<p>While its probobly a good idea to bring home expensive things, you should check into your school's break policy. UChicago (and many others) closes all but one the dorms over the big breaks. As far as desktops go, the size combined with the fact that unless you buy an alienware or something they all look about the same (read: low resale value) means that nobody is going to steal it. Maybe if you have a nice mouse or something somebody might jack it but that would take them getting into your dorm, to your floor and into your locked room. If they can manage all of that, they would be much more inclinded to do it when you are simply out somewhere and nab your laptop.</p>
<p>The laptops you have available to purchase sound like just the right things. They were designed to be durable and get the job done. Multimedia laptops are too much of a compromise and you end up with the worst of both worlds. If you really want something akin to a multimedia laptop, the PowerBooks are your best bet (and they are actually quite light and very slim compared to their PC equivalent).</p>
<p>A note on keeping your laptop safe is that the flashy looking things get stolen. If you have a plain looking laptop (like the thinkpads) or the case is more scuffed up and older looking, its not going to become a target. Also interesting is a story I heard: A guy had a nice laptop (at the time it was a PIII) and then an old pentium class laptop somebody gave him for free to play with. One day he was bored and switched the stickers. There were some break-ins in his dorm and the theif came to his room and took the crappy computer because it had the PIII sticker on it while leaving the nice computer. </p>
<p>Also, try to write down your MAC address (both wired and wireless). If your stuff gets stolen, often you can bring those numbers to the campus network services and if the theif connects to the network (even if they reformat everything), they can send the campus police to the location of that network jack or wireless hotspot.</p>
<p>I didn't get the chance to read this entire thread so this may have already been mentioned, but I would suggest simply getting the super-small, lightweight notebook (or perhaps a tablet PC) and just getting a nice large monitor and/or a keyboard that you can keep on your desk and hook up to the notebook when you're doing your work in your dorm. That way, you can type more easily, have your eyes be more comfortable, AND have a very lightweight computer to take with you wherever. Just my two cents...</p>
<p>I'm going to bring my awesome computer to my dorm and it will stay there probably.. if I go home, it won't be for long and I won't miss my computer. I will probably get a little laptop to take around for classes and type in notes.. or watch anime... 0:]</p>
<p>I'm here to agree with those people saying that no one really takes notes on their laptops. If you're taking a seminar class or anything discussion based, bringing a laptop is actually rather rude. I see a decent number of kids bringing laptops to lectures, but they're also checking email/shopping online/talking online/etc... I imagine for some people it's more to zone out than to actually take notes.</p>
<p>My roommate has a laptop and a desktop and it's really stupid, I think. Well for her it's stupid because she doesn't understand computers, so she has NO idea how to sync the files or use a network or anything. Because of this, she maybe uses her laptop once every two or three weeks and it's always some complicated event when she doesn't know how to burn a CD... Unless you have a lot of money to throw around, I wouldn't do it. Especially for the reasons "it might get stolen" or "it might crash" or "it might get a virus." If you take the proper precautions for those things not to happen, they won't! Don't have a backup computer for it. Besides, any college will be equipped to do many sorts of technological help if you need it at any time.</p>
<p>For as many people who own laptops on my campus, I rarely see people toting them around.</p>
<p>Go for like a 12" Powerbook for your smaller laptop (powerful, small, and sexy) and a larger 17" dell for your main computer. My brother uses his 12" powerbook for in-class and stuff and has a new Power Mac G5 at his desk, though he commutes to school so I can see your necessity for two laptops.</p>
<p>I debated taking a laptop and a desktop but i realized it isnt worth it. Instead I just ordered a 19" LCD monitor ($300) and I am going to get a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. So when I'm in my dorm I will be able to type and use a normal monitor, and not have to rely on just the laptop monitor. I think the best route for those taking laptops is to get an LCD monitor (because their light) and a seperate keyboard and mouse.</p>
<p>I didnt read the other posts, but if the sole purpose of buying 2 computers is for backup, you should realize that you could always save your documents to the network to retrieve later.</p>