Degree laptop

[Deleted User]

<something about how I managed to survive a computer science MSc with a Pentium 75>

Your son won't need much umphf in terms of computing power - he's trying to pull a fast-one on you

chunter

ringo_24601 wrote: »

<something about how I managed to survive a computer science MSc with a Pentium 75>

Your son won't need much umphf in terms of computing power - he's trying to pull a fast-one on you

Yip - most of the work will be done by him - not by the computer.

The software may cost more than the hardware. Costs of the Edu versions of the various software needed may soon accumulate - as may printing costs.

someone's taking the mickey - a chromebook?

fermi

That would be good enough to do a fair bit of the CPU/GPU computational physics stuff I'm familiar with in reasonable timescale, so is very much over the top for a simple computer science course with an occasional bit of debugging and compilation.

I agree that seems he may want a gaming laptop and thinks he can get one by convincing you it's needed for the course.

A modest laptop with a large screen would be ideal and a lot cheaper.

HappyMJ

Me personally I'd go for a laptop with a smaller screen meaning the machine is lighter and more portable. You can get a bigger screen for when you are at home to play the games on.

I do have a MSI laptop which is very similar to the one you have chosen.

Mine is a MSI CX61 and yours is a MSI PX60.

I purchased it to replace a 4 month old HP laptop that I purchased for £500 that I just wasn't getting on with as it had far too many shortcomings, problems and generally had a very cheap feel to it. I sold the HP for £400 and spent £600 on it and it's done quite well. It still has a few shortcomings but generally it's quite good but I wouldn't go so far to say excellent. It also has similar specs than the one you have referenced. Although my laptop does have a dedicated GeForce 840M graphics chipset I never use it. Windows uses the Intel chipset.

I couldn't get on with the HP's touchpad with no buttons. The one you've chosen doesn't appear to have buttons. It was very annoying. I ended up using a mouse before giving up entirely. The HP's screen was awful. When I got the MSI the colours are so much brighter and clearer that made the HP look terrible.

I'd seriously consider getting a MSI again.

The shortcomings that I would like resolved are backlit keyboard for typing in the dark and a fingerprint reader to make logging in easier. Why a fingerprint reader? Shoulder surfers cannot get your password as you're typing it in. They need your finger to get in. My password is also rather complex and it's a pain having to type it.

prowla

It'd be an idea to check out whether his uni has an deals available, both on hardware and software.

I would echo the need for a decent resolution display (the roll-out of HDTV has made 1080p pretty much standard).

trcooke

Apple do educational discounts that you can access only from a University network. This will save approximately 15% off the list price. As I mentioned before, a MacBook of some kind is a great development platform and you'll get a good 10 or so hours out of the battery. Don't be coerced by your son into buying an expensive MacBook Pro as the MacBook Air is plenty powerful enough for anything he'll need during a CS degree. I do professional development on a bottom of the range 11" MacBook Air and it is a great little machine.