College Computer Solutions

[ThorakTheBrave]

Like the title says I'm wondering what you guys do with your PCs in college. Do you take it with you and buy a laptop for class? Leave it at home? What about a using a chromebook as a cheap alternative to a laptop?

[Ringtail Jax]

I'm not in college (although this is my last year in high school) but what i plan on doing is taking my desktop for my dorm and having a ultrabook for my class notes (i type faster than i write so )

[acidydragon]

Bring it.

 

Why wouldn't you?

[Prodigydeadeye]

Mini ITX is the way to go for college students. I will be doing a SFF build for college. 

[GloriousPain]

Like the title says I'm wondering what you guys do with your PCs in college. Do you take it with you and buy a laptop for class? Leave it at home? What about a using a chromebook as a cheap alternative to a laptop?

I know a few people who've done different things

usually Cheap Laptop+Decent desktop and use Google Docs for keeping things nice and ship shape

or an alternative route is just get a high end Laptop to replace both  EG: Hate to say it AlienWare, or Maybe A RazorBlade, Something of the sort and use it todo everything. Just maybe have an extra wireless Mouse and a good keyboard for when at dorms or such

[DigitalHermit]

Get a cheap netbook (better if you can get a decent second-hand one) as a class companion and a half-decent desktop for your heavier "workloads"...

[elkenrod]

Don't take your tower + monitor with you to college if you are living in the dorms.  Trust me, go with a laptop.

 

The less stuff you have to worry about, the better.  It's about being lightweight and mobile.  I can't tell you how many students just couldn't move all of their possessions at the end of the year or during Winter break.  I ended up with so much free hardware that people couldn't afford to ship/store.  At one point I had three systems because people just gave them away.  The sad thing is that I eventually ended up in the same boat and gave away some good stuff because I wasn't able to transport it all.

[nicklmg]

Like the title says I'm wondering what you guys do with your PCs in college. Do you take it with you and buy a laptop for class? Leave it at home? What about a using a chromebook as a cheap alternative to a laptop?

Depends how far you are going away for college. My Uni was about 1.5 hours from my parents' house, so I took my desktop with me, used that in the dorm and had my craptastic 5 year old Toshiba laptop that I took to class every day. It sucked (still does), but it was able to browse the web, which is all I needed it for.

 

Like someone above said, Google docs is amazing for keeping everything in one place.

If you have to fly to get to your college I would recommend going with a high-end laptop rather than lugging a desktop, but if you can drive I would definitely recommend desktop. Not even just for gaming/whatever else, having 2 screens was extremely helpful for me (4 docs at one time OP).

[FrozenIpaq]

I ended up buying a desktop while in college to go with my laptop. I would go to class with my laptop, save all documents in my dropbox and then would go back to my room and hop on my desktop (bigger screen, better keyboard/mouse, better performance) and finish it up or any other major project I was doing. 

 

So - bring up your desktop and a laptop if you have one - use dropbox to sync documents between them all. Also I could easily take my laptop out of my room if I needed to get away from any distractions. When you mentally designate your laptop as your work laptop and don't associate it with relaxation or games than you'll be more apt to get things done - at least in my experience. 

[SirReallySam]

I'm not in college (although this is my last year in high school) but what i plan on doing is taking my desktop for my dorm and having a ultrabook for my class notes (i type faster than i write so )

This for me as well. But I'm going this Autumn oh and it's University here

[dylandylandylan]

I've got my Desktop here at University, and I take my T410 thinkpad into class when I need to take notes. Just sync them up using OneNote. 

Mind you, I hardly use my laptop as the majority of classes I take are lab based (Networking)

[marioo1182]

I'm starting a degree in electrical engineering coming up in september.

I'm about an hour bus ride which I'll be taking every day. However for notes in class I'm going to be getting a surface 3 because it will be much easier to take notes.

[Chansey]

I'm in college and I use an HP ProBook 4530s with Ubuntu for everything, and it has served me very well. I do wish I had a desktop if only for a nicer screen, keyboard, and Windows software compatibility, and I plan on building on for those reasons (and gaming of course!). If you have both, by all means bring both! I would highly recommend bringing a laptop so that you can work anywhere, which is great in between classes or during useless classes.

[Ringtail Jax]

This for me as well. But I'm going this Autumn oh and it's University here

Yea, I only used college as the general rule I'm actually going to  UT Austin for my basics

[xToFxREAPER]

Like the title says I'm wondering what you guys do with your PCs in college. Do you take it with you and buy a laptop for class? Leave it at home? What about a using a chromebook as a cheap alternative to a laptop?

Like others pointed out you need to be able to transport whatever you take, personally (im not in college but i have friends that are that i helped out) build an itx system, i made a bunch of systems in prodigys for friends that were really damn solid systems, most of them were really recent with the gtx mars 760 and i7's. Very small very powerful systems then they picked up a cheap laptop (some of them bought a surface 3 for this) for when theyre in class to take notes and stuff

[Skylercompany]

I would personally just bring my computer just in case and then maybe buy a laptop so I can always have the option of accessing the web portability or if I go to a gaming meet.

 

In the future I might just buy a nice all purpose laptop so I can avoid having to move my computer and set it up continuously.

[Guest]

Honestly, I found it really hard to decide. My H440 rig is WAAAYYYYY too big to lug with me halfway across the world, so the most logical solution would have been to go mini-ITX (not Prodigy or Elite 130 mind you, I'm talking SG05/06 as a requirement). That way I could have a decent i3/i5 with something like a R9 270X to get me through the year.

 

But then I thought about it, and the more I did, the more stupid and illogical mini-ITX became. What the hell would I do with the monitor then? Was I going to have to be content with an Asus T100A for class (if I built a SG05 build then the remaining money would only buy me a 10.1" Bay Trail tablet)? So I decided against it.

 

I am getting a Inspiron 14 7000 for college studying; with the SRT caching it has now, and a 2.5" SSD down the road it should be more than fast enough. I'm not looking to play games however, of course; I still have my rig at home for the breaks. If I wanted to game I would get one of those new thin MSI Gaming laptops or a Sager with Crystalwell + i7 -HQ; that would be fast enough to play decent games at decent settings without having to deal with an extremely heavy Alienware.

[Terminashunator]

I only took a desktop, and it was fine. You don't NEED a laptop for class unless the class tells you. If that's the case, Desktop for the Dorm, Laptop/Netbook for the class. Get a kensington lock, lock the laptop and the desktop if you're really concerned.

[toughtrasher]

I have some friends that use Chromebooks to log around while in college and take notes. Cheap and productive way of doing things.