I am seriously thinking about going back to school to become a Family Nurse Practitioner so a new laptop is a must

I bought my last one in 2002 when I started nursing school and it then crashed 2007/2008 and I never bought a new one since I was done with school. It was something I could easily live without!

I use a 1st generation iPad to post here and such- Won in a contest


My laptop was an HP and before that I had a Gateway desktop.

Black Friday is coming up so it I can get a deal on a great new laptop I am all for it.

Any recommendations would be great. No bells and whistles required. It would be a glorified typewriter really and research tool. Midlevel should be fine. Would love to keep it under $800.

Thanks everyone!

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I do what I like and like what I do. Yorkies- Cozy (4/1/06), Roxy & Zoey (2/11/08), Lucy (4/6/09); Golden- Buddy (4/13/09- Rescued 12/11) Maine Coon cats- Mika (1998) and Tallulah (2000)

While I now use a MacBook, I still have a Windows laptop. In the Windows world, I have always preferred Toshiba laptops. Best Buy and the Toshiba website usually have sales. HP, Lenovo are also good brands.

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Dave

I picked up a Samsung ultrabook for a song a few months ago- LOVE it! It's portable, light weight and fast. It also can *talk* to my TV, DVD player, Samsung tablets and probably my dishwasher! I'm still using Windows 7 on it, but saw a Windows 8 set up at the store yesterday.

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Meet Yogi! http://www.goldenretrieverforum.com/...tion-yogi.html

Our school just replaced the student laptops (a cart of 25) with Toshiba's. So they are obviously durable.

I have a wonderful Dell laptop with a touchscreen. Best of both world's, but it doesn't meet your $$$$ needs. When my daughter was in PT school, 2007-2010, we bought her a midlevel Dell. It was lightweight, durable and connected to the school website easily. We've also had good results with their service.

If you are going to be mainly researching on the internet and maybe working on documents, etc. then take a look at a Chromebook. Our elementary school has been rolling those out to students. They are very durable and inexpensive.
Amazon.com: Chromebooks


For more serious work, I would look at a refurbished Macbook. They are probably a little over your budget, but you do start off with a more applications and a better operating system than in a windows laptop.

For a windows laptop, I like Lenovo for their durability.

I second the Lenovo. Only if it's of the Thinkpad line, though. But, under $800 is easily doable for a decent machine. Just don't get HP or Dell (Dell business line is 'okay' but they'll be over $800).

I think brand is only moderately important in the consumer lines. But, there are some that are better than others. I think I'd rank something like this:

(from better to good) Lenovo (thinkpad) > Sony > Asus > Toshiba > Acer

I would look at either Sony, Toshiba, Asus or maybe Acer. Acer has usually been pretty poor in the past but I've noticed they have some decent looking ultrabooks. One of those lines should have a half decent laptop for under $800.

Just make sure you go with Intel (cpu/graphics) and try to get the lastest generation if possible. It will be i3-3xxx or i5-3xxx.

Check with the school before getting a Mac though - some of the medical-based software doesn't work as well with Macs.

My daughter was required to have a laptop and the university had a website with the laptop minimum requirements for her major. Prevent frustration on your part by getting a little more than the minimum - laptops are so cheap now. They also had a tech dept just for the Health Science Center students, which is wonderful.

And backup, backup, backup.

I originally bought an Acer ultrabook and gotta say it was crap. I got it all set up, turned it off for the night and that was the last time it ever powered up! One day of use! Acer was willing to replace it but I declined, got a full refund at the store and bought the Samsung.

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Meet Yogi! http://www.goldenretrieverforum.com/...tion-yogi.html

This is very important especially with all the pictures (of dogs) that we all have! I've been evaluating several plans and I like Carbonite the best. I think it is about $50 for a year, which is well worth the cost. With many of these services, you can access your files remotely as well, which is another great feature.

because of your budget i would say go for a toshiba their laptops are really good. my sister bought one that was on sale for 400$ and its actually a pretty good laptop

and by the way good luck with school =)

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