Quote:
Originally Posted by =X=
Last year I debated buying a tablet or a laptop for my niece as well. In the end I ended up buying her a laptop with a 2 year full warranty, while I rarely buy warranties for a student it's the smart move. She ended up breaking her screen 8mo later. Laptops are just more versatile and in the end it was the right move.
The only time I would recommend a tablet is with something like an ASUS Transformer which has a keyboard that acts like a docking station so that it also has a USB Host port, HDMI, a SD Card slot and extra battery. The USB/SD slot will give the ability to transfer files via USB/sd card and the extra battery will give her extra usage without worrying about being next to an an outlet. As a plus the ASUS has a 600nits screen so it works in direct sunlight.
However my ultimate recommendation is to find out what major she is getting and find out what platform they have standardized on. My major standardized on UNIX and I found installing LINUX on my PC was the better choice.
=X=
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She's thinking laptop
and tablet.
She's checked with the school. Macs or PCs are both OK, both are used by many people there. The school itself mostly uses Macs except the science and math departments which use PCs. Her major will probably be something biology or pre-med related. If she has to interact a lot with the PCs in the science and math departments she might be better off with a PC, but she said she checked and a Mac would be OK.
I'd assume Linux would be most helpful in math, physics, and computer science areas. But the last time I was a student was 20 years ago.
Edit: BTW, OS X is also built on a Unix variant. Using Terminal, a Mac user can play with command-line Unix, mess with the OS, program in shells, and so on to their heart's content. Or if necessary, a user could put Linux on the Mac in addition to OS X (that's an assumption). Or put Windows on the Mac (not an assumption). Though additional OSs would require more storage space, and I hear it gets complicated with Lion OS X and partitions.