How to buy a computer for a student?

[Geek-9pm]

What is the r requirement for a student computer?

Some higher education places have very specific rules. They favor Windows-based laptops running MS Office. But the Apple  Mac book might also work.

Examples:

University of Denver.

Oregon State.

University of Toledo.

What about where you live? 

[Ajfer03]

In my school district, everyone is given free rights to tech and all students are given computers free of charge. (Not to keep of course.  )

I don't know when it started but until two school years ago everyone used 4th generation iPads. The school liked it because they were cheap and less complicated for the students. However, they were lacking in the ability to supervise what the students were doing on the devices and the versatility of the devices. So everyone got 2016 11" MacBook Airs. The students loved it but it came with the cost of installing the Sophos Web-Proxy and LanSchool. I enjoy it in school, as Microsoft has very good tools to sync data with Mac and my school doesn't prohibit downloading games or other software, as long as it is not illegal, a vpn, or it's a game and you use it during school hours. It comes installed with Sophos anti-virus but people still manage to install viruses. They come to me all the time looking for help on how to un-install a virus because they don't want to get introuble, and I ended up being the tech genie of the school, and the tech admin of the school generally is very lenient with me with my downloads because they know I use it for the good.

We don't have any regulations on text editors. We mainly stick to things like Google drive because we invested a lot into google's services as we have unlimited storage on their servers. It makes it very easy to share and collab with other students and teachers. I stick to good old office though. The teachers all have it installed on their Mac's. I find it more feature-rich than docs.

They have a couple of windows desktops and laptops scattered through the school for people who don't use a laptop from school, or are prohibited from using one for one reason or another. They aren't remotely monitored, but keep well documented log files of who used it last, because in order to sign in, you need to use your own school account. (The sophos web-proxy login)

As for the requirements, it largely is based on the school requirements and their level of strictness. We don't have very many people in my school so it's pretty lenient.

If you are looking at college, then I would say that it is all up to you, and having to be as versatile as possible. If you only have a windows computer and they want a Mac, there are ways to be compatible, but it is much harder. But if you are on a Mac and they want windows, then all the software is there for you to use. Office, OneDrive, etc. If you needed to buy one for someone, thenit pains me to say it would be the best to buy a MacBook air. 

Oh Well.
Anthony

[camerongray]

When I was at university there was no real requirements from them as to what sort of equipment students required. Any requirements were buried on old webpages and were horrifically outdated (e.g. stating that WiFi was required as though it's something special).

Most required stuff like online learning environments, portals and coursework submission systems were web based so were completely cross platform. Then there was the main university and informatics specific computers which had everything required to do the course.

There was a large mix of platforms in use, throughout the uni there was a fairly even split between Mac and Windows then within the Informatics department Mac and Linux were by far the most popular platforms as the work we were doing, while technically cross platform, worked much better on UNIX-like systems.

There was no real requirement for MS office (at least in my department) as all documents were given to us or submitted by us as PDFs.  Most of the serious work from us (including our dissertations) were generally built using LaTeX. We did however get access to MS Office through Office 365 however this works under both Mac and Windows so no requirement for Windows there.

The main thing I'd always say for people buying machines for University is to get something decent quality while considering portability. When people start out they tend to rush out and either buy some sort of ridiculously powerful laptop that weighs a tonne or get something cheap which falls apart. Later on people tended to move to either more "premium" consumer ultrabooks, business grade machines or to Macs. In a university environment, a machine is going to get carried around all day every day and be used heavily. It needs to be able to survive long periods of heavy use and a fair bit of abuse from being carried around all day in a bag which (at least in my experience) often ended up crushed in piles of bags in pubs/clubs when going out after lectures. It also needs to withstand things like liquid spills when a bottle of water inevitably decides to explode in your bag! The machine also needs to be reasonably portable so that is is comfortable to carry and can be used in tight environments like lecture theatres. You'd also want it to have good battery life - don't be that guy passing a cable across a lecture so you can plug your laptop into one of the very few sockets in the theatre!

As I've mentioned in other threads, my advice would always be that if you want a PC - get something from one of the business lines (Lenovo ThinkPad, Dell Latitude.etc) that's reasonably thin with good battery life and solid state storage. If you'd prefer a Mac, pretty much any of the recent models would fit the bill. For people who need a lot of power for things like gaming I'd strongly advise to get a separate machine for that then pick up a cheap refurbished business machine for carrying around.

Personally when I was in uni I started off with a MacBook Pro before moving to a Lenovo ThinkPad x201 which was later replaced with an x220 followed by an x230 with me ultimately settling on a t440s for the final 2 years of my degree (all of the ThinkPads running Linux).  All of these machines were absolutely perfect for the job. I rarely used the lab machines and instead was able to do pretty much all my work on my laptop, usually plugging it into the monitors on the lab machines to get myself some extra screen space.

[Salmon Trout]

carried around all day in a bag which (at least in my experience) often ended up crushed in piles of bags in pubs/clubs when going out after lectures.

... or stolen from that bag in pubs/clubs. My son at UWE, my daughter at Bath.

[DaveLembke]

Vermont State College lets me chose what I want to use for hardware and OS on their student guest wireless network. They also have computer labs for people who dont have their own computers and those computers are running Windows 10 Pro.

For anyone who has an older computer that can upgrade to run Windows 10 Education edition they offer a free upgrade to Windows 10 Education to help that old computer run new software that may not be supported by XP or Vista but by which that old computer can run the 32-bit version of Windows 10 Education edition making it feel like a new-slow computer with limited hard drive space that can run applications as long as the system specs meet the minimum requirements.

Computers are pretty cheap these days and if not buying new a good refurb can work. Its only a problem when doing graphic design or animation etc and needing more powerful GPU and CPU that the computer for college comes at a greater cost. As well as all the games the student would want to play which is usually more of the driving force to have that ultra powerful computer vs the school work that is completed on it.

One surprise I had when attending college for my first degree 18 years ago was that my Computer Hardware & Desktop Operating system course had a project to build a computer as a requirement. Sadly I built a Pentium 3 850Mhz computer a few months prior for gaming and college and wasn't allowed to use this as my computer to write about post-build. So I ended up having to spend around $400 in Parts & OS to build a cheap Celeron 700Mhz computer with 20GB IDE HDD and Windows Me OS with 128MB RAM and integrated VIA 32MB GPU to satisfy this project. The cool thing is I sold this $400 computer for $250 to a co-worker and so I was only out $150. The Celeron 700Mhz was pretty pathetic for games like Grand Theft Auto - Vice City so I had to let it go. 

System requirements (GTA Vice City)

    800 Mhz Intel Pentium III or 800 Mhz AMD Athlon or 1,2 Ghz Intel Celeron or 1,2 Ghz AMD Duron processor.
    128 MB of RAM.
    32 MB video card with DirectX 9.0 compatible drivers ("GeForce" or better)
    8X speed CD/DVD drive.
    Sound Card with DirectX 9.0 compatible drivers.

[patio]

Let the students figure it out...