I wouldn't go for Acer, if I had to choose myself. Just my opinion.

 

lol get a decent one with a proper graphics card...

 

1366 x 768 resolution is the killer for me. I know it is hard these days but try to get one with a decent resolution- anything remotely academic (data reference, PDF reference for something else and actual entry/programming all on that?) is going to be horrific on a resolution that low.

Granted I am a couple of years out of high end computational stats but from the position I try to keep myself in I reckon at present the line between basic PC toy stats and the sort wanting a proper server/enough to do silly things in real time is big enough that it is probably not worth the hassle of getting a laptop to do both for (certainly I would sooner get a basic laptop and build a server to remote into/kick the funds to a couple of years on some computational cloud*). I am however not up to date with CUDA and stats and seen as it was about the only thing CUDA is good for it might be worth finding one capable of that.

*I feel bad for suggesting a cloud but this is one of the cases where they are good.

 

Acer is not what it used to be. They used to be really bad products. I think its really decent price for that rig and its got everything to serve you a good amount of time.

 

Funny, in my 4 years of work I can assure you that Acer is a lot better than Toshiba, HP, Packard Bell and such.

HP is the absolute worst, though. Motherboards go belly up most of the times because they turn into freaking ovens after 10 months.

Heck, I have two Acer laptops here at home which are still working majestically. And one has something like 6 years and is still used daily.

 

You can be certain of that, this Xmas I bought an ASUS laptop for my GF without hesitation Was really cheap. Only 500USD (without OS).

They're also really nice to work on.

I see quite some dead Acers, but compared to the ENORMOUS numer of sold Acer PCs, you can quickly understand that you see so many of them failed just because they're sold in REALLY large numbers.

That said, I still have something like 5 dead HP laptops in my lab for spares

 

For your needs, that laptop is all you need. For that price however... All I can say is that for that price, I want better graphics for games.

Ignore the anti-Acer comments. What matters most are the price, specs and the design of the cooling.

For your needs, you should be able to find a much cheaper laptop with a Core i3 or i5 and not see any loss in performance. You don't need good graphics for programming, just a decent CPU and a low price.

 

My first HP laptop had all of its heatsink vents and openings on the bottom of the computer. When heatsink fans started breaking, I noticed how much animal hair had got sucked into it. Not only that, but the power pin connector broke a number of times. I'm knowledgeable on computers and how they function but the laptop I need to purchase is strictly going to be for mobile purposes and doing my work while I'm at school.

I work for my school which also requires a laptop (or would be nice not to use the computers I'm working on =P). I'm literally on campus for roughly 9-11 hours of the day. My desktop (that I had built for about $600) would be primarily used for gaming and whatever else I want to use.

My brother had a dell laptop, while the heatsink fans were much better situated, the hinges and chassis kept breaking to pieces. After 5 years of him owning the laptop, the monitor plastic is whacked out, the chassis has both hinges broken, the area around the chassis looks like it has been hit with a hammer, etc... Both him and my sisters laptop are pretty much going into the same fate and it's mainly because the hinge designs on their inspirons.

The main reason I have posted two laptop threads is because I haven't used a laptop in several years yet alone seen a few select dell latitude laptops. I could give a crap about customer support as long as they make it easy to use the warranty if needed. The main things I'm looking for is chassis design (including temperatures, build, quality, etc...) and prices (laptops in price do not equal desktop equivalents and I wouldn't know if it was a good deal). I researched a bit today and found the differences between different processors (like i3, i5, and i7) so I have a pretty good understanding on the parts that I will be getting.

One question I'm still debating, should I go ahead and wait until next generation of processors from Intel? By my understanding, they will have lower power consumption (which to me means less heat) and better integrated graphics (If the HD 3000 wasn't enough for not gaming...). If I don't like the price availability of laptops with newer mobile processors, surely the prices of these laptops with the i3-i7 processors would be less demand right?

 

Well, it can play Skyrim on Low, so it isn't that bad for an integrated GPU.

 

What's so wrong with the graphics cards? He doesn't want to play games, so why would he need a better, battery-eating video card? The video card in this laptop will do what it will need to do and wil do it without problems. It's also not worth looking into laptops with a Nvidia GT520M or AMD's equivalent, since those are only slightly faster than the Intel HD3000 and better models use much more power. I would just stick with the HD3000 if you don't play games.

Still I wouldn't go for Acer though. Look into a nice Lenovo or Asus. They are great.