What will i need at uni

moose85

Check out what the IT facilities are like at uni. At mine, it wasn't really necessary for most people to have one as there was a massive IT suite at the library and you could hire laptops overnight. They were all equipped with Office, so most students just had USB memory sticks or external hard drives.

That said, I did get one for my last year, and I found it really usefull, mainly 'cos it allowed me to sit in the library all evening and not worry about where I was saving work/ returning borrowed laptops/ the IT suit closing etc. The flexibility is also great and I often worked on trains home and cafes etc. - lots of pubs/cafes have free wireless internet access which is really helpful.

I had to use mostly graphics design software for uni, so I needed a lot of memory and software which is not readily available. I had a lightweight, relatively inexpensive, small laptop which I could pop in my bag everyday and not worry about it getting nicked or broken. I then had a portable external hard drive which only cost £50 for 320G (probably cheaper now though) and I saved everything onto that.

If I were you, I wouldn't get a laptop until you get to uni and see how things work there. You might find that you don't need one. Plus there's always a few freshers selling laptops they bought in their first week and have to sell 2 months later to pay their rent!!

Bufger

the average age of my laptops seems to be around 4 years. After that they end up going wrong and having problems. You do need some decent RAM as it can make a big difference. There is nothing more annoying than a slow computer. I got a HP nx325 with 2gb RAM and a good amount of hard drive storage for £420 about 2 years ago now. Before that i had a toshiba that only died when i spilt a pint of stella on it. Stay away from siemens if you can, my friends and family have all had bad experiences with them! they tend to be cheap but break within 1-2 years.

purrsnicketty

HP make pretty reliable laptops too, worth paying that little bit extra for, or so I've found.

Although that said, like the people above me have commented, unless you course specifies it, I doubt a laptop will be absolutely necessary.