Buying a Notebook Computer for Law School? The Q and A thread

[bass]

Guys, have you heard anything about Acer Aspire notebooks?  They're a lot cheaper than Thinkpads -- almost "too good to be true" cheaper.

http://www.kehtron.com/

FWIW, I have used an acer for 2 years.  It's a travelmate 290 with a centrino chipset, Pentium M 1.3 GHz, extra long battery life, CDRW/DVD, 80 gig hd, etc.  The great thing is that it is cheap.  It has worked very well for me (except the hard drive died, but that's replacable).  I like it.

[OingoBoingo]

Good data.

PS - To anyone who cares...I'm really feeling the Toshiba Portege R200.  It's a wafer.  Heroin chic thin.  I'm hoping that the new processor architecture will be incorporated by July when I purchase. 

A real nice machine. 0.7 inches thick? Sick man!

Oingo

[kmpnj]

Just bought the Dell Inspiron 1700.  Extra RAM and all the bells and whistles.  Only $1600 and I got an extra 8 cell battery and the leather case for free.  All in all, not a bad deal.  Super light, too.  Which balances the 500 lbs in law books I'll be lugging around. 

[kmpnj]

Sorry, I meant the 710.  I just finished studying, so I'm a bit punchy.  Here's the link:



http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/entnb_710m?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn

[sharsky]

I decided on the IBM Thinkpad T43:

Pentium M 740(1.7GHz), 2X512MB RAM , 60GB (with an 80GB external) 5400rpm HD, 14.1in 1024x768 LCD, 64MB ATI Radeon X300, CDRW/DVD, Intel 802.11bg wireless, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

Feels good to be finished with the hunt!

[OingoBoingo]

I decided on the IBM Thinkpad T43:

Pentium M 740(1.7GHz), 2X512MB RAM , 60GB (with an 80GB external) 5400rpm HD, 14.1in 1024x768 LCD, 64MB ATI Radeon X300, CDRW/DVD, Intel 802.11bg wireless, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

Feels good to be finished with the hunt!

Good deal A fine machine that is recommended equipment at a lot of schools (including Utah and BYU). Did you look at the T60?

Oingo

[sharsky]

I decided on the IBM Thinkpad T43:

Pentium M 740(1.7GHz), 2X512MB RAM , 60GB (with an 80GB external) 5400rpm HD, 14.1in 1024x768 LCD, 64MB ATI Radeon X300, CDRW/DVD, Intel 802.11bg wireless, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, Fingerprint reader, 6c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

Feels good to be finished with the hunt!

Good deal A fine machine that is recommended equipment at a lot of schools (including Utah and BYU). Did you look at the T60?

Oingo

I checked out the T60, since I heard about the more powerful Core Duo Chip.  But I went to two different sales reps who both said that the benefits of the Dual chip can't be fully extracted with WinXP and that it will work better with the Vista.  And when the Vista comes out, the price of the comps with the chip will probably be a lot cheaper.  I was told that if using XPPro, the pentium chip would be faster (I think the clock speed is faster) than the latest Duo chips.  I'm not a computer guru by any means, but for my intended use, I didn't think that getting the T60 was worth it!

[The Spanish Teacher]

sharsky - how much did you pay for your T43? also, did you get a three year extended warranty?

[sharsky]

sharsky - how much did you pay for your T43? also, did you get a three year extended warranty?

I got the 3 year warranty and it came with MS Office...
But I also have a brother that works for IBM so I got the Employee and Friends discount.
It was about $2000 Canadian, since I got the extra 512MB Ram and 80GB external HD.

[azrakunblue]

Sorry, I meant the 710.  I just finished studying, so I'm a bit punchy.  Here's the link:

How do you like it? I am thinking about buying the same one and I heard good and back thinks about it.


http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/entnb_710m?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn