Best "Size" of Laptop for University?

[The Grim Squeaker]

This is something that I wanted to get some experienced feedback about, in your experience (university students), what type of laptop is better for university life?
A heavy, large screened desktop replacement (good for gaming, fast) or a small light laptop (around 1kg or even a netbook)?

I don't have any experience with it, a 17 inch laptop seemed logical to me (19+ inches is just too damn heavy, and it'll be a desktop replacement for half the week for me, so I need something that won't drive me crazy and capable of basic gaming), but I was curious and wanted to ask .
("Macbook" is NOT an answer )

[Mr Bean]

For hauling around? 17 is to big, 15 with a nice wide laptop is where you want to be. Netbooks are terrible for performance, you can hump a 9 pound 15 inch around and it be just fine

[General Zod]

17 inches is not something you want to haul around, especially if you get a notebook that's just a touch too big for most laptop backpacks. I'm going to echo bean here with 15" if you want anything that has any reasonable amount of performance and won't break your back.

[TimothyC]

What are you going into? if Technical, you might find that a tablet or convertible is your best bet. That or a good scanner.

Also, don't forget to look at battery life. Bigger screens = generally shorter life with the same batteries.

[Sarevok]

Depends on what you do. If you need to run performance intensive apps then you have to get a fullsized laptop. But if all you require is internet and email, creating, viewing and editing mundane file types, watching movies then a netbook is better. I personally still have my EEE PC 701 which I bought a year ago. It was so small and light I could sometimes forget it was inside my backpack along with books. It was also sturdy enough to take abuse close to a cellphone in terms of being roughly treated and yet fully function. In contrast a full sized laptop can be both fragile and if you are a weakling like me painful to carry along with other stuff.

[Hawkwings]

Or you could have two computers. Bring your netbook to class for "taking notes" and leave the desktop replacement at home and rarely lug it around.

[Drooling Iguana]

Or get an external monitor, keyboard and mouse to plug the laptop into when you're at home.

[Stark]

I have no problem using a 13" laptop for everything except gaming, and gaming on a laptop is something only the mentally deficient plan to do.

[Pu-239]

I'd say no more than 14". If you live in a dorm, a netbook+desktop would probably be ideal; if a commuter (where going back home between classes is a waste of time), a decent performing laptop would probably be better.

[Mr Bean]

I have no problem using a 13" laptop for everything except gaming, and gaming on a laptop is something only the mentally deficient plan to do.

Or people in our military, why do you hate our Australian Veterans so Stark? Did you always hate freedom or is it something you came into during your hippy days smoking dope during and spitting on the returning servicemen from the Australia V Japan war of 1990?

Trust me when I say for people who leave their own country once in awhile your not fucking hauling anything but a Laptop around as trying to haul around a thirty pound tower + monitor and accessory is a good way to lose em due to breakage during your frequent moves or loss trying to cram a keyboard, monitor and mouse onto a desk designed to be exactly big enough for one 3.5"-11 notebook and a coffee cup.

[JointStrikeFighter]

You have to remember that a gaming laptop here in AU = stupidly expensive.

[Mr Bean]

You have to remember that a gaming laptop here in AU = stupidly expensive.

Ok, so can one buy a Intel 2.4ghtz Duo Core 9600M 15inch Laptop w/3 gigs of ram and a 320 gig hard drive for 599$ at my local best buy. In Kangaroo dollars that's 726$ per Google, how much is Aussy Laptops? I know you get racked over the coals for video games but that's part of our long held anti-Australian biases. How much would a similar laptop cost you?

[phongn]

I carried around a 14" ThinkPad (T22, then T60) for years. It was just about the perfect size.

[Davey]

15-14" I'll say.

I had a 17" laptop computer, and I had to carry around a briefcase in addition to a backpack. Most backpacks and laptop bags I came across were not big enough to carry 17" laptops, and it was really inconvenient.

[Beowulf]

I'd get a HP tx2 or Lenovo Thinkpad x200 tablet, and a desktop for gaming(oh wait, that exactly what I do have). It also keeps you from having a wall between you and whoever, since you end up with the screen flat on the desk.

[General Zod]

You have to remember that a gaming laptop here in AU = stupidly expensive.

Since Death isn't Australian, I don't think that's going to be a concern for him. I was able to purchase a Gateway FX laptop capable of running Crysis on fairly high res for about $1,200 here in the States, but it's not really the most portable beast around.

HP has some fairly decent offerings, and Sony might be a viable alternative depending on the price ranges as far as 15" laptops go.

[Starglider]

17" is fine if you have a decent carry case and don't mind getting some exercise. I frequently use my laptop to do programming in the field, and I much prefer the big screen for having lots of windows open and seeing plenty of code at once. That's an unusual case though - I also have a quad core processor in it so it can run complex AI problems in a reasonable time, which would be total overkill for most users - 15" would be fine for normal student use (i.e. web/email access and word processing). I find the keyboards on 12" laptops annoying for prolonged typing, but I don't know if you'll be doing that away from your desk, where you'll presumably have a proper USB keyboard.

[JointStrikeFighter]

You have to remember that a gaming laptop here in AU = stupidly expensive.

Ok, so can one buy a Intel 2.4ghtz Duo Core 9600M 15inch Laptop w/3 gigs of ram and a 320 gig hard drive for 599$ at my local best buy. In Kangaroo dollars that's 726$ per Google, how much is Aussy Laptops? I know you get racked over the coals for video games but that's part of our long held anti-Australian biases. How much would a similar laptop cost you?

FUCK OFF!

That would be like $1500 USD here.

[Qwerty 42]

A lot of it will depend on where you go to school, and what for: all of my classes are in computer labs, so I never take my computer anywhere. Since I just need a computer that can run BlueJ, Flash, Word, and FireFox, I picked up some $900 Dell. Some of my friends in graphic design and music, on the other hand, shelled out for monster Macs.

[phongn]

17" is fine if you have a decent carry case and don't mind getting some exercise. I frequently use my laptop to do programming in the field, and I much prefer the big screen for having lots of windows open and seeing plenty of code at once.

I sort of wish I have something similar now. 1440x900 just isn't enough screen real estate (nor is 4GB of RAM quite enough).

[Netko]

For in-class use, a netbook or tablet is ideal - even a 15" is pretty much overkill and unwieldy. However, for actual work back at the dorm/apartment, depending on what you plan to study, a 15" at least is a must. Humanities, being mostly reading and writing, can live with potentially just the netbook, but if you plan on doing any engineering (including computer science), you will need something larger to be able to use professional programs efficiently since all of them are hungry for pixels. The alternative is buying a true sub-compact which has a ridiculous resolution screen, but those have ridiculous prices, so IMHO, its better to go for a netbook+15"-17" desktop replacement for a similar price and then even getting a LCD for the desktop replacement when the money allows (a dual monitor setup like that works with relatively little space and gets you all the desktop space you need).

[Gandalf]

I got a relatively cheap 15" Dell somethingorother laptop. It's good for my uni (humanities) and day to day stuff.

Your biggest potential problems will be with things like in class software crashes. That's why I went with a relatively stable Ubuntu rather than the default Windows Vista.

[Starglider]

then even getting a LCD for the desktop replacement when the money allows (a dual monitor setup like that works with relatively little space and gets you all the desktop space you need).

You can just get a cheap 12" notebook, a nice 20" to 24" screen (plus wireless keyboard and mouse) back in the dorm, and use only one at once. I don't see the point of trying to use a little laptop screen and a proper screen in a dual screen setup. This will work fine as long as you don't need any (1) serious CAD, (2) processor-intensive engineering simulation or (3) modern PC gaming. From personal experience 99% of the stuff that you do in computer science / software engineering classes doesn't significantly tax the processor, even the signal processing stuff I did would be trivial on modern PCs, it was just some of the AI stuff that had an open-ended appetite for computing power.

[RedImperator]

In grad school, I went from a 17" to a 13" (actually a 12.5" iBook, but it's close enough to 13 for our purposes). The difference was very noticeable. It meant that on a pleasant, sunny day, I could walk the entire two miles to the train station instead of taking the subway. Anyone in any kind of shape can hump a 13" laptop forever.

[Starglider]

It meant that on a pleasant, sunny day, I could walk the entire two miles to the train station instead of taking the subway. Anyone in any kind of shape can hump a 13" laptop forever.

A 17" laptop is fine if you have a decent backpack. I carry a lot more weight and bulk than just my laptop a lot further than two miles when I go hiking.