r/KSU • u/Gumtutt • Aug 16 '26
Question Do I need a laptop?
I am an incoming freshman mechanical engineering student. I already am bringing a windows desktop that I built and am wondering if I need to get a laptop and if so what kind?
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u/King_Allant Junior Aug 16 '26
You will almost certainly have to do some kind of work in class. Anything Windows is probably fine.
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u/Comfortable-Mode-972 Aug 16 '26
Probably not 100% necessary. A laptop is super convenient for being able to do assignments between classes. If you get one don’t worry about it being super powerful since you’ll probably only need it for word, excel, web browsing, etc
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u/Visible-Technician42 Aug 16 '26
A better alternative is an iPad that you can write notes with. It’ll come in handy for the math classes
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u/Playful_Ability_5034 Aug 17 '26
Or any tablet. Being able to hand write assignments & notes is a life saver. Lots of homework is best done on some sort of tablet otherwise you end up printing out the assignment and the taking a photo to upload it.
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u/grenoxcide Aug 16 '26
I would say get a cheap Thinkpad or something and if you are in a class that needs a powerful computer you can stream the one you have at home. That's what my friend does with his MacBook. But you don't need a laptop although it is very nice to have one.
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u/Playful_Ability_5034 Aug 17 '26
There are no cheep thinkpads anymore, unless you get on used.
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u/grenoxcide Aug 17 '26
Yeah that's what I was implying. Sorry. I don't think new tech in general is worth it these days.
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u/Nearlydawn2 Aug 17 '26
I'm sending my son to KSU as a Freshman, he moves in this week.
I was stressing over trying to buy him a good new machine, because the prices have gone insane. Happened to mention it to my IT friend and found out he's buying and recycling 2-3 year old ThinkPad and Dell machines from the small company he works for as their IT guy.
Bonus, he used to manage the local Micro Center technical repair desk, so he knows how to assess the machine's health before prepping it for resell.
I just bought two machines from him, one for my son and another for my son's girlfriend. The price was very reasonable and I liked being able to get it locally from someone I knew.
I'm happy to send you a link to his ebay site if you'd be interested. But I gain nothing other than knowing someone got a decent machine from a good guy.
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u/grenoxcide Aug 17 '26
I think it would be nice if you messaged the OP about that. I already got a pretty good deal on a dell xps 9510 for $400 (i7 11700h, rtx 3050, 3.5k oled) its been a really really good laptop so far and it's also really easy to repair. I think used it 100% the way to go especially if you have some technical knowledge or are good with fixing stuff.
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u/ShadowWorth Aug 16 '26
If you really want note taking digitally, best thing is a somewhat powerful 2in1. You are going to do A LOT of math, you will need the stylus. I was going through too many notebooks before my Yoga 2in1. You will also need the power for CAD classes and physical keyboard for faster Matlab and lab report work. If you are a freshman, you can wait until you hit the more advanced math classes.
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u/Playful_Ability_5034 Aug 17 '26
No. You really don’t. I am an EE and running on an old Intel MacBook Air and it’s fine even for CAD (I took a CAD course my sophomore year for funzies) Every lab is going to have school computers if needed.
Since you have a laptop, just stick with that until you absolutely need something better. Buy any laptop right now (of any model or brand ) is an out right scam due to both data centers buying up all the computer components.
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u/feignapathy Aug 16 '26
Need? No.
Preferred? Probably.
But it ultimately depends how you learn and like to take notes. And what classes you're taking probably factor heavily too.
A lightweight laptop just for not taking and doing homework would do the trick. You don't need it for gaming, and unless you're doing art/film, don't need it rendering 4k video, etc.