Laptop for Computer Science Student

[Beta]

I am a Student who will be going to University in October to study Computer Science and I am looking at purchasing a laptop for use at University. It will not be my main rig. I will have a desktop in my room which I will bring from home, and the University I will be attending has excellent computer labs which I will also take advantage of. I do however want a laptop for use anywhere. It will likely be used alot for taking notes, looking at Presentations, light programming, web browsing, research and word processing. These tasks are not too strenuous GPU wise and I have no plan on doing any sort of heavy gaming on this laptop, as I will have my main rig with me as well for that, should I want to game at all. I do however want this laptop to last several years and I want it to be very quick for the tasks I want to do. My budget is around £600 and I am looking for recommendations.

 

The laptop I am currently looking at is the one below:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/asus-k501ub-15-6-laptop-grey-10137632-pdt.html

 

Thoughts on this one and any recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

That would work fine. I would personally shop around for a 13" or 14". 15.6" is just getting to bulky and heavy to be lugging around school. Especially because it takes me a 2 hour transit and up a mountain to get to school.

[aeroencychris]

That laptop looks fine. Good I/O, nice build. Weight is to me the most important factor in a situation like this, with the second being at least 8GB RAM for multitasking purposes (I work with lots of windows )

4.4 lbs (2kg) is a decent weight although you could go a bit lower if you'd prefer to look around.

Another factor is screen size. Personally I like a large screen to work with (ironic considering my Surface Pro 2) but that obviously comes with a greater weight to go with it.

My biggest complaint with that would be the SSHD instead of a smaller but real SSD. If you really want I'm sure you could swap it out yourself but if I were buying I would find a laptop with one pre-installed.

[Beta]

2 minutes ago, cdsboy2000 said:

That laptop looks fine. Good I/O, nice build. Weight is to me the most important factor in a situation like this, with the second being at least 8GB RAM for multitasking purposes (I work with lots of windows )

4.4 lbs (2kg) is a decent weight although you could go a bit lower if you'd prefer to look around.

Another factor is screen size. Personally I like a large screen to work with (ironic considering my Surface Pro 2) but that obviously comes with a greater weight to go with it.

My biggest complaint with that would be the SSHD instead of a smaller but real SSD. If you really want I'm sure you could swap it out yourself but if I were buying I would find a laptop with one pre-installed.

Yeah, a 128GB SSD would probably be more than sufficient, especially as I will probably have an external HDD for mass storage.

[Klasta]

11 minutes ago, Beta said:

Yeah, a 128GB SSD would probably be more than sufficient, especially as I will probably have an external HDD for mass storage.

I would strongly advise against a 128GB SSD if you want it to last a few years. Unless you feel like going all Consuela on it every few months.
Don't forget you'll most likely be required to have both Linux and Windows installed so you've already lost close to half your storage.

[aeroencychris]

58 minutes ago, Klasta said:

I would strongly advise against a 128GB SSD if you want it to last a few years. Unless you feel like going all Consuela on it every few months.
Don't forget you'll most likely be required to have both Linux and Windows installed so you've already lost close to half your storage.

I'd say for his use case that's more than enough, even for two OS's. Word processing and light programming don't use much space in themselves (and you can always store that on the cloud instead).

[Mohit Goyal]

You can try the zenbooks

[Mark77]

Forget the Asus.  Get a business class Dell/Lenovo/HP, or a Mac,  Depending upon whichever is in favour at the school you're attending (ie: if everyone else has a Mac, well, you probably shouldn't try to be different!).

 

Trust me, you'll have a much easier time of things, especially if you go to install Linux at some point in the future, if you go with a very well known business-class laptop, rather than some Asus that caters more to the gamer or 'consumer' types.

[Mark77]

On ‎7‎/‎14‎/‎2016 at 5:26 PM, cdsboy2000 said:

I'd say for his use case that's more than enough, even for two OS's. Word processing and light programming don't use much space in themselves (and you can always store that on the cloud instead).

Its a challenge to get MS-Office, Windows 10, and all the .NET libraries, updates, etc. nevermind the Microsoft compilers, or a half-dozen other things that your typical CS student or developer will eventually need, all onto a 128gb SSD.  So I agree with the others that definitely should be aiming much higher.  240gb as a minimum, but I'd aim into the 500gb range these days just to keep things safe.

 

[aeroencychris]

9 hours ago, Mark77 said:

Its a challenge to get MS-Office, Windows 10, and all the .NET libraries, updates, etc. nevermind the Microsoft compilers, or a half-dozen other things that your typical CS student or developer will eventually need, all onto a 128gb SSD.  So I agree with the others that definitely should be aiming much higher.  240gb as a minimum, but I'd aim into the 500gb range these days just to keep things safe.

 

Just speaking from personal experience  I use a 240GB SSD at home and a 120GB SSD at school, both with pretty much everything you just said, and I'm fine on storage space. All personal opinion I suppose.