Buying a notebook for college

I’m currently hard to work trying to find a suitable notebook to take to college with me. It’s a hard decision. After all, I am looking for this notebook to last at least four years. I don’t want the laptop to look too un-aesthically pleasing and I value quality as well. But from what I’ve seen, companies either have one or the other. They are mutually exclusive, unless you’re willing to spend $1500+. My budget is somewhere around $1000, give or take $100. I would like to find a suitable laptop under $1000 that won’t break on me. Here are the laptops I’ve found:

Thinkpad T61

I’ve heard many glowing reviews about the Thinkpad T61 from Lenovo. The main pro is that it’s very reliable, which I believe is very important for any computer I will be taking to go to college. But looking through all the pictures, the Thinkpad doesn’t have the best design. It also costs more than the notebooks from HP, but it does have higher quality parts. I have a pretty good discount through my university, which actually saves me around $800 if I decide to purchase a Thinkpad T61. Even so, I will still be paying $1,190 in total (after all the taxes and shipping). Also, I have either the choice of getting a 14.1″ screen with a camera or a 15.4″ screen without a camera. I really don’t know which I will take, because I would like to be able to website design on the notebook and big screen sizes are ideal when designing. I can place the screen at a higher resolution without going blind at the tiny fonts.

HP Notebooks

There’s a number of HP notebooks that I’m looking at. They don’t have as up-to-date parts as the Thinkpad, but they are much cheaper, especially with the giant sales at different retailers. I was looking at the HP Pavilion dv6871us 15.4″ Widescreen Entertainment Laptop, which goes for $917 after taxes. If I wait, I’m also sure that the price for this notebook will keep dropping. Unfortunately, this notebook only has a 1.83Ghz processor speed, as opposed to the 2.5Ghz from the Thinkpad. In the pros section, the notebook has a nice design, a 15.4″ Widescreen notebook with a webcam, and a remote control. I think that’s pretty neat. But the battery life isn’t as good as the Thinkpad (in my Thinkpad deal, I get a 9-cell battery whereas I only receive a 6-cell battery with HP). The Thinkpad notebook also have a hard drive going at 7200RPM, while this notebook only goes at 5400RPM. So, the Thinkpad notebook will work much faster. Plus, I’ve heard stories about how HP notebooks can overheat and perhaps get noisy. Since I have never owned an HP notebook before, I’m not sure if that’s true with these models. But, these warnings do place another weight on the con side.

Dell Computers

I took a small glance at Dell notebooks, but I’m not very interested in them because they are more expensive than HP, but they offer the same specs. I received the recommendation of the Dell Inspiron 1525, but it costs the same as a Thinkpad and with less specs. The pros when compared with the Thinkpad is the Inspiron’s design and the fact that they have a 15.4″ screen with a webcam. Since Dell is in the middle between HP and Thinkpad, I’m not really looking into it.

I will mainly be using my notebook in college only for surfing the Internet, watching movies (sometimes), listening to music, using the Microsoft Office programs, and using the Adobe Suite programs. I won’t be playing any intensive games or installing a bunch of unnecessary programs into the notebook. So, I could probably suffice with specs that aren’t the most up-to-date with the fastest processor speeds and such. This is quite a dilemma!

What type of notebooks do you have currently and what are your experiences with the notebook? Any that you would recommend? Any you would warn away against? I need any and all opinions!