I recently took my old Apple Powerbook and Macbook apart (they were both ruined by spills) out of curiosity and to recover the hard drives. Judging from the way everything fit together, I seriously doubt anybody is building a laptop from scratch and saving money. Perhaps they are dumpster diving for Dell Inspirons that many corporations give to salespeople, etc. and making some kind of Frankenstein laptop. It might work, but how much is your time worth?
My suggestion is to get your son an iMac (not a laptop) for his dorm room. Laptops are fragile things and are lower on the value curve than a comparable desktop. He can easily put it in the back seat for summer break. Yes laptops are “cool” but I once coded a few projects over a 14” laptop screen and my neck and back suffered greatly.
You don’t mention what he’s going to be studying, which does make a big difference in recommendations. If it’s computer science, math, or lit, I’d suggest picking up a 904 or 1000 series Eee PC for $400. Buy a wireless keyboard/mouse for use in the dorm room, install Eeebuntu Base as the operating system, and use the included software to download and install OpenOffice, Firefox, Abiword, Amarok, Totem Player, Pidgin, and Skype. Keep $400 in reserve, in case he somehow nukes the laptop to buy a replacement, and give him the rest of the budget to buy an Xbox if he likes games, along with a netflix subscription for entertainment.
The little laptops are extremely portable, relatively durable, can use wifi or cell phone tethering, and has more than enough battery power to handle classes from 8am to 5pm, without plugging in.
As for building a laptop - sure, it’s possible, but usually it’s building a transportable, not an actual laptop, and honestly gives poorer performance than a commercially purchased product. Upgrading, on the other hand, is possible with laptops, and that might be what he was talking about.
I own a lot of computers. The best desktop for the money is a Dell, in my opinion, but only if running windows XP. A laptop sounds great, but studying in a dorm room ain’t a bad idea...full size keyboard, all that jazz...and they won’t “walk away” with someone else...XP with SP 3 is out and they are stable as can be. If you will be using older software, you might have compatability issues (still) with Vista. Windows claims the new version will be out at Christmas.
My personal laptop is a 17” Toshiba with XP and killer graphics for web work (I travel a lot) but I am a pretty big guy and don’t mind carrying it - it is HEAVY...it has never failed me - but I am not a kid in college. Take care of them and they will be great...the school deal might be your best bet...
In a word: NO WAY!
Yes but there’s really no point. And not to be snarky but if you has to ask you probably shouldn’t do it.
Yes but there’s really no point. And not to be snarky but if you has to ask you probably shouldn’t do it.
Agree with a poster before me.
What’s he studying?
Depending on whether you really need Office and Vista, you could probably spend half that. But some of it will end up being open source. Open Office. Firefox.
Does he have any thoughts on preference? Would he be comfortable tweaking and updating as he finds out he needs?
Does the university require a Microsoft operating system?
Do they have a list of acceptable machines?
Or, I will second the other poster here who suggested Apple notebooks. [If you go this route, make sure you get that service contract and look into academic discounts.]
Do not skimp on the service contract. If you can get accidental or theft damage coverage, go for that too, unless your renter's or homeowner's policy already covers those sorts of situations. Last year, my sister's notebook had "unexplainable" screen damage that rendered the notebook completely useless, and we had to pony up over a grand to buy her a new ThinkPad.
Oh, one more thing: if you have to buy Microsoft Office, your son can purchase a retail copy of Office '07 Ultimate directly from Microsoft through their Ultimate Steal promotion for about sixty bucks. [They also offer Vista Ultimate upgrades and copies of Visio.]
Congrats and good luck to your son!
I understand Toshiba has a pretty good laptop on sale for 400 dollars. Not sure you could build one that cheap. I’m not even sure how one goes about building a laptop.
Very simple answer: if you don’t know how to do it already, the answer is “no”.
There’s certainly no way you could get a reliable, reasonably compact, reasonably powerful device together any more cheaply than a large company — and for the trouble you would go through to do it, it’s worth just buying off the shelf.
I happen to like Dells; I’ve had three of them now (two Latitudes and an Inspiron) and barring some really spectacular reason to go elsewhere (like you can get one for free) it sounds like a great deal.
If money is an issue, you can spend less on a netbook (e.g. $4-600) but it will be very much less powerful. If there’s already a desktop machine to hook into over the network, that’s OK, but I wouldn’t want a netbook as my only computer.
Sounds about 500 bucks too high to me. But if it comes with a top level version of office and some kind of service plan, maybe its an ok price.
FYI Im a computer / network engineer since 1980 and built and repaired hundreds and hundreds of pc... Don't even begin to dig in to a laptop unless you really know what your doing other then install mem, no prob or upgrade a drive, maybe
When I was a kid, anybody with mechanical skills and a small toolkit could learn how to fix their own car. Nowadays, your nuts if you try to maintain a modern car by yourself. It's worse with computers. You might replace a broken part with a new part in kind by yourself. But building your own system is a receipe for trouble.
And the warranty is... what? and the service contract is... what?
That's just crazy. Laptops are extremely specialized designs and are not for the homebrewer, unless they are prepared for it to spend more time being repaired than used.
And $1600 for a college-use Windows laptop is insane. You can get a decent one for half that, or go with the college supplied one.
It is relatively easy to build a laptop- if you know what you’re doing. Thousands of employees from Silicon Valley have been laid off due to the recent economic slowdown and are now living on the streets. The smart thing to do is to offer the next homeless guy you see 500 bucks to build you a computer. It will help some poor soul get back on his feet and save you a pretty penny, as well.
Build your own? Those days are long gone.
Save everyone lots of grief and buy a Macbook:
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/campaigns/back_to_school?cid=WWW-NAUS-BTS20090507-00101
Acer Aspire AS5535-5452 Notebook PC - AMD Athlon X2 QL-64 2.1GHz, 3GB DDR2, 320GB HDD, DL DVDRW, 15.6" WXGA, Vista Home Premium
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4545456&Sku=A180-15610
If necessary, buy MS Office w/ student discount for not much money.