Solved! Is 17" too big for college, have netbook

dgriffs

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Apr 17, 2008
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Ill be going off to college in the fall and will be getting a laptop. I've been looking at 17" laptops because the extra screen space is nice for doing research papers and i'd also like to do some photo editing/gaming. I hear a lot of people say its nice having a small and light laptop in college but I already have 10" netbook that I could take to class. I doubt I would be using the bigger laptop much outside of the dorm room. Is 17" overkill?

I realize there is a college section on the boards but it seems to get considerably less traffic.
 
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Hello Dgriffs;
That's an excellent combo. Powerful desktop replacement and ultra portable 'Netbook or Pad/Tablet.

That standard 1366x768 screen isn't great for productivity IMO. You can get 1920x1080 or 1600x900 resolution in smaller than 17" laptops. laptop too.
But with the 17" you also get things like a 2nd HDD bay (for a SSD upgrade maybe).
Hello Dgriffs;
That's an excellent combo. Powerful desktop replacement and ultra portable 'Netbook or Pad/Tablet.

That standard 1366x768 screen isn't great for productivity IMO. You can get 1920x1080 or 1600x900 resolution in smaller than 17" laptops. laptop too.
But with the 17" you also get things like a 2nd HDD bay (for a SSD upgrade maybe).
 
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tomate2

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hm...
how portable are you going to be??
maybe you can just carry that netbook around and instead of another laptop buy a cheaper but equally capable desktop to put in your room with a 21 inch display :D
but thats if your not going to do anything too heavy on your netbok
in that case any of the above suggestion goes...
 

dgriffs

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I was actually thinking about getting a desktop originally due to better price/performance and upgrade options. The only thing stopping me is that I haven't decided where i'm going to school yet. I'm afraid that there wouldn't be enough space in the room or that I wouldn't have my own desk. If i'm guaranteed my own desk every year I would have no objection to a desktop.
 

frozenlead

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I haul my 17" notebook to classes when needed/wanted. It's not really that much of an issue to me. The battery only lasts 2 hours, but I have a spare and I've never had trouble finding a wall outlet (been at school for 3 years now).

I would have bought a small netbook, but they aren't powerful enough to do anything real. I never take notes with my notebook - using a paper notebook is much easier and faster (and less distracting).
 

tomate2

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well i know someone who bought a 17'' sony vaio and hes in college.. (hes got his own desk lol) so he hooks up a bunch of things to his laptop... external speakers earphones blah blah blah... which he has to uplug everytime when he needs to take it around... he is seriously considering a netbook to carry around instead of the 17'' only after half year in college...

its really up to you... maybe you can first go to college and us ur netbook for a while and check if a 17'' notebook or a desktop computer better fits your needs... remember that buying a desktop computer you need to buy the monitor too! some people tend to forget to put monitor into the budget...
 

tomate2

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frozen... id i just see you have a 17'' 1920x1200 monitor?? wow... that is just impressive... how good are yours eyes??? things must be incredibly small on that... xD