PC for Uni :)

[dave87]

Well, on the back of my results on thurs, I'm off to UEA in september

This is great news, but brings the question of what PC/Laptop I'm taking with me...decisions decisions...

This is the best spec I've found so far (staying under a grand here people, gotta have some money for booze)



So any better specs for equal or less money?

[chazt]

you could get a sff system that would be just as portable and capable of playing games for less than that

[owen1978]

you should go to the dell site and get the same one with lower specs for £489
what you planning to use it for, dont say gaming because your better off spending your money on a mirco atx setup. If its for assingments etc.. then the cheaper one will be more than enough.

[MadduckUK]

x1300 hypermemory apart from that and the strangly small-for-the-spec harddrive id say its pretty good.

like the other peeps have said id evaluate what exactly your looking for. perhaps a cheapo laptop and a sff desktop would be better suited?

[sawyen]

x1300... not too much of a card is it?

At least you'll still get decent frames in CS Source.. but whether it will run well on the native res thats another question..

I'd really go for a better graphics chip, like a 7900GS..

[Madafwo]

Also, if you are confident in your abilities to change the ram yourself, get the basic amount, buy some from Crucial or somewhere and save yourself about £100, friend is in the same boat but a SFF system wont be able to be used for taking notes in lectures. Which is what most Uni students want a laptop for, anything over £600 is over kill, unless you want to play a couple of games.

[Dark Horse]

Make sure you go for quidco to get 4.5% back.

[krazy_olie]

I've always thought that pen and paper was the best for taking notes, though I'm sure it depends on the course, most people I asked said they hardly ever take their laptops out their rooms.

My brother manages fine with a desktop, and I started up a thread a while ago somewhere and a few of them said that the laptop was a bit useless. Some of them bought up the idea of SFF but I didn't really see the point in that.

I'm ordering a system (in parts) this week for around 900. This would be for gaming/multimedia as well as work, If I need a laptop urgently I'll buy some cheapo thing of ebay that can run wordpad.

Also laptops get stolen and they break, seeing as that's a very nice laptop it would be sad if something happened to it.

[chazt]

for a grand you could get a real high end desktop or a mediocre laptop, its an easy choice for me.

also, you seriously don't want to be the guy who takes a laptop into a lecture. You won't make any friends!

[FInalD]

for a grand you could get a real high end desktop or a mediocre laptop, its an easy choice for me.

also, you seriously don't want to be the guy who takes a laptop into a lecture. You won't make any friends!

This is what I was thinking when I was debating getting a laptop.

It's all very well getting one but as has been said you'll just get fed-up with taking it and leave it in your room and use a pen and paper. My handwriting is appauling, but when I start uni in Sept I'll be taking a desktop computer with me and lots of pens and paper pads as I realised that using a laptop whilst seeming a good idea isn't in practice a very good one.

You can get more bang for your pound (doesn't sound as good as saying buck...but this is the UK) if you buy a PC and leave it in your room. I was going to go for a £1200 laptop, but have changed my mind and will be spending about £1500 on a full computer system. I could just spend abut £800 on the tower and take the screen speakers etc. that I already have with me, but I feel that I want a fresh start.
If you are determind to get a laptop, then get something small and light that's low powered and has a long batterylife that means it's fine for lectures and note taking and if you want something for games then buy a pc aswell.

FinalD

[chuckskull]

Almost everyone I know who took a laptop to uni, only moved it in the summer when the went home.

For a grand you're looking and conroe and a X1900

[Clunk]

dell are giving away a free fire extinguisher with all their new laptops. alledgedly.

[chazt]

also, if you are set on getting a laptop, you should wait til september for a merom-based core 2 duo

[dave87]

Also, if you are confident in your abilities to change the ram yourself, get the basic amount, buy some from Crucial or somewhere and save yourself about £100, friend is in the same boat but a SFF system wont be able to be used for taking notes in lectures. Which is what most Uni students want a laptop for, anything over £600 is over kill, unless you want to play a couple of games.

I could do the memory myself, by dell are doing one of their double memory deals. I persoanally would like it to be able to handle the occasional game, such as CS:Source, the thing with any laptop using a 7900gs was at least £4-500 more expensive, and was usually with less memory. The only thing I'm looking to change is the hard disk myself, as dell want £70 to upgrade to a 80gb 7200rpm, or even more for a 100gb. - I could buy another hard disk for less.

SFF I did consider, but I'm thinking if I find I really want to do gaming then I'll take my desktop PC with me second semester or something, the other benefit of a powerful CPU & large amount of ram was that I'd like to try photo editing & the like, and its made a lot easier when your processor can actually pull its own weight.

Dave

[dave87]

for a grand you could get a real high end desktop or a mediocre laptop, its an easy choice for me.

also, you seriously don't want to be the guy who takes a laptop into a lecture. You won't make any friends!

If I was going to take it with me into uni lectures, I'd get a tablet PC so I can play noughts and crosses and maybe make some notes/doodles (delete as appropriate) along the way.

The main thing with the laptop is portability, I can take it wherever, train bus car etc, and use it there. SFF doesn't quite cut it there

[dave87]

Make sure you go for quidco to get 4.5% back.

I'll have to have a look at that, thanks