@Marakov29 Really? DD used a Dell all the way through college, and no one made a peep about her operating system.
I never said anything about getting a highest end laptop which I also wouldn’t recommend not only on pricing grounds, but also the fact that as gaming laptops, they are a poor compromise between price, computing power needed for gaming, and long-term reliability(overheating being one big issue).
If one wants a serious computer for gaming, getting a dedicated gaming desktop with high end graphics and a large enough case with fans to cool everything down well is the way to go…and a much better value to boot.
What I am saying is it’s better to get something in between the bigbox budget line and the $2500-3000+ gaming laptops both of which are poor value for one’s computing dollars. .
As someone who has worked on computers as a professional for nearly 2 decades, buying the lowest end bigbox laptop tends to result in the same issues that I experienced as an undergrad and now see as someone who services/gives advice on buying current machines. In short, pennywise and pound foolish unless your intention is to buy the student another laptop 2 years into undergrad which most families of incoming students/college applicants don’t initially intend.
What’s more sad is from the past 2 decades, those problematic issues of getting a college student the budget/consumer-line notebooks is even more applicable today than it was during my undergrad years as most computer OEMs have been cutting corners in terms of build quality across the board.
And none more so than the budget/consumer line* notebooks from bigbox stores. The poor cheap build quality of the ones from more recent years has gotten so bad some have failed because the build quality of the external casing is so flimsy that it is enough to cause the internal motherboard to fail as it flexes the motherboard badly enough over time to cause cracks in the solder joints/circuits to cause serious issues amounting to motherboard failure.
Have a couple of such examples sitting on a shelf from clients who brought them to me only to find the cost of parts/repair wasn’t worth it for them considering the underlying cause would result in them bringing the machine back for the same issue within a year or 2.
- I.e. Dell Inspiron/Vostro lines, Toshiba Satellites, etc. As an aside, i also wouldn't recommend getting a Sony laptop period as the build quality tends to be quite flimsy and they use shockingly cheap parts...especially for the prices they charge.
While it’s much less now as many engineering/CS majors/grad students use Macs for their main line of work, the disdaining of one’s computing choice isn’t necessarily one way as there are still some engineering/CS/techie students who would look down upon mac users as @oldfort put it in a past post on another thread “tech idiots”.
A large part of this is not only the substantially improved hardware build quality from the Macs of the early-mid '90s era(it was pretty ghastly back then), but also due to the introduction of OSX which is based on a variant of BSD Unix as opposed to pre-OSX Mac OSes.
@thumper1 I was being kind of tongue-in-cheek
I don’t think engineering & physics mashies look down on Windows. Maybe in the more creative fields…
I would guess most engineering and hard science kids use Windows machines rather than Apple. My son and his friends look down on Apple. I like Lenovo. More expensive but tougher built from what I see so better for every day use. You can get a cable lock. Probably more of a deterrent than anything.
^How does autocorrect get “mashies” out of “majors”? Anyway… my physics major with a Mac has not taken any grief. So this student could go either way.
Computer Science major here (first two years of school heavily resemble a math/engineering/physics major plus programming classes). In terms of Windows vs Mac: if you’re buying him a laptop, one way or another you’re going to spend at least a few hundred dollars. Get him the OS HE wants and will be happy using, as long as it’s in your budget. That said, if his university seriously discourages a Mac, don’t get him one.
I have an HP Envy with an i7 processor and an NVIDA graphics card (not one of the good/high end/gaming graphics card; non touchscreen; $700). It’s pricy but it’s expected to last me all 4 years of college (and I ain’t gettin’ another if it doesn’t! lol). Said laptop also overheats like mad after 30-45 minutes of solid game time, and I’ve been too lazy/cheap to get fans for it.Graphic cards are easy to swap; he can pay for his own if he wants it as a freshman.
In terms of theft, number one rule: NEVER leave it unattended. My backpack is either with me, in the trunk of my car, or in a locker at the gym. If I’m studying alone and need to use the restroom, I pack up everything except a notebook and a hoodie to save my spot. I don’t have the trouble of securing it in a dorm room because I go to CC, but a laptop desk lock or a lockbox (something like a small trunk or footlocker?) might be good.
@intparent I thought ‘mashies’ was great!
This is one my DS is interested in – Lenovo P50 -he does a lot of programming & security stuff as well as runs various VMs, protyping for electronics projects etc. and sometimes even regular school work: http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/lenovo-thinkpad-p50
one downside - it is heavy.
For about the same price, this is what I just got.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B013KKANTE/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1
It has a solid state drive and is lighter.
S (incoming first year probable math major) has been considering the higher end Microsoft Surface Book tablet/laptop hybrids. His reasoning is that the pen-tablet configuration will be useful for drawing equations and rough graphs while in laptop mode he can use it for classic note taking.
He went over to Best Buy the other day and spent time playing on the display machines to check out the feel of both the pen input and the keyboard.
I still think far more engineering (and science) apps, test utilities, etc are available for the Windows world than Mac.
I only buy SSDs now (fast boot, lower power consumption). I would splurge (reasonable amount) on more RAM and decent processor.
Lightweight, slim, and long battery life are important for college use.
As others have said, there’s no technical way to prevent gaming. Encourage kid to save important work to the cloud (Dropbox is free and easy and syncs to your mobile device.)
My kid is a physics major (rising senior), and there has been no challenge get to the needed software for her Mac. Just saying.
Ditto # 26 about his getting the OS HE wants. My son finally went to the dark side (apple) as it was known in our family for his personal computing a few years after working in the CS field, eventually using both. He took his desktop PC to UW where he did the Honors math and Physics sequences (settled on a math honors major then added computer science). He already had a high end graphics card and fast computer.
Look at the IT site. In the past they mentioned that for some graphics intensive majors Apple was desirable. otherwise it was go with what you know.
As a parent you will want to remind him that academics come first- he will not have the time to spend gaming like he may have done to offset boredom in HS. He needs to be reminded how easy it is to lose one’s sense of time and be “addicted” to gaming as well.
So much of math and physics is theory. I do not see it as graphics intensive.
Didn’t see that post until now. Ironic as your act of picking a Latitude…especially back in 2006 meant you were in practice actually following what I’ve advised clients and students looking to buy a reliable laptop to last 4 years of undergrad…get a corporate line laptop.
Latitude and XPS are Dell’s corporate line and ones I’d recommend if someone must have a dell.
It’s the budget/consumer-grade lines like the Inspirons and Vostros commonly sold in bigbox stores like Best Buy and Costco I’d recommend avoiding unless you don’t mind needing to get another laptop 2 years down the road or subjecting your student to hassles related to sending laptops back for repairs.
A powerful graphical processor unit(GPU) isn’t only used by hardcore gamers. It’s also used in multimedia processing(useful for film/multimedia related majors), computationally intensive number crunching(math/various STEM fields), 3D modeling(STEM and other fields), AutoCAD, etc.
As more software requiring intensive processing requirements take advantage of powerful GPUs alongside the CPUs, going for a lower end machine with less powerful GPUs or worse…some which have GPUs no better than displaying graphics will increasingly hobble those who run software which takes advantage of using the computer’s GPU to offload some of the computationally intensive workloads.
That Dell Latitude came from the Dell Outlet online. At the time…it was an incredible deal for a really good computer. If it hadn’t been there…the kid would have taken one of our used Dell Laptops with her to college…and she would have survived.
I don’t see advanced math dealing with numbers much, if at all. Likewise physics. Undergrads are not number crunching the huge amounts of data grad students may be wanting to- their labs are learning how things work and not trying to advance bits of knowledge. Architecture and graphic design majors should pay attention to the operating system, most other majors do not need that. All of today’s computers are capable of handling the lab data generated by undergrad labs. Problem solving is knowing how to choose equations, not being able to plug in numbers.
This is second hand information, so if I’m wrong my apologies, but according to my physics/math student there are software programs that she uses (for school work!) for which the difference between an i3 and an i5 processor is material. It’s not managing the amount or level of data that’s the issue- it’s the demands of the software that they are using.
Let’s repeat: see what the college says, on their IT pages and/or in the dept info. Start there. Don’t presume some random poster can claim the ultimate advice.
Thousands of kids are going off to study STEM without the arguments about which laptop serves professional grade computing,24/7/365. Or the assumption all your power needs have to be met in your own laptop. Or whether some cheaper piece failed someone, somehow, sometime, somewhere. As far as basic reliability and “hand” (user ease) goes, I tend to look at the professional reviews- eg, CNET and other sites. The rest is YMMV.
The problem with professional review sites is that they only use a laptop for a short amount of time before reviewing it. If a computer tends to break down after a year or two, the review won’t catch that.