<p>I own a Sony laptop. It was given to me as my first laptop this past year and it will be going to college with me in fall 2012. Will everyone around have Macbooks? Is Sony up to college standards?</p>
<p>not everyone has a Macbook
and your major might be a deciding factor in your laptop. I would bet your Sony is fine.</p>
<p>I personally think Macs are overrated. But anyways, Sony’s pretty good and you’ll do fine. I heard that some engineering majors have specific computer programs that they need to they could their work. But other than that I think the only program you’ll need is Microsoft Office and the internet.</p>
<p>I agree with 123abc456, I consider Macs to be more expensive and have a more closed design (you can’t customize your computer with different parts yourself) although many people do like Macs, its moreso a personal preference thing. Sony is a fine manufacturer, Microsoft Office will help for most classes in general, and unless your laptop is immensely underpowered, you ought to be set</p>
<p>I posted a similar question about half a year ago. My son ended up getting a really nice, kind of high-end Dell laptop (graduation gift). He loves it! He’s just an entering freshman, so he doesn’t know how well it accomodate various engineering student requirements, but he’s thrilled with his choice so far. The engineering departments at several other colleges that accepted him suggested that he stick with a Windows machine instead of a Mac. He chose to follow that advice. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>It’s hard to customize any laptop. I would not buy anything else until I encountered a firm requirement to do so. The longer you wait, the better your new laptop will be</p>
<p>^That sounds like good advice!</p>
<p>Yeah seriously, a $2000 laptop today will be a $700 laptop a year from now. As a freshmen, it’s not necessary to have a top of the line when you’re taking Freshmen comp, Texas government and Speech…</p>
<p>^ I actually meant it’s smarter to wait until closer to the beginning of freshman year to choose. Some freshmen start right in on some higher level courses and are permitted to bypass a lot of the core classes (APs, dual credit, etc). But more than that, as a parent, I’d rather buy one, say $1500-2000 laptop that will take my kid through 4+ years of college than a $700 laptop now and a $1500-2000 laptop later. That’s just a personal preference – but one that’s in support of a great laptop from the start. :)</p>
<p>Don’t take it to offense, that’s exactly what my parents did. I got a $2100 laptop directly from the maker. Three years later, it just wasn’t as good as the intermediate ones best buy sell. Plus, for me as a business major, it was a boat when I actually had to start bringing it for class projects and presentations.</p>
<p>^oh, I don’t find that offensive at all. But the thing is, no matter WHEN you buy your computer, those same features will be far cheaper and come in smaller, lighter “packaging” a relatively short time later. Within a year or two after your purchase, no matter when you buy, you’ll be able to get more advanced, higher performance features for less money than you paid just a short time ago. </p>
<p>It’s been that way for decades now. (I still have my nearly $1000 very large, VERY heavy VCR player from the early 1980’s! Hilarious to think what you could buy for $1000 now, in terms of Blu Ray, TVs, DVD players, etc.)</p>
<p>With technology, you’ve got to just bite the bullet and get into the game sometime. :)</p>