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Equipment

Hi what sort of equipment do you need to study computer science at uni? Do you need a high end machine? If so how do most students afford one?
Reply 1
Avatar for c4t
c4t
I wondered the same thing as I want to study computer science but what do you need to bring computer wise?
Reply 2
Avatar for ElliotW
ElliotW
I will be studying cs this year and looked into it myself. I thought about taking a computer but have changed my mind as it isnt needed. What ive read is that you just need a decent laptop with a good hard drive.
Reply 3
Avatar for dom979
dom979
OP
6
Original post by ElliotW
I will be studying cs this year and looked into it myself. I thought about taking a computer but have changed my mind as it isnt needed. What ive read is that you just need a decent laptop with a good hard drive.

Have you decided on what laptop you're taking yet? If so can you post a link to it if possible? I've been looking around and apparently a lot of people take MacBook pros but that's way out of my price range.
Reply 4
Avatar for ElliotW
ElliotW
Original post by dom979
Have you decided on what laptop you're taking yet? If so can you post a link to it if possible? I've been looking around and apparently a lot of people take MacBook pros but that's way out of my price range.


I was thinking about getting an Macbook Air but because of storage im not going to get one. I may get a macbook pro with some money saved up plus you can get student discount.

It all depends on your budget really. These laptop gets posted a lot when people are looking for good laptops.
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/ASUS_K55A-SX376H_red_1337331.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/dp/B009SJCX86?tag=invihand-21
Reply 5
Avatar for Tish
Tish
13
Ive got a mac pro will be bringing to uni might invest in a tablet either ipad or samsung not 10 :smile:


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Reply 6
Avatar for iisjman07
iisjman07
1
You shouldn't need anything amazing to study computer science, for most of the first year I had a 2006-model Macbook which was a core2duo with 2GB of RAM (I put a very cheap SSD in it just to give it the speed boost it wanted). The machine doesn't really have to be capable of a huge amount; you'll probably do programming which isn't very taxing (you can do it in a text editor), web design (again, not all that taxing), you'll need an office suite to write reports/presentations. I can't think of anything else atm... You'd only really need a high spec machine if you wanted to do virtualisation or emulation, which you may do, but the university will provide you with the resources to do it there, you would only need it if you wanted to do it at home or investigate it yourself.

Pretty much any reasonably modern machine will do fine, although I'd recommend spending a bit of money on an SSD as you won't regret the speed benefits. The whole mac vs pc thing is a debate that's probably best not brought up here for the millionth time, but I'll say that macs are fine for CS as the market share is large enough now that there's software alternatives for things you'll need. If you're thinking of a mac you can get one at the student price so you may want to consider that.

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