is a laptop necessary for university?

[Niz0909]

should I buy laptop or pc?

[Jurrunio]

depends on what computer you do have and your major

[TylerD321]

It also depends on your college's structure. My college had computers in every classroom so a laptop wasn't needed. I used my desktop in my dorm for homework. Technically at my college, a computer in general wasn't a true requirement because you could just go to the library.

[fohatadri]

15 minutes ago, Niz0909 said:

should I buy laptop or pc?

You see, a laptop can also act as a PC at home while a PC cannot act as a laptop at school.
It all depends on your needs but in my experience, school work usually requires flexibility which of course PC cannot offer you.

[Agall]

40 minutes ago, Niz0909 said:

should I buy laptop or pc?

Most of the time the answer will be laptop.

 

It might be worth considering both depending on the requirements. Instead of getting an absurdly expensive and powerful gaming laptop, instead look at a budget laptop for class and a gaming PC for play/heavier applications.

 

It really depends on your budget and what you're expecting to do with this device. What might be the best option is a previous gen mid tier gaming laptop, an Apple silicon macbook, or my suggestion above involving a cheap laptop and cheap gaming PC versus one device. Usually an expensive but powerful gaming laptop isn't the best answer.

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, Niz0909 said:

should I buy laptop or pc?

Laptops can be taken to class, notes taken, and if touchscreen written on and pdf's annotated, etc.

 

If you have no desire to do that, then size becomes an important variable in the dorm or space you live.

 

You don't mention what you'll be using it for, so it is what it is.

[BiotechBen]

I had a notebook for class, and then a more powerful desktop in my room for games and relaxation. I genuinely thought as a biotech major that I'd need a high power device to run models and such, turned out not to be the case. The majority of things we did were on 8yr old laptops with sandy bridge mobile cpus and higher power stuff was with an i5-6500. 

Unless your major has a notice that you'll need high power hardware: a notebook with great battery life is unbeatable for convenience.

[phantaminum1]

I think laptop is the way to go,it is just more convenient in every aspect but gaming.

[Kikorusan]

On 9/21/2023 at 7:51 PM, phantaminum1 said:

I think laptop is the way to go,it is just more convenient in every aspect but gaming.

Agreed, although there's an alternative which I see a lot of my younger cousins are doing which is get an iPad or Microsoft Surface as their main computer. Then if they need to do something heavy like movie editing or autocad they use the library computer's where it's all highly-spec imacs and PC's. I don't know how they make it work I feel like getting a decent laptop is the way to go