Laptops In Uni.

[tickmike]

I'm getting my Daughter a laptop for xmas and I'm a bit worried about the low battery life of 2-3 hrs. that's not going to last all day.

 

What I wanted to know if it possible to plug the charger in when you go into lessons or is that a no, no.

 

We used 'slide rules' (before calculators ! ) when I was at collage.

[nadeem]

We allow students to charge their laptops in our computer labs / libraries

[strawberry]

probably find the "lessons" are with 200 other people crammed into a hall, she'd do better to get 2 decent batteries, possibly a car charger and learn the little tricks like turning the wireless off, screen brightness etc etc.

 

the original asus minibooks can have long life batteries sourced cheaply from ebay for taking notes, carrying work etc etc during lectures, not ideal as the sole machine though.

[rad]

I can only assume most people resort to good old pen and paper, at least that way, no issues of carrying it around or leaving it in the pub.

[pete]

Sensible battery management should see her through a few lectures. Alternatively buy something that has larger batteries as options (but you're heading up a price bracket).

 

We used to charge ours in the library between classes if it needed it, or the uni bar*/coffee shop. In a seminar group there might be a nearby plug, but it won't be feasible in a lecture theature.

 

 

*cue, "Hi dad, I'm.......er charging my laptop battery, yeah. The singing? Oh, that's the battery charging song"

[SteveBentley]

We tend to discourage students from charging their laptops, not least because it gets us around the PAT test type issues.

[flashsnaps]

I was at Uni last year - I don't remember seeing one Laptop in my Lectures, students mainly used Pen and Paper to make notes. All the lecture slides were then availale for download from the uni website after the lecture. There was around 75-100 students in my lectures. 10-20 students if there were a party the night before!

[CESIL]

2-3 hours? From what my son has told me that would more than cover the lectures...makes me wonder why he is paying so much...

[Sylv3r]

If you look at a notebook rather than a laptop you should get more than the 2-3 hours as mentioned if its just basic word processing etc.

 

I would also look at purchasing a spare battery pack then you could always swap it out if necessary giving 5 - 6 hours of charge which will be more than enough.

[dhicks]

I'm getting my Daughter a laptop for xmas

 

Is a laptop a requirement for the course - are you expected to turn up to various places with one these days? I can't imagine they'll be much use in a lecture, paper notes should be fine - are students expected to arrive to workshops and so on with laptops? If not, if it'll only actually be used in her room, a desktop might be better. Proper keyboard and mouse, decent sized screen, less nickable.

 

--

David Hicks

[jedmondson]

most of my mates have had in there years in uni either there laptop stolen or damaged. A notebook might be better.

[FN-GM]

a notebook is a laptop

 

EDIT: penny dropped, do you mean netbook?

[Edu-IT]

Surely a netbook would be even easier to thieve?

[jedmondson]

a notebook is a laptop

 

EDIT: penny dropped, do you mean netbook?

 

yep. i blame lack of caffeine.

[FN-GM]

Surely a netbook would be even easier to thieve?

 

less desirable, cheaper to replace.

[mossj]

I bought a laptop when I went to uni (couple of years back) with around the same battery life and tbh I didn't get any use out of it far to heavy to lug around when pen and paper will do and as others have said you can download uni notes online anyway.

 

Lectures can be as long as 3 hours and that will exhaust the battery life. Typically there are a couple of random power points around the rooms/halls but there not intended for laptops to be plugged in (more for the cleaners).

 

It did however get a lot of use as a desktop and I used it alot for joint projects where I needed to ensure i had a machine available where ever I was.

[localzuk]

Agree with the others - I was doing a Computer Science degree and had no use for a laptop during lessons. Lectures were note taking on paper, tutorials was talking and note taking and workshops were in the labs. A laptop would have been far too bulky to mess around with. The only people who used them were MBA students (they're a different breed of student to everyone else), or those in to wasting time in lectures (ie. sat there playing games).

 

I'd say buy a laptop on its merits for home use rather than uni use.

[Spitfire]

All our laptops (and we have about 700) are Dell Latitude and we always purchase the secondary battery that slots into the media bay, this gives us all day operation for our students

[SteveBentley]

Agree with the others - I was doing a Computer Science degree and had no use for a laptop during lessons. Lectures were note taking on paper, tutorials was talking and note taking and workshops were in the labs. A laptop would have been far too bulky to mess around with. The only people who used them were MBA students (they're a different breed of student to everyone else), or those in to wasting time in lectures (ie. sat there playing games).

 

I'd say buy a laptop on its merits for home use rather than uni use.

 

I'd have liked to have had a netbook for notetaking when I was a student - I can type faster than I can write, and it has the added bonus that I'd be able to read it!

[si84]

I had a Samsung NC10 and the battery life was amazing. Was getting around 6 hours out of it (with wireless enabled). Well worth looking into as they are a lovely machine. There is also the NC20 which has a bigger screen. (They now do an NC20 with a built in subwoofer too....!)

[witch]

As others have said - my son has a lovely Dell laptop at Uni that he couldn't live without but he doesn't take it into lectures and has had no problems with battery life.

[Guest Biccies]

I've just finished uni. The people with laptops in lectures were usually playing games on them!! You can't beat a pen and paper when it comes to note taking.

A laptop is probably a good idea if your daughter is moving away from home, purely so that she can bring it back home when she visits. It's useful for when you want to mash out some serious work, you can take the laptop to the library where you know you'll have the piece and quiet to get it done! Other than that it should stay in her halls!

[tickmike]

Thanks some good advice there I showed my daughter this thread and it's put a new look on the subject for her.

[bizzel]

Ditto. I'm reading Computer Science at the moment and, while it's absolutely essential to have a computer to call your own, it's rare that I take it to lectures. That goes for about 90% of my class as well - we use paper for the most part simply because it's much easier to jot notes on and our lecture slides are always on the internet after the lecture.

 

I find the most useful device is a dictaphone, there's nothing like being able to play back a whole lecture when you get a bit lost!

 

Agree with the others - I was doing a Computer Science degree and had no use for a laptop during lessons. Lectures were note taking on paper, tutorials was talking and note taking and workshops were in the labs. A laptop would have been far too bulky to mess around with. The only people who used them were MBA students (they're a different breed of student to everyone else), or those in to wasting time in lectures (ie. sat there playing games).

 

I'd say buy a laptop on its merits for home use rather than uni use.

[DrPerceptron]

less desirable, cheaper to replace.

 

I'm siding with Edu-IT... it's still easier to thieve and I really don't see how it's less desirable...

 

 

On a topic note... I've had a Latitude E5500 on my desk for a few days now and the battery life has floated around 5 hours... I believe the new Macbook's also have relatively high battery life...