Registered: Sep 2001
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 229

Laptop in college?

I need all your advices. I'm going to college this fall and can't decide whether a laptop is neccessary. The plan is to dorm. I'm a heavy gamer and liten to music a lot. Oh yeah and i'm going in as a computer engineer major. What are your views on owning laptops in college? Thanks

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Don't Worry It's Human Nature To Point Out The Obvious

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

Tough call. I'm kicking the same thoughts around. I'm trying to stick with my pda in lieu of a laptop as it's more portable, more battery efficient, and can do almost everything I'd use a laptop for - not to mention I am enjoying the challenge.

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-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Last edited by dick-richardson on 02-22-2002 at 06:29 AM

Registered: Jan 2002
Location: Home: Vermont School: Liberty University Lynchburg VA
Posts: 37

Laptop a must

IMHO....
A laptop is a must. take it to your group meetings for projects...work on projects on your comp in the library, take it to work and post to VC all night long...

But i must say having taken my laptop to class and now taking my visor to class, i would much rather have the visor in class. I recently had a scare with my laptop, someone picked up my bag off the table in the library and droped it on the floor, thinking it was only books. The keyboard wouldn't and it failed to boot right. Fortunately I have the extended warranty, they fixed it in a week. Moral of the story Must have an extended warranty...

But back on topic...i see both items as necessary...but if you are a gamer...and a comp sci/eng major...I would probably take all three, a desktop for the room, laptop for on the go and Visor for life necessity.

Just my two cents....

Two things though before i go... Must haves Docs to go (or similar)...and a stowaway.
Not that any self respecting visor owner would have it any other way.


Done Ranting

DAn

Registered: Mar 2001
Location: San Diego, California
Posts: 441

A laptop would be very helpful in college. One of the coolest things is if your school has a wireless lan set up you can SSH/Telnet into the school and actually work on your program while the professor/TA is discussing it. Very cool. I've gotten my Prism to do this, but the text is too small to be very useful.

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You know it's bad when your Calculus Professor uses the word "Unpossible"

"It's a long way from my thoughts to what I'll say, It's a long, long way from paradise to where I am today." -Switchfoot, Home

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Chandler, AZ
Posts: 289

Are there SSH clients for palms? -- nevermind .. just found it on openssh .. latez

Registered: Sep 2001
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 229

I think i will go with the three way combo. Was going to sell my visor and all the accessories but i'll be taking those down now. Now for phase 2. I'm looking for something light, I've looked at the sony with a docking station and the fujitsu S series. Which one would you guys/gals recommend? Thanks againg for all the replies.

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Don't Worry It's Human Nature To Point Out The Obvious

Registered: Jan 2002
Location: Home: Vermont School: Liberty University Lynchburg VA
Posts: 37

a laptop

I know they are not the lightest but i went with the compaq...

Dell has a nice set up

Stay away for the cow boxes on laptops though....(Gateway)

one thing i have noticed is there are a lot of people on campus trying to off load Sonys...not sure why but they are going cheap

One other thing you might check is to see what company your school deals with. They will most likely have an agreement of some sort to get you a little bit of a deal.

One final tip...GO BIG...even if you think you may never need all that memory or all that disk space or all those accessories...one day you will thank your self

DAn

ohh almost forgot...our campus has zip drives everywhere...in all the labs and libraries...i have an internal for my desktop and a USB for my laptop....you could even get away with just the one USB...

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: New York City
Posts: 20

Compaqs are no good .. get a thinkpad

Get a thinkpad.. Maybe more expensive but worth it.

Laptop always better than desktop..

lou

Registered: Nov 2001
Location:
Posts: 6

I'm going to try getting a laptop with at least an:

ATI mobile Radeon 7500 = about 4000 3DMarks in 3Dmark2001
or GeForce 4 Go?

Classes start in late August. I've got about 6 months to save up.

Registered: Sep 2001
Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 229

Just Picked myself up a Compaq Evo N400c , P3 700, 128mb sdram, 20 gig hdd, with ati 8m mobile video. Found it for $816 at PCmall.com , Must of been a typo or something but i got it before it ran out of stock. It retails for $1800, can't wait till it gets here wednesday or thursday.................oh yeah ended up selling off my Prism to pay for this. Gonna miss it

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Don't Worry It's Human Nature To Point Out The Obvious

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

Apple's iBook packs quite a bit of bang for the buck (surprisingly). It's the only one out there that consistently weakens my resolve.

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-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Registered: Jan 2001
Location:
Posts: 278

Do not buy a Sony laptop. They have irq conflicts a lot of the time especially the ones with external drives making it so things like wireless network cards don't work at the same time as other things. They are also overpriced.

Registered: Feb 2001
Location:
Posts: 268

get a Dell Inspiron 8100 series with 15" screen. and if you're really a serious gamer, gotta get a 21" monitor to go with that.