Need a laptop for school

[pirahna1]

If this belongs in tech, please move it.

My school requires all students enrolled in our School of Business and Computer Technologies to have a laptop for classes. I've been building my own PCs for a few years now, but have never used/owned/built a laptop. And since I can't built it myself, I have to resort to buying a laptop. Who should I be buying from? Dell/HP/Gateway/Alienware?

I'll be doing a lot of programming and video game design in the future, so I want a laptop that'll last for the next 4-6 years of school. I usually have 1.5-3 grand left over from my student loans, but I just built this PC for close to 1 grand last semester and my g/f got pissed over that, so I want to save as much as possible on my laptop.

These are the requirements my school gives out for laptops:
Equivalent of an Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2 GHz
2 GB memory
120 GB HD
Integrated wireless device

Like I said, I'll be making games on this puppy (at least using Source SDK, maybe a more intensive engine down the line) so it has to at least run HL2 at max/close to max settings. Right now I have an 8600GT in my PC, so I'm looking for an equivalent gfx card.

Any advice on where to start looking would be awesome. Thanks in advance!

[Shuemue]

Of course it belongs in tech, a new retard makes a thread every 72hrs about laptops.

Thus we have this: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=31568

[wintersquall]

this should be moved to tech, and there's an entire sticky for just this sort of thing there.

however, since i JUST got a laptop with your specs almost exactly about 2 wks ago, i'll post.


i ordered online from dell, got a:

vostro 1500
intel duo core @2.0G
250G HD
nvidia 8600GT M
bluetooth
2M DDRAM
blahblah more specs you don't need to know

for about 800 bucks including tax and shipping. it's a 1300$ computer, but i found an online coupon to take 500 off (thanks to a poster here) if i built it up over 1249.

the laptop is fricking awesome, and might fit the bill for you quite nicely. heavy though (6 to 7 lbs-ish).

[Khamsin]

I got a Dell XPS M1730 for only $3000 including tax and shipping, with a $400 off coupon online, and it more than meets your requirements. You can pretty much do anything on it, and it's almost as good as my desktop. Unfortunately, it is a bit big and heavy, though.