<p>Where S is going next year TVs in the dorm rooms are common, and it’s a very social campus! Most of the kids do not consider them to be a big novelty or a huge time waster, but I’m sure there are exceptions. I’d be somewhat concerned if a kid is antisocial to begin with, but if that’s not the case, everyone needs some down time once in awhile, so I don’t see that these are necessarily <em>such</em> a bad thing. </p>
<p>The 20-27" widescreen TV/DVD combos some have mentioned here look great but they ARE pricey, starting at 650 to 800 dollars and up; Traditionally sized 4:3 ratio aspect sets are much less expensive (a couple of hundred dollars give or take), but you give up some screen size when watching movies on these, so you may want to take that into account if your child will be using the set for movie watching with friends.</p>
<p>" Even without a TV to watch all the games on, my S reported home with mono from sleeping very little and socializing much much more than in high school which compromised his abilities all freshman year."</p>
<p>Faline2, sounds to me as though your son would have been better off with a tv – he wouldn’t have gotten mono or been sleep deprived and his studies wouldn’t have been compromised.</p>
<p>My son at Columbia has a tv with Tivo, has an active social life, a 4.0 gpa and hasn’t been sick once all year :-)</p>
<p>does this thread really need to devolve into a competition?
Some kids do fine with TV- some kids do fine without it
IF they are going to get sick- freshman year they often do- my daughter didn’t get mono till junior year- but it was misdiagnosed as a cold
My daughter also socialized much more than in high school freshman year- despite a single room.
For one- at Reed " she had found her people"
she found a college with a good fit and while the workload kicked her in the butt, she was as happy as I have ever seen her
I don’t really see how a tv would prevent mono- perhaps ipods prevent meningitis?
I don’t think everyone on a floor needs a tv- if there is a problem with using the common room tv- perhaps they can learn to work it out?
And while I realize that the laptop screens are tiny-you probably don’t want to invest in a real expensive model, because it may get moved around a lot.
I am wondering though- if these kids who have so much time for various television shows, are the same ones that are * too busy* to have a job to help pay their expenses ;)</p>
<p>faline, none of the dorms at my college had common rooms with tv’s in them. The only TV’s on campus were three plasma tv’s in the student union - one that was used to display news all day, and two in the sparts den where people hang out… one playing sports, the other playing a music channel. Anyone who wanted to watch tv had to have a tv in their room. I personally don’t watch TV, however I don’t know ANYONE who didn’t have a tv in there room for movie watching… and I’ve never seen anyone watch a movie on their little laptop screen… esp. not a group of friends… it’s VERY common in college for groups of friends to watch movies together. I don’t care how busy I am with work or classes or studying, there is always time to watch a movie with my friends.</p>
<p>well, I will concede one point to acinva …the OP did only ask for recommendations on TV models and I jumped in with my opine about TVs being unnecessary for college freshmen rooms. Sorry! The thread title looked like an invitation to comment on the merits of TV in dorm rooms, but the lead post did not ask for that input and I did not read the thread content like I should have.</p>
<p>Like emeraldkity4s kid, S found his college peers to be fantastically interesting to be around, in our case this was a high contrast to a much less stimulating high school existence in a school where half the student body doesn’t graduate from HS. </p>
<p>I do think bringing a TV is something to discuss with your assigned roommate once you get each others contact info in the summer. S’s roomie was a great guy in physical training mode for a sport where he was a campus leader, asked for early lights out, needed more sleep than most students and had personal tastes and proclivities that were TV averse. My son watches sports and some series TV with friends on the hall but frankly needs more quiet spells than most students and is a classical music nut (he uses headphones so as not to impose on his roommie who would find it weird/distracting to hear classical booming in their room.) His roommate didn’t like TV for his own reasons. S was unexpectedly struggling by midyear with the lingering affects of mono energy recovery issues …which also felled an unlucky handful of kids in his dorm, and made concentration harder. (Three other kids in our hometown came home with complications from misdiagnosed mono winter break (ditto emeraldkity4!) but my son’s was thankfully diagnosed immediately by a sharp doc.) My son would not have asked an assigned roommate to leave a TV behind who really wanted one, but neither of them wanted one in their room. They did loft and and buy something for their friends to sit on when hanging out. There were plenty of people on their hall with TVs, and unlike fendergirl’s college situation, each dorm voted to spend on plasmas with the works.</p>
<p>An update: I went to costco looking for the tv/dvd player they advertised that could be used as a computer monitor. They didn’t have it, nor did they have any other tv/dvd combos the right size. Best Buy was around the corner. They had a small toshiba set that would have worked, but didn’t have any in stock. The salesman, however, told me about this program one could install on a computer to operate as a tv set. I was pretty excited - only cost $60 and son could use his big flat monitor too.</p>
<p>After graduation (hurray!) son opened up his presents and he also thought this thing sounded great. Before he opened the package we suggested that he look for reviews and study the package. He did and the reviews were not all that great. Back we’ll go to the store, but this time with son in tow and we’ll get something that he likes for sure.</p>
<p>I thought it was interesting that while I was shopping and going to graduation, etc. that the thread went back to the pro’s and con’s of tv’s in dorms. I am really hoping that my son answered all dorm questions truthfully (he likes to stay up late and is a slob but cannot tolerate drinking) and he is not paired up with an early-rising athletic type. Not to be negative about your son’s roommate Faline, but that pairing would not have worked well with my night owl.</p>
<p>We did not decide to get him a tv quickly or easily but after visiting this college overnight, son has said that tv’s in dorm rooms are the norm. And yes, I do know how late kids stay up - you don’t need a tv addiction to do that. Hopefully, his roommate will be appreciative and it will all work out. I know a son of a friend who had one five minute conversation with the roommate before move in day and nothing at all was discussed involving who would bring what.</p>
<p>“I know a son of a friend who had one five minute conversation with the roommate before move in day and nothing at all was discussed involving who would bring what”</p>
<p>Gosh, I didn’t realize we knew each other! Must have been one of my boys. I had to make them call their roommates—yep, 5 min. conversations. When I questioned who was bringing this or that, the response was “I don’t know, we’ll work out when we get there.” My D. was completely different–everything planned. And surprisingly enough, both ways worked out fine :).</p>
<p>kathie, my one friend has a second granpics / tv card in his laptop and just an additional LCD monitor set up to it… so when he feels like being a geek he can have two screens on his computer, when he feels like watching TV he can watch it on the one monitor and use the computer on the other Monitor… plus then it just uses the dvd player in the computer… it seems to work pretty well for him. Is that similar to what you did for your son, or just something so he can watch TV on the one monitor?</p>
<p>I have a tv and vcr in my room at school, so that I can tape shows I watch regularly but I save the tapes for when I have time to watch. Studying and extracurriculars take up most of my evenings but when I have an hour during the day that I need for alone time, I can pop in a tape in the vcr and catch up.</p>
<p>I ended up purchasing low-end version of each device(I can’t even think of their brands off the top of my head!) but haven’t had trouble with either (well, the remote for the vcr doesn’t have a very good range. I have to be right next to the vcr for the remote to work). I did purchase them seperately, at first because my sophomore year roommate was bringing a tv and I wanted the vcr, and I bought the tv when she moved out the next semester. </p>
<p>A dvd player isn’t important to me because my desktop computer already had a dvd drive, and if I want to watch a dvd I just use my computer. Most of my dvd watching is with friends who either have dvd players or a laptop, or on a communal tv.</p>
<p>We had a hot (weather-wise, 86 degrees) shopping day. Went to Sears, Best Buy and Circuit City. Son at first thought he would like a combination tv/dvd player and quickly realized that smaller then a 20" was too small. Only because his computer monitor screen is 20" and that’s what he is used to. However, when he saw the back-end of a 20" tv he started having second thoughts and we looked at the LCD/tv/dvd’s. He really liked them but we couldn’t find any under $500 and none were on sale. The on sale thing is a biggie for me. I HATE paying full price and would rather wait for just about anything to go on sale, because everything always seems to go on sale sometime.</p>
<p>We thought we would look on-line and then keep checking the ads. We’ve got almost two months before he goes to college to find something. It’s not like the prices are going to go up before then.</p>
<p>fendergirl, I’m not sure if that’s what I had, but it’s the same idea. Son said that the reviews made it sound like it was very hard to install and then just didn’t work that well anyway.</p>
<p>borgin, Son does watch dvd’s on his computer now so I don’t know why he wants a built in dvd player. I hadn’t thought about the taping shows aspect of a vcr, but that makes sense for shows that you don’t have time to see or aren’t on at a conveinent time. I’ll mention that to him.</p>
<p>OP, we’re na similar boat. I’ll be watching techbargains(dot)com for a good deal ona flat screen. They collect the best deals from amny sites and bricks & mortar stores. I’ve seen some great deals on flatscreens.</p>