[MoistTwinkie]

I'm getting a laptop for college soon. I don't know a whole lot about computers, so my friend is helping me.
I'm basically torn between this:

Toshiba Satellite L855

and this:

Dell Inspiron 15r
it's the "fall clearance" one (third one over)

Basically I just need a laptop for teh internets, and I want it to be able to run smaller games like Binding of Isaac or Minecraft on high settings. I like the Toshiba one because of the graphics card. I don't need a shit ton of ram or hard drive space, but the Dell fall clearance one seems like a pretty good deal. The processors are almost the exact same on both laptops, the Toshiba one is one generation older though.

So, which one should I get? If you guys can find me an even better one at the same price point that would be awesome. $650 is probably the most I would pay for a laptop. Thanks in advance

[TacticlTwinkie]

I think the toshiba is the better deal since it has dedicated graphics. It should run casual games fine. It will struggle to run newer, more graphically intense games at higher settings, but for what you want (Internet, minecraft, other casual games, probably a movie or something here and there) it seems like a good buy for $600.

[MoistTwinkie]

Alright, thanks man

[Blade of grass]

I'd say go for the Toshiba and upgrade the RAM.

[TacticlTwinkie]

Blade of grass, on 18 October 2012 - 05:18 PM, said:

I'd say go for the Toshiba and upgrade the RAM.

4gb should be fine, but if you do feel compelled to do so, you shoudnt need more than 6gb. Thats what my laptop has and I've never needed to get more. Your hard drive should be adequate too. 640gb should be plenty, and you can always get an external down the road if you need more. My only real gripe on that laptop is the lower screen resolution, but that should actually make your graphics perform better. Less pixels to deal with, so you can turn the graphics a little bit higher up than you could with, say my 1600x900 display. It looks like a good laptop for the price.

Do you plan on carrying this around to class and taking notes with it? It would be a little thick and bulky for that. Great for staying at home or being more like a "moble desktop" if you will, but if you plan on carrying it around and stuff, you may want to sacrifice power for portability, especially if you have a good desktop at home. Just a suggestion. I haul around a 15" wide, 1.5" thick, 7lb laptop. That one isnt as bad as mine, but its close. Thats alot of desk space it takes up (especially on tiny college desks just big enough for your spiral notebook) If I had a desktop, I'd trade it in for something more portable with better battery life. Sadly my near 3 year old vaio (I love it to death) is the most powerful computer my immediate family has. Just throwing a suggestion out there. If you dont plan on using it in the classroom, disreguard this last bit.

[Blade of grass]

I bought my laptop and never thought I'd max it, now Lightroom uses half my RAM and doesn't perform as I would like, but I don't have enought RAM to up the amount it can use.
Basically, 8GBs will future proof it, also, allowing him to run multiple taxing programs.