Why Not to Buy a Laptop for College

Portability Hype

"Not all locations on campus will support wifi meaning you will frequently find yourself running around campus looking for hotspots with decent signal strength. "

Varies from campus to campus. Here at Duke basically all public areas, many of the classrooms, and lots of the residence halls have wireless."

Also forget about using your laptop as a notebook, I have found most lecture tables to be just too small for laptops..."

Again, this will vary from place to place, and sometimes even building to building. Some of the classrooms at Duke are very tech friendly with good work surface and power at every chair. Others still look like they did in the 60's.

Productivity Hype

"Another misconception that many college students have is that a laptop will make them more productive. I have found that I have gotten better grades on essays in which my primary research came from offline sources, books from library, then online. I mean I would have been easily inclined to whip out my laptop and Google around the net for information..."

Durability and Security

Laptops are not necessarily more fragile, but they certainly are in situations that are likely to cause damage more frequently. As for lost or stolen, I have just one thing to say: backups. This is true for any computer user. Hard drives fail on desktops too, and sometimes sprinkler systems go off unexpectedly and destroy a desktop. So while I don't necessarily disagree with this point, the proactive solution is the same for either desktops or laptops. Sometimes I wish we would cut a deal with an off site backup group to provide secure, offside backup for any student who wants it. If we could get it down to like $10 a month per student I think we'd have a real winner.

http://connect.educause.edu/blog/pkscout/why_not_to_buy_a_laptop_for_college/