Why are students buying 500 Euro laptops?

ILA

Every time I come on Boards and look in the computer related forums, there's college students looking for advice on laptops to buy for "college work" and surfing the internet. Every thread posted they're looking for €500+ laptops

I recently got a new Acer Aspire One netbook for €300 Euro, over the option of a perfect refurbished laptop from a good supplier for €170 Euro which would more than do the work and leisure use they claim to want.

Often the same students protest against fees and claim they can't afford course materials, but where the hell are they getting €500+ for high end laptops?

Is there someone giving free money out again? I thought Anglo had stopped lending!

Sanjuro

People have these things now. They're called bank accounts. They allow you to put amounts of money into them which accumulated are called 'savings.' These 'savings' allow you to buy things that you couldn't afford in the short term. Handy, they are.

Also, they have parents who might buy them the laptops.

Also, they might require higher-end laptops for various functionality.

Basically, people can get better stuff than you. Get over it.

Teutorix

Because people are fecking idiots.

If all you need it for is facebook and college work you could buy one for €50

You can build a gaming PC for €500 for gods sake.

jimthemental

In fairness this is going to be a once off and probably the single biggest material investment that they will make during college so they want what they think they need. I paid that for mine and thank christ it's still working 6 years down the road.

Doop

I think the real issue is why are students buying up refill pads?... when you can't even refill them

Lemegeton

ILA wrote: »

Every time I come on Boards and look in the computer related forums, there's college students looking for advice on laptops to buy for "college work" and surfing the internet. Every thread posted they're looking for €500+ laptops

I recently got a new Acer Aspire One netbook for €300 Euro, over the option of a perfect refurbished laptop from a good supplier for €170 Euro which would more than do the work and leisure use they claim to want.

Often the same students protest against fees and claim they can't afford course materials, but where the hell are they getting €500+ for high end laptops?

Is there someone giving free money out again? I thought Anglo had stopped lending!

mammy and daddy i would imagine.

Doop

Teutorix wrote: »

If all you need it for is facebook and college work you could buy one for €50

You'd probably be finished college by the time that thing starts up

chin_grin

Doop wrote: »

I think the real issue is why are students buying up refill pads?... when you can't even refill them

I know! I tried............:(

Teutorix

Doop wrote: »

You'd probably be finished college by the time that thing starts up

My friends laptop cost €50 and has a 6 second boot time. :rolleyes:

AlmightyCushion

Netbooks are good for what they are but the small screen (and more importantly resolution), small keyboard and slower processor limit it's use for college. Battery life can be great on them though. I have both and netbooks are grand for a bit of pissing about but I much prefer the laptop. If I had to choose between them I'd spend the extra few quid on a proper sized laptop.

SV

Maybe they don't like ****ty small netbooks.

amacachi

I love the ones buying Macs and saying they're "only" whatever price with a student discount. Windows is so 5 years ago.

Banji

Teutorix wrote: »

If all you need it for is facebook and college work you could buy one for €50

Find one for €50 then..

Plus all courses have different types of coursework that needs to be done.

Gone Drinking

Personally, if i was going to buy a laptop, i couldn't justify not spending the extra 200 and getting more for my money.

Those netbooks are good for the likes of what you said, but suck for everything else. A decent laptop is a good investment, if you're going to use it for 3 years.

Teutorix

amacachi wrote: »

I love the ones buying Macs and saying they're "only" whatever price with a student discount. Windows is so 5 years ago.

Haha yeah, wait till their lecturer tells them they need a certain program that dosent work on OSX. most mac owners probably wouldnt know how to compile WINE from my experience.

ejmaztec

ILA wrote: »

Every time I come on Boards and look in the computer related forums, there's college students looking for advice on laptops to buy for "college work" and surfing the internet. Every thread posted they're looking for €500+ laptops

I recently got a new Acer Aspire One netbook for €300 Euro, over the option of a perfect refurbished laptop from a good supplier for €170 Euro which would more than do the work and leisure use they claim to want.

Often the same students protest against fees and claim they can't afford course materials, but where the hell are they getting €500+ for high end laptops?

Is there someone giving free money out again? I thought Anglo had stopped lending!

They never gave out loans for laptops unless there was a €500,000,000 building that went with it.

ILA

Sanjuro wrote: »

People have these things now. They're called bank accounts. They allow you to put amounts of money into them which accumulated are called 'savings.' These 'savings' allow you to buy things that you couldn't afford in the short term. Handy, they are.

Also, they have parents who might buy them the laptops.

Also, they might require higher-end laptops for various functionality.

Basically, people can get better stuff than you. Get over it.

I thought you were meant to save Savings, not spend them?

Fair play to those posters who've given reasonable explanations which I hadn't thought about.

Local-womanizer

I paid 500 for my laptop.

It still is working and has never had a problem since I got it 3 years ago.

And it is so handy for keeping my mountains of college work on.

How could I afford it? Overdraft!

Why did I buy the more expensive one? Buy cheap you buy twice is my motto!

cherryghost

Just try doing a thesis on a netbook. It truly sucks!

Slydice

For University/College, I'd say that getting a fairly good spec laptop is a really good investment.

Once it's used properly for University/College, it can be a great strenght to getting a qualification..

Though, If the Uni/College has decent computers and access to them, it's not essential.

dr.bollocko

It's kind of unnecessarily combative to indicate that 500 euro is a ridiculous or excessive amount to spend on a laptop for further education tbh.

ILA

Local-womanizer wrote: »

I paid 500 for my laptop.

It still is working and has never had a problem since I got it 3 years ago.

And it is so handy for keeping my mountains of college work on.

How could I afford it? Overdraft!

Why did I buy the more expensive one? Buy cheap you buy twice is my motto!

Fair enough.

It's just that before college you'd always hear about the "student lifestyle" of living "hand to mouth" and all that ****e, yet nearly every student I see in college owns: (a) a laptop, (b) an iPhone, (c) a decent car with barely any of them over 10 years old, most within 5 years old.

sink

It depends on what sort of course they're doing. Not everyone only needs a word processor and email. Some students will need to use CAD software, Photo/Video editing software, 3D computer graphics software and as such they will require a laptop with a bit of extra muscle.

Mrmoe

Paying extra might be a good investment for the. An older refurbished laptop might not have the same expandability as a newer one due to lower processor speeds, hard drive and RAM size. They may also have better graphics cards which are quite important for science/engineering courses as well as a longer of others. Generally they come with a longer guarantee and will probably last longer as well. As others have said screen size and keyboard size are important too.

It is worth spending extra especially if you plan to keep it for a long time. I spent €600 on mine about 4 years ago and it is still going strong and is well capable of handling the majority of tasks that I need. I could have gone for cheaper ones but they simply would not be good enough today.

kfallon

God be with the days when we had to carve our lecture notes into a wax tablet.....kids these days don't know they're born

sponsoredwalk

Why do people who start threads bitching about phantom people they've
never met always include the non-obligatory (btw) reference to
society such as dole or college fees or whatever, ffs that doesn't
give your argument any justification - you're still moaning about something
that doesn't matter in the slightest & if something as ridiculously stupid
as this annoys you then you have a lot to be thankful for.

Here's my version of your thread using the same outlook:

"Why do people complain about what other people choose to do in a free
society where they have a choice to live as they please? It pisses me off :mad:
Why aren't they like me? I don't have "free money" so they shouln't
either, Anglo must be giving it to everyone except me There isn't,
after all, any other way to buy a laptop other than free anglo money :rolleyes:
I think 300 for a laptop is fine and because they want to spend
more they are wrong so if I include a reference to society I'll get
some form of justification. Because of this I think college fees should
be re-introduced out of spite because I'm angry students can afford
better laptops than me!"

ILA

dr bolloko wrote:

It's kind of unnecessarily combative to indicate that 500 euro is a ridiculous or excessive amount to spend on a laptop for further education tbh.

€300 is the most I've spent in life for any item so far, and that was for a netbook last week.

Setun

Not sure when you were last in college, but these days most courses require the students to have their own laptops. Netbooks are actually fairly woeful if you want to be doing anything serious on them - I used one for my work once and it nearly drove me mad. You can only see about 20 lines of a code editor at a time on the damned things, never mind writing 10000 word essays.

pieface_ie

Because you need a decent laptop to run all the software you use, Autocad,dialux,relux,ies etc

your only fooling yourself buying a cheap one

AlmightyCushion

ILA wrote: »

€300 is the most I've spent in life for any item so far, and that was for a netbook last week.

Not everyone has the same needs as you. If I was using the netbook for some of the stuff I need to do for college I'd be driven mental by it.

Kimono-Girl

why are you watching what students are doing with their money anyways?
if they want to spend €500 on a laptop who really cares?


what is with people watching what everyone else is spending? watch your own finances and let the rest of us worry about our own!

ILA

Daddio wrote: »

Not sure when you were last in college

I'm there right now.

AckwelFoley

As yourself..

Would you by snypers second hand laptop?

You will find yourself in PC World in a jiffy

Teutorix

If you were doing a course that involved 3d modelling and other resource intensive processes you would need a good desktop rather than a laptop. Rendering complex models can take a long time without a decent GPU/CPU.

NotInventedHere

Teutorix wrote: »

Haha yeah, wait till their lecturer tells them they need a certain program that dosent work on OSX. most mac owners probably wouldnt know how to compile WINE from my experience.

You just install a windows partition

Teutorix

NotInventedHere wrote: »

You just install a windows partition

Not much point having OSX then is there when a normal laptop is cheaper?

Gunsfortoys

You really don't want to cheap out on a laptop. The first one I got was a Dell and it was around the 300 mark, I ended up spending more on getting it repaired.

AlmightyCushion

Teutorix wrote: »

If you were doing a course that involved 3d modelling and other resource intensive processes you would need a good desktop rather than a laptop. Rendering complex models can take a long time without a decent GPU/CPU.

Not necessarily. You can get laptops with highly clocked dual cores or lower clocked quad cores and decent dedicated graphics in them. They won't be as powerful as a similarly priced desktop but they'd still be pretty powerful machines.

Teutorix

Gunsfortoys wrote: »

You really don't want to cheap out on a laptop. The first one I got was a Dell and it was around the 300 mark, I ended up spending more on getting it repaired.

There's your problem.

NotInventedHere

Teutorix wrote: »

Not much point having OSX then is there when a normal laptop is cheaper?

I work with windows PCs and Servers and I love the Mac because it just works. I still have my old Ibook g4 and the kids use it 6 years later no problem. Most windows PCs and laptops are buggered after 2 years and need about 4 or five times the user intervention to keep running(format and reinstallation) than mac. As a user said earlier buy cheap, buy twice

28064212

ILA wrote: »

Fair enough.

It's just that before college you'd always hear about the "student lifestyle" of living "hand to mouth" and all that ****e, yet nearly every student I see in college owns: (a) a laptop, (b) an iPhone, (c) a decent car with barely any of them over 10 years old, most within 5 years old.

(a) a laptop is virtually a necessity in most courses these days
(b) the vast majority of students do not own an iPhone, or any other smartphone
(c) I knew about 3 people who had a car in undergrad. The vast, vast majority of students do not own a car

Dravokivich

NotInventedHere wrote: »

You just install a windows partition

Teutorix wrote: »

Not much point having OSX then is there when a normal laptop is cheaper?

Don't forget the additional fee of a *cough* licence....

sponsoredwalk

Lets add another pointless question using this stellar logic:

Why do people buy laptops with windows on them? I mean if they are college
students then they obviously should just take linux because it's free, I mean
it does the same stuff - word processing etc... that all these "poor college
students living the college life" say they want. Because of this I think
college fees should be reintroduced but I'll indirectly hint at this by the
sheer derrogatory mention - anyone with windows and in college should be
shot on sight paying college fees due to the fact they can afford
luxuries I can't. In fact, why laptops at all? Pens and paper do the same
stuff that these college students want, in fact OP - why are you going off
buying a laptop when a pen and paper do the same thing? :mad: Why did you
spend 300 on it when you could get one for 200 that does the same thing
more or less :mad:

:pac:

ILA

28064212 wrote: »

(a) a laptop is virtually a necessity in most courses these days
(b) the vast majority of students do not own an iPhone, or any other smartphone
(c) I knew about 3 people who had a car in undergrad. The vast, vast majority of students do not own a car

I suppose we could say that 2/10 have an iPhone, and maybe 150/4000 have a car

Teutorix

NotInventedHere wrote: »

I work with windows PCs and Servers and I love the Mac because it just works. I still have my old Ibook g4 and the kids use it 6 years later no problem. Most windows PCs and laptops are buggered after 2 years and need about 4 or five times the user intervention to keep running(format and reinstallation) than mac. As a user said earlier buy cheap, buy twice

Im so tired of hearing that excuse for paying double the price. I have a desktop with XP and its been running for 6 years without a single issue, never needed to reinstall or format my HDD. and i only paid €600 for it.

ILA

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

Lets add another pointless question using this stellar logic:

Why do people buy laptops with windows on them? I mean if they are college
students then they obviously should just take linux because it's free, I mean
it does the same stuff - word processing etc... that all these "poor college
students living the college life" say they want. Because of this I think
college fees should be reintroduced but I'll indirectly hint at this by the
sheer derrogatory mention - anyone with windows and in college should be
shot on sight paying college fees due to the fact they can afford
luxuries I can't. In fact, why laptops at all? Pens and paper do the same
stuff that these college students want, in fact OP - why are you going off
buying a laptop when a pen and paper do the same thing? :mad: Why did you
spend 300 on it when you could get one for 200 that does the same thing
more or less :mad:

:pac:

I don't want college fees reintroduced. I'd have to pay them then as well, I already pay 1,500 or five netbooks, for the privledge of being here with grant leechs.

Wolfe Tone

Considering most books for my course cost around 100 Euro, 500 for a laptop aint that much.
I got mine for Christmas a few years ago though.

ILA

Teutorix wrote: »

Im so tired of hearing that excuse for paying double the price. I have a desktop with XP and its been running for 6 years without a single issue, never needed to reinstall or format my HDD. and i only paid €600 for it.

You don't download/attempt to download all the dodgy porn [read "malware"] that other Windows users must.

sponsoredwalk

ILA wrote: »

I don't want college fees reintroduced. I'd have to pay them then as well, I already pay 1,500 or five netbooks, for the privledge of being here with grant leechs.

What the hell is a grant leech? Bitter much? Even though you're in college you
still haven't learned society 101, namely that we give grants to people to
see them succeed & no question of personal greed, such as your only
motive not to introduce fees, or bitterness comes into the equation.

NotInventedHere

Dravokivich wrote: »

Don't forget the additional fee of a *cough* licence....

True, thats only a hundred notes though

Teutorix

ILA wrote: »

You don't download/attempt to download all the dodgy porn [read "malware"] that other Windows users must.

I do download alot of stuff, Im just not a plank that cant tell the difference between legit stuff and a virus. Also OSX has viruses too :rolleyes: