@ Anemic Oak & David Munch. Agreed, 4GB SDRAM is probably enough.
@ David Munch: Re new Apple hardware, Oooo, thanks for the tip. I hadn't been paying attention to new Apple developments lately. So it's worth waiting a week or two until the new machines are available.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/.../mac/240001734
@ petermillard & Rob_E & LatinandGreek. Agree it'd be nice to have a tablet as well as a laptop, for portability as well as reading textbooks in electronic form, and even reading any fiction for lit classes. I don't believe my niece owns an e-ink reader, but she's focusing on biology/pre-med and probably won't read a lot of fiction like a lit major would. Tablets such as iPad are better than e-ink devices for PDFs or other complex-formatted textbooks, particularly with science-related graphics.
(EDIT: Though AFAIK, unless something changed in the last year or so, iPad can only deal with ePub and PDF formats. If I'm wrong, and textbooks these days come in formats other than PDF, please advise.)
@ David Munch & Latinandgreek. Re superdrive (cd/dvd drive) on a Mac laptop, what about fixing self-inflicted OS problems when necessary from DVD disk? I've had to do that a few times. Is there a way to repair OSX Lion problems directly through Internet with some kind of Apple network resource including OS repair utilities? I'm still using OSX 10.6.8 rather than Lion so I'm not familiar with recent Lion problems/solutions. Does a Lion-loaded thumb drive with OS repair utilities arrive free along with a new MacBook Air, and if not, what will save the day in an OS emergency?
@afv011.
If that's a recommendation for my niece to buy a $100 custom PC, some details on source, availability, and reliability would be helpful. EDIT: afv011 clarified that it cost $100 for 16 GB PC RAM alone; sorry for my misunderstanding about an entire PC for $100.
@my niece. Try Open Office. It's free. A student may not need expensive Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) at all since Open Office handles most of the MS Office formats and commonly-used functionality.
http://www.openoffice.org/product/index.html
Not set in stone, let me know if I forgot anything, work-in-progress shopping list:
Hardware:
Laptop
Laptop case
External Hard Disk Drive
Printer (that works with a laptop-supplied-port such as USB)
External Superdrive (if MacBook Air) [Optional, availability OS repair utilites ???]
Phone
Phone case
Phone accessories
Tablet
Tablet Screen Protector
Tablet case
Bluetooth Keyboard
Miscellaneous:
Credit Card
Software for Phone:
- To be determined
Software for Laptop:
- Open Office (free)
- To be determined
Software for Tablet:
- To be determined