What laptop should I buy? (1 Viewer)

[noctua]

I'm going to start Actuarial Studies/Commerce, this year in UNSW and wondering what laptop I should buy.
I think I'd mostly use the laptop for notetaking, and surfing the internet.
I have a good desktop at home for myself, so don't really feel the need to spend too much money on a laptop, so am wondering if a chromebook would be suffice?

But do I'm not too sure if I really need a laptop for uni, pls help.

P.S. Should I buy a laptop that would be able to run matlab?

 

[snowflakeptical]

How do you feel about buying one of the macbooks? Depends on your budget but I'm sure majority of people will use those

 

[seremify007]

Given you are considering Chromebooks I assume your budget is <$500 so Macbook is out of the question. If you could I would suggest stretching to any ultrabook or Macbook Air given these are ideal for uni use and are not too heavy to carry around.

There are a few atom based tablet/hybrid PCs eg Transformer TA100 (I have one of these) which might do the job as you can get Office/etc and have great battery life. I personally am not a huge fan as performance can be a bit hit or miss though I like the tablet aspect which might suit you if you don't already have a tablet.The keyboard is smaller than I would like and I can get better typing speeds using my iPad with the Logitech Keys to Go than with the Asus keyboard I think (or at least better accuracy).

I don't know what a Chromebook would achieve in your case given they are not priced too far off from cheap Windows machines. I think if I used Android on my phone and used Google Docs extensively then it would be an easy decision but I am an Apple user usually and use Microsoft Office 365 so the Macbook/iPad/iPhone solution works best for me in my daily use.

 

[noctua]

Given you are considering Chromebooks I assume your budget is <$500 so Macbook is out of the question. If you could I would suggest stretching to any ultrabook or Macbook Air given these are ideal for uni use and are not too heavy to carry around.

There are a few atom based tablet/hybrid PCs eg Transformer TA100 (I have one of these) which might do the job as you can get Office/etc and have great battery life. I personally am not a huge fan as performance can be a bit hit or miss though I like the tablet aspect which might suit you if you don't already have a tablet.The keyboard is smaller than I would like and I can get better typing speeds using my iPad with the Logitech Keys to Go than with the Asus keyboard I think (or at least better accuracy).

I don't know what a Chromebook would achieve in your case given they are not priced too far off from cheap Windows machines. I think if I used Android on my phone and used Google Docs extensively then it would be an easy decision but I am an Apple user usually and use Microsoft Office 365 so the Macbook/iPad/iPhone solution works best for me in my daily use.

Thanks for the advice. My budget is not high enough to go for a macbook, and I've come to realise that the lack of functionality of chromebooks might be a big hit. I think I'll settle for a medium priced windows laptop.

 

[seremify007]

Thanks for the advice. My budget is not high enough to go for a macbook, and I've come to realise that the lack of functionality of chromebooks might be a big hit. I think I'll settle for a medium priced windows laptop.

One thing you'll need to think about is whether you want a traditional laptop, or one of the newer hybrid style devices. Whilst in theory the hybrid devices sound great, after owning one for about a month now, I've come to realise there are certain limitations even though there are huge benefits. For example, having only a single USB port on the keyboard dock of my Transformer notebook and it being insufficient to power an external hard drive reliably when not plugged into mains at the same time, is a bit of a hassle trying to balance devices especially if you want to use a USB wireless mouse (rather than a Bluetooth one). But they are very light, and have great battery life- even though they may not be as powerful as a traditional laptop at the same price point.