Of Laptops and College

Kyougu

So with a new semester of college starting, as well as me getting some extra cash due to my eventual income return and extra financial aid, I been thinking about getting a laptop to use for school. I have some questions thoughs.

1) First, do you guys find them actually useful? Or do they end up being more weight to carry around?

2) And if they are useful, any reccomendations?

Just some facts about me, I'm a poli science major so lots of classes where I takes notes, the laptop would mainly be used for school, and maybe to surf the web at home (I have wireless at both), and my school schedule is usually for 7 hours two days a week.
Also, perfect price would be anything under 1000, but I think I'm willing to go up to 1500.

ddahcmai

I use a desktop at college, so I'm probably not exactly the person you want answering your question, but I've never felt the need for a laptop while in class, and all my friends that have them don't really seem to use them either. I think for you it could be useful if you have to take a lot of notes that don't involve diagrams and things you have to draw out, but the way I looked at it when I was considering if I needed a laptop or not was; would you spend up to $1500 so you wouldn't have to write things down with a pen? To me it just didn't seem practical in the end.

RFX

I have a laptop, and while it's really nice when I do need it, I don't carry it to class that often. I feel that if I had a tablet, I would get more use out of it (much easier to take notes on). But really, now I can just bring it to group meetings for projects, but I can safely say that 70% of the time it's not on my desk is when I'm traveling.

Also, for $1000 it's gonna be hard to get a good laptop. I'm not talking about in terms of performance, but in portability. Most laptops today, especially the HPs/Compaqs/Dells that are so common, are widescreen and heavy. I personally find that their sizes make it too annoying to carry them around. Many of the Sony laptops are fairly lightweight, though they are still big (in terms of length & width) and are expensive. My experience with Dell is piss poor- the physical durability of an Inspiron I have is just shameful. If you're going for a PC, look at the IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads. The T42 is my primary and it's great, though lacking in the gaming department. And if you're thinking about not looking at a PC, the MacBooks are solid.

Grimm

I doubt you'll actually use it all that much during classes. I've heard more and more teachers dont allow it in their classes anymore because people tend to get districted with the internet, games, etc instead of doing class work. You might wanna ask around campus or talk with some of your teachers before you spend all that money. They are nice to have though. I liked being able to work on my papers while i was sitting around between classes, or even just listening to some music, watching a movie, playing a quick game to pass the time. The main reason i picked my laptop over a new desktop was that i was a tech theatre major. I liked being able to work on sound effects, set construction plans, cue sheets, lighting plots, etc. Also was nice to be able to just plug my laptop right into the theatre sound system and use it to play back effects for shows.

Shazkar Shadowstorm

Well, I like my MacBook, and where it comes especially important for me is taking it with me to the library to do my papers as I can't work for shit in my own room. Far too distracting.

Also, I do recommend the MacBook.

variant

I took my sister's notebook to class this semester because she rarely takes it to school.

For the most part it was only useful for entertaining me in between classes, I had two to four hour breaks in between classes some days, so it was perfect then, I could just go online and surf or work on something if I wanted too, while chilling in the student union or cafe.

In class, the laptop was fairly useless, most of my classes I took notes with pen and paper because within the first week I had realized what a distraction the damn things can be. Yes you can take notes faster on the lappy but as soon as I opened it up, I would jump on AIM or surf the web, distractions distractions, so I would just leave it off in class.

Personally, I would definately not consider dropping $1000 or w/e on a laptop because I would only use it in between classes, which is cool and all, but you can go to the library and work on your shit or surf on their computers, don't need to be spending that kinda money.

I dunno why but laptops just seem to allure college students.

Two of my friends bought one this past semester and the First, had been playing WoW in class and watching movies in between, he didn't do too well this semester. The Second, bought it and used it in between classes for entertainment and for notes in class, while chatting on AIM, ended up borrowing my notes nearing the Finals because his weren't good enough to get him even a B on the midterm.

Another one of my friend is like two grand in debt and has student loans and after SEEING all that ^^^^ happen to people in our group and me constantly tell him not too, he still went out and dropped $1200 on one, over the christmas break, claiming he "needed it."

Kate of Lokys

If you just want a laptop for taking notes or killing time between classes, there is absolutely no point in spending $1000 for one. Instead, just check Craigslist or your local paper for a used laptop. Two years ago, I paid $300 cash for someone's old Dell, and it has been absolutely perfect. It actually paid for itself within four months - I got a job at my college as a notetaker for special needs students, three courses at $100 per course per semester. If you're a halfway decent typist, you should be able to get down pretty much every word the prof says, which you just can't do with pen and paper. And if you're using an older laptop, you won't be as tempted to play games on it, but you can still spend time between classes chatting online or reading PA or playing through a classic like Baldur's Gate.

Tinuz

If you want to carry your laptop around, you should generally only consider business models. They are tougher and usually have better battery life. Of course, some consumer models may offer similar features in build quality, but most don't (at least in my experience). (Lenovo T-series are good, but if you can't get the high res screen, the screen is mediocre, HP/Compaq's are also nice, as well as the Dell business models, for more info try: www.notebookreview.com )

The portability barrier is around 14", 12" is more portable, but smaller==less productive (IMHO). 15" is just too big, the weight limit is around 2,5 kilos (5 pounds).

Having a laptop with you around college can be very helpful and productivity increasing. For example, I once failed a presentation because we had to run the ppt on the teachers laptop, which had powerpoint 97, and we had created everything in powerpoint 2003 (which is on every other computer in the entire university).
Other than that, any special programs you use are available to you anywhere, and you don't have to worry about forgetting your data. Working during travel (other than reading) also becomes possible, but don't expect to shift mountains during travel in public transports, I find the people around me to distracting to properly concentrate.

A laptop is by no means necessary for good results, and as other people pointed out, may even decrease your results.

Ruckus

I never had a laptop for college, but when my sister started Uni she bought one. She uses it mostly for doing papers and homework research on her desk at home, but finds it convenient to pack it up and take it home to my parents house on long weekends or for the occaisonal trip to the library etc.

Darth Waiter

Tinuz and RFX are spot on with the recommendation for a Lenovo business laptop. The new Thinkpads are the industry standard right now for toughness and data protection. If you're just looking for a general use machine without gaming specs, try the R60e (manuf. part # 0657HQU): Core 2 Duo, half a gig for the RAM, 80 gb HD, DVD burner, XP Pro and wireless a/b/g protocols for $1000 retail.

PM me if you need a link.

Kyzen

I absolutely loved a laptop in college. Actually I'm just flat out hooked on them in general now. Couldn't imagine not having one.

However at the time in college I wasn't sure which I'd prefer, and my budget was about $1500. I ended up getting a $600 laptop on sale at Best Buy, and an $800 desktop to go with it. All in all I was pretty satisfied with the choice; the desktop gave me more power for games, and tons of storage space, and I didn't feel quite as worried about my cheap laptop taking a beating sometimes.

Either way, I highly recommend the use of Microsoft's OneNote program, or something similar. I love it. My girlfriend loves. Everybody in my office loves it.

EDIT: It's probably worth mentioning that I did usually use my laptop in class, and sometimes this seemed to annoy students near me without laptops. Where I seemed to get the most use out of the laptop though was being able to take it out of my room to do work with, as I found myself much more able to focus in the library, coffee shops, or under trees around campus than I could in my room.

Brodo Faggins

If your school doesn't have various computer labs around the campus where you can work on essays, it's nice to have a laptop to work on in places other than your room.

I like the convenience of having a laptop, as I can take it home with me on breaks. But since you live at home, I guess it's not as big a deal for you.

For note-taking, if you have the discipline to not go online (surprisingly easy), you'll be fine.

LoneIgadzra

I really can't live without a decent laptop at this point. It's not so much for bringing them to classes or anything as just having all your work with you wherever you go, and being flexible about where you can set up to do homework. Also comes in handy for meetings about group projects where you usually have some poor guy sitting around with powerpoint while you figure out how best not to fail.

I would recommend a MacBook. Once you get to know the OS, it's just as good if not better (I, as a fanboy, would argue 100 million times better) than XP in terms of efficiency in getting work done and multitasking and workflow and lots of other modern buzzwords. For "cheap" laptops they're extremely well put-together with a generally good feel and very nice design. And with the Intel graphics combined with OS X, you won't have many games to distract you from getting work done. Seriously, Mac laptops are so much nicer to use than similarly-priced PC laptops there's just no comparison.

I have a MacBook Pro myself, and I cannot overstate how much this machine was worth $2000 and some debt, but I'm a power user. I confess I did install windows, apparently exclusively (to look at my sig) for the purposes of playing Oblivion, but gaming performance on this is not jaw-dropping. Luckily that's not really what I paid for. Any time I need to use it for anything other than gaming (which is most of the time) I'm in OS X.

kingmetal

I have used a laptop off and on for college and find them invaluable all around. I just bought a tablet PC, which I am making this post on right now.

I can't recommend a tablet enough, even for general use. I find the tablet form factor to be absolutely superior for many applications, especially web browsing and there are a wide variety of useful applications for pen-based input.

the computer labs at my school (San Francisco State) were extremely hard to get to and I often found a laptop an absolutely critical part of my productivity, but as other have said I found that they weren't mission critical for note-taking.

however, the tablet changes that. I can take hand-written notes for classes that require it, I've started to really use OneNote and Outlook (the 2007 editions of both programs integrate beautifully together) and in general I no longer dread long school days. reading comics on this thing is an absolute pleasure.

I bought a Fujitsu Lifebook T4215 and I cannot recommend it enough. Fujitsu makes an amazing product and it is one of the few notebooks that I feel is as well thought out as the Macbook (which my roomate has). otherwise, I've been impressed with all Lenovo offerings, as well as the new Dell XPS M1210. if you are looking for a notebook and you've never had one before here are some basic guidelines:

-14" is the absolute largest screen size you should consider
-5 lbs is the heaviest weight you should consider
-the first thing you should check for is flex in the case, particularly the back of the screen - your notebook should be rigid
-Fujitsu, Lenovo and Sony are good places to start - Acer, Asus, Toshiba and Dell are hit-or-miss.
-Stay the fuck away from HP, Compaq or Gateway.

Mr Pink

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet or not, but laptops can be good for the 'Oh shit' moments in college. Especially if you do not live on campus (aka easy access to a desktop)

Example - Essay you finished is due today, and you havn't printed it. Ask the teacher if you can e-mail it to them, to show that you did it, then turn in a hard copy tomorrow. Always works for me.

And you can use the built in camera on the MacBook to spy on people behind you. Not productive, but fun.

fallaxdraco

I had a desktop for my first year in college, but now that I have a laptop I would NEVER go without one. It's a big, heavy desktop replacement Gateway model too - I just use a backpack that has a padded pouch for it. It's still heavy, but I'm used to my backpack being heavy, and it's easier to carry around(and carry other things in as well.) I use it at friend's houses, I use it in class, I use it everywhere - just being able to look something up, or type it, or print it, in the school library, or at lunch, or being able to play starcraft or CS:S at my friend's house has become invaluable to me.

The only way I wouldn't recommend a laptop is if you have a limited amount of money but want to be able to play the latest games. In that case, a desktop is more economical. But if you have enough money for a good laptop ($1500 would work, barely) you can play the latest games with decent settings. I would definitely encourage you to get one.

strakha_7

I would definitely recommend a laptop as opposed to a desktop. If you're looking for a laptop to take notes with, there are already posts in here dealing with that, but I'll reiterate: BAD idea. I don't know a single person who takes their laptop to class that can take notes as well as I can by hand.

That's right, I have a laptop and I almost always leave it at home unless working on a group project or travelling. Consider what you might be doing this summer: Is there any possibility you will go away from home? Do you know how *hard* it is to drag a desktop around with you from place to place? Take the long view and I think you'll find a laptop to be the better choice.

I recommend a MacBook as well. I got one just this July as my first non-Windows computer and I love it. Other than the fact it took me 4 days to figure out the equivalent to a right-click (ctrl-click, by the way), it's been really easy to use. And as a student you'll be able to get the whole MSOffice suite for about 100USD.

Zeenux

I carry this beast with me

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/2790.jpg

1 gig of ram, 100 GB hd, 256 MB vid card, 17 inch screen. Why? School requirements, I have no choice but to lug this monster around. If I had the choice, I wouldn't have had such high specs.

Despite that...

1) I do find it very useful, particularly because everyone else has a similiar laptop, so we usually LAN during breaks. Having all the capabilities of a high powered for me are perfect because I need to do 3d art/photoshop, etc. FOr you, I say you do not need to spend more than 1000 for a decent laptop.

2) if you REALLY feel like spending cash, and like the feel of a notebook, how about a tablet laptop? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablet_PC

hope this was helpful.

kingmetal

strakha_7 wrote:

I don't know a single person who takes their laptop to class that can take notes as well as I can by hand.

me and my tablet will race ya!

SithDrummer

Kyougu wrote:

So with a new semester of college starting, as well as me getting some extra cash due to my eventual income return and extra financial aid, I been thinking about getting a laptop to use for school. I have some questions thoughs.

1) First, do you guys find them actually useful? Or do they end up being more weight to carry around?

2) And if they are useful, any reccomendations?

Just some facts about me, I'm a poli science major so lots of classes where I takes notes, the laptop would mainly be used for school, and maybe to surf the web at home (I have wireless at both), and my school schedule is usually for 7 hours two days a week.
Also, perfect price would be anything under 1000, but I think I'm willing to go up to 1500.

I'll ignore question 2 because, unfortunately, I haven't shopped around in awhile, so I don't know of any specific models you might find useful.

Anyhow, as a recent math graduate, I found my laptop to be extremely useful in all but my "hard sciences" and language courses. Essentially, equations and non-English letters are a pain to quickly input via a keyboard, so I would end up using pen and paper for those classes. For my general education classes, the laptop was a godsend: I could take notes with ease, and when the teacher started going on a tangent, I could Alt-Tab over to Stair Dismount and have some fun. Since you're a polysci major, your classes are going to be more conducive to typing out your notes than Discrete Math or German 102, so unless you can somehow write faster than you type, I'd say go for the laptop.

What year are you in school? If you are quite close to graduation or still in your first year, I'd recommend spending more money on the laptop because that will be an investment you can continue to use immediately after your college career, or throughout, respectively. If you have a couple of years until you walk, though, I might suggest that you aim for the lower end of that budget to get something decently mediocre that will take you to graduation, and then move on.

Kyougu

Thanks for all the input guys, I'm still on the fence about this I guess.

I can definately think of other uses for my income tax, but at the same hand I'm not in a situation where spending the money would hurt me.
I can usually be pretty diligant, so online surfing wouldn't be to much of a trouble.
Also, this is my senior year of College, and I done fine without one so far, but I'm also planning to attend law school immediately after graduation, so I'm sure it would be useful there.

So if I do get one, any recomendations apart from macbooks (really pricey for my taste). I won't be gaming on it at all, so no use for the major graphics card. Just something with enough room for my homework/assignments, and capable enough to surf the web from wireless. Oh, and either something that would last me a couple years, or that is easily upgradable would be a plus.

RFX

Easily upgradeable, you're not looking at a laptop. The best bet would be to get a Lenovo. From what a lot of people are saying here, a tablet would be a good option, and I've heard great things about the Lenovo ones.

Grimm

If thats all you want it for, i suggest just getting a cheap older laptop and saving some money. That way you wouldnt have to worry about upgrading it. Maybe put the extra cash into a nice desktop for gaming / working at home.

kingmetal

if you buy a current generation laptop (core 2 duo seems to be the standard) then the only upgrades you might need to make in the future to ensure it beats the snot out of word and the inter-tubes is RAM, which will be cheap when you need to do it.

I still recommend the Fujitsu 4215. once you go tablet, you will never go back.

kingmetal

Check out the LifebookS7110. newegg has 'em fully loaded for about $1200. Could use some RAM but otherwise they're good to go.