Laptop for a Student

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Originally Posted By: pbm
I bought my daughter an Apple in 2013 and it's still working great.
I bought my other daughter a Dell...then an HP and finally an Apple....She is hard on laptops because she carried them everywhere throughout college and now grad school...the Apple is the only one that took the licking and kept on ticking. My next computer will be an Apple.


My wife went through 2 laptops in 2 years before buying a MAC. She has had the Mac for 3 years and its still great. I dont think the MAC is better per se but she takes care of it because it is an "Apple". The PCs didn't get the same care... I have a 6 year old Sony Viao that still works great. I wish Sony still made laptops
 
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What is it that differentiates a business laptop from a consumer product?


A giant advantage is serviceability; Consumer machines are designed for manufacture; business class machines have a component of repairibility.

A friend of mine had a business class Dell; the HD went bad and the back of the laptop basically was marked where the drive was; I removed 2 screws (marked) and 60 seconds and a new drive was installed; ditto this type of access for memory etc.

There reason this is 'built in' is because on site warranty repairs for business will cost a mfg $$$$ if the tech has to spend 40 minutes disassembling a poorly thought out design and the tech risks damaging other components.

Others may not think this is valuable, but spend a few hours futzing with a 'built for assembly' machine and you will never touch another one again.

-T
 
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Thanks for the great advice so far. I also got a recommendation to consider a System76.

My son is getting by with the desktops we have here at home for now but definitely wants to buy a good laptop before he finishes school this year. That should allow him to hold out for a good deal. I think he's looking for a Windows machine so as to to be able to run specific software.

The local computer stores don't seem have any promotions right now. I've checked the following sites and it's overwhelming:
Canada Computers
NewEgg.ca
TigerDirect.ca
BestBuy.ca
NCIX.com
 
Originally Posted By: FermeLaPorte
I bought an Acer latop from Amazon. Acer E15. I use it and I am a teacher.


^^^ Something like this ^^^

Dont spend anymore then $600. Its a waste, he is a college student. Looks for sales and I would skip the "business" laptops at double the cost.
Bottom line is college kids break things and when he breaks this one, your out less money. The E5 with the 7i processor in the link below for $579.00 is most likely way, way, way more then he needs and it has good battery life.
Dont get caught up with the school thinking you need a super computer, its school.

Clcik here as an example _
 
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Originally Posted By: alarmguy
Dont spend anymore then $600. Its a waste, he is a college student. Looks for sales and I would skip the "business" laptops at double the cost.

I was hoping to find something less than C$1000. I've found that even the cheapest modern computer will outperform one that is several years old.

Originally Posted By: alarmguy
Bottom line is college kids break things and when he breaks this one, your out less money.

My son is mostly careful with his laptop and, for the most part, it stays at home on his desk. Having said that, we made good use of the Toshiba's extended warranty to replace a broken touchscreen and hard drive when he dropped it once. It's probably cheaper to replace a cheap laptop than to fix or to buy an extended warranty for an expensive one. His Toshiba's 640 GB drive burned out last year and it was pretty straightforward to replace it with a 1 TB drive. I've got him backing up his data to an external drive.

Originally Posted By: alarmguy
Dont get caught up with the school thinking you need a super computer, its school.

He's in a GIS program and he wants a good post-school laptop for the rendering done by mapping software that he's planning to buy when his course ends.

I've been looking at laptops with an Intel core i7 processor and 8GB of RAM.
 
Here is another sweet deal, an i5, your son or his programs will never know the difference, except its a really nice laptop. :o)

Micrsoft deal on Dell - Click

BTW, Im not in anyway, disagreeing with you, though maybe you may think so?
Ive been there and done that with college laptops and learned, since your son is a bit different regarding the program he will be using, and i5 or 7 maybe called for, even though the 7 maybe over the top a bit, at $600 he can throw it away in 2 years and buy another that will be faster then a $1200 one you buy today.
Years back we bought our daughter a Lenovo "business duty" Think Pad not an Idea Pad because the college stressed the accounting software she would be using. It lasted MAYBE 2 years of college life, next laptop was nothing near that level and it worked just fine for the last 2 years of college and she is doing quite well working now! yay.

I can say, you do have to be more careful now, much of the computer stuff being shipped out of China by the brand names are garbage, so sometimes a real deal that seems to be good to be true is. Profits, profits, profits, super cheap computers to give up performance no matter what the processor, did that recently with my wife, we have a number of computers in our house, saw a great deal on a Lenovo desktop, didnt need this one to be a super computer, just a solid computer, so had a good processor and memory and it was, after all a Lenovo.
Well, what a joke that was, returned it to Staples within days, got refund.
My wifes much old computer was MUCH faster. We can call this one her "shopping" desktop. She also works from home on a business class Dell and I am in this forum on an HP desktop, bought a couple months back, fastest desktop computer I ever own on sale over the holidays at Best Buy for $400. AMD A-12 and now a 100 Mbps connection, (curiosity of my wifes company).
 
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Originally Posted By: fraso

He's in a GIS program and he wants a good post-school laptop for the rendering done by mapping software that he's planning to buy when his course ends.

I've been looking at laptops with an Intel core i7 processor and 8GB of RAM.


He is going to need a lot of graphics horsepower. If budget is an issue then compromises will have to be made, of course; but this is one of those situations where you WILL notice the horsepower. An i7 with an AMD or NVIDIA graphics chip will be, in my opinion, entry-level. Something loaded with a Xeon will be more expensive and you won't get much battery life; but operating geospatial management software on battery power at a Starbucks is not likely the intended use case for this machine.
 
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more
Originally Posted By: fraso

He's in a GIS program and he wants a good post-school laptop for the rendering done by mapping software that he's planning to buy when his course ends.

I've been looking at laptops with an Intel core i7 processor and 8GB of RAM.


He is going to need a lot of graphics horsepower. If budget is an issue then compromises will have to be made, of course; but this is one of those situations where you WILL notice the horsepower. An i7 with an AMD or NVIDIA graphics chip will be, in my opinion, entry-level. Something loaded with a Xeon will be more expensive and you won't get much battery life; but operating geospatial management software on battery power at a Starbucks is not likely the intended use case for this machine.

PHEWWW, Finally!

Also, good regimen for keeping the laptop from being hot. (Hot + the dust bunies is the source of all evil hardware crashes)
Probably a metal lap pad with couple of capable fans for extra cooling
and
Daddy's air compressor hose every 3 months

P.S. the recommendation for business-grade laptops is you have a better chance of finding parts, then for a model 3 years ago built for Circuit City (crazy example, but you get the point)
 
Originally Posted By: fraso
Thanks for the great advice so far. I also got a recommendation to consider a System76.

My son is getting by with the desktops we have here at home for now but definitely wants to buy a good laptop before he finishes school this year. That should allow him to hold out for a good deal. I think he's looking for a Windows machine so as to to be able to run specific software.

The local computer stores don't seem have any promotions right now. I've checked the following sites and it's overwhelming:
Canada Computers
NewEgg.ca
TigerDirect.ca
BestBuy.ca
NCIX.com


NCIX went out of business so you can scratch that one.

You can also buy laptops directly from the manufacturer like Lenovo.com or Dell.ca. A lot of them are build to order, so you select your options based on what you need, they build a laptop in China in 1 week and ship it to you. On Dell.ca under laptops you can select for Home or for Work and see what the differences are. People are saying get a business one but everything has a pro and a con.

Originally Posted By: fraso
What is it that differentiates a business laptop from a consumer product?


The main difference is the plastic case the electronics go into.

Pros for Business grade laptops:
-Usually more durable
-Usually easier to service
-Usually have less junk software pre-installed

Cons
-More expensive
-Poor value in terms of performance/dollar

Last time I bought a laptop I bought a consumer grade laptop, it came with 14 inch 1080p screen, i5 processor, 6GB ram, and Nvidia Geforce graphics. It was under $600 before tax. I upgraded the HD to a SSD later and it was easy to replace. The case isn't as nice as a business model but it was great value for the hardware you are getting.

For the same price if I was shopping for a business laptop I could only get an entry-level model with 720p screen, i3, integrated graphics, and 4 GB ram. So you pay a big premium for the plastic case of the business model.
 
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Originally Posted By: camrydriver111
Pros for Business grade laptops:
-Usually more durable
-Usually easier to service
-Usually have less junk software pre-installed

Cons
-More expensive
-Poor value in terms of performance/dollar


Add to Cons for THIS CASE: Unless they are purpose-built as portable media workstations, business class machines *very rarely* have powerful graphics chips.
 
I've been doing a lot of guessing about specifications so I thought I should check the hardware recommendations for the software, which is ArcGIS 10.5.

The software's minimum and recommended hardware requirements seem to be fairly basic. There is no mention of any special GPU requirements. I even ran the compatibility checker on my old AMD desktop (Athlon II 260 3.20 GHz) on onboard graphics that I've been using now for several years and it passed with flying colours.

I haven't been keeping up with CPU performance lately but I think, for equivalent processing power, AMD chips are still a bit cheaper than Intel. I think AMD A10/A12 and Intel Core i7 processors have onboard GPUs but AMD probably has a bit better graphics.

If I do a search for laptops with a NVidia or Radeon GPUs, this seems to preclude business machines.
 
Originally Posted By: camrydriver111
NCIX went out of business so you can scratch that one.

Not to derail, but what's with their site being still up and running as if there's no issue? I can see that being highly confusing to people who aren't major industry watchers.
 
Your son may want to run those GIS software on a desktop at school, or get a desktop with the GPU power, or just wait a few more minutes to finish it.

Business laptop is more durable and has parts available for swapping in quick notice, standardized docking station and charging, etc. Your son may not need that.

To be honest your best bet is to wait for a black friday deal on a laptop that's "decent", and a desktop when he knows what he need to run with that GIS software. Chances are if you buy right now you will over or under spend for that GIS requirement. If I were you I'd buy something with 8GB of ram and an SSD, forget the CPU speed, or go cheap and buy an i3 with 4GB on heavy discount (mom got a 17" i3 4GB 500GB Lenovo on black friday, for $300).
 
He's gonna be working with ArcGIS and maybe Autodesk or Bentley's GIS/mapping tools within AutoCAD Civil 3D or Microstation/Descartes.

In this case, get a "portable" CAD-spec laptop like a Lenovo ThinkPad P-Series or a Dell Precision M series. GPU is more important than CPU these days with CAD/CAE/GIS especially. You can run those programs on a "gaming" laptop but an Nvidia NVS/Quadro will be better with CAD and GIS and won't run as hot. He doesn't need a Alienware/Asus ROG/MSI.

Definitely get an SSD and at least 8GB of RAM for some of these programs. I know work specifies 16-32GB with heavy CAD(Civil 3D and Revit) users.

These would be my pick: https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/Thinkpad-P51s/p/22TP2WPP51S

https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-t-series/ThinkPad-T480/p/22TP2TT4800

http://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell...-15-3520-laptop
 
Originally Posted By: uc50ic4more

Add to Cons for THIS CASE: Unless they are purpose-built as portable media workstations, business class machines *very rarely* have powerful graphics chips.

The typical business user doesn't need an NVidia or ATI GPU to run Excel or Word, vanilla AutoCAD does work swimmingly fine on an Intel iGPU. However, the case can be made to drive multiple displays with the laptop open in an docking station to get an eGPU.

Mainstream business laptops do offer an business-spec Nvidia or ATI option, while the CAD-spec machines come with a Quadro or FirePro option standard. Lenovo moved from an Nvidia NVS series eGPU to an GeForce MX150 in the newest ThinkPads as an option.
 
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