8041148373

[LawandOrder]

If I had it to do over again, I would buy something lighter. I went about the purchase all wrong. My idea was to get the best hardware specifications for the money. What I didn't count on was that all I was going to be using the thing for is taking notes. Bad ass desktop (built it last year) at home for entertainment purposes.

Should have gone with a Macbook Air.

every time i even see the words "macbook air" i cream my pants.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air?intcmp=AIC-WWW-NAUS-K2-BUYNOW-MACBOOKAIR-INDEX

$1500 for dual core, 2gigs of ram, and a 120GB harddrive? LOL! What a joke. I've heard Mac prices are silly, but I never looked it up myself. Now I know.

TITCR. I got this 17.4" HP with twice as much ram, 3X as much harddrive space for only $650. And its performance thus far is great.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 8041148373

If I compare the macbook air to the desktop I just built for roughly the same price ~$1500, I got 3x as much ram (DDR3), quad core, ~8x HD space, 22" monitor, and GTX 260 graphics. For the same price, the Mac users get portability and.... ???

[Cal4future]

If I compare the macbook air to the desktop I just built for roughly the same price ~$1500, I got 3x as much ram (DDR3), quad core, ~8x HD space, 22" monitor, and GTX 260 graphics. For the same price, the Mac users get portability and.... ???

Comparing notebooks to desktops is pretty silly though, especially the Macbook Air.

[enygma]

If I compare the macbook air to the desktop I just built for roughly the same price ~$1500, I got 3x as much ram (DDR3), quad core, ~8x HD space, 22" monitor, and GTX 260 graphics. For the same price, the Mac users get portability and.... ???

OMG you mean people can have different priorities?

[LawandOrder]

If I compare the macbook air to the desktop I just built for roughly the same price ~$1500, I got 3x as much ram (DDR3), quad core, ~8x HD space, 22" monitor, and GTX 260 graphics. For the same price, the Mac users get portability and.... ???

OMG you mean people can have different priorities?

My point is that is it asinine to spend so much on a overpriced, overhyped Mac laptop.

If I compare the macbook air to the desktop I just built for roughly the same price ~$1500, I got 3x as much ram (DDR3), quad core, ~8x HD space, 22" monitor, and GTX 260 graphics. For the same price, the Mac users get portability and.... ???

Comparing notebooks to desktops is pretty silly though, especially the Macbook Air.

This is true.

[dholyghozt]

If I had it to do over again, I would buy something lighter. I went about the purchase all wrong. My idea was to get the best hardware specifications for the money. What I didn't count on was that all I was going to be using the thing for is taking notes. Bad ass desktop (built it last year) at home for entertainment purposes.

Should have gone with a Macbook Air.

every time i even see the words "macbook air" i cream my pants.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air?intcmp=AIC-WWW-NAUS-K2-BUYNOW-MACBOOKAIR-INDEX

$1500 for dual core, 2gigs of ram, and a 120GB harddrive? LOL! What a joke. I've heard Mac prices are silly, but I never looked it up myself. Now I know.

TITCR. I got this 17.4" HP with twice as much ram, 3X as much harddrive space for only $650. And its performance thus far is great.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 8041148373

are you gonna carry that behemoth to class, that has to weigh around 8-10lbs not to mention battery hungry? or are you getting a netbook to pair up with it?

[LawandOrder]

every time i even see the words "macbook air" i cream my pants.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air?intcmp=AIC-WWW-NAUS-K2-BUYNOW-MACBOOKAIR-INDEX

$1500 for dual core, 2gigs of ram, and a 120GB harddrive? LOL! What a joke. I've heard Mac prices are silly, but I never looked it up myself. Now I know.

TITCR. I got this 17.4" HP with twice as much ram, 3X as much harddrive space for only $650. And its performance thus far is great.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp ... 8041148373

are you gonna carry that behemoth to class, that has to weigh around 8-10lbs not to mention battery hungry? or are you getting a netbook to pair up with it?

8-10lb, while heavy for a computer, is not so burdensome that it cannot be carried easily.

[misformafia]

I am a longtime mac user. After researching all my PC options, I think I'm going with an HP Mini XP 110.

Besides OneNote and Microsoft Office, what other programs will I need to be running? Anyone know? Thankkks!

[hoffb86]

I am a longtime mac user. After researching all my PC options, I think I'm going with an HP Mini XP 110.

Besides OneNote and Microsoft Office, what other programs will I need to be running? Anyone know? Thankkks!

mac to PC? I thought this switch was pretty rare.

[misformafia]

ahhh. don't get me wrong, I'm keeping my macbook. I will ALWAYS be a mac-guy. I just need a PC platform for law school to take notes, write papers, and take tests.

plus, those minis are like <400. how sweet is that?!!

[LawandOrder]

I am a longtime mac user. After researching all my PC options, I think I'm going with an HP Mini XP 110.

Besides OneNote and Microsoft Office, what other programs will I need to be running? Anyone know? Thankkks!

Anti-Virus, Acrobat, Google Chrome

[Cal4future]

I'm getting the Sony Vaio TT and installing Windows XP.... I just hope it doesn't overheat all the time like some of their other notebooks.

[dholyghozt]

are you gonna carry that behemoth to class, that has to weigh around 8-10lbs not to mention battery hungry? or are you getting a netbook to pair up with it?[/quote]

8-10lb, while heavy for a computer, is not so burdensome that it cannot be carried easily.[/quote]

that's true...i guess it depends on where you are as well...i'm just leery of having a heavy laptop coz i've tried lugging around my 7lb dell with two or three books and it's just very inconvenient esp if you have to walk a lot

[ddp]

If I had it to do over again, I would buy something lighter. I went about the purchase all wrong. My idea was to get the best hardware specifications for the money. What I didn't count on was that all I was going to be using the thing for is taking notes. Bad ass desktop (built it last year) at home for entertainment purposes.

Should have gone with a Macbook Air.

every time i even see the words "macbook air" i cream my pants.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air?intcmp=AIC-WWW-NAUS-K2-BUYNOW-MACBOOKAIR-INDEX

$1500 for dual core, 2gigs of ram, and a 120GB harddrive? LOL! What a joke. I've heard Mac prices are silly, but I never looked it up myself. Now I know.

it doesnt matter. i'll pay for sex sex sexy!!