<p>What has been your experience (really your kids' experience) with laptop usage at school? How mobile do they become? My son is looking at a very heavy laptop - and I'm wondering whether it will generally just sit on hhis desk, or whether he will be lugging it around campus regularly. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Dartmouth is a wireless campus so my D gets a lot of usage out of her laptop. She loves the portability (has a G4 powerbook that weighs about 4 lbs. so she just sticks it in her bag and goes. She isvery mobile and keeps her notes on her computer. She takes it to the library or when studying with friends. Some days I feel as she is joined at the hip with it and would definitely be lost without it.</p>
<p>Ditto what sybbie said, at Williams. The laptops also take up a lot less desk space in a crowded dorm room.</p>
<p>Your son should not be taking a very heavy laptop to school. There's no reason to have one! He will end up lugging it, but may end up regretting having such a weight.</p>
<p>My strong advice: try to stay at 5 lbs. or under. You may pay a premium for the lighter weight but you're really not likely to lose serious functionality for 99% of what you want to do. Of course laptop listed weights typically do not include the additional weight of the power supply (another half lb or so) or a carrying case. If the student carries it in a backpack of some kind, they still will benefit from reducing weight. One way to do that is to avoid getting an oversized screen. Stay to 15" or less unless you're an artist and want something like a 17" Powerbook.</p>
<p>My advice is to keep it light. My daughter carries hers around nearly every day; she likes to work in the library because there are so many distractions in the dorm.</p>
<p>You can always have a larger monitor to keep at your desk and a 12 inch laptop
bigger and they are really a pain to haul around
plus you may not even need to carry the power supply with you- batteries have a pretty long life nowdays unless you are trying to burn dvds at lunch.</p>
<p>Right, keep it light, and if you need options like big audio and video keep those to plug in in your dorm. If you really want a portable laptop you can do with a 12 or 14 or 15 inch (max.) laptop. I'm amazed when I see people getting enamored with 7-8 lb monsters for a computer. My daughter had a 17" Powerbook (in art school) but it was actually only 5 lb or so.</p>
<p>small and light usually means more expensive. Size and weight really depends on the kid. Heck, given the weight of books, given that they're young and healthy, for some, an 8 pound monster may not be so bad.</p>
<p>This is one issue I'd rather not fight with my kid. They're going to need to learn smart buying and compromise at some point. Why not start now; tell them the pros and cons, then let them choose. If she/he wants a 17" screen, they can decide to put up with the weight.</p>
<p>BTW, another reason to not have too much portability is that theft and breakage rises with shrinking size. It only takes a few seconds of inattention in the library for a machine to find a new home. And, because IM can itself be a distraction, why bring the distraction to the library???</p>
<p>Indeed, you may pay more for the light weight. I don't think the theft rate is likely to vary that much by weight, though. At least I've never seen any figure on that.</p>
<p>In the larger scheme of things, what I'm looking for in a laptop in addition to modest weight is basic functionality (which includes tons of RAM) plus high reliability (low repair rate) and service.</p>
<p>My son left his laptop on his desk in his dorm, plugged into speakers, etc. He only lugged it around when he was travelling.</p>
<p>actually a 12 inch computer is much less expensive than a 17 inch laptop
also you really don't need the biggest and fastest for freshman year
I would buy a refurbished one- that is enough to get by if they don't already have one from high school.
By the time they are a junior computers will have improved dramactially, they will have a better idea of what they actually are going to use it for and what would be appropriate.
It does depend on the school and how much outside traffic there is a think to gauge the theft issue. My daughter hasn't had a problem with theft and she has had a laptop for three years without a lock.
She often brings it to lab ( they have wireless) and I have sat in the lobby of the computer lab to use the wireless myself and never felt like I had to take it with me when I went to the bathroom.
really a 17 inch screen is really bigger than you need unless you have eyesight problems or are going to use Photoshop a great deal.
My 15 year old has been usuing the same 12" laptop since she entered middle school and she hauls it around all over the place.
My oldest carefully considered screen sizes when she bought her most recent powerbook and also opted for a 12 inch screen. She has used laptops for the past 8 years as her main computer and since the primary reason to choose a laptop was to choose one that was portable- thats what she got. The students who chose bigger ones really didn't carry theirs around as much.</p>
<p>We just bought my entering freshman a 9.6 lb monster with a 17 inch screen. It's the latest thing and has more horse power than his desktop. He's a computer science major. It's probably going to be chained to his desk when he's not flying back and forth from school. Then again, his school is rumored to have 2 computers for every student, so unless he were going to take notes with it (he won't), it doesn't need to be mobile.</p>
<p>Guess it varies based on the circumstances.</p>
<p>if you are planning to leave your laptop in your room and the main reason for a laptop at all is so that it is easier to take back and forth on school vacations- is very different than wanting a laptop so you can write in the meadow, or in a group study session in the dorm lounge
someone who is really motivated for a huge screen will find the tradeoff worth it- but someone who wants to use their own computer and not have to be transferring files from the campus computers may find that a portable laptop is more of what they are looking for
If you are worried that it will be more delicate if you carry it around however and don't want to buy the insurance to cover that- it is probably best to leave it in your room- I don't think students in general take notes on their laptops in class, except for my daughter, she has done so since high school, because she would be more distracted with pen and paper- drawing elaborate designs on the paper, on her jeans.... on the desk... so she started using the laptop because then not only wasn't she as distractible but she could read her notes!</p>
<p>My D, a history major, totes her laptop back and forth to the library all the time. My main piece of advice is to get a backpack that has a padded compartment to carry the laptop in -- then weight doesn't matter as much.</p>
<p>Yes, Dell sells a padded backpack, which my daughter actually uses all the time. She also uses the computer lock (like an old bicycle lock) we bought from Dell with her laptop for security. They were both good investments.</p>
<p>I happen to have this data on hand for current models:</p>
<p>12" iBook 4.9 lbs
14" iBook 5.9 lbs</p>
<p>12" PowerBook 4.6 lbs
15" PowerBook 5.6 lbs
17" PowerBook 6.9 lbs</p>
<p>If you get a generic 17" or 19" LCD screen to use in the dorm room with a 12" model, it will cost about $300+ additional. (The Apple monitors cost a small fortune.)</p>
<p>If you want to use Gigabit Ethernet at all (such as in the dorm room), it is only available on the 15" PowerBook or higher (lower models only have 100 BaseT).</p>
<p>The prices track screen size, not weight. Top functionality is not offered in small screen models.</p>
<p>Apple has discounts for college students. Apples cost more than Windows machines.</p>
<p>I am with newmassdad re boys and the size of their laptops. I wouldn't have dreamed of trying to influence my S as to size of laptop. He got the big screen (I don't know the weight). But he knows whereof he speaks; he'd spent two nights in the dorm with other techies like himself and knows what they use/how they use it and how he'd use it.</p>
<p>He doesn't expect to be lugging it regularly around to class (Engineering major). For some majors and for some type of kids, they do take notes on laptop, but not many do from what I've heard/seen.</p>
<p>Now, if your S is not computer-savvy, you may want to try advising him. Good luck ;). But if he is, he knows the trade-offs and want the big screen enough to accept the downsides. Boys and their toys, you know....</p>
<p>S also didn't want a computer back-pack (which I DID try to get him to buy); instead he got a regular computer case (briefcase style). Said he was too used to just tossing a backpack around and didn't think it would be a good idea to have his computer in one (imagine my surprise that he was thinking ahead like that :rolleyes:; still don't know if he's right though.</p>
<p>Thanks to all of you. The laptop my S was looking at was a monster upwards of 9 pounds. So I took ten pounds of barbells and put it into a briefcase and told him to carry it for a few minutes. We are going lightweight!! He must be maturing, I've never before convinced him he might be wrong.</p>
<p>Apple discounts for students:</p>
<p>Currently they have a special if you get a computer you get a free iPod.</p>
<p>All students at my sons' high school are required to have laptops (yeah, I know...) and it's pretty much split between students who carry them in the padded pouch inside their backpacks vs. those who have a separate computer case. I can report that some students <em>do</em> tend to throw their backpacks around, or have friends who come up behind them and punch their backpacks "playfully", thereupon cracking the laptop screen. At least with the special briefcase they're less likely to be stepped on.</p>
<p>Personal experience is quite a teacher.</p>