I will be heading off to college in a few weeks and need a laptop computer. Does anyone know of, or have any experience with, buying a customized laptop online? From your own experiences, what are the most reputable websites to order a laptop? Cheers.
Well I am kind of a computer geek and I would like to be able to choose my own processor, how much RAM, etc.
Assuming you want a gaming notebook, http://www.xoticpc.com/ and http://www.powernotebooks.com/ are both great companies with competitive prices. I highly, highly recommend buying the absolute minimum amount of RAM preinstalled; laptop RAM is stupidly cheap (< $40 for 2x4) and easy to install, and if you're gaming you won't really need more than 4GB anyway. I would caution you against getting anything larger than 13.3"; it's a real pain to carry a 15"+ around, and the battery life for flights home and in-class notetaking sucks. If I had the money for a top of the line customized computer or a Macbook Pro, (~ $1500) I'd get something small and light for class, and set up a dock in your dorm room with a nice 22" IPS panel for programming/reading/watching movies/gaming, and an external graphics card for when you really need additional power to turn Crysis 2 up to "extreme" visuals. This is coming from an engineering grad student who has gone from 17" to 15.4" to 13.3" + home built desktop; and the setup I'm using now has been by far the cheapest of all 3, while also being the easiest to use.
Go to notebookreview.com and browse their forums. The members there always post great coupons and provide solid recommendations for HP, Dell, Apple, and other major brands. Not sure about your budget, but I love my laptop and it's great for someone needing portability, build quality, excellent keyboard, and a long battery life. It's the Lenovo ThinkPad X220. 12.5" IPS screen, i5, SSD, 9-hr battery life, ~3.5 lbs light for about $1100. Unfortunately, you can't use it for intense gaming because of the graphics card. This is exactly what I do.
Well I ended up going to powernotebooks.com, I found that had what I wanted for the cheapest price. Thanks for the suggestions guys.
They're a good company and offer systems for people that want to build from barebones configs on-up. They've got a very good rep on laptop forums. I almost bought from them a while back. If you have problems, check their forums and support lines. From what I've seen, they're really helpful.
I got the Sager NP5160, but I customized it to include an i7 (~3.0 GHz processor), 8 GB RAM, and a Blu Ray burner/reader drive (that one was important). Ended up costing around $1,300 with all the upgrades.
