I’ve had many people ask: What is the best laptop for education or college? This interested me since I’m going to be a freshman in college next year. I set out to compare and contrast different types of laptops for education. Why do i say laptop, this is because it is nice to have the portability, and usually students enjoy taking their laptop to school in order to take notes, and present projects.

Question number one: Windows or OSX

Many people i know have grown up on windows based computers, so they immediately want to get a windows based laptop. I plead with them to re-think this choice. Windows is their norm, they are use to it and are sometimes afraid of change. With an OSX based computer you are able to have the best of both worlds, you can have OSX and with the new intel chip set you are able to dual boot windows if you so well please. OSX is a nice change, people are afraid to switch at first (I sure was) but once they get use to it they find they no longer need windows, they may need it for certain programs, but you can most likely find a work around for OSX.

Second question: Power or Portability

Portability is one of the biggest reasons to get a laptop for me. Then again I want that extra power to do all the things i want and then some. I recommend getting a screen size around 13.3 up to 15 inches. This allows you to stay ultra portable yet it doesn’t seem like you have to peer at a tiny little screen.

Question Three: What should i get in my laptop

Here are my specs. that i find critical in all computers these days.

Processor Core two duo around a 2.0

RAM: RAM is a huge part of all computers it eliminates restarting a computer to make it faster. Standard RAM is now one gigabyte, if it is fairly cheap go for two gigs. If you find that upgrading ram from the computer supplier is to expensive you can always upgrade it yourself later, this is fairly easy to do and you can get online for a steal.

Conclusion:
I spent about six months trying to decide what kind of computer I wanted and something that would suit my needs in college. I did a ton of research and i finally decided to get a macbook. This computer is very portable, easy to carry, and has alot of power under the hood.

My computer specs:

Core two duo 2.4 ghz

2 gigs of RAM

144 mb shared memory video card

8x super drive

13.3 wide screen.

Companies I recommend to buy laptops from: Dell, good prices, powerful laptops, and awesome customer service. Apple, may seem a little more expensive but worth it, laptops back a punch, and awesome customer service. Did i mention apple offers educational discounts, and you can usually get a free printer for $100 with a $100 mail in rebate.