New laptop for prospective Computer Science student?

Thanks that was very useful! I've read that Ubuntu (I think) comes with its own word processing etc. How good are these options compared to the Office Suite or even the ones provided by Mac because they are actually quite good, especially keynote

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I've read that but never knew how to do it!! In fact I follow techradar almost religiously!!

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Booting the OS and loading the desktop are in fact two separate operations in Linux although one is normally linked to the other. You can just boot to the command line then load your desk top of choice from there.

Well in general I think comp sci students should have a commitment to open source software rather than commercial bug ridden bloatware provided by hugely profitable conglomerates which not only suck the end user dry, they do so with a second class product and simultaneously facilitate passing al his personal data to the government. That can not be right. If you need me to tell you the benefits of Linux you should not be doing Comp Sci at the tax payers expense.

Get the MacBook Pro if you can afford it, also if you can wait until you get to university Apple will give you 15% student discount-I don't know whether you can wait that long however.

This will make much more sense than buying a desktop and cheap laptop-from my experience cheap laptops drive you crazy, and a desktop isn't so easy to move around which you'll often need to do as a student.

Linux isn't without its faults either though. It's a tad ridiculous to say EVERY COMPSCI STUDENT SHOULD USE LINUX AND ONLY LINUX. Also, if you think Linux is a security haven then you are deluded.

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Other thíng ís the ímportance of a laptop, ít helps duríng study leave where you can barely get a computer

I have a Macbook pro 13', its really good for computer programming because it comes with python preloaded, safari (which I am using at the moment) is good as well (I currently have 12 fairly heavy usage tabs open and no lag/slowness at all). I have boot camped my mac as well and that allows me to plan some basic games like MW3 on the windows side.
Having said all of that, however, PCs are a bit more mass market and I don't know whether some of the applications you will need to use for computer science will be better suited on windows. My friend has a Lenovo and that works quite well for him so it might be worth having a look at that.
Edit: I also use Skype a lot on mac with lots of web tabs open - no problems on Macbook pro, and I am using the last generation (not the newest one).

PS: OP could just get a mITX build. I have one and while it's a little difficult to carry that much home over breaks still, I've been carrying a lot of stuff home for 2 and a half years via trains so, I'm used to it.

I'm a maths student too but unless you've got any basis for this this is bad advice. You might be pretty good with computers like myself but it won't be because you're good at maths therefore it's possible you're giving uninformed/misinformed advice.

Yeah, not really true. I have a desktop, I've never really had any issues with its portability. I can't carry it to uni or anything but I still get plenty of use out of it and unis have computer rooms to use while you're there. Most [lecture] notes can be done on paper. Think that probably applies to Computer science students too, I did program design last semester(with the computer science department) and not many people brought laptops that I noticed.

12 browser tabs? You poor baby(!) I have over 2000 tabs open, probably closer to 2500. I use a windows desktop with 8GB RAM and an i5 2500K(overclocked to 4.1GHz, I believe. And also 2 generations, coming up to 3 generations old I believe and still going strong). Oh and I have a SSD. In fact software can be more restricting than hardware, I had to upgrade to a 64bit browser to handle my tab load recently. I don't use webcams enough to own one so can't comment too much on skype though. Your computer usage is nothing. For a computer science student you seem woefully misinformed.

This is what my work looks like on my netbook, in LibreOffice. I haven't installed many fonts though, so that's why it looks a little bit bland.

Why would you ever need 2000?

Must say, that looks pretty useable and quite stylish. Thank you

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12 browser tabs? You poor baby(!) I have over 2000 tabs open, probably closer to 2500. I use a windows desktop with 8GB RAM and an i5 2500K(overclocked to 4.1GHz, I believe. And also 2 generations, coming up to 3 generations old I believe and still going strong). Oh and I have a SSD. In fact software can be more restricting than hardware, I had to upgrade to a 64bit browser to handle my tab load recently. I don't use webcams enough to own one so can't comment too much on skype though. Your computer usage is nothing. For a computer science student you seem woefully misinformed.

No problem. The desktop environment (the set of programs that draws the desktop and start menu and so on) that I'm using is GNOME 3. It is ready to go on Fedora Linux and Open SUSE; but it can also be installed additionally on all other Linux distributions. Here is a guide to getting it running on Ubuntu.

12 browser tabs? You poor baby(!) I have over 2000 tabs open, probably closer to 2500. I use a windows desktop with 8GB RAM and an i5 2500K(overclocked to 4.1GHz, I believe. And also 2 generations, coming up to 3 generations old I believe and still going strong). Oh and I have a SSD. In fact software can be more restricting than hardware, I had to upgrade to a 64bit browser to handle my tab load recently. I don't use webcams enough to own one so can't comment too much on skype though. Your computer usage is nothing. For a computer science student you seem woefully misinformed.

Also what do you guys think of Chromebooks. I was thinking that if I choose to take a desktop PC to Uni I could just use a chromebook for lectures etc. My PC will be my main setup and I will probably dual boot Mac OSX on it and Linux (after I have chosen my distro)

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