2 laptops for college, crazy idea?

[charlocharlie]

I've been thinking about what laptop I will get for college lately. I'm washing dished saving up for this. I had very picky specs (<1" thick, i7 Haswell CPU, good dedicated NVIDIA card, USB 3.0, and planning to upgrade to SSD, can game). Sadly, not many Haswell laptops are out yet, so more options will be released eventually.

 

The Lenovo Y510p (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312834) seemed like the best option for me, but it is SO heavy and has a 3 hour battery life, so it is useless for taking to classes.

 

Since the Y510p is under my ~$1500 budget, I looked for a thinner, portable, additional laptop. The ASUS VivoTab Smart (http://www.amazon.com/VivoTab-Smart-ME400C-C1-BK-10-1-Inch-Tablet/dp/B00AA6OVLI/) looked awesome. It has full Windows 8, and has a Bluetooth keyboard+stand accessory. I tell my friends that I'm getting two laptops for college and they think it's a bad idea, but don't state reasons. What is your opinion? Is this a good route to take? Are more options in the future going to fulfill my need?

 

Also, I know the Razer Blade is perfect for me, but it's just too expensive and not upgrade-able. 

 

 

[sabot]

Any possibility of making a itx system for ~800 and get a thin laptop?

[plutomok]

i agree. two laptops for college isnt a good idea. you should make some compromises and settle for a mid-tier laptop that has good performance while also being portable with good battery life

 

keep in mind most lecture arent more than 3 hours anyways so you can run it on power saver for most situations and get through class.

 

A good balance for specs Corei5, and a geforce gt 730 ish setup

 

My friend has that lenovo laptop you posted, its a great performer but battery life does not go to 3 hours. its a very strong performer but not really portable. he places it on his desk with a notebook cooler with an external monitor and keyboard setup because it gets very hot on the palms

[WoodenMarker]

With a budget like that, I would just make a desktop for gaming and a cheap and light laptop for note taking. 

[plutomok]

what is your max budget? that way we can help you a bit better

[TheRetiredSlave]

If you're planning to have one computer that sits at home (or in your dorm) most of the time, and one other computer for carrying around, it makes sense to build a small desktop and also have a small/thin laptop instead of two laptops. A desktop will give you better performance at a generally lower price, and the size won't be an issue if you plan on leaving it around most of the time while you carry your small laptop around with you..

 

Anyway, my experience at college last year was that I didn't really need to carry my laptop around with me for every lecture. If you really want to bring your laptop with you to every class, try to plan out your schedule so that you have enough time to go back to your dorm and drop off the textbooks that you don't need (and maybe give your laptop a little bit of time on the charger). There's no reason to carry 5 textbooks and a laptop around if you only need one textbook for the class that you're going to.. 

[charlocharlie]

With a budget like that, I would just make a desktop for gaming and a cheap and light laptop for note taking. 

I remade the Y510p 59370008 model as a desktop with reasonable translations (like a low end desktop hard drive, and a 2GB GTX 650, which is the same as a 750M; http://i.imgur.com/fMD17jY.png), and sadly, it turned out to be more than the laptop. Yes, the desktop CPU is more powerful than the laptop CPU, but the 4770 is the cheapest i7 for desktop right now.

 

I like the quick portablility of the laptop, like when traveling to LANs and quick weekends back home. 

 

And now that I think about it, it's not really two laptops. One is just a tablet (running full Windows 8). 

[WoodenMarker]

I remade the Y510p 59370008 model as a desktop with reasonable translations (like a low end desktop hard drive, and a 2GB GTX 650, which is the same as a 750M; http://i.imgur.com/fMD17jY.png), and sadly, it turned out to be more than the laptop. Yes, the desktop CPU is more powerful than the laptop CPU, but the 4770 is the cheapest i7 for desktop right now.

 

I like the quick portablility of the laptop, like when traveling to LANs and quick weekends back home. 

 

And now that I think about it, it's not really two laptops. One is just a tablet (running full Windows 8). 

I don't understand why you need an i7 in the first place. Keep in mind a desktop i3 beats a laptop i5. The chips aren't equivalent.

Also, replicating the parts is highly inefficient. 

 

Here you go: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1hutp

What do you think? Get a desktop and have some money left for a decent laptop.

[EFD307]

Im in college and have 3 computers! well 2 and a half. i came to school with a new gaming laptop and my 4 year old (at that time) laptop that ran Linux. sophomore year i bought a keyboard and monitor and some speakers and used the gaming laptop as a desktop. junior year i started buying parts for a build im finishing as soon as the 780 lightning comes out. i added a second monitor and the laptop just sat on the desk closed and was just used as a desktop. now going into my senior ill have a finished desktop a gaming laptop for when i cant bring the desktop home (spring break and stuff like that) and my Linux machine to bring to class and take notes with. so you can have 2 laptops or one desktop one laptop or whatever you want really.

[pcman2000]

Just buy a ThinkPad ;)

 

If you need something for gaming, then how about getting a ITX gaming rig and also a ThinkPad T430s or X230(t)?

[arkon]

I know quite a few people who have 2 laptops, one for gaming and one for class. 

[TheRetiredSlave]

I remade the Y510p 59370008 model as a desktop with reasonable translations (like a low end desktop hard drive, and a 2GB GTX 650, which is the same as a 750M; http://i.imgur.com/fMD17jY.png), and sadly, it turned out to be more than the laptop. Yes, the desktop CPU is more powerful than the laptop CPU, but the 4770 is the cheapest i7 for desktop right now.

 

I like the quick portablility of the laptop, like when traveling to LANs and quick weekends back home. 

 

And now that I think about it, it's not really two laptops. One is just a tablet (running full Windows 8). 

 

You could head over to the build planning section of this forum and ask people to suggest a very portable mini-itx desktop build that will wind up and $1000.. (you can probably scroll through the existing threads in that section and find some already done)..

 

Simply put, that is a completely imbalanced build. Your CPU is way too powerful for the GPU, and it's way too expensive if you're on a limited budget.. If you were to drop the CPU down to a 4570, that should free up enough money for a better GPU. Also, and AMD build isn't a bad idea for a limited budget.

 

On the topic of desktop CPUs being faster than laptop CPUs; saying that desktop CPUs are faster is a terrible understatement.. The fastest laptop CPU on the market, the i7-4930XM (available for the low price of only ~$1000), performs worse than the desktop i7-4770. It performs close to the desktop CPU, but it is definitely slower.

 

Anywhoo, do what you want.. If you want a laptop and a tablet, buy a laptop and a tablet.. My experience in college last year was that I didn't really need to carry a laptop around.. If you need to bring your laptop somewhere for a while, you can bring your charger with you as well. There's usually plenty of power plugs everywhere that you can use to charge your stuff.

[criso8]

One thing to keep in mind. There are literally power plugs where ever you go. There would be nothing wrong with having two laptops. Just use evernote or google drive to store the files you may have to access on both of them. I would be against having a desktop for a college student. You may or may not ever be in your room depending on your schedule. Also the lenovo you linked to is 6.4 pounds. Although that seems like a ton, it's really not. That's an opinion though(this is actually the same weight as the blade).

A good option for a second lighter laptop could be a chromebook for taking notes in class and stuff.

[guyfromnebraska]

good spec laptop + chromebook = win?

[charlocharlie]

good spec laptop + chromebook = win?

 

That's essentially what I'm doing. A Chromebook can't run Java, so I decided on a Windows 8 tablet.

[guyfromnebraska]

That's essentially what I'm doing. A Chromebook can't run Java, so I decided on a Windows 8 tablet.

Fair Enough.