Computers for college students
- Thread starter tbonnesen
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Puddle Jumper
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If you don't do any gaming an ultrabook is definitely the way to go, trust me when you have been carrying a laptop to class all day the lighter weight and better battery life will really pay off.
ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A-DH51 13.3" Ultrabook - Newegg.com
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Series 9 NP900X3D-A04US 13.3" Ultrabook
Those are two of the best ultrabooks out there and they both would make fantastic laptops for college.
Alternatively if you would like to use handwritten notes the Microsoft Surface Pro is worth looking at.
Microsoft US Online Store - Buy Surface Pro
It's more expensive, particularity after adding in the optional type cover needed to make it a full laptop replacement however it has pressure sensitive pen input that is great for writing notes by hand in OneNote.
ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A-DH51 13.3" Ultrabook - Newegg.com
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Series 9 NP900X3D-A04US 13.3" Ultrabook
Those are two of the best ultrabooks out there and they both would make fantastic laptops for college.
Alternatively if you would like to use handwritten notes the Microsoft Surface Pro is worth looking at.
Microsoft US Online Store - Buy Surface Pro
It's more expensive, particularity after adding in the optional type cover needed to make it a full laptop replacement however it has pressure sensitive pen input that is great for writing notes by hand in OneNote.
QFT. It kinda gets to be a pain carrying my 17.3" laptop that's 8lbs on my back all day. If it wasn't for it being my desktop replacement, I'd get an ultrabook or something similar.
Puddle Jumper
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8gb of ram is useful however the 250gb of storage is a completely arbitrary number someone picked. The ThinkPad x220 I used for college (CompSci major) has a 120gb SSD and that was plenty of space, you can always get an external hard drive if you need it.
If you do want 8gb of ram I would go for the Dell XPS 13, it isn't as popular as the other models but I have used them at work and they are fantastic systems.
The Dell Online Store: Build Your System
Be sure to get the 1080p screen too, it is well worth the money.
If possible, I'd recommend storing homework and projects on some sort of cloud service, such as Dropbox or SkyDrive. It keeps your files secure, and you don't have to worry about losing them if your computer's HDD crashes or something similar happens.
Puddle Jumper
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I completely agree, in addition to backups having access to your files from anywhere that has internet is incredibly helpful. Several times in college I forgot to print a paper I needed and didn't have my laptop with me so I just ran down to a computer lab and downloaded it from dropbox.
Cloud services are also very useful if you have more than one pc since they ensure all of your files are kept synced and up to date.
That dell is a little bit out of my price range being 1300 but does look like a nice computer doing programming what computer would you recommend that fast with little lag and has 8 gb of RAM. And I have multiple google drive accounts for school so I use that for cloud storage 
Puddle Jumper
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If you want 8gb of ram for $1000 the Lenovo Yoga 13 is your best option, the $999 configuration is perfect. It's also a convertible so you can use it as a tablet if you want too.
http://shop.lenovo.com/betaweb/us/en/laptops/ideapad/yoga/yoga-13/
http://shop.lenovo.com/betaweb/us/en/laptops/ideapad/yoga/yoga-13/
