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Articles

Smart Shopping for Students: Laptops

First Posted: October 27, 2007

By Andrew Lau

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What about a gaming on my laptop?


It’s not uncommon these days for midrange laptops (and beyond) to have passable gaming capabilities. If you’re just looking to play some Counterstrike or World of Warcraft on a casual basis, you shouldn’t need an extra expensive “gaming” laptop. In terms of gaming, the main performance stumbling block on notebook computers is usually the video card. Thus, if you intend to do much gaming, you should seriously consider a notebook with a dedicated video card and not shared memory.

I recommend against so called high end gaming laptops for college goers. They tend to be heavy, and substantial in size and price. At the same time, the limited upgrades available for laptops ensure that they won’t be serious “gaming” laptops for too long. Do you really want to be dragging around extra poundage and features that will be of little benefit to you a year and a half down the road? If gaming is that important to you, my advice would be to select an affordable laptop for productivity, and to have a desktop computer for serious gaming needs. This may sound expensive, but consider that a decently equipped gaming laptop will easily cost in the neighbourhood of $2000-$2500 dollars. A conservative but functional productivity laptop can be had without much difficulty for under $1000, leaving you with a very tidy sum to put together a desktop computer or upgrade an existing one.



Is there anything else I should know?


As a student who will presumably be on the move much of the time, there are some accessories and other things to consider as you figure out your notebook computer needs and budget.

  1. Make sure you have a reliable method for backing up your work. USB flash drives are convenient and cheap. Don’t forget about keeping hard copies of important work as well.

  2. Depending on the size and features of your laptop, you may find it beneficial to invest in a separate monitor, keyboard, and mouse to use when you are not traveling (assuming you don’t just have desktop computer). Being comfortable while working should not be taken lightly.

  3. Laptops aren’t known for their acoustic abilities. Having a set of headphones will protect your ears from tinny sound while giving the people around you less incentive to hit you in the back of the head with a book.

  4. Check with your school libraries and labs for prices to print documents. Ten cents per page can add up, so it may be worthwhile to have a printer of your own as well.

  5. Should you decide to buy a laptop, it’s a good idea to buy a suitable laptop bag, case or backpack. Laptops really don’t like rain much, or five foot drops, or mashed bananas.



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