Student Laptops?

SeanyboyQPR

What sort of specs should I be needing? Don't need anything fancy just a bit of Internet here and there!

Squidgy Black

What course? It could be a case that all you need is powerpoint and maybe excel or word etc and you could get away with a basic netbook.

OR just get a Mac and leave that dirty windows shít behind and watch it burn.

Daniel7740

stetyrrell wrote: »

OR just get a Mac and leave that dirty windows shít behind and watch it burn.

im no computer fan, but i know that this is goin to stir some sh1t :pac:

shawki

Campus.ie has some discounts/offers

If its just for Internet, how about a tablet
Love the Nexus 7

http://www.carphonewarehouse.ie/Product/strong-Google-strongNexus-7-32GB-WiFi/238671/328.0

New one is due out soon with some nice updates

SeanyboyQPR

stetyrrell wrote: »

What course? It could be a case that all you need is powerpoint and maybe excel or word etc and you could get away with a basic netbook.

OR just get a Mac and leave that dirty windows shít behind and watch it burn.

Starting law in mid September so id imagine a lot of research and essays etc

Daniel7740

SeanyboyQPR wrote: »

Starting law in mid September so id imagine a lot of research and essays etc

make sure ya get a nice keyboard so!

Kevin!

If it's a course where microsoft programs such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint are the focus - a high end machine is not required as these can run with little system resources

If you are involved in courses such as audio visual or architecture which often uses a program called AutoCAD a powerful computer will be required to generate advanced buildings and models

Tablet's rarely have full blown applications such as microsoft office, so a laptop with Windows or Mac OSX is recommended for college for compatibility.

hawkwind23

i give this advice.

get a good processor , id recommend an i5 intel
id go for a tough brand , id recommend Lenovo.

will you be bringing it back and forth from uni?
if so , a metal casing and portability/battery life

sitting in the digs?
larger screen and bulkier machine

check a few machines out in currys etc , get a feel for the keyboard , the weight , strength of it and of course general aesthetics.

pay €550+ for a decent machine and it will do for 3-4 years.
buy the cheapest model in currys and your work will suffer and youll be buying again in 1-2 years.
pick a machine and search online for the best price.

id recommend this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-Ideapad-15-6-inch-Laptop-Chocolate/dp/B00B2HVYT6/ref=sr_1_4?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1376945479&sr=1-4&keywords=lenovo+i7

get a legit copy of Office.
university is a new product , share with a flatmate and get a copy each for laptop and phone for £20 each.

https://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/university/

Corvo Attano

stetyrrell wrote: »

OR just get a Mac and leave that dirty windows shít behind and watch it burn.

Dont even start...




OP since it seems you wont be doing any graphically intensive work you should start looking at some of the other questions on the checklist.

Will it be used for gaming?
Need a built in DVD drive?
Need a long battery life?
Will it face a lot of moving about?
Is size an issue?

You could buy any laptop just for Office and Youtube

Justice!

Corvo Attano wrote: »

Dont even start...




OP since it seems you wont be doing any graphically intensive work you should start looking at some of the other questions on the checklist.

Will it be used for gaming?
Need a built in DVD drive?
Need a long battery life?
Will it face a lot of moving about?
Is size an issue?

You could buy any laptop just for Office and Youtube

+1 to this

The two fundamental questions you need to ask yourself are:
No. 1: What specs do you need? and
No. 2: How much / little are you willing to spend?

I bought my college laptop (an intel i5 core Asus for €500) last year from http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/ and it's served brilliantly. Of course I had light to medium gaming in mind as well as assignments so if you only want it for assignments ie: word, powerpoint, you can spend a lot less than €500.

Also http://www.argos.ie/ does pretty decent deals sometimes! As for PC world, it often is far more expensive than websites, but you can often the occasional reasonably priced model.

TBH you'll get much better advice on the computer/technology forum on boards, some really nice and helpful people on it

wileyoreilly

it would be worth having a look at a chromebook if u only want it for word documents, powerpoint and the internet. only paid 280 for mine and its well worth it.

jrmb

stetyrrell wrote: »

OR just get a Mac and leave that dirty windows shít behind and watch it burn.

Or get Windows and dual boot it with Ubuntu.

A student laptop doesn't have to be very expensive. Definitely shop around. I got an 11" netbook last year at a decent price. It has 4GB RAM, so it's actually more powerful than many of the larger laptops out there.

jrmb

Corvo Attano wrote: »

You could buy any laptop just for Office and Youtube

LibreOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. It's quite nifty and could save you a considerable amount of money.

diarmo06

Anybody reccomend a CSIT labtop, obviously need solid Java/ c++ programme etc, but would want to stay under 500/600 territory?

lemon_remon

jrmb wrote: »

LibreOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. It's quite nifty and could save you a considerable amount of money.

LibreOffice is a piece of crap compared to Office and I love FOSS. Also, your lecturer is likely going to know **** about computers and publish the notes in some ****ty MS format and not as a .pdf (or something even nicer...). This will mean that if you try open your notes in LibreOffice they will be malformed and sometimes unreadable. I would recommend just getting Office. An older edition should be fine.

Fad

jrmb wrote: »

LibreOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. It's quite nifty and could save you a considerable amount of money.

Just use google docs tbh, unless you need some mad formatting.

diarmo06 wrote: »

Anybody reccomend a CSIT labtop, obviously need solid Java/ c++ programme etc, but would want to stay under 500/600 territory?

I was a mac user throughout CS so I cant really help with a suggestion, but the bigger the screen the better. I had to do some work in Java on a netbook once and it was a nightmare.

I'd get in touch with the department and see what they suggest, some colleges have deals with manufacturers.

lemon_remon

diarmo06 wrote: »

Anybody reccomend a CSIT labtop, obviously need solid Java/ c++ programme etc, but would want to stay under 500/600 territory?

Get a Thinkpad, best Linux support

ShefflinAlong

Sometimes you need specific software, mate of mine is doing social sciences and they had to get CPSS or something like that.

Think it was arranged throught the college though.

jrmb

lemon_remon wrote: »

your lecturer is likely going to know **** about computers and publish the notes in some ****ty MS format and not as a .pdf (or something even nicer...). This will mean that if you try open your notes in LibreOffice they will be malformed and sometimes unreadable.

I see what you mean but LibreOffice is generally well able to cope with MS formats, including DOCX. Its predecessor OpenOffice could export to PDF long before
MS Office.

Fad wrote: »

Just use google docs tbh

Google Docs isn't bad either but last year, I was unable to make the most of it because WiFi in my college was intermittent.