I couldn’t resist the headline — next to “go to bed”, “back to school” were my least favourite three words growing up, especially in August. But if you are college age, or have a kid who is college age, then this time of year is particularly stressful.
Sending a kid to university these days will cost you more than a few hundred bucks for books and notepaper, and a cheque for whatever the school charges for room and board that semester. These days college-age kids need computers. More specifically, college-age kids need laptops, which are actually starting to become mandatory for a lot of classes.
They’re incredibly useful for taking notes, and some professors are actually tech-savvy enough to create dynamic material for their classes that students can reference in real time — downloading course materials like movies and documents to their laptop at the same time those items are being discussed.
In fact, the most wired and wireless places in the world are university campuses, where students use their laptops for communicating with other students and their professors, accessing the school’s digital library, uploading papers and projects, social networking, and more. In some cases if you miss a lecture, you can just watch a video of it after the fact by accessing a class web page.
That leaves a lot of parents and students with a $500 to $2,500 question of what to buy.
If laptops are mandatory, the school will usually tell you what the minimum system and software requirements are. You may not want to get a MacBook if your course software is only compatible with Windows. If you don’t know what’s compatible with what it doesn’t hurt to call the school and ask what they would recommend.
If your school has no system requirements, and money is no object, my advice is to go and get a MacBook Pro. You’ll have to buy a few pieces of software like Microsoft Word unless you plan on writing all of your papers on Google Docs, but it really is one of the top laptops out there in terms of performance and stability. It’s virtually immune to viruses and spyware, it comes with all kinds of useful software like iTunes and iPhoto, it has a built in camera and microphone for calling home on Skype to beg for more money, and you just can’t beat the cool factor.
But if price is a factor, the good news is that you can get a pretty good laptop these days for around $600-$800.
Here are some of the features you should look for:
Wireless — Every laptop comes with some version of integrated WiFi which will almost certainly be compatible with whatever system your university has in place, as well as an Ethernet port to connect to networks and modems. Getting Bluetooth is a bonus, allowing you to sync with devices like phones and send data wirelessly to printers, but it’s not crucial unless you have a lot of Bluetooth enabled peripherals to go with it. If money is an object, then you probably don’t need Bluetooth.
System — Even the cheapest, most basic laptops come with dual core processors and fairly decent graphics cards these days, and usually two or three gigabytes of DDR RAM memory. As well, you should expect a hard drive around 250 gigabytes, a DVD reader and rewriter, a lithium-ion battery, and a full range of ports and plugs including built-in webcams and microphones.
You’ll probably also want at least three USB 2.0 ports — two for your keyboard and mouse, because it sucks to use laptop keyboards and touchpads for serious work, and one to charge your iPod, download photos from your camera, etc. You should also look for an LED screen (more visible in daytime, and under fluorescent lights), and probably a DVD burner with LightScribe that lets you print your own labels right onto to DVDs and CDs. This last feature is useful for handing in assignments and backing up your important information to disk. You’ll want to backup every paper you write, as you write.
Software — This isn’t as big a deal as it used to be. Most laptops will come preinstalled with a basic version of Vista, which could be the most unpopular operating system in the world right now. However, if you don’t like Vista you can switch to Linux, probably Ubuntu or Fedora which are the most user-friendly. If you don’t absolutely need to have Microsoft Word, you can probably get by with Open Office or Google Docs and save money on software. A lot of applications are web-based these days anyway, and it doesn’t matter what operating system you have if you’re going to spend most of your time on the Internet.
Other considerations: Screen size is a personal issue, but keep in mind that larger screens gobble up more power and don’t necessarily offer any better resolution. Also, if you’re going to be dragging your laptop around campus all day every day then you might want to think about portability. Fifteen inches is about the average, although it typically varies between 14 and 17 inches for most brands.
If two computers seem roughly the same in terms of specs, you can always ask a salesperson why they’re priced differently — it could be a simple matter of oversupply or of a price war between companies, or one system may actually have a better screen, faster hardware, or a more advanced motherboard that is easier to upgrade. If you’re planning on using the computer for about four years of school, then the ability to upgrade may be very important.
The last piece of advice is to ask whether you can get a clean laptop that’s not bundled with any propriety software, demo software, trial version software, and more. It should have the operating system, a web browser, a mail client and that’s about it. Some retailers do this, others don’t.
