Degree laptop

[Deleted User]

Eldest son has started a computer science degree and needs a new laptop as his old one is years old,slow and literally falling to bits.

He's hankering after an MSi - something like this ( MSi 9S716H614048 ) - but I've never heard of the make and prices for some models are well over £1,000 which seem a bit much for a student laptop.

Has anyone any experience of this brand and/or recommendations for something with similar spec for less bucks,say around £600-£700.

Many thanks in advance

SeduLOUs

That' a gaming laptop. Sounds like a classic case of wants versus needs to me.

For 'studenty' things (email, browsing, docs, running general software), you can get a perfectly decent laptop for £500 or less.

Cycrow

for a computer science degree i would go for something with a high resolution screen which is very useful with things like programming.

you dont need a gaming laptop however, and can get a perfectly decent one for alot less.

althou i would personally prefer a desktop, one with multiple screens (again for programming)

Cisco001

That MSI is quite well known in term of gaming laptop.

Or you can check out pcspecialist.
£706 15.6" Cosmos III

Chassis & Display
Cosmos Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB

Memory (RAM)
8GB Kingston SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)

Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 950M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 12

Memory - Hard Disk
1TB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)

mSATA/M.2 SSD Drive [For OS]
240GB Kingston SSDNow mS200 mSATA (upto 540MB/sR | 530MB/sW)

DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)

Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)

Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING

Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack

Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD + BT 3.0 (RTL8723BE)

USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD

Battery
Cosmos Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (48.84WH)

Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor

Keyboard Language
COSMOS SERIES UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365

Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE

Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM

Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 12 to 14 working days


Alternatively, he may want to go for a small desktop...

ricardinho88

Why not a Chromebook? http://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/chromebook/

They're cheap as chips because they don't have apps installed on them, it's all stored in the cloud which keeps hardware costs down. Long battery life, an OS based around the internet and a good screen for around £250 or less. Can't argue with that really.

WobblyDog

I'd say a reasonable quality screen and the ability to run the necessary software packages would be the main requirements.


Surely one of the things that computer science students should be learning is how to create efficient software that runs acceptably on typical slow hardware? A really powerful laptop won't help with that.

trcooke

WobblyDog's advice isn't quite as clear cut as it seems. System requirements for creating software and running software are not the same thing. I could write a program that runs just lovely on a 10 year old computer, but that doesn't mean a 10 year old computer is at all appropriate for development.

Having said that, pretty much any modern laptop will be powerful enough as a development machine.

As already suggested screen size is important, but then again so is portability for carting it around to class, lab, library, pub, wherever. Consider a small screen laptop and complement it with a larger external monitor for use at home, which is where it'll be used the most. I have an 11" MacBook Air, with a 27" external monitor. It's the perfect combination for me.

Mirno

It may be better to get a lower resolution and have a separate monitor at home.
2 monitors for programming is great, one to debug and one to run the program on.

Cycrow

WobblyDog wrote: »

I'd say a reasonable quality screen and the ability to run the necessary software packages would be the main requirements.


Surely one of the things that computer science students should be learning is how to create efficient software that runs acceptably on typical slow hardware? A really powerful laptop won't help with that.

One of the main things you had to do as a programmer is to debug your code.
So you run the software through a de!!!!!!. Because of this, the software needs alot more resources running through the de!!!!!! than it normally would use, essentially memory. So ideally, it helps to have a faster pc than the software is aimed at. Plus you have the additional overhead of the IDE if you are using one, and alot of them can be pretty resource heavy, especially with memory.

And software will be much less optimised at the beginning than the finished piece would be

securityguy

"Why not a Chromebook?"

Because it's completely useless for doing development work?

Our students (Russell Group computer science) increasingly have Macs. Almost all the staff do. It's much easier because we're basically a Unix shop, and Macs can handle most of the exercises we set for Unix which otherwise involve messing about with a Linux virtual machine directly. I'd guess that about 60% of the undergrads and 80% of the MSc students I teach are Mac users, but I may not have a representative sample (I don't teach first years and I don't teach conversion MSc).

trcooke

Mac is a nice platform for software development because it's a *NIX platform. This gives you a good familiarity with the command line for when you get a job and have to work with UNIX production servers.

Alternatively you could buy pretty much any modern Windows laptop and install Linux on it, which is CV gold in itself for a student.