This is the instance of year when I am bombarded with e-mails from parents wondering what laptops they ought to buy for their kids heading off to college. I try to give general advice, but it is hard to construct decisions without knowing a lot of info.

My first rule about buying a laptop is to ask your child. They probably know precisely what they want. The second rule is to buy a ton of RAM. I would

like 4 gigs of RAM today whether I were buying a laptop today. Dell, for some reason, overcharges for the second 2 GB chip, so I would get one 2 GB chip and add the second one after- market to save $100 or so.

I would plus buy a big hard drive. I would toss in a 160 GB hard drive, whether possible, with a speed of 5400 RPM or better. (Some […]

Orginal post by dhiram