Laptop or PC for College?

[Millenniumtiger]

Hey didn't really know where to put this at...I'm starting college at the end of August and am going to be living at home. Do I really need a laptop if I'm living at home? I understand that if i were living in dorms, a laptop would be useful so I wouldn't have to worry about getting my stuff stolen. The way I see it, building a pc is a lot cheaper and I can get more for my money. My school has alot of computers there so if I really need to use one, I can use a flash drive to work on my stuff.

 

[Kharn]

This should be in other hardware or Laptops, I will request the move for you.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

If you are planning on using a laptop during classes, then you should have one so you can take notes on and such. All you'd really need is a little tiny cheap laptop for document editing, with network so you can send files to your desktop. You might look into subnotebooks like the Asus EeePC or HP Mini Note, both are small, light, cheap, and portable.

 

[SapperX]

As Calc suggested, I would say get an Eeepc. You are going to want a laptop to take to classes and such, but the power of a desktop is also important. With the Eeepc, you will still have enough left to build a good desktop on almost any budget.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

Well, EeePC wasn't my method of choice (I got a desktop replacement 17" laptop for college) but if you already have a good desktop and you're staying at home, there's no reason you'd need a fancy laptop because you'll have your desktop and access it often, so an EeePC or Mini Note (HP's version of the EeePC) should do, plus they're pretty cheap and very hackable, should you decide to add stuff to it yourself.

 

[aspire]

The problem with the Eee is that the keyboard is so small to the point of making typing a lot more difficult than it should be.

The problem with the Mini-note and the sole reason I didn't buy one is that it uses the pos via processor.

If you want a goof portable laptop look at something in the 12-14" size range. For example the Thinkpad x61, or the 14" HP notebook.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I don't know what's so bad about the fact that the Mini-note uses a VIA processor...The EeePC uses a slow Celeron. Just because it's Intel doesn't mean it's better, because the VIA in the Mini-note is like twice as fast. The real main problem with the Mini-note is the fact that it runs Vista instead of XP. Vista is good on new fast computers with multiple gigabytes of RAM and dual or quad core processors, but definitely not the Mini-note. I've read countless reviews stating that once they installed XP, it was a fast and very good system. If I ever need a small laptop I'd probably get the Mini-Note over the EeePC, I like HP and I'd rather have a big hard drive than a SSD (I use a lot of space for stuff).

 

[aspire]

The VIA processor despite being clocked at 1.6ghz has issues simply doing normal everyday tasks without getting loaded up to a ridiculous amount.

For example just playing video off of an sd card for example the processor runs upwards of 80% utilization.

As a result of this, the laptop runs notoriously hot/loud and does not get very good battery life.

Running vista on top of all thing just compounds the problem.

If it came with the Atom I'd consider picking it up in a heartbeat. It looks, feels, and functions more like an actual laptop than the Eee ever will.

HP 2133 Mini-Note Review

You can see what I mean under the performance section.

 

[SapperX]

The keyboard on the eee pc is not bad at all, if you've ever used one. I was completely comfortable with it after about an hour of use. Also, their are atom Eee PC's out now. The mini-notes have horrible, horrible glare that renders it nearly useless outdoors, they are slower then their Eee pc counterparts, and they are more expensive. The 120gb hard drive means larger storage, but also means you are still going to need an external drive or some other similar solution and you will have to deal with a less reliable storage format.

I hope you picking the mini note over an eee pc was a joke...

 

[aspire]

Well, the new Atom based Eee's aren't exactly cheap by any means.

And my biggest beef with the Eee's is the horrible plastic they are made out of. It just makes it look like a toy. Whereas the Mini-Note has an all aluminum shell, and looks much sharper.

When I say I'd get the Mini-Note over the Eee, thats only if they release an atom version of it, as I previously stated.