<p>Hey guys, seeing as how I'll be attending Mudd in the fall and I'm so clueless when it comes to laptops, I was wondering if anyone could recommend a laptop that would be reliable (and preferably affordable) over there?</p>
<p>I've looked around the board some and the Dell XPS series seems popular as well as the ever shiny Macbook, but I just wanted to make sure I got one that was compatible at Mudd.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Are you into PC gaming, or do you just want a simple PC for web browsing, office tools and such?</p>
<p>Why a laptop? Do you plan to take notes or otherwise use it in class?</p>
<p>S1, who'll be a soph, took his that he bought in 8th grade, but battery is next to useless, so used as a desktop. At end of frosh year, bought an old, highly customized desktop from a graduating senior for $100 or so in order to have a machine capable of playing DVDs when he is on campus this summer. He's keeping the "laptop" as well for web browsing/email.</p>
<p>He didn't see any need for anything more, given the number of computers on campus that are readily available 24/7. (He will be engineering major, not CS)</p>
<p>You should be fine freshman/sophomore year with a desktop. I only started wanting a laptop when I was working in my lab all the time and getting outside consulting jobs.</p>
<p>In terms of compatibility, everything (engineering) is compatible on my macs except for solidworks. Even then, I have dual boot and I could install it on the other partition if necessary.</p>
<p>My personal recommendation is an iMac. You can partition your HD to run both mac and windows or download software on the network that allows you to run both at once! At least then you'll have a totally sexy machine with good computing power and be able to use any program...</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses everyone, I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>The main reason I was going for a laptop was because I wanted to be able to use it while lying in bed or outside or something if I wanted to. Also, I thought that a desktop might take up too much room (spacious isn't the first word I think of when I hear dorm rooms).</p>
<p>I suppose I'll just see what I can get my hands on. If I don't plan on doing any serious gaming, I can probably be more flexible with what I can buy.</p>
<p>I have a desktop normally, but I wanted to be able to do work in the lounge and outside just like you. I ended up buying a used laptop off of eBay for about 100$ and it has served me just fine. Be careful though, eBay is still eBay.</p>