<p>My first semester at UT is starting in a couple of weeks.
and I need a laptop that can get me through the 4-years of undergrad</p>
<p>I'm going in to electrical engineering so i already know i need a good laptop.
I've looked online and I'm not really sure where I should be buying mine from.</p>
<p>I want to get the most out of my money,
should I just buy my laptop on-campus or go to some local electronics store and buy it there?</p>
<p>The folks at the UT computer store are pretty knowledgable about what the computer needs of each major needs. I would start there.</p>
<p>If you went to orientation, the ECE department gave recommendations for laptop specs. but you don’t actually need to follow their recommendation. (I think they recommended i5 processor with arbitrary clock speed, at least 4gb RAM, and an arbitrary HDD size…)</p>
<p>The best deals probably won’t be at any local stores, but they’re probably better than the campus store. For a great deal, you have to find online specials - and a good deal depends on what your budget is.</p>
<p>My “budget” suggestion would be to get one around $600, and you can even self-upgrade your laptop with an SSD to get a nice boost (an extra ~$100, depending on size). Most ultrabooks I’ve seen are rip-offs (as are Macbooks). If you prefer a Mac, then you’re probably not ever going to get a good deal - just buy the newest one when it comes out.</p>
<p>If you don’t have a preferred brand, my suggestions would be Toshiba, Vaio, Lenovo, and Samsung. Of course, each laptop is different, so make sure to look for reviews.</p>
<p>thank you for your help, I’m probably going to be playing alot of games
so I might end up getting an i5 or higher.</p>
<p>slickdeals.net</p>
<p>Doesn’t matter where you get it, Costco, Amazon, Bestbuy etc…
I highly recommend a PC, not a mac.</p>
<p>But you can always dual boot your mac (what I’m doing) and you get Windows for free from school.</p>
<p>Ditto to what rocketderp said. You can buy a Mac from the computer store near Fondren, but its pretty expensive.</p>
<p>slickdeals.net techbargains.net fatwallet.com tons of deal sites. Deals pop up pretty frequently. Depends a lot on your purpose.</p>
<p>As a student pursuing engineering (and my first semester of college this fall), I would recommend a laptop with a decent discrete graphics card. This is because, if you ever decide to pursue other, more CAD/digital design intensive engineering fields, it’ll be extremely useful to have. Majors that require such work are (mainly) Mechanical, Aerospace, and Civil Engineering.</p>
<p>Also, personally, I’m planning on get a new Windows 8 tablet/ultrabook hybrid with an active digitizer for pen input this fall/winter to replace my notebooks, pens, pencils, and hopefully, my textbooks. Although you will still probably also need a powerful laptop/desktop to supplement it (only if you want a bigger screen or need a discrete graphics card), I would recommend looking into the new Windows 8 tablets (e.g. Windows Surface Pro, ASUS Taichi, Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga) as they begin to roll out over the next few months. If you want to try any of them, you’ll probably be able to get your hands on them at the Microsoft Store in Austin.</p>
<p>At any rate, remember that you do have on-campus computer labs at your disposal if you do indeed need a computer with a little more power for designing purposes.</p>