Laptops For College Students - A Necessity Rather Than A Luxury.
Online, May 31, 2010 (Newswire.com) - There are many factors to be considered while looking for a laptop. Owning a laptop has become a necessity for students who are pursuing higher education. It is important for parents to choose a laptop that has a good balance between price and power. There are many factors to be considered before the shopping begins. Size, weight, appearance, raw computing power, etc. are some among them. Due concern should be given to size and weight as the student has to take the laptop to different places - hostel, library, class, dorms, fraternity house, and maybe home for holiday breaks. In normal cases, you can go for a 13in. machine. Appearance is also important, as college is a social experience along with an educational one.
Some people have the notion that Net books are highly cost-effective. But you may have to replace these underpowered portable machines every season. The fact is that a full-featured machine is the best option, if you look for durability. Students have varied activities on the computer like instant messaging, web surfing, music playing, word processing, basic image editing etc. At times two or three of these activities go together and Net books, being primary machines cannot perform efficiently.
Essential laptop features
If you are looking for a laptop that gives you the most bang for the buck, you should take a close look at its hardware features. The common laptop features are listed below:
Processor speed - Speed needs power and for the same reason laptop processors are normally slower than desktop machines. Laptops also need to balance speed against the life of battery. But it is not a problem with laptops as heavy processing is not required in most of the functions. A decent dual-core processor would do, if you don't have to do a lot of graphic arts on the laptop.
Hard drive space - Again; this depends on how you want to make use of the laptop. In case, your use is restricted to Internet research and word processing, any laptop would serve the purpose, a large hard drive won't be necessary.
RAM - It has to be noted that the amount of RAM will influence the speed of the software. Those who are using Windows 7 and planning to do graphics work should go for a minimum 4 GB. In fact, with the price of RAM dropping all the time, you shouldn't consider anything less than 4 Gb as your base.
CD/DVD - You should see whether the laptop you are purchasing have a read/write CD/DVD combination. It is better to avoid cheap models which have only CD drive. Some of the newer models will also handle Blu-ray.
Wireless - Networking with others and research on the Internet are very important for students. So it's quite critical to go for excellent wireless connectivity while buying a laptop. You should look for a minimum of 802.11g - but 802.11n is the best.
Operating system - If you are not a computer science major, you should go for Windows 7, it's a big improvement over XP, and even over Vista. Although it requires a more powerful laptop to fully utilize Windows 7, the advantages over XP or Vista make it preferable. Those students in the computer sciences will have a preference, and can likely install their favored operating system themselves.
Digital fingerprint locking, swivel screens, touch screens, monitor connections, etc. are other features you should look for while buying laptops for college students.
Laptops available for students with bad credit too
Though laptops are essential for college students, many find budget a major problem. In such case, you can go for a budget laptop which has most of the things needed by students. Since there will not be a wide range of programs, such laptops come at a minimum price. With adequate research you can find one with all the requisite features at an affordable price. Keep in mind that free software is available that rivals everything put out by Microsoft, such as 'Open Office', for example. So it's essential that your money be spent on hardware, and not based on the software packages that come with the laptop.