<p>What should i bring?</p>
<p>FWIW, my son will be bringing at least one of each.</p>
<p>If you can, bring both (laptop to tag along, desktop for <em>ahem</em> online gaming). If you can bring one of them, bring a laptop.</p>
<p>I definitely recommend bringing either a truly portable laptop, or a desktop. If you can, bringing both would nice :P. By truly portable, I mean one that you would feel comfortable carrying around. Some people bring pretty bulky/massive laptops and never end up taking them anywhere, which defeats the purpose of a laptop in my opinion.</p>
<p>This being MIT, I'm guessing a lot of students have their desktops running as servers?</p>
<p>a decent amount of servers are around, yes. not always the primary machines, sometimes just some cruft in a closet.</p>
<p>Of course bring as many computers as possible! :) But if you can only have one, I'd say bring a laptop. It's great for working on group projects, since everyone can meet up somewhere with their laptops. If you can afford the extras, I'd say get a laptop + docking station with monitor/keyboard/mouse. That way you can tote it around with you, but when you get back to your room you can dock it and use the regular peripherals.</p>