Best kind of laptop computer for college

[niglch]

Soon I will need to buy a laptop for college and I'm having a tough time deciding what I should get. What I do know is that I will certainly install Ubuntu on whatever it is. What I don't know is whether I should go for a Mac (with OS X 10.5) or PC (Vista). I have never tried a Mac and I don't hate Microsoft or anything so I'm kind of impartial (in fact I haven't used Windows in a while either). For the college students out there, what do you use and how has it worked out for you? I'm not a big gamer (on PC's at least) so that's not a huge concern to me. I'm mostly looking for something efficient for doing all of the kinds of work associated with college (presentations, papers, etc). I'm thinking about a major somewhere in the sciences, so there is some possibility I will need to use my computer for programming too (like bioinformatics or some other computational science course). Also, I would also like a good multimedia platform for playing and possibly editing music, photos, and video. Thanks for your opinion.

[HermanAB]

My son is happy with an Asus Eee PC and an extra LCD. Apparently everybody else in class now wants one too.

Cheers,

Herman

[jcwmoore]

I have an HP Pavillion DV 2000 with Ubuntu 7.10 and I love it. It has served me well in college. I have only had one issue and that was with connecting to the schools wireless. but that really is not an issue any more. I would strongly recommend and laptop for you college computer and my HP has served me well. I think those newer black HP's look very sweet. I also should tell you that Dell also sells PC to college students at a discount, like 10 or 12 percent I think. Now that Dell also sell machines with Ubuntu pre-installed I think that may be the best way to go.

As far as all the requirements you listed, I have had no trouble in programming, using C, C++, Java, Python Lua, Ruby, .... About the only language I haven't use is the MS .NET languages, but I think there are ways to use that in linux. I have also had no issues with music management (Amarok ROCKS :guitar:) and even some light editing. so My recommendations are: HP is great and Dell is also good for students.

[Romanus81]

I plan to bring my PC with me, and buy an eeePC. Right now the eee is a hacker paridise, custom BIOS, custom distros, hacks, mods, everything. They say you can even turn off the fan without any problems to make the entire thing noise-free and 0 moving parts. Since it uses a solid state drive (flash) it's a lot more durable than other laptops, so you can just toss it in a backpack.
I hear also the charger cable is more like a cell phone charger than the typical "cord -to- giant brick -to- cord -to- wall" chargers you get with other laptops.

[Presto123]

I really like my Compaq Presario C571NR. It only has a gig of RAM and a small HD, though. For Vista, it runs okay, but I suggest one with 2gigs at least OR find one with XP. Really XP would be best for your needs and then dual-boot it.

It has no probs. running Ubu.

[Polygon]

that asus eeepc thing looks pretty nifty, i might have to consider getting myself one of those.

[hyper_ch]

I didn't have one for college/university and I still haven't got one... never saw the actual need for having my own... furthermore for presentations that I needed to held, there were enough notebooks "available" in the classes.

[mips]

Get a thinkpad T series. Works very well with linux and they are pretty much bullet proof when it comes to construction and reliability.