New Laptop

Its been a while since I've been here at THQ. I'm glad to be able to come back though.

I'm going away to university this fall and am looking to buy a new laptop. I have been looking around the web at HP's, toshibas, IBM's etc. Just to see whats out there. I was wondering if you guys have any opinions on what to get spec wise. I want it to last for a while, so I'm willing to put some good money into it.

Also, should I go for Vista on it? I was thinking because it is self contained, the nature of laptops, that I shouldn't have to many issues with conflicting hardware or anything. I'm also confused about the new duo core, and 64 bit processors. Is a 64 bit proc. the same as a duo processor? And which one do you guys recommend speed wise and for a decent FSB and cache size.

My budget is around $1500-2000 CAN, looking for a decent screen size, 17". My thoughts on specs were 2GB ram, 160-200GB HDD, a relative new proc that will stay up to date for a while, and some version of vista.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be awesome,

Thanks

__________________
There is no dark side of the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark.

I don't like Vista very much-just beaware that 17 inch laptops are giant-they're not really portable. I made the decision to go with the 15in Apple Mac Book Pro precisely for that reason.
Dual core processors have two processing cores on them-essentially two processors integrated into one processor.
64 bit processors allow for addressing much larger blocks of memory-which on a laptop is not going to be an issue.
You can have a dual core 32 bit processor, or a 64 bit dual core processor. They're not mutually exclusive.

__________________

Your budget is awesome. You can get a very good laptop, upto date. I would go with Fenis's Suggestion, if you are planning to use the laptop for portability. Otherwise, a 17 inch is bulky and big and uncomfortable. I speak from Experience.

All recent processor, are 64-bit and dual core for laptops. They will release quad core, so essentially four physical cores onto one die, later this year or next year, but those are going to be for highend overly priced laptops.

64-bit is not essential and probably will not be until the next release of Windows, since they plan to make it a 64-bit only, which would be practical and yet stupid. Ugh...I can't beleive Microsoft contorls the market so heavily, anyway...Well if you buy a laptop now, and if it is Branded Intel Centrino Duo, powered by the Core 2 Duo, or AMD Turion 64 X2, be sure you are getting a dual core 64-bit supported processor.

2GB of RAM should suit, and will be more than enough. Make sure it is PC2-5300 as the speed of that ram is slightly higher translating into possibly better performance, depending on brand and maufacture and other computer components.

Look for a HD capacity to suit your needs, but the quicker the HD the better the performance.

Battery should probably be a 9CELL 53WH battery, if you plan to travel alot.

ONe more thing, look for Santa Rosa Laptops, since they are the newest Intel Platform, and look for Tyler core from AMD, which is extremely limitied right now, since it is the new 65NM core, meaning better battery life.

Vista or XP will be fine. Most new laptops that are mainstream or average, handle vista exceptionally well. Otherwise, use Linux distros if you want.

__________________
Microsoft = Catholiscism-Mainstream!
Mac OS X = Orthodoxy-Secluded!
Linux = Protestant Denominations-No standard!
Conclusion: Religion has no place in computers!

exactly, spot on.

it depends on what you want to do, if its going to be a lot of word processing, then go for a windows book, if its video editing, then go for a macbook pro like I did

__________________
My Blog
www.filmsbynick.com
http://www.youtube.com/filmsbynick
For my comp specs, check out my profile

Macbooks are nice, but pricey. HP has a nice line of laptops that are comparable in hardware to the Macbook for a bit less money. At work we are putting out a lot of 32bit Core 2 Duo laptops and they are much faster then the single core processors. I have a Core 2 Duo proc in my new desktop computer at work, it handles multi-tasking at a whole new level of speed. The HP laptop I linked to is 64bit as well.

__________________
Learn about the man behind the screen @ Ogden2k.net