In the fall, I'm going to college for the first time and I'm looking into a laptop and a flash drive. I don't need anything super fancy. Just something for word processing for papers and things, email/web browsing, and instant messaging. The only thing I know I need is the thing that catches wireless internet. I'm not planning on buying a thing from verizon or sprint or anything. My school has free wireless internet so when I'm at school I won't need it, and if I'm home, I'll use my flash drive to transfer documents and print them out.

I need a suggestion for a BASIC laptop, to do the basic things I need to do. I also need to know what size flash drive I should get. I want to be able to hold multiple papers and power point projects on it.

I'm hoping to spend less than $900 on the both of them. I know you can get small space flash drives for like $10 at Staples but I have no idea how many papers and things 128mb holds, and I assume a 1 or 2 gig is better but I would want a good deal on it.

If any of you tech savvy people can give me some suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated.

go for 2 gigs for flash drives...you are wasting that $10.00 for 126mb

as far as laptop goes, it still goes back to what you want and what you can afford...

my personal favorites right now are the HP laptops...they are the ones I troubleshoot the least...which is dumb on my part for recommending them to my clients. LOL

go to the HP website. Their basic laptop is about $400.00 but sometimes are on sale for $300.00

steer away from all the upgrades except for MS OFFICE. Which you'll need WORD to do your college papers. That's about $130.00
That is if HP offers it cheap. If you find a cheaper version of MS OFFICE else where...get it from those places instead.

When you get them, let us know, one of these very fine folks can hook you up with anti-virus/anti-spy and few other fun stuff for free.

I'm looking at a Dell Inspiron from Best Buy that's on sale for $499.

The things I'm looking for are:
- Wifi built in reciever
- USB ports
-MS Word

The Dell has everything (except for maybe word? I don't know if it comes with it)

I found a 2 gig flash drive for $15 and a mouse for $17.

I have never ever used Vista and I'm afraid to. From everyone I know who's used it it's confusing. Does Word come with Vista? And what about power point? I've never used power point but everyone is telling me I need it?

I just checked the specs on the Laptop im 99.9999% getting.
Microsoft Works 9 is included which has word.

Im still confused and worried about Vista. And how to set up the internet for it.

It would be nice to have the internet set up for my house but the only time I need the internet is at school which has wireless internet.

I know NOTHING about wi-fi or how to set it up. I'm afraid to get the laptop, turn it on and only be able to play solitaire cuz i cant figure anything else out :/

Hey Meg,

My new laptop came with the same stuff...

As far as connecting to wi-fi... all I did was flip a little switch on here and it searched for the best wi-fi connection... I clicked on the one we have here and I was up an running.

Don't fear Vista... it's pretty basic really. I was leary of it too as I had never used it... but so far so good.


Abbie

Is it like a Mac? I really am partial to XP since I'm so used to it. I had Windows ME back in the day and I was excited to get XP but not so excited for Vista.

Dad said we can go get it tomorrow hopefully. That would be awesome. I don't know how I can get wifi in my house... i have a router (or maybe its the modem) in the back of my desktop, and it has an antenna is that all i need? will it just pick it up from the antenna? I dont even knowwww

If you're going to college, you're not going to want something too inexpensive with limited options on your laptop. I'm a college student now too, and I got a Dell Inspiron 1520 (which I paid a bit over $1000 for). I regret buying it however. If you want a good computer, which you'll have for a while, I advise that you go with any Apple Laptop. the Macs are the best.

Don't buy something that you'll have to replace next year. That, or buy a desktop which you'll spend less money on, and just write all your notes in class in notebooks.