Lapton or Desktop (for Uni)

[iranu]

A desktop is also more difficult to steal too. A usb flash drive will take care of transporting data when you go home for holidays.

[bertie]

I'd go for a laptop.
Of course I have multiple of each but If I HAD to choose one I'd go for a decent laptop - £450 will buy you a decent machine you can game-ish on and carry between the various places you inhabit.

[Dougal]

The laptop I use alongside my Uni comp is a 1GHZ Dell Latitude, its small, light, couple of hours on batt but no biggie.
And cheap.

[Spud1]

Ebay ofc

its a celeron..but still it works well enough for office/firefox/a few games

loads of really good value lappys on ebay if you hunt around for office clearence stock (ie when a company is replacing all its laptops)

[Gerschwin]

Get some old P2 desktop and blow the rest on booze....you know you want to

[herulach]

Its a shame you didnt see the dell deal a few days ago, desktop and laptop for 483 shipped i think it was. It might still work, its in the bargains section somewhere.

You can prob manage a decent sff for around 550, but thats excluding monitor. Id be tempted to say dont bother, and just go for a tower, they are much easier, and like i said before if youre going to and fro on train or something get a lappy.

Its all very well saying you can take your data on a memory stick, but if yourein halls you prob wont get the room over holidays, and allthough most places have a communal storage room, i wouldnt leave anything expensive in there to get smashed by people slinging suitcases in.

[ekundo]

heh, i built my shuttle for about £450 i think, with monitor.

sn45g, 2500+ tho you can get better now for same price i think, 512mb ram, 9600se, works a treat for CoD, UT2k4 and bf2 (tho i have a gig of ram for that now)


oh, its good for work aswell

[Aaron]

If you go for a desktop, then a TFT is a must. I found that the desks in halls are tiny. Back when I started uni, TFTs weren't readily available and I had to position my monitor at a crazy angle to get it onto the desk.

A laptop would be nice if you want to work in the library and when coming back and forth between uni and home.

But you obviously get a lot more bang for your buck with a PC, especially at the £450 price bracket. Are you going to build it yourself? For £450, I reckon you'd be better off finding a bargain at Dell (they have some insane deals with TFTs thrown in) and then maybe upgrading a few components yourself.

[mosherben]

With the budget you are talking about, it's definately a desktop.

I got a laptop since my uni has a wireless network I can connect to. A thing I'ved noticed in my uni is that during assignments, there are no free computers. It can become quite annoying, so if your uni has a wireless network I would use get a laptop if possible.

[Marcos]

I have an ultra-portable laptop with the power of a decent desktop :dunno: best of both worlds.

I would no doubt absolutely go with laptop, saves space too, you can take it to class, you can take it somewhere quiet to study. Etc

[Shmee150]

As Marcos, although I have my laptop and desktop. I could 'probably' live without my desktop, but for work, and general having the laptop is far more important to me.

So yeah, I would go with a laptop if you have to choose. But at that budget, try to find a good condition used one so that you're getting something at good value.

ShMeE

[5cupa]

the thing is packing up a desktop is a pain. but i would go for a shuttle/bag/mini keyboard and a 17''tft so all small enought to packup and get out the door but also easy to upgrade if u wanted to

[Marcos]

If i did have a desktop at all for Uni I would not go with anything other than a Shuttle or equivalent. And I'd definitly have a TFT. Even if it means having less performance.

I just don't think you'd realistically have the room to comfortably live with a CRT and ful-size desktop. Along with probably a TV.

Although a friend of mine took his monster desktop (I mean huge) along with twin 17" TFTs, a 21" TV, glass front mini-fridge, PS2 xbox and gamecube. In his defense he was doing a game design course so he didnt need the desk space but still , bloody ridiculous

[5cupa]

not expecting to be dating the opposite sex much then

[oshta]

If i did have a desktop at all for Uni I would not go with anything other than a Shuttle or equivalent. And I'd definitly have a TFT.

Yeah, i'd deffonatly go with the TFT.
- Also, im not taking a telly.

[Marcos]

not expecting to be dating the opposite sex much then

hehe, i think hes blessed with some sort of natural ability since he seems to get the best of both worlds