Laptops

[Snowreap]

Dell and Lenovo laptops are good. stick with the enterprise models if you can; they are generally more dependable than the models made for home / education / small business, and parts availability is generally good in case something happens.

we have had good luck with Dell Latitude D620 and D630 laptops. my wife and my mother both have D630's. I have no personal experience with Dell's current enterprise lineup. Right now I'm using a Lenovo T410 and I have no complaints.

http://outlet.dell.com is a particularly good place to go. you can get often get last year's model refurbished or new at a big discount over the newest models. since the enterprise lineup is typically more expensive anyway, the savings are important. if I were looking for a new Dell laptop for a student today I'd probably start by looking at the Latitude E6430 and go from there.

I don't recommend the 'consumer' line of laptops unless you plan to buy a new one every year or two. they're not exactly "unreliable", but they tend to wear out quickly, developing problems like finicky power connections that you have to fiddle with or broken lid latches. my Latitude D620 (and now my ThinkPad T410) go with me everywhere I go, pretty much every day, and they see thousands and thousands of power connection & disconnections per year, and easily as many lid closures and opening, and show no signs of wearing out.

-ken