<p>With the exception of a few random classes, you do not need a laptop.</p>
<p>True, most papers have to be typed. But there are (underused, these days) computer labs all over campus.</p>
<p>Honestly, your academic life will probably go much better without a laptop. If you walk through the library you notice:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>90% of students at UNC Chapel Hill ‘studying’ have a laptop open in front of them</p></li>
<li><p>at least half of those laptops are open to facebook.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Oh and since you are male and Australian, prepare to have more girls throw themselves at you than you have ever had in your life. You will have a fun few years, in that respect at least.</p>
<p>I didn’t have a CCI laptop, and I’m glad. The majority of my friends had major problems with theirs at some point during college. Yes, it is useful to have the service right there and insurance, but if you drop it or something like that, you still owe them $250 to get it fixed/replaced. I got a laptop from best buy and paid for the 3 year warranty they offer and it was great, I could drop it and get it fixed for free. But, I also had a desktop to use when my laptop needed service, so it may not be good advice if you are relying on one computer. </p>
<p>also, over my 4 years there, macbooks have gotten REALLY popular, so i think if you went macbook you’d be okay too, or even better off.</p>
<p>I spent a considerable amount of time researching the Laptop options.</p>
<p>The best laptop for the money that meets and exceeds all of UNC’s requirements can be found at this link. I ordered my Son’s 2 days ago. Why spend more than you need too?</p>
<p>Thank you for the link, but the Asus computer you posted is an i5-430, and we are supposed to have i5-520 or better, no? Are they sticklers for having the correct processing speed? If not, I would definitely rather spend a little less. I have heard that you can’t easily upgrade processing speed without spending almost as much as getting a whole new computer.</p>
<p>Since zraymom’s question wasn’t answered, I’m bumping this thread to the top in hopes someone can address it as I have a similar question on how much of a problem campus IT will give my daughter if she doesn’t have the correct processor. My daughter has a Dell Inspiron 1545 with a larger hard drive and twice as much memory as the “minimum” specs for incoming freshman. However, her processor is a T4200 clocked at 2 GHz, not the I5-520 clocked at 2.4 GHz. I have no doubt that her existing Dell has sufficient firepower to handle anything required in her first year of college and had no intention of buying her another computer this year. Will she run into problems when dealing with tech support (such as getting the free installation of MS Office)?</p>
<p>I don’t think tech support will work with computers that are not CCI (i.e. if you don’t buy it through the school). A friend of mine was able to convince the resnet person in my dorm to take a look at her non-CCI laptop when it started having issues, but I was under the impression she couldn’t check it in to ITS or anything.</p>
<p>What, if anything, is required to be done to the laptop once you start school? My wife went to CTOPS and there was some information presented that seemed to indicate you needed to take it to tech support to have it “configured” correctly. In addition, she was given a handout that indicates a student at UNC can get MS Office installed for free by seeing tech support. I understand tech support will not repair a non-CCI laptop.</p>
<p>i bought an apple through the ram shop & they pretty much told me all IT did was set up your email on your desktop, through a mail client or whatever, but that’s not really necessary since you can just use webmail. and, i think IT will repair non-CCI laptops on occasion, but that’s not really the standard for them. from personal experience…it’s easier to get your non-CCI laptop repaired if you have connections in IT.</p>
<p>I’m guessing they would just link her email account to UNC webmail or something along those lines. If they are saying they will install MS Office, then I assume they can do that too. Also, it is always helpful to be friendly with the ITS/resnet person assigned to your dorm (as lauriebeth suggested). Having connections is always a good thing, especially if you don’t have a CCI computer.</p>