I was thinking to see if schools had any particular requirements such as OS or speed or memory recommendations, but she has not yet been accepted to any particular school.
I suppose it wouldn’t make much difference what I bought since most laptops seem to have pretty nice features and any new thing would have the latest and greatest offerings.
Is my thinking (that it doesn’t really matter much what I buy) sound? Should I wait and buy at the college computer store a year from now hoping for a ‘new student discount’ and OS recommendations?
Anybody suffer through this ‘college kid/computer purchase’ recently?
Some colleges have specific requirements depending on their major. For instance, if you’re a graphics design major, you’ll have to get a Mac. Education majors might be required to have a certain operating system (e.g. Windows 7 Professional).
My daughter’s college offered a discount on a few select laptop models, but the best thing about buying through the university was not the price of the laptop, but the free IT service they’d provide through her entire undergrad career. My daughter has used tech services at least a half dozen times in her 3 1/2 years. They also offered very nice discounts on bundled software packages, such as MS Office.
You don’t really need to wait a year; as soon as she has a student ID in her hands she’s ready to get discounts just about anywhere. Schools usually have a partnership with a company to provide discounted (and good!) laptops to their students and faculty, and there’s no time requirement. Buy it day one if you want.
As to the laptop itself, unless she’s a design, architect, or animation student the programs she’ll be using won’t be too intensive and most any new laptop will do. And if she’s dealing with scientific stuff the programs likely aren’t available anywhere but in the school computer lab - not available for home use.
Anyway, I’d probably shy away from stuff like HP and Dell and aim more towards Toshiba, ASUS, Lenovo, and ACER myself.
I gotta tell you, having to use the computer labs is a hassle. Sometimes it helped my productivity and sometimes it didn’t. So it won’t be the end of the world if she doesn’t have a school-ready computer, but it’s very nice to have.
Also, if you’re a graphic design major, you do not have to get a Mac. That’s outdated thinking. Even if the design labs are macs that doesn’t mean they require you to have a Mac (and the programs are identical between Mac and PC outside of one key press anyway so it doesn’t matter what you use or learn on outside of OS preference). Any good school will be giving you access to a fully outfitted computer lab anyway for major-specific homework needs so a personal computer with the same programs and specs is just a bonus.
Well, I’d recommend waiting, just because the technology changes and next summer, you’ll get better technology or a cheaper price or both. And yes, some schools have a preference. I think my nerd school alma mater had a preference for Lenovo Thinkpads, while other schools might favor Macbooks. Really, though, with web-based apps, it doesn’t matter what you use. But the school IT department may be more familiar with one brand or model, so support might be easier.
My nephew went off to college a year ago, and I offered to buy his computer. I suggested an Ultrabook system, for the light weight and the SSD means quick boot times. The only issue I foresee is that the battery is internal and not replaceable.
My school had a mac lab for the design students, pc labs for everyone else, and had a deal with Lenovo for discounts to the students. Professors didn’t give a darn what you did your work on as long as you handed it in. But the point is they’ll have labs with absolutely everything you’ll need in them, exactly to the specs the professors and IT guys are used to working on - so a personal computer isn’t really required at all, just a bonus. I obtained the passcode for the labs out of a professor my first year and had free reign to the computer labs at any hour of the day I wanted, so it’s really just “do you want to be able to work on your dorm bed or have to walk somewhere else to do it?”.
The all-nighter movie work sessions (we rigged the projectors to play movies) we had senior year were a blast. I would actually take my personal computer to the labs and work there just for the benefit of having entertainment and other classmates around me. So there’s definitely a camaraderie aspect to the labs that you won’t get if you hole up.
You might want to find out what anti-virus program the university prefers. Or if they’ll insist/strongly suggest/make you install the university network one.
You might want to set the money aside and let her go off to school for six weeks and then decide what sort of computer/tablet/whatever would be most useful to her. College is such a change of patterns: she won’t know until she’s there what would be most useful to her.
My wife bought a Lenovo for like $300. It might not be particularly useful for gaming or if your kid needs to crunch huge amounts of data but it works great for most ordinary MS Office type activities.
Depends on what you would like to spend and what kind of interests they have. We just bought Dells and they are freaking awesome (i5 and an i7) but we spent $599 and $699, respectively. they can handle literally everything I want, from games to movies, not to mention they have widi adapters, bluetooth, etc. I’d avoid HP because in my experience they overheat and break often.
I do recommend checking out tigerdirect.com for their daily deals, plus techbargains.com. They have daily deals that sometimes are smoking hot.