Laptop for college

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Sunny, I have the i7 256GB Surface Pro 4. Got it at Staples as a open box and got their extended bump-and-smash warranty.

Had it since May and so far it works well, great screen and fast, used it for GoPro video rendering when I went to Europe in June.

Not cheap by any means though. Only complaints are the keyboard fabric gets dirty quickly and it's heavy when used as a tablet.
 
Could probably get away with a tablet, Surface for sure as it is basically a real computer or an iPad. You can run Microsoft Office on both. No real experience with the Surface, but you the iPad will have a great battery life, great screen and like the Surface you can use a bluetooth keyboard, be it a case keyboard or a real keyboard. I like the Apple bluetooth keyboard, small, packs easy in a messenger bag and long life battery.
 
I agree with Referbs being a good option.
I would stay away from the Surface Pros. We ran SP2's at work. They all went in for warranty work. They work 'fine' now but they were super expensive to purchase up front and we cannot do any upgrades / repairs to them.
 
For college work that usually involves no gaming, a surface pro should be fine, just make sure it's at least an i5 and 256gb. But as others have mentioned before, they are not cheap so that's definitely out of your budget.

An iPad may not be a good option but an iPad Pro might, very similar to the Surface but you are dealing with a mobile OS rather than a full blown OS like the Surface PRO series uses. This will also be out of your price range and most likely way more expensive than the refurbed surface pro. They also lack the space and processing power that a Surface Pro will provide.

Here it's Apples refurbished site, check back often for deals and new inventory: https://www.apple.com/ca/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/

The EPP I mentioned earlier would be best for you as they are still offering back to school specials

IdeaPad 320 Laptop (15") - $531.xx - http://www3.lenovo.com/ca/en/ibmepp...-series/Lenovo-IdeaPad-320-15IKB/p/80XL039JCF

Business laptops like the ThinkPad's are usually the workhorse machines given to all employees as they can take the abuse

ThinkPad E570 (15") - $528.63 - http://www3.lenovo.com/ca/en/ibmepp...thinkpad-e-series/Thinkpad-E570/p/22TP2TEE570
ThinkPad E470 (13") - $528.63 - http://www3.lenovo.com/ca/en/ibmeppfriendca/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-e-series/E470/p/22TP2TEE470
ThinkPad E475 (13") - $441.53 - http://www3.lenovo.com/ca/en/ibmepp...thinkpad-e-series/ThinkPad-E475/p/22TP2TEE475
 
I know nothing about this but my son has a school administered laptop because of his IEP, so my guess, as stated before, is that they must be tough.

sent from my Purple LGG4 on the GTAM app
 
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Always a good idea before you purchase to check requirements/compatibility with the college. You can usually find this from their website.
 
Joe Bass said:
I know nothing about this but my son has a school administered laptop because of his IEP, so my guess, as stated before, is that they must be tough.

sent from my Purple LGG4 on the GTAM app
Click to expand...

Lenovo T-series include things like drains built into the keyboard. Although not rated to be water resistant, they recognize that accidents happen and do their best to make a computer that survives while still being reasonably fast light and affordable (as opposed to something like a toughbook that is heavy, slow, super expensive and invincible to accidental damage).
 
TBH I don't understand why any keyboard doesn't have a drain in it these days
 
as other people have said ... the business / enteprise level laptops are probably your best bet. They can take a pounding and they keep going. I was using Lenovo units when working for IBM for 7 years. We got new laptops every 18-24 months and I commuted as much as I could on a bike. I never had a failure on a bike and I took those laptops with me on trips down to the states, out to California etc. Each laptop probably had 40-60,000km being buzzed around on the back of a bike.

Having said that, I have used this company a few times to buy refurb laptops for family members without a problem. They are based out of Mississauga:

https://ca.refurb.io/collections/lenovo-laptops

This Lenovo would fit your budget and probably give you a good number of years of service life without any problems. You may have to replace the battery after a year or 2 though but that's not expensive ... @$481 ... I5 processor, 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, Windows10 Pro

https://ca.refurb.io/collections/ju...6gb-ram-256gb-ssd-dvd-windows-10-professional


my 2 cents ....
 
Guy asks what bike? gets crickets
Guys asks a cpu question we are 2 pages deep and using paragraphs and linking researched pages

Here my input on it

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This question might a little off topic, my apology:

I recently made a purchased straight from the Dell website for an XPS 13 (512 SSD, 8GB RAM, i7 7th Gen (Kaby Lake) ULTRABOOK, Windows 10, 13.3 inch screen - that's what they claimed), it's going to be used for college and a little bit of gaming.

total (tax included): $1970

1. I'll be doing some programming (javascript & c#) and some light gaming with this, will it suffice?
2. can anyone confirm if this laptop is a true 13.3 inch screen as they claimed it to be?
3. any pc games recommendation for a laptop with this spec? I'm thinking of CS: GO or SOURCE?

Any inputs is appreciated!
 
Isn't that closing the barn gate after the horse has jumped the fence
 
JollyGreenGiant said:
This question might a little off topic, my apology:

I recently made a purchased straight from the Dell website for an XPS 13 (512 SSD, 8GB RAM, i7 7th Gen (Kaby Lake) ULTRABOOK, Windows 10, 13.3 inch screen - that's what they claimed), it's going to be used for college and a little bit of gaming.

total (tax included): $1970

1. I'll be doing some programming (javascript & c#) and some light gaming with this, will it suffice?
2. can anyone confirm if this laptop is a true 13.3 inch screen as they claimed it to be?
3. any pc games recommendation for a laptop with this spec? I'm thinking of CS: GO or SOURCE?

Any inputs is appreciated!
Click to expand...

1. Of course it will be ok (but not amazing). Screen size is very small for both, get an external monitor. Does it have integrated graphics or a discrete GPU?
2. Do you have a tape measure? Who cares what the screen size is to fractions of an inch? You bought a small screen to be light and portable, enjoy carrying it around.
3. No idea.
 
Thanks Chiller, just ordered the one you suggested as the old tough book is getting a wee bit slow for day to day work use.
While all you chip heads are here, any suggestions for a replacement os for the tough Book? Currently runs windows Xp pro, which just sucks. Running mostly browser,office,photoshop etc.
thx

btw promo codes for refurb.io
freeship Free shipping
free10 10 $ off
 
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GreyGhost said:
1. Of course it will be ok (but not amazing). Screen size is very small for both, get an external monitor. Does it have integrated graphics or a discrete GPU?
2. Do you have a tape measure? Who cares what the screen size is to fractions of an inch? You bought a small screen to be light and portable, enjoy carrying it around.
3. No idea.
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I wanted the 15", it will put well above $2000 for the same spec with less portability, which I'm not willing to sacrifice because I'll be carrying my laptop around everywhere.

It has an integrated video card Intel Iris 620. Hopefully that's good for CS: SOURCE, programming and office.
 
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JollyGreenGiant said:
I wanted the 15", it will put well above $2000 for the same spec with less portability, which I'm not willing to sacrifice because I'll be carrying my laptop around everywhere.

It has an integrated video card Intel Iris 620. Hopefully that's good for CS: SOURCE, programming and office.
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Office (and in my limited experience any development environment) will run on almost anything with no problems. If gaming matters (and you aren't happy with the performance of an integrated solution), an external GPU can be added.
 
It's a laptop, no GPUs will be added
 
JollyGreenGiant said:
I wanted the 15", it will put well above $2000 for the same spec with less portability, which I'm not willing to sacrifice because I'll be carrying my laptop around everywhere.

It has an integrated video card Intel Iris 620. Hopefully that's good for CS: SOURCE, programming and office.
Click to expand...

the intel iris 620 isn't all that for gaming. cs: source should be fine but any modern game.... I wouldn't bother. I wanted a quad core with SSD so I opted for the Inpiron 15 7000 gaming. Looking at Dell's site it is no longer there. Glad I pulled the trigger when I did.

It is the same as this one except with a 512GB PCIe and UHD screen for $1700. added 3 years of accidental damage protection and premium warranty.
http://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/productdetails/inspiron-15-7567-laptop/ni157567_ft_s510e

According to the notebook review website I linked earlier for my purposes the similarly equipped XPS was not as good a notebook.
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