<p>As of now, I'm a high school senior and I'm expecting to attend Clemson University for Chem. Engineering for Fall 2011 (hopefully honors college). Curiosity got the best of me so I felt like looking at the Dell laptops that Clemson recommends and a few others. I noticed that Clemson recommends the business class laptops over commercial laptops. I compared a customized Latitude E6510 with a customized XPS 15 and the XPS turned out to be less expensive even with better upgrades (64-bit rather than 32-bit OS, more memory, larger hard drive, slightly better CPU). The Latitude does however have the Clemson add-ons like Office Enterprise, McAfee VirusScan, and of course, their 4-year CompleteCare warranty. What I am mainly concerned with is the durability of the laptop and the necessity for a warranty, mainly a hardware warranty. I rarely experience software problems with computers, so I don't think I'll need a service plan for that.
The Clemson website is a little vague with what extra software is exactly on the laptop, so can anyone who has a Clemson laptop explain what I would be getting if I choose to buy from Clemson? Also, how does the durability compare between the two laptops, and are there any other features on the Clemson laptop that I should know about?</p>
<p>The only good thing about a recommended laptop is that if it breaks, you can loan a laptop from CCIT. Other than that, I would just get a laptop that you like from anywhere and maybe buy warranty with it if you’re really worried about it breaking. I have a non-recommended laptop and am majoring in civil engineering (I have the Toshiba Portege R705-P35) and I love it while I’ve heard mixed reactions about from friends who bought the recommended non-mac laptops. It’s easy to install software from Clemson, you can do that from the CCIT website and there should be a workshop before classes start where you can go and they’ll help you (or show you) how to do that.</p>
<p>So I think the overall message, is look for a good laptop that at is close to the recommended laptops and choose the laptop you’d be most comfortable using (whether it’s recommended or not). The recommended laptops tend to be expensive too so that may be a factor (when I entered Clemson, the laptops were $1,000+, I got my current laptop for $700)</p>