College Discussion - View Single Post - College computer choice

mattmom · 01-17-2007, 07:45 AM

i too would come down firmly in the laptop camp; I've even made the transition myself, and love being able to take my computer on rare trips out of town. My son went to college in the days when desktops were stiill the norm and laptops uniformly expensive, but now he too uses a laptop. My younger child got a laptop when she left for college. It is of course important to find out from the school what the requirements are and if there are purchasing arrangements that can be made through school. Even if there aren't, there will almsot certainly be tech support at school to help with initial setup (or at least that was the case with both my children's schools).

In some fields of study there may be specialized applications that are only available in a department's computer lab, so the portability of alaptop might not come into play in that case. Butb for general work in the library or outside on a nice day, provides wonderful convenience (though so does a flash drive used with a library computer).

I have had unreliable desktops, so the lack of reliability of laptops doesn't come as a surprise. In our family we have both Dell and Apple laptops and the Dells are a good deal in terms of initial price but don't seem to have long life expectancies; phone support, as people generally say, is pretty bad but there are exceptions--once or twice we have solved a problem over the phone with the help of a Dell tech person. The iBooks some family members use also have their quirks, and the extended warrnty offered by Apple (three years) has not turned out to be quite all one might have hoped. All the same I would probably get an Apple laptop again, and phone support is excellent. If prices come down enough, it almost seems worth skipping an extneded warranty, getting an external hard drive so everything is backed up, and just replacing a computer when it dies (more feasible with bottom of the line Dells, since the new Apple laptops are still less affordable than PCs).

Desktops take up a tremendous amount of room, which might be a factor in a small dorm room full of books and general stuff. Getting rid of home desktops certainly made a big difference in the amount of usable desk surface.

01-17-2007, 07:45 AM	#39
mattmom Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Threads: 5 Posts: 1,004	i too would come down firmly in the laptop camp; I've even made the transition myself, and love being able to take my computer on rare trips out of town. My son went to college in the days when desktops were stiill the norm and laptops uniformly expensive, but now he too uses a laptop. My younger child got a laptop when she left for college. It is of course important to find out from the school what the requirements are and if there are purchasing arrangements that can be made through school. Even if there aren't, there will almsot certainly be tech support at school to help with initial setup (or at least that was the case with both my children's schools). In some fields of study there may be specialized applications that are only available in a department's computer lab, so the portability of alaptop might not come into play in that case. Butb for general work in the library or outside on a nice day, provides wonderful convenience (though so does a flash drive used with a library computer). I have had unreliable desktops, so the lack of reliability of laptops doesn't come as a surprise. In our family we have both Dell and Apple laptops and the Dells are a good deal in terms of initial price but don't seem to have long life expectancies; phone support, as people generally say, is pretty bad but there are exceptions--once or twice we have solved a problem over the phone with the help of a Dell tech person. The iBooks some family members use also have their quirks, and the extended warrnty offered by Apple (three years) has not turned out to be quite all one might have hoped. All the same I would probably get an Apple laptop again, and phone support is excellent. If prices come down enough, it almost seems worth skipping an extneded warranty, getting an external hard drive so everything is backed up, and just replacing a computer when it dies (more feasible with bottom of the line Dells, since the new Apple laptops are still less affordable than PCs). Desktops take up a tremendous amount of room, which might be a factor in a small dorm room full of books and general stuff. Getting rid of home desktops certainly made a big difference in the amount of usable desk surface.