[randomguy786]

I'm trying to weigh up the pros and cons of getting a laptop vs desktop. I'm going to be studying Petroleum Engineering in September. Are there any specific programs that must be able to run on your Laptop/Desktop for that subject?

The only benefit of a laptop is portability.

The cons are:

- More expensive
- Less powerful
- More prone to being stolen
- More prone to overheating
- Smaller screen (Although you can hook it up to an external monitor, but that takes up valuable space)

Anyway, how important is portability at UoM? More specifically in the (Petroleum) Engineering field.

Thanks

[Joinedup]

I wouldn't underestimate the benefit of being able to fetch the laptop home in a bag between terms... Also you can switch it off, fold it and put it away easily if you're having a boozeup in your room.
For lectures, mostly decorative unless you can type formulae full of greek letters, diagrams and sketch graphs faster than with a pen.
Most computationally intensive thing you're likely to do with it is try running games imo.

[Origami Bullets]

Laptops are useful, because if you have one then it allows you to take it to the library (whilst there are computer clusters, it can sometimes be a pain to find a free computer), take it home in the holidays, work on the train (during an essay crisis, I ended up working on a local bus!) and so on.

People tend not to use them in lectures, because a) typing is noisy and prone to disturbing others, and b) it's impossible to draw diagrams fast enough on a computer whilst in lectures.

I can't say much about petroleum engineering & any programmes that they use, but I know that people in some similar subjects use MATLAB quite a lot.

[bilgin_143]

(Original post by randomguy786)
I'm trying to weigh up the pros and cons of getting a laptop vs desktop. I'm going to be studying Petroleum Engineering in September. Are there any specific programs that must be able to run on your Laptop/Desktop for that subject?

The only benefit of a laptop is portability.

The cons are:

- More expensive
- Less powerful
- More prone to being stolen
- More prone to overheating
- Smaller screen (Although you can hook it up to an external monitor, but that takes up valuable space)

Anyway, how important is portability at UoM? More specifically in the (Petroleum) Engineering field.

Thanks

Well you'll definitely need a computer to run AUTOCAD, Solidworks and Mathlab. We also have quite a lot of online assignments in engineering, and much of the lecture notes are posted on blackboard (the system for online materials) or the maths website. I don't think you'll need it for engineering lectures, but it is simply beneficial to have a laptop because you'll have to carry a computer around (for society works, revisions in the library etc.)