Last week, a colleague [wrote an article that] offered advice for purchasing a laptop for college. While some of the advice was sound, I feel the need to rebut and offer my perspective as someone who is a few years removed from college.
During my years at Purdue, I used a laptop for the majority of my note taking and paper writing.
As for hardware, the brand does not matter. The hardware differences between a Dell, Toshiba or HP are nonexistent. Each manufacturer uses the same parts and shell to enclose the hardware.
Look for a machine that has at least 2 gigabytes of random-access memory (RAM) and ample hard drive space. The more RAM, the more programs can run concurrently without degrading performance.
If your student is planning to walk the campus with a laptop, steer away from the 17-inch offerings. The typical dorm room desk is small, and space is a premium. Seventeen-inch laptops are also notorious for being heavy and having incredibly poor battery life.
With respect to the choice of XP or Vista on a Windows-based laptop, there is no reason anyone buying a new computer for college should be seeking XP.
XP will be more than a decade old by the time the student finishes a four-year program. Downgrading to XP, if given the option, is irresponsible.
The security improvements in Vista’s universal account control (UAC) can be immensely beneficial on a freewheeling dorm room network that is potentially filled with viruses and malware.
UAC can be a bit annoying, with its persistent pop-ups asking you to “Cancel” or “Allow” an action. But given the choice of a few mouse clicks or spending the night reinstalling Windows because your machine has slowed to a crawl with spyware, the answer is obvious.
If you want to avoid the security issues altogether, buy a Mac. It…