Studnet buying laptop/computer

Princess_Bee

Where is the best place for a student to get a laptop/computer?

melancholly

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1993
no great student discounts - this thread on the techie board is probably the best place to start.

RachelRa

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1034835

Dell

[Deleted User]

Apple have a student online store, but it must be accessed from within your college/university's network, meaning you can't really get it before you go. You may be able to get a student discount if you phone them up though.
It's usually a pretty good discount, about 10-15%. May be best to wait a while though, as Apple often have student offers where you can buy a laptop at a discount rate, and get a free ipod.

Dell have pretty decent computers I think, although they do come with a lot of software pre-installed. Search round on the net for discount codes and always order over the phone as you can get pretty big discounts if you're nice to the sales person.

Hope this helps.

Wiggynut

Deleted User wrote:

It's usually a pretty good discount, about 10-15%. May be best to wait a while though, as Apple often have student offers where you can buy a laptop at a discount rate, and get a free ipod.

on the mac rumour site they are saying the US student offer is the Ipod touch as the freebie... apparently they usually bring the same offer over to the UK.
I hope so... can't wait... I want a new iMac noooowwwwwwwwww
(plan to keep the ipod touch but sell the ipod I currently own )

someone did post up the full student discount price list using his Uni link on this forum - so worth a look through the posts from the last 2/3 weeks.

(oooh... I have a medal ;-p)

Energize

If your getting a laptop for uni make sure that you carefully consider the size/weight/battery, far too many times you see people with huge 17" laptops with batteries that last only 2 hours which are completley inappropriate for their needs, the 13.3 macbook for instance is one of the smaller laptops but it's relativley heavy weight can become tiresome.

melancholly

you can 4% cashback from dell on quidco, which is higher than the student discount - don't be hoodwinked by thinking student discounts are always the best way! often it is best to find the laptop you want (or at least what specifications you want) and then find the cheapest way to get it.

tehone

One very handy hint is whereever you buy from DO NOT buy an included version of Office 2007 (Windows) or Office 2008 (Mac)

Microsoft will be repeating their Ultimate Steal offer from last year.
Office 2007 Ultimate will be £38.95
Office 2008 Mac - will be offered later in the year.

Offer opens 8th September 2008. [You will need a ac.uk/ac.gg/.ac.im/.ac.je email, open to staff and students]

https://www.theultimatesteal.co.uk

Helix

tehone wrote: »

Office 2008 Mac - will be offered later in the year.

Or you can just buy it from Software 4 Students for £35 all year round:

http://www.software4students.co.uk/Microsoft_Office_2008_for_Mac-details.aspx

Theres not loads of different versions like there is for Windows. That one is better than the standard Student and Home edition though as it has Exchange support in Entourage.

[Deleted User]

If you get a mac, avoid microsoft office like the plague. It's awful!
Apple has their own office suite called iWork. Which has 3 programs 'pages' (word) 'keynote' (powerpoint) and 'numbers' (excel) which are far easier to use. You can also save to .doc .ppt and excel formats.
The free alternative is open office. Currently the mac version is pretty sucky, but there is a new version currently in beta that looks to be much better.

Rosemary7391

I'd recommend openoffice any day - it does the same thing as msoffice in pretty much the same way. In fact, I would never buy any software without first checking out the various freely available options; they often do the same thing just as well