<p>So, how is the tablet incorporated in VT courses? I am planning to not buy a tablet at all. I will just order an external tablet through Amazon if it is absolutely required once classes start.</p>
<p>Please let me know if touch screen laptop with better specs than required is good enough. The laptop can even bend 300 degrees - tent shape. But not 360 degrees? Will the professor personally want to see the tablets? </p>
<p>It would be great if someone can tell if what I have works.</p>
<p>An external tablet will work just fine. You will only be using it in the first two intro engineering courses. These intro engineering courses are new but apparently are supposed to be like the pilot courses offered last year to some people, and they didn’t seem to use the tablets much either. The instructors probably won’t care. It might just feel a little bit weird since 4/5 or more people have those tablet PCs, but you will get used to it and just know that you spent less money than them. </p>
<p>@RealReal Do they convert those laptops into tablets when in class? In which case I can jut bend it 300 degrees.</p>
<p>@RealReal I think you got me wrong. I don’t want to even buy an external tablet. I am asking if a touch screen lenovo laptop that can bend 300 degrees is good enough? And do people actually use their laptops as tablets in class?</p>
<p>I have asked the tablet question during the orientation. The answer was - students need to write in formulas during lectures, so any touch screen device with a stilus and a write-in software will do.</p>
<p>You can’t write well at all on those touch screens. They at least expect you to be able to draw somewhat straight lines for sketches and graphs. Those “capacitive touch screens” aren’t good enough. So you need something with digital inking. But link the actual laptop you want here.</p>
<p>Why would they ask us to write on a touch screen though? I see no point other than doing it forcibly because we had to buy a tablet</p>
<p>Welcome to college life, agg999. They will force you to learn a lot of sfuff you see no point of using ever again :-)</p>
<p>@Dad4Engineering I mean is it for a grade? Otherwise I will just use my hand… I am trying to save money that’s all.</p>
<p>There are other low cost options. I used a Motion Computing LE1700 old tablet that I bought from ebay. At my college I was able to get Win 8.1 from MS Dream spark for free. At around $175 you get a 12.1 inch screen with wacom digitizer and the stylus looks, feels and works like a normal ink pen. The bet part is adding stuff to class notes, being able to make colorful diagrams and convert script to typed text. Check out this product on the web you might be interested. “Low cost windows tablet for college - LE 1700”.</p>