Studnet buying laptop/computer

techtitch

Also, Open Office is fully compatible with MS Office (can read and save in the same formats and more). Use Thunderbird ( www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/ ) to replace Outlook - slightly smaller but in my experience more reliable and much less frustrating.

lucky_me_2

I am waiting on hearing back from the OU as I know that they do give you discount on a the Apple Mac's..fingers crossed! As I will also have my £250 grant towards study equiptment yeyyy

tehone

If you're a student you'll find the Office 2007/2008 have very usual features that you may need - e.g. the new citation/bibliography features.

OpenOffice is not really that good yet, bear in mind the most educational establishments will be using MS software and may be using the new docx, pptx, xlsx formats.

Additionally none of the free clients (yet) really has the features that Outlook has (especially if you're connecting to Exchange Server).

Knowing how to do things in MS software will help you outside of education where very few businesses will be using anything else.

Ferris

consider buying a second-hand business laptop from ebay, as long as it has at least one year's warranty left on it. business warranties are brilliant too, no questions asked. i got a small, light, fairly good spec business laptop with several expensive accessories and just over 12 months next business day collect and return warranty for well under £300.

it's not for everyone, as some people love that new shiny laptop experience, but it certainly worked for me.

steveOooo

Deleted User wrote:

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.

wrong, you can get 6% discount if you access at home, 10-13% if you access on campus isp. free ipod comes in late aug / early sep - end of oct (31st) also, a redesign of the mpb is on the cards... could be soon