eReaders...or not?

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I am an incoming freshman this fall at a medium sized liberal arts school double majoring in Computer science and math. Right now I have a beast of a desktop setup, and I was thinking about getting a netbook just to take to class and do basic programming on in class. I would actually get an android tablet or an iPad because they are easier to take notes on, but for Math/CS courses I feel I would need a netbook.</p>

<p>Am I wrong about this? Could I get away with a tablet and just use my desktop (in my dorm) to do my homework? I don't want there to be a time when I have to have excel or something and be the only one without a laptop/netbook.</p>

<p>Now for my real question, eReaders...
It sort of fits in with the rest of my tech situation here that is why I have you the background info. Are eReaders a good idea for college students? Will I basically come out even or save money/lose money? Lets just say I am pretty tech savy when it comes to finding if a free source of a book is out there, legal or not (shhh). Since I am not in college yet I don't really know how professors suggest to use books. In high school the teacher would say "everyone open to page xxx" and everyone had the same book. I am sure there are times like this when having an eReader would be a pain-or when you are trying to scan multiple things at once.</p>

<p>So what would be an ideal setup for a CS/Math student that already has a desktop?</p>

<p>-Desktop
-Netbook
-eReader</p>

<p>or</p>

<p>-Desktop
-Netbook
-Physical Textbooks</p>

<p>or </p>

<p>-Desktop
-iPad/Android Tablet w/ reading software+access to various online bookstores</p>

<p>Obviously if I went with a tablet/eReader there would be some cases where the book is not available online, so I would need to get a physical textbook, how often does this happen?</p>

2

<p>I haven’t had any professors say in class to “flip to page x” in any computer science course of mine. Usually they say to read x pages in your own free time. In fact, I’ve never had any professor require me to bring my textbook to class.</p>

<p>It depends on if you prefer physical vs digital, honestly. I use desktop/ultrabook/physical textbooks because I prefer to flip through my books, and don’t really like reading on tablets much.</p>

3

<p>If you want to save a lot of money, then buy an e reader. You can download textbook from internet for free, I have an Ipad 2, with good reader you can mark, highlight, comment on your ebook, consider a lot of my textbook is already free to download on internet then an ereader’s value, for 4 years will be like 2000.
Go for desktop, netbook and ereader since having a netbook is sometimes mandatory for some presentation(I don’t know yet), and you sometimes can’t work with your friend in a group if you don’t have a netbook.</p>