Computers & Networking

[Dlopez6243]

i think that the laptops you guys are offering are great. I was wondering if in he future you guy would create a laptop with 4GB RAm that works well with a Wacom Tablet and Photoshop, Coralpainter, etc.

[Foxjenny16]

Just a quick question for college students out there i was just wondering if there are only good quality low price laptops that i could get for college if so then please let me know. Anyone else that has ever had a best buy credit card i was just wondering if i got a laptop for $299 and bought it on my credit card i was just wondering how much i would have to pay a month. Thank you and please respond quick because i am starting this month so i would like to know ASAP

[superwhoop]

@Foxjenny16,

You'll probably need to pay around $10/month if you just put that on your credit card. But paying the minimum will mean that you'll get eaten alive with interest charges.

[pad]

I am very much interested in buying new laptops, after seeing these collections i said to my friends regarding these things.

Thanks for the information.

[Adamtech Emerging Expert]

Please do not post personal links.

[CG]

Personally I think this is a great idea. I've already started my college courses this year and I recently sold an old laptop of mine. They only problem with the four laptops chosen for next class is the price. They are great computers but the simple fact is no one can afford them. In my case, I have a $400 limit, but I need something that's fast, functional, stylish but not over the top. A dual processor at the least, 3G Ram, and a well sized hard drive. Nobody wants a cheap looking system either. Neither would anyone look forward to camping out the night before the Black Friday sale. Honestly, no one can find a laptop that's priced at it's actual value. That new Compaq Presario is priced at a good value, but Compaqs were never worth what people paid for them. If I were able to wait until the Black Friday sale, or even the Christmas/New Year sale, I would but school has already started and I don't have a choice but do buy a laptop this day. But in the future I'd like to see well priced systems with great specs. And not to be so specific and picky, but they should look stylish and sleek.

[CatherineMcClar]

My husband and I want to buy a laptop for our oldest son, who will be starting college next fall (either Illinois State University or University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).  I have 2 questions about the Next Class line of laptops in particular and Best Buy's laptops in general:

1) Will Windows 7 versions of the Next Class laptops be released sometime soon? (Win 7 Home Premium would probably be quite adequate for my son's needs.)

2)  None of the Next Class laptops have built-in graphics cards.  Since my son loves playing computer games in his leisure time, would it be possible to have the GeekSquad people install a graphics card in a laptop at the time of purchase?  If this is even possible, would it be any cheaper than buying a laptop with a preinstalled graphics card? (We had major problems with an Asus desktop we purchased this summer, so we're not very enthusiastic about Asus laptops just now -- and it seems they're the only ones at the brick&mortar Best Buy stores with preinstalled graphics cards (at least among those listed on the website as "gaming laptops").)

[CatherineMcClar]

One more thing I thought of:  Do either UIUC or ISU have specific requirements for student computers?  ISU, at least, will be having a meeting on-campus for the next school year's incoming freshmen about that, but not until next April -- and we'd like to purchase our son's laptop before then (so he can get comfortable using it before he starts college).

[Nokia]

2. No, a card cannot be installed. Do you know what games he plays? The integrated graphics may be good enough for him.

I wouldn't go with anything but ASUS. That's an opinion that you'll hear from pretty much everyone on this forum.

[CatherineMcClar]

He plays a lot of computer strategy/war games, such as the Europa Universalis series, for example.  He seems to play even more games involving 3D graphics than his dad does.  (He also plays some games on the Playstation 3 (such as Sid Meier's Civilization:  Revolution and the Final Fantasy series, but can make do with just a PC while he's off at college.)

Has anyone ever had repair issues with the Asus laptops?  The hard drive failed on our Asus desktop after only about 5 months,  and after about 2.5-3 weeks of trying to get it replaced (under our in-home Performance Service Plan), we were told that Best Buy just could not get the proper replacement hard drive for our computer.  They ended up authorizing us to swap the entire Asus desktop CPU for an HP (graphics card didn't have as much dedicated RAM, but the hard drive was larger, and it had Windows 7 preinstalled).  This whole experience has burned us on Asus as a brand, and so we'd prefer to go with other brands in laptops -- if we can get one with a nice graphics card.