HELP for COLLEGE

darkx2999

Honorable
May 20, 2012
1
0
10,510
Hello there tomshardware contributors, I am heading out to a college campus soon but I want to get a laptop for classes. I already own a desktop that I can game on at home (which I'd visit ~every week/two weeks) so gaming isn't that much of a necessity. However, I still need a computer for classes and the such so that's where I'd like to request your help.

1. What is your budget?
<$1000; but I just want to fulfill my needs so I probably won't need to use that much.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
>15.6

3. What screen resolution do you want?
1920x1080 (preferably)

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable enough to take to classes but more of a desktop replacement when I get back into my room

5. How much battery life do you need?
~4 hours or more

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Won't play that many games, I can control myself. It'll more be for music than games. However, I guess i need a graphics card that can at least power visual novels well -- Nvidia GeForce6600 or above(which is a desktop graphics card but you should get the idea) with direct X 9.0 or above

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Homework, music, etc

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
500gb or more; going to buy an external hard drive for all my music (~1.5tb)

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Newegg mainly
Amazon and tigerdirect are also okay
Anything else.. eh

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
6 years( give or take) I want to use it all throughout college

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Not that high of a priority

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
No preference

13. What country do you live in?
United States

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I prefer 8gb RAM but it's not a necessity.

I need the laptop to have at least a headphone jack, and 5 USB ports (preferably 1 is USB3.0) for external speakers, external peripherals of mice and keyboard, and 1 for regular flash usb, and 1 for external harddrive

I am also extremely impatient and dislike to wait so hopefully the boot time is pretty quick, but also time to load webpages and etc will also be quick (I think this is related to CPU, not sure)

Laptop needs Windows 8 Software.

Thanks for your time, I hope you can help me find my ideal notebook!