Buying New Laptop

Hi C9ners,

I want to buy a new laptop. Any recommendations for a good one that is geared towards Students and developers. I want a 64-bit one that is fast and powerfull for developing apps.

If you think there is a good one, one with the dual core stuff, please let me know..

Thanks alot

I know Dell is making alot of fuss over their new Core Duo line of notebooks, it isnt 64bit, but it's dual core. I havent seen any 64bit dual core systems yet, but I just may not be looking at the rights OEMs.

There's some speculation that the Core processors are 64-bit.

http://www.dvhardware.net/article9742.html

I am thinking about a new one too. Looking at HP Core Duo's myself, but really I am still fond of my three year old 1.8Ghz Pentium IV. It is a real brick though. Interesting that you still only find 1.8 -2.4 Ghz readily available in the Celeron Mobile families that are the fastest in current laptops. (unless I am missing something) 
Hard decision 64bit or dual-core?

I personally like the HP nx9000 series.

Arrrgh... as soon as you get it something bigger and shinier comes out though.

Right now, I'd go with a Core Duo laptop if I could afford it.

Perhaps more realistically, being in the same situation as you (student doing some development), I'd reccomend the Inspiron 6000, w/ the fastest available processor and upgraded memory.  VC# Express runs quite nicely on it (it's all I have access to, don't have the full Visual Studio), and all the Java development tools work as well as you would expect.

It has:
* 1.86 GHz Pentium M
* 1 GiB RAM
* ATI Mobility Radeon x300 (warning-- can't do CAD work, but none of the consumer cards can)

A Dell Core Duo laptop would also be a superb machine.  I'd reccomend against getting a laptop with a desktop chip in it, though--  they run hot and get very poor battery life.  Intel's mobility chips outperform desktop P4's that have significantly faster clock speeds anyways.

I went with a REAL brick. A DeskTopReplacement laptop and it is heavy, has no battery life, is huge, and it rules. I am glad I chose it instead of a light-weight not-to-be-used-for-serious-development laptop. It was very expensive and is one year old next month.

I would check out Acer's Ferrari 4000.  Thats what I currently use for school and develop on.  Its got a 64 bit AMD Turion @ 2 Ghz, 100 Gig Hard Drive, Dvd burner that burns every format I have ever heard of including DVD-RAM.

Best of all it runs Vista 5308 with Aero Glass smoothly and plays World of Warcraft with all the settings turned up.  Plus its thin and only weights about six poundsm and looks pretty sweet too.

http://us.acer.com/acereuro/page4.do?dau22.oid=10478&UserCtxParam=0&GroupCtxParam=0&dctx1=25&CountryISOCtxParam=US&LanguageISOCtxParam=en&crc=256486494