Portable notebook for quant students

[Marcos Paterson]

Hey all. Hate to raise this question again. I'd like to know your thoughts on what would be the best fit for a quant student.
I was looking for an ultraportable, 8gb ram, 256gb ssd, I7 and got into Lenovo X1 carbon, just to find out how terrible their machines are.
I appreciate all the "go get yourself a mac" but that is out of question for now, so i'd appreciate any other thoughts.

BTW> from my experience thus far AVOID LENOVO at any cost. I bought a brand new 3444-F9U from J&R in NY. It came with a problem in its fan that made such an horrible noise. J&R upgraded me to the CUU model, now it does not have the noise, but my computer temperature is running at 190/210F and even though I went there to return the machine and get my money back, they say they can't find the issue with my machine, and that I should pay a restocking fee.
Bottom line: AVOID LENOVO and J&R at all costs. don't let yourself be fooled like I did.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Sorry you have bad experience. My Thinkpad T60 is still working since 2006 when I bought it for the exact reason you do now. I appreciate that the Thinkpad line may have a more rigid construction than other consumer-oriented lines.
I have a Macbook pro now so I don't know the latest about Win machines. MRoss may help.

These things are important: get a 3-year warranty unless you plan to buy a cheap machine and throw away in a year or two. Some credit cards will give you an extra year warranty for free.
Ge a durable and light machine. You will appreciate it once you carry it daily to school.

You will do well getting it from Amazon and such. They have a much better return policy.

 

[MRoss]

Or buy my machine for a fraction of its current eBay cost. It's practically new and you can easily install an SSD yourself (I did on my other one). Under 3 lbs, lightening fast, 1080p, whats not to like?

But seriously, maybe this weekend I'll redo my post about the latest machines.

And Andy: I've owned to date over 200 laptop/tablets and the only ones that I ever needed a warranty for were the HPs. No jokes. To be fair I never kept the others long enough for real issues to arise; but still.

Marcos, if you are going to buy a machine from a 'brick and mortar' buy from B&H or BestBuy. They have excellent reputations with respect to customer service. After all that is the main reason you go to a physical store; right?

Anyhow, Andy is correct. You are far better off buying a machine from Amazon then a real store. Go to the store to check them out then buy it at Amazon.

 

[Marcos Paterson]

well thanks Andy and MRoss.
BTW MRoss I was thinking about asus to start with.... might go with it, but after going through all this issue I'd rather buy a brand new one, and pay the premium. even though from my experience with J&R is worth sh*t in some places people still do business the right way... if you know what i mean.

 

[MRoss]

Whether you buy mine or not I am very happy with my Asus 32vd. Buy it and buy the 8GB stick from corsair for 10GB ram. Buy an SSD and replace the RPM and you'll have yourself a blazing, sexy, light computer.

Enjoy.

 

[Marcos Paterson]

Thank you very much for your feedback!