It is that time of year again when first time college students go away from home, most for the first time for more than a few days at a time. Everyone has their opinion on what students need to have, and frankly many lists written by people who went to college even ten years ago are too far outdated and probably should be disregarded. Here is a quick list of what every student should be sent with.
Computer: There is a lot of debate on whether a student should get a computer or not and even more as to what sort of computer they should get. There are a few things that must be taken into consideration here. The first consideration is whether or not there is internet access in the dorm room. If the answer is no, the only sane way to go is a laptop. If the dorm room has internet access either through hardline or WiFi you can either go with a desktop or a laptop depending on personal choice and budget.
A desktop will always be cheaper than a comparable laptop, and is much easier to upgrade at a later date. The downside of desktops is the case has to go somewhere which may or may not be in the way and the monitor will take up some of usually very limited desktop space. The plus side of a desktop is they rarely fail because they get knocked around or dropped unlike laptops. if something happens to your desktop or monitor there is almost always someone around who at 11:30 pm can quickly fix it or at least retrieve the paper you were writing and is due the next morning, not so with a laptop.
The big benefit to a laptop is portability, this something that conquers many barriers for people. The biggest downside to laptops are the relatively small screen size the small keyboard, finicky touchpad mouse, and fragility. You can conquer all of those issues save for fragility very easily by buying an keyboard, mouse and monitor to use at your desk. Even more than death by dropping the biggest issue with laptops is how often keys break off even with careful users. This is something that can’t be fixed without taking it to a repair place and losing the use of it for upwards of a several days to several weeks. It will still function and all but the broken key will work just fine, but it is a huge pain in the ass when the broken key is the enter key or spacebar, they only thing you can do is carry around an extra keyboard or get it fixed.
nice post, i think those are great considerations for students. i personally like desktops for gaming but for school related stuff a laptop would be fine.
As a newbie i am looking for some info i stumble upon your post its very nice. I thinks that as a student we need some thing like that it doesn't matter its desktop or laptop.
Today we all are going to change with the time and technology. As technology is growing it become cheaper and wide.
I will take a laptop anytime over the desktop. I used to like the small one. But now, I prefer the bigger one with high power.
I usually have to go for a Desktop, because desktops are way more powerful than laptops and they are very flexible and can withstand long hours of usage. But, because I'm an IT student, I have to go for a laptop for my projects and assignments.