So I am in college for computer science and need to get a better laptop then my soon the be five yearold toshiba. I was looking at the razor blade stealth but wanted to get y'alls opinion. I would like thin but I was thinking should I get a quad core CPU and dedicated gpu for my upcoming classes?
Always start mentioning how much money you can spend
Up to $1000
Isn't the Blade stealth like 1.5g's?
No, but it is a dual core
Personaly I would look into something like this.
Razer tends to have a bit of a price premium for there name. I have never taken computer Science so I'm not to sure of the classes but I have talked to people that had to build there own os for a class or worked with virtualization having an 8 core cpu allows for a lot more flexibility.
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If you have enough space in your room/place I would recommend getting a heavy duty desktop + simple chromebook instead of putting all that money into a laptop. I bought a laptop 4 years ago which I still use today and even though it still functions okay as an everyday use device and some occasional light gaming I think the investment would have been better spent on a desktop that I can upgrade if need be.
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I do have a nice desktop right now. I just want a laptop to bring to classes and to do all my school work on. I did kind of have the same thought process though and that's why I was looking for an ultra book. The only problem is that dual core and 8 gigs with no dedicated gpu could potentially not workout in the long run for what I may need
You might want to check out the XPS 13 Developer Edition; nice ultrabook and it comes with Ubuntu preinstalled, so you don't have to pay for the Windows License. Microsoft loves throwing Windows keys to college students anyway.
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I like this video's idea, I'd even split my budget
$200 for a crap netbook or old laptop just for taking notes in class (unless more mobile power is needed of course, depends on what classes you're taking)
$800 for a built by myself desktop
I actually bought a gaming laptop for school a couple of years ago. I believe it was an MSI GT60 and it is a great laptop. However it actually could not play that many games well even though it was a "gaming laptop" and holy hell did it get hot if I ever tried. Other than that it had great specs but I eventually found myself not even gaming on it and just using it for regular tasks (eg. Word, Excel, PPT) and gaming on my desktop at home.
Another HUGE downfall of my experience with a gaming laptop is that the battery life was terrible. If I ever needed to take it out for class activities and/or taking notes for 1.5 to 2+ hours I would need to find an outlet and where I went to university there were not too many available.
I definitely agree with @MAK with just getting something like a chromebook and investing in a desktop. The most important things I needed in a laptop for school was good battery life, decent keyboard, and decent response and I feel like getting a gaming laptop is overkill in this department.
Going for full-out gaming laptops is in my mind a bit 'meh'. For exclusive use as a gaming machine or a workstation they're subpar at best imo. That being said, I personally like my laptops to be capable all-round machines, so having a modest dGPU and a competent quad-core is a must for me.
Something like an MSI GE40 imo is a great option - I have the older generation of the GE40 with the 760M and it's a solid laptop. If I want to emulate Wii games over at a friend's house or play Factorio or light 3D games at an airport, it does a really good job, but if I need the battery to last, it can do that too.
If you don't need your laptop to do any of that stuff, something with an i3 or a true quad-core i5 is the way to go. But don't skimp on the lappy - if you can get a prosumer or business-grade laptop within your budget, go with that. If you're on a tighter budget like $3-400 and you really don't need it to do anything, go with a chromebook.
I have a desktop for gaming. I'm just looking at a laptop for school and my major is in computer science.
I've taken a few classes at community college for computer science but I never got that far - just a C programming and UNIX. Never had problems with my netbook. Personally, I have a Thinkpad X220 and I haven't had any performance issues. I also have a gaming laptop with a Has well i7 4810MQ 3.8GHz with a Maxwell GTX 860 (basically 750-Ti) and never found myself needing the performance. Ended up getting the Thinkpad with SSD for portability and battery life. Second hand rugged / business laptops are a good economical option. Picked up my x220 for $150
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it would be helpful to know what kind of tasks your looking to achieve, you say computer science but of what kind? if it is just compiling various software components, thats achievable with a core2 laptop, if you want to simulate scenarios ie VM's your going to need a lot more cores than is really available in any laptop, gaming or otherwise. if its something else do let us know!
but as a rough stab in the dark, im with @jerm1027 on the old business laptop, lenovo are a very good option in that case, fujitsu's are also good in the business space. HP or dell are ok but not as good as the former 2.
do check what CPU it has though, as you probably already know some mobile i5's are actually dual core.
Well, it's thin, but dat dual core i7...
Used thinkpad is the best choice, but the razer blade stealth is an excellent choice, my friend has one, and its a truly awesome laptop, top nothc build quality that every little detail is thought out, so much better than the macbooks.
Some high end HP and Dells are also good.
ultimately you could probably get away with a cheap chrome book running linux with a nice desktop acting as a server for vms n such.
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The only thing I would worry about with a Chromebook is some classes might require some sort of IDE and getting it to run on chrome OS or Linux might be a bit of a hassle.
i used the thinkpad x1 carbon w/ ubuntu w/ windows usb bootable for c++ projects. its a damn good laptop you wont have any problems dropping and treating like shit. i not easy on any electronics. however i like industrial/ rough look
as normal for thinkpad keyboard is amazing the new touchpad is great too
the only time an IDE would ever be needed is mobile dev, or Microsoft dev.
Everything else cna be done with a text editor and stand alone compiler/build system and SHOULD be done this way, IDEs are only useful with large code bases, and they hinder the learning experience by hiding whats going on.