<p>D will be attending Purdue in the fall as a FYE student. Her grandparents would like to get her a laptop for graduation. From the information I've been able to gleen a personal computer is not really necessary, however, most people have them and can find them useful. I spoke with the people at Purdue Engineering and while they have recommendations for staff and graduate students there are no specific recommendations for undergrads. </p>
<p>A couple of things I did learn. First the computer people at Purdue are authorized warrantee providers for Dell, HP and Apple. Is this true? If so should we limit our search to those computer brands? Second, they recommend a Dell Latitude series computer with at least a third generation i5 processor and 4 gigs of RAM. The specification were posted earlier this year before the large release of windows 8. </p>
<p>Will windows 8 become ubiquitous within engineering in the next couple of years? If so should we consider a touch screen? Are the "Envy" series of HPs a fair replacement for the Dell's Latitude series? Would one prefer a dual core 3rd gen i5 or an AMD quad core based processor? Do you find it convenient to have the numeric keypad on the larger 15" laptops? Thanks for any help.</p>