Final Advice

After having spent about a year I am ready to finally purchase a laptop. This coming fall I will be a freshman in college. I am majoring in Electrical Engineering and am a huge video game player. Currently I am planning on ordering a Dell 9300 with a 1.86 ghz processor, 1 gig ram, 256 mb GeForce Go 6800, and an 80 GB hard drive. While I am fairly certain that this is the system for me, I would appreciate any help that can be offered. Some main concerns are:
1. Portability. I have lugged huge backpacks around for years, but I was wondering more for safety and any other thoughts.
2. Battery Life. While most of my classes have electrical outlets to plug into, there are about 1 to 3 hours stretches where I may not have access to an outlet. My plan is to purchase the larger 9-cell battery, along with an additional 9-cell battery. Please tell me if there is something wrong with these and what has been your average battery life if you are 9300 owner.
3. Further Down the Road. I know that right now this system is one of the best out there, one of the reasons why I am heavily leaning towards it, but I was wondering if I should settle know for a system that is a little less cutting edge and buy again in 2 years instead of in 4.
4. Other Options. I am open to any other suggestions about other computers or anything else. I know that I have done a ton of research, but a second opinion or viewpoint is much appreciated and needed.

I know that this has been long, but I would truly appreciate any help. The quicker the better because I am planning on ordering soon so that I can take advantage of the 35% offer currently going on. Thank you in advance.

 

Welcome to our forums...
1.) if you get a good bag, then you'll be fine. I wouldn't carry it in your backpack though because it will feel alot heavier than if you carried it alone. Plus I really don't like having my books bouncing off my laptop. I use Tekstyl's TekMod and its great. I don't have to take my laptop out to use and I carry any accessories that I might need in my backpack. This allows me to have a regular size backpack, not the gigantic ones.

2.)I have the 6 cell and I get 2.5 hours with wifi and brightness set on high. The 9 cell will get you thru a few hours, but I'm not sure on the exact batterylife of it.

3.) I would stick with the 9300. Eventhough it might not be the best in 4 years, you can updgrade your parts. Dell makes it very easy to do upgrades, but some of the upgrades might void your warranty. Because of that, I wouldn't go with anything above a two year warranty. There are some good suggestions for warranty discussed in another thread

4.) The only others that I can suggest from Dell would be the I6000D or XPS Gen 2. Either way, I would still go with the 9300.

SG

 

I ordered the 9300 on the 4th and it is very similar to yours. I plan on using it for college as I am also going to be a freshman this fall and I had many of the same questions as you. After ordering it, I really thought I might have made a mistake primarily because of the weight. I got one 9 cell battery because I think I probably will have an outlet in most places while the battery will hold me over incase there isn't an outlet present.

I just looked on dell's site to purchase a battery and the 9 cell costs $180.

SouthernGirl, I looked at that bag that you mentioned and it seems a bit expensive, but it does look pretty nice. I think I might consider it though.

PS
I'm majoring in Electrical Engineering too. Where are you going to? Im going to Marquette.

 

yeah it is a little bit expensive. At the same time, you aren't going to be able to find really cheap bags because of the size of the 9300.

You might try ebags.com . They had the TekMod on sale awhile back.

 

Thanks SouthernGirl for the advice. It has helped to sure up my decision. It is much appreciated.

MU man, it is great to hear from another person going into Electrical Engineering. I am majoring both in EE and in Engineering Physics at South Dakota State University.