Computers for Law School 2011 Forum

[adonai]

Tough decision...the Acer laptop seems to be favored for commuters, given the battery life & weight. I'm a bit surprised that your difference in battery life is so pronounced, given that both use 6 cell batteries. The Lenovo has the newer, more efficient Sandy Bridge processor - i3 2XX0m versus the Acer's older i3 3XXm?

And are you sure that the Lenovo is just $500? I might be looking at the wrong page, but the following site indicates that it's $579
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... 3CE1BC569A


Note: If you go for the Lenovo, select "Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000" instead of the Thinkpad bgn.

http://www.abesofmaine.com/item.do?item ... &l=FROOGLE $509 for the Lenovo (no tax+no shipping). It has an IEEE 802.11 bgn. Is there any difference?

[Stoic]

Sometimes in undergrad (I had an HP laptop) I struggled to get reception when a bunch of people were in the library. Do you think it's worth it to upgrade the wireless router on the Lenovo I'm ordering from the wireless N to the 6200 or 6300?

[beach_terror]

Sometimes in undergrad (I had an HP laptop) I struggled to get reception when a bunch of people were in the library. Do you think it's worth it to upgrade the wireless router on the Lenovo I'm ordering from the wireless N to the 6200 or 6300?

Absolutely upgrade the wireless card on Lenovo's. I thought I'd be good, but I get little to no reception in some areas of my school. It's not a huge deal, but get a better card if you can swing the extra 20$.

[CBaker]

Sometimes in undergrad (I had an HP laptop) I struggled to get reception when a bunch of people were in the library. Do you think it's worth it to upgrade the wireless router on the Lenovo I'm ordering from the wireless N to the 6200 or 6300?

Absolutely upgrade the wireless card on Lenovo's. I thought I'd be good, but I get little to no reception in some areas of my school. It's not a huge deal, but get a better card if you can swing the extra 20$.

FML i'd have to cancel the whole laptop order to upgrade the card. I didn't even really think about the basic card sucking bad.

[beach_terror]

Sometimes in undergrad (I had an HP laptop) I struggled to get reception when a bunch of people were in the library. Do you think it's worth it to upgrade the wireless router on the Lenovo I'm ordering from the wireless N to the 6200 or 6300?

Absolutely upgrade the wireless card on Lenovo's. I thought I'd be good, but I get little to no reception in some areas of my school. It's not a huge deal, but get a better card if you can swing the extra 20$.

FML i'd have to cancel the whole laptop order to upgrade the card. I didn't even really think about the basic card sucking bad.

I mean you'll be fine, it's not that big of a deal. My wireless works fine in 75% of my building. I had some issues in classrooms (which is usually a good thing) and in some nooks in the library.

[Bill Cosby]

Can anyone recommend something in the $700-900 range with a full-sized keyboard and solid battery life?

[albanach]

Can anyone recommend something in the $700-900 range with a full-sized keyboard and solid battery life?

The thread has lots of recommendations.

Lenovo will sell you a ThinkPad T420i for about $750. Chat with and agent and see if you can get the 3 year on site warranty included and use your educational discount to get the price to $900. You'd need to pay extra for the battery warranty if battery life is really important to you, or possibly need to pay for a replacement in a couple of years.

[gothamm]

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3094732


incredible lenovo x220 deal.

Intel Core i7-2620M Processor
12.5" WXGA LED Panel
4 GB SDRAM
320 GB Hard Disk Drive
Windows 7 Professional

[deepspacenine]

Can anyone recommend something in the $700-900 range with a full-sized keyboard and solid battery life?

It's a little over your budget and the keyboard isn't full size with a num pad or anything but the 11" MacBook Air with student discount will run you $949 USD and you get a 100 App Store/iTunes gift card if your a student. The battery life is solid.

You could also check out Dell and Lenovo if you wanna go cheaper and wan't Windows only over OS X, as they usually have cheap deals. One option though is to get a portable notebook and just use a full size keyboard and mouse at home (wireless or wired).

[zeth006]

Sometimes in undergrad (I had an HP laptop) I struggled to get reception when a bunch of people were in the library. Do you think it's worth it to upgrade the wireless router on the Lenovo I'm ordering from the wireless N to the 6200 or 6300?

Absolutely upgrade the wireless card on Lenovo's. I thought I'd be good, but I get little to no reception in some areas of my school. It's not a huge deal, but get a better card if you can swing the extra 20$.

FML i'd have to cancel the whole laptop order to upgrade the card. I didn't even really think about the basic card sucking bad.

I mean you'll be fine, it's not that big of a deal. My wireless works fine in 75% of my building. I had some issues in classrooms (which is usually a good thing) and in some nooks in the library.

Quick warning. Don't try to upgrade the card yourself. Lenovo tends to have a "white-list" of its own cards, which I'm told translates into requiring you to buy the notebook and select the wifi card at their website.

[zeth006]

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3094732


incredible lenovo x220 deal.

Intel Core i7-2620M Processor
12.5" WXGA LED Panel
4 GB SDRAM
320 GB Hard Disk Drive
Windows 7 Professional

And that it is with the IPS panel.

[bigjinjapan]

Just ordered a VAIO SA for myself. The Sony site has a small educational discount and is currently offering deals on some CTO options, including half off the spare battery slab that you can attach to the current-gen S series. Still, unless there's something specific you want, it'll be cheaper to get it from another retailer: B&H has the basic SA configuration bundled with the battery for just over $1300 shipped.

--LinkRemoved--

[trudat15]

Hey guys,
dont want to get in a mac vs pc debate, as I've seen it all already. Just curious as to your thoughts, esp if they are similarly priced (most anti mac arguments seem to be - theyre so much more exp!):

So I was all set on a T420i for law school. Upgraded almost everything on the machine except ram, which I was going to do myself, and got the three year onsite + thinkpad protection warranty (includes accidental damage). Upgrades include: i5 processor, HD+, 500gb hd, fingerprint reader, bluetooth, 3x3 intel centrino ultimate wifi, 9 cell battery, extra ac adapter. It was around 1050 not incl tax through the Barnes and Noble SPP site.

Then I heard the macbook air would be refreshed this week, so am at a loss. I can get macs for about 20% off, so if the new 13" air is the same price as the last model, I can get it for around 1040 not incl tax for the base 13" model (I've heard the major upgrades are: thunderbolt and sandy bridge). Without apple care, so I would only have 2 years warranty (2nd year through amex) with no accidental coverage. If I went for a MBP 13", same discount/warranty would hold true.

So it would be around the same price for both. The T420 is obviously better spec'd, but not by that much (I dont think) and the MBA comes with SSD and I'll be taking it to school everyday (much lighter).

[Calla Lily]

I have a different question about the new Macbook Airs, even though we don't totally know everything yet. It looks like they will likely have the Lion OSX on them, but that OS is not currently compatible with Exam 4. I was thinking of the new MBAs as a potential option for my computer purchase, but does that pretty much preclude it as an option, or are there workarounds that you can think of?

[LSATclincher]

I was pretty set on getting the Lenovo X220. Then this popped up. It's the Toshiba Portege for $650 + tax and free shipping. All of the reviews on this thing are incredible. And it's only 3.2 pounds.

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3098156

Anyone familiar with these? How's the keyboard?

[bigjinjapan]

Most exam software is Mac-friendly these days. I'd say more than half of the student body at my school uses macs.

Definitely check with your school, though: I was planning on buying a Macbook Air until I found out that UCLA's exam software only works on Windows. Running it in bootcamp isn't a big deal, but when your entire HDD is 64GB a Win7 install would be taking up some pretty valuable real estate.

[zeth006]

Most exam software is Mac-friendly these days. I'd say more than half of the student body at my school uses macs.

Definitely check with your school, though: I was planning on buying a Macbook Air until I found out that UCLA's exam software only works on Windows. Running it in bootcamp isn't a big deal, but when your entire HDD is 64GB a Win7 install would be taking up some pretty valuable real estate.

True. For new Mac Air buyers, it shouldn't be an issue as they're due to ship with 128gb SSDs.

[thsmthcrmnl]

I have a different question about the new Macbook Airs, even though we don't totally know everything yet. It looks like they will likely have the Lion OSX on them, but that OS is not currently compatible with Exam 4. I was thinking of the new MBAs as a potential option for my computer purchase, but does that pretty much preclude it as an option, or are there workarounds that you can think of?

Here's a response from the Exam 4 people:

"As Lion has not been officially released yet we cannot say absolutely that Lion will be supported this fall. However, there is a very high probablity that it will be ready for the fall exam cycle. Barring major revisions between the developer release of Lion and the public release sometime in July."

[Calla Lily]

Thank you for passing that on!

[jr8966]

I wanted to let everyone know that I found a great deal for a 13 in Asus on Amazon. It has a long battery life. I am very pleased with my purchase.

http://www.amazon.com/U30SD-XA1-13-3-In ... FSJHQS63PS

You can sell the Xbox 360 and use the money to bring the total cost down to the $650 range.

[Bill Cosby]

What do you guys think of this one?

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-TimelineX-AS ... 4PV8J905RN

[albanach]

What do you guys think of this one?

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-TimelineX-AS ... 4PV8J905RN

Unless I am missing something, it doesn't say how much RAM it has or what version of Windows is installed. It's quite expensive for a 5lb computer.

[Bill Cosby]

What do you guys think of this one?

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-TimelineX-AS ... 4PV8J905RN

Unless I am missing something, it doesn't say how much RAM it has or what version of Windows is installed. It's quite expensive for a 5lb computer.

It's listed. 4gb of RAM and running Windows 7 Home Premium.

[camstant]

Thinkpad!

[albanach]

It's listed. 4gb of RAM and running Windows 7 Home Premium.

Then it'll be fine for your needs. I still say it's expensive for a largish laptop though. You can almost certainly find a better deal on an similar machine.