Poll of the Day > Is this a good laptop for an IT student?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm working on a bachelors in IT at my university and need a new laptop. My old laptop is 6 years old and getting really slow.

I'm not looking for anything fancy at all. And I'm not really a PC gamer so not looking for a gaming machine. Just something to do schoolwork, browse the net, etc. I'll be doing things like web development, SQL, basic programming (I think its C#), etc in my classes. And I'll need it to last me 4 years.

I found this laptop on newegg for about the price range I'm looking for (less than $750).

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAA0S7B63528

Would this be decent?

Thanks

You're probably gonna want more than 8 gigs of ram. They'll have you running multiple virtual machines at a time. When I was going through classes, I'd run up to four at once with at least a gig devoted to each. You should try to get up to 16.
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Smarkil posted...

You're probably gonna want more than 8 gigs of ram. They'll have you running multiple virtual machines at a time. When I was going through classes, I'd run up to four at once with at least a gig devoted to each. You should try to get up to 16.

So this would be better? I believe its the same, just 16GB RAM.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAA0S7B64574&ignorebbr=1

fettster777 posted...

Smarkil posted...

You're probably gonna want more than 8 gigs of ram. They'll have you running multiple virtual machines at a time. When I was going through classes, I'd run up to four at once with at least a gig devoted to each. You should try to get up to 16.

So this would be better? I believe its the same, just 16GB RAM.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAA0S7B64574&ignorebbr=1

That should work. The other thing I neglected to mention was at least some USB 3.0 slots but it looks like that has it covered.

The resolution isn't great, but if you're fine with it then it's fine. It's also a small screen/laptop so that probably won't make a lot of difference to you.

One other thing you'll want to consider is if you don't have a desktop at home or anything, you may want to consider getting an extra monitor or two and a docking station. Coding on a single screen, let alone one that small, will be somewhat annoying. At least, it would be to me. When I was finishing up my degree, I had a three monitor setup with one of them setup as a portrait display. Made it convenient to work on code on the portrait display while having notes/instructions/whatever on the other screen(s).

Not a necessity, but it's worth considering.

As an aside, if you're not a great coder - make friends with the awkward kids. It'll save your life on some of the more difficult programming assignments.
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