<p>The important thing is to check if your campus has a wireless network.</p>
<p>I know wireless just recently started popping up on my campus and as such, the past two years I've had my laptop it was tethered to my desk.</p>
<p>Ironically, the month I swap out the laptop for a desktop is the month the school decides to start offering limited wireless connectivity.</p>
<p>on the subject of note taking...anyone familiar with those mp3/voice recorder things like creative labs' muvo or zen series? just wondering about how good those things record...like if it'll be able to record the professor's voice from the back of a classroom?</p>
<p>i think a lot of highschoolers miss the point: you don't buy a laptop to take to class, you buy it to take everywhere else. my whole campus is wireless and i take my ibm t42 with me when i study outside, in the library, or in my room. sure, my physics professor posts the online lectures on blackboard so you can conveniently follow them on your computer in class. and yes, i do need my laptop to run MATLAB7 and DataStudio when i program or experiment in engineering lab. but laptops are most convenient on your own terms--taking your life home with you over breaks, listening to (but never downloading...>_>) everyone's shared music through itunes while you're in the library, having the internet and instant messaging within reach 24/7 (caution: this may become detrimental to studying for your physics exam that you have at 1pm saturday), etc. plus i have a minidock with a mouse, printer, speakers, ipod, etc in my room so my laptop instantly becomes a desktop. i advise you buy an ibm t series laptop or an apple powerbook.</p>