<p>Im an incoming freshmen engineering student at uf, and am also looking for a laptop. It would appear that this samsung for $830 would be more than enough for what I’ll be doing. The specs are:
i5 processer
4gb memory
Nvidia Geforce 310 graphic card
500 GB hard drive</p>
<p>Basically this seems to be the perfect laptop for the price- So i guess what I’m asking is this: Is there any reason I shouldnt get this laptop.?? </p>
<p>I know its a samsung which isnt known for its computers( I don’t think) But does the brand really matter too much? Any response at all would be a lot of help- Thanks!</p>
<p>Fast processors and high-end graphics cards are not only made for gamers. Personally, I do a lot of photoshopping (CS5) and video editing (After Effects) so a powerful CPU and GPU are a necessity.</p>
<p>For engineering, you need RAM over clock speed. The extra clock speed won’t help you much if your computer has to constantly read/write to the hard drive. If you are going to get a video card, make sure it can run CUDA. This is an extension of C (it should be compatible with C++) that does non-graphics computation on the graphics card.</p>
<p>You usually get a pretty good deal through your campus computer store too. Most have agreements with Dell, for example, that, in most cases let you do a little bit better than just going to the Dell website yourself. Also, don’t go for office professional preinstalled get the cheapest install, since you can get in and other things super-cheap from your campus webstore in most cases. I know U of I has full Office Pro for $65! And Matlab is a free download.</p>
<p>Can you offer a few more opinions on the “Desktop Replacement” laptop? What about the backpack that you can get to carry it around in? Speakers for the kid who likes music in the dorm, or a good set of headphones to keep it quiet? I appreciated the advice about bluetooth and the wireless mouse and keyboard. I think that’s a must for the dorm. Is a docking station necessary? If you get a tv tuner, can you hook that up as input to your television? I’m trying to sort through the myriad of options they offer when you purchase a computer. Any advice in this area would be much appreciated. If you take a look at Dell’s website and go through the myriad options they have, you get a little dizzy. Which ones have more utility for a college student thinking about dorm life as well as running engineering applications. Can you sit in the Quad for example, and hook into the campus network? Would you even want to? HD Display options…Do you want to get an extended warrentee, and does your home policy cover computer damage and/or theft?</p>
<p>You can do photoshop easily with 2 GB of RAM and around 2 GHz processor (dual cores are better though). I suppose if you’re multi-tasking like me (I do lots of programming whilst simultaneously using heavy software like photoshop) then extra RAM would be great. But i7 processor? A bit of an overkill, but I guess if you’re willing to spend the money then hey why not.</p>
<p>Hey, just wondering because I’m ordering a thinkinpad t and there’s the i3 and i5 and the difference is $120. I don’t know, my uncle is buying it and he doesn’t care about money so I might go with the i5 but is it really needed?</p>
<p>I was a CS major and my brother graduated as a CS major. We both had MAC laptops for the following reasons: built in compiler, linux based, and stronger programming environment than Windows. We both had entered university with Dell laptops they were fine but after 1.5-2 years we both upgraded. I had originally went for a MAC for the environment and my brother did it due to the fact that all of his professor recommended it. My MAC from school had a partitioned hard drive. My current MAC does not. My desktop is still windows, its difficult to play games on a MAC when they all cost $50 a piece and Office is better on Windows. MAC office sucks. Though at home I have three networks. One for MACs and one for non MACs. </p>
<p>I grew up with windows, I know how to use it. I had to learn Unix and Linux for my major. I wanted to learn MAC OS, so I got a MAC. I had interns that only used MAC in development.</p>
<p>I’m not gonna lie, it really annoys me when universities try to require a certain computer for all students. Most of them provide computer labs anyway, so what is the big deal?</p>
<p>I think UIUC had a recommended set of specs, but nothing said “required” or “approved list” or anything ridiculous like that.</p>
<p>I havent read all the replies to this thread yet, but I’d buy whatever is decent and cheap. By cheap I mean between the 700-1000 range. I’m in grad school for Mech. E right now and I bought a HP something or other laptop with a pretty decent dual core almost 2 years ago for $700ish. Just about anything you buy will be either obsolete or broken by the time you graduate anyway so dont spend too much, but dont buy something too underpowered either.</p>
<p>I get the more memory/beefy CPU thing for Engineering CPU Intensive applications, but it’s the additional utility of the computer when you’re not number-crunching with Matlab that I’m wondering about. Since a computer is just a bunch of harmonious (ie you don’t want a ferrari cpu bogged down with a 5400rpm hard drive and 2 megs of memory) components, thinking about the typical things a college student would use his computer for during a given day, what bells and whistles would give you the most bang for the buck out of the universe of “accessories” that are offered?</p>
<p>Like Bluetooth - for wireless keyboard and mouse (while in the dorm)
Headphones - for listening to your music without rocking out your roommate.
HD monitor - for those netflix movies anywhere
Backpack - that you’ll use for books anyway, but tailored to hold your laptop too
No touch vs Touch software - I have no idea what the heck this means
Facial recognition - what for?
Graphics Card - In case he gets into WoW
TV tuner
Docking Station</p>
<p>Which are a waste of money vs a good bang for the buck, if you intend to ???</p>
<p>Mine is a 2ish GHz dual processor with 4GB of RAM, 64 bit. My computer can handle MATLAB like a champ. I think anything over that is probably overkill.</p>
<p>Also another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of schools will allow you to VPN to their network. This allows you to run a lot of heavy computing remotely using multiple processor machines in the lab without having to run it on your home PC.</p>