Laptop recommendations for grad school

[amy.will]

I'm buying a new laptop for grad school and I'm wondering how much I should spend. I'm imagining I can get something fairly cheap, mostly for word processing and web and a few other simple apps. Are there any programs you used in grad school that would require a more powerful machine (vs, say, a Chromebook) or a specific operating system? In undergrad (not in CSD, different major) I had kind of a hard time because I was running Linux on my laptop and a lot of the programs I needed to run were Mac specific. I just want to make sure I don't run into that scenario again.

 

Thanks! 

[.letmeinplz//]

You should contact some current students in your program (I was passed several names to contact with any grad life questions I had once I accepted my offer) and see what their advice is, since they will know about your program better than any of us could guess.

[Auuudriana]

Most people have MacBooks. A Chromebook might not be the best idea because you might have to install SALT or something like that, so I would check with your school to see if it would be available on a computer there. Otherwise, I would stick to a regular Windows laptop or a MacBook.

[jpiccolo]

My cohort had a mix of PC and macs and we didn't need any specific programs. We used google drive for presentations and the few times SALT was needed it was available on the report computers which were HIPAA compliant. I even started bringing my iPad to class instead which was newer and way faster than my laptop.