<p>This is a repost, sorry. I think where I posted it might not get much traffic.</p>
<p>I bought my son a $1000 Zenbook at Christmas thinking he needed it for college. At the same time, I bought a $300 Asus, still light weight and nice, not a Zenbook obviously, for generally family use.</p>
<p>Now that leaving for college is so close, I wonder if he should be taking the cheaper $300 computer with him. This is an idea he had actually also. We are both worried about the laptop getting stolen or something.</p>
<p>Our kids loved having a lightweight netbook for college, as well as a desktop rather than a heavier laptop (tho both initially left for college with heavy and expensive laptops. </p>
<p>If your kid is reasonably careful, laptop theft and breakage isn’t all that common. We had our kids keep laptops out of sight when not in use, which we think helped. The laptops we know were stolen was in a car and the trunk of that car. The thief must have observed the students putting them in the trunk. The car window was smashed and camera and laptops taken. :(. Some folks have their kids covered under CSI or other policies.</p>
<p>If the cheaper laptop is good enough for his purposes and he likes it, he might as well take it. There’s no point in taking the more expensive laptop if he doesn’t need it. If it turns out that the cheaper laptop doesn’t have the processing power or memory or something, then he can always swap out the laptops at Christmas or Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>At my school, laptop theft wasn’t very common. The majority happened in the library or other public places when students left their laptop unattended while they checked out a book or went to the bathroom or something. If your son’s school has more problems with theft, it may be worth it to send him with the cheaper laptop just for peace of mind. If he’s reasonably careful with it and stays attentive to where it is, then he shouldn’t have too much of a problem with the more expensive computer.</p>
<p>have you considered buying a laptop lock? otherwise usually keeping the laptop out of sight should be fine. I did that all year and nothing happened.</p>
<p>CSI is college student insurance. We have it for our kids but luckily haven’t had a claim. A few people on here have had claims and they were processed to their satisfaction.
Which computer to take is personal preference.
My kids would say lightweight is preferable but processing and memory and software requirements of the kid’s major is the first consideration.</p>