College Student Q's

[Drtro]

Hello, this Fall I will be entering college and I'm not sure what to do about the laptop situation. I will be getting my Bachelor in Finance with hopes to major in Sociology as well. 

I have roughly $5,300 to spend but this includes everything to clothing to personal furnishings. 

I'm an avid gamer and music production is a hobby of mine. My plan is to build me a Desktop (have built 3 previously) and buy a laptop or tablet for class purposes. I have been researching and wondering if it was worth the money to buy a Dell XPS or ThinkPad if I'm only going to be using it to research the web, MS Office, and store my eTextbooks. Possibly a little Minecraft if lectures get boring. 

I'm now leaning towards buying a Chromebook or Windows 8 tablet with a keyboard. But I'm not familiar with laptops or tablets as much as I am Desktops. 

What do I do here? Buy a cheap laptop for class and build me a nice PC or buy me a well built laptop? 

Is the ThinkPad reputation just hype? I really like the slot-load optical drive and that's the only reason I like the XPS 15. But I've read so much about Lenovo and their quality builds. But even then I'm worried the T530 or W530 isn't portable enough to carry about all day and if I bought a x1 or Yoga, the performance wouldn't be so great 2 years down the road. 

 

[Drtro]

Im getting both a desktop and laptop. I was originally asking whether I should buy a good laptop or a Chromebook just to carry to class and back.

Nobody stated anything good about a Chromebook.

I'm asking for a laptop that is durable and powerful enough to be a good laptop for the next 3-4 years. Then I asked if I should wait for the AMD APU's to come out this Summer.

http/img90.imageshack.us/img90/2794/imageyja.jpg

 

[DarkSable]

Im getting both a desktop and laptop. I was originally asking whether I should buy a good laptop or a Chromebook just to carry to class and back.

Nobody stated anything good about a Chromebook.

I'm asking for a laptop that is durable and powerful enough to be a good laptop for the next 3-4 years. Then I asked if I should wait for the AMD APU's to come out this Summer.

http/img90.imageshack.us/img90/2794/imageyja.jpg

If you want a chromebook, get it.

If not, then a netbook + a SSD will be plenty for your needs, except for playing minecraft during lectures. If you really want to play minecraft, it's up to you if that's worth the extra $500.