I have a budget of around $750 and I expect to be able to code in it. I honestly have not much idea what the ideal requirement of a laptop for a college student should be, which is why I am asking here to get an estimate of the specs I should be considering while choosing one. I would advice against naming any specific laptop as I have no guarantee of its availability in my region.

Edit: Seeing some of the comments, I have decided to add some context and additional constraints:

  • Fit for Computer Science: I wish for the laptop to handle all the tasks expected from the course with reasonable efficiency first and foremost. Gaming support (at least Minecraft) may be desirable but completely optional.
  • Windows only: I am completely inexperienced with Linux and college life, and I want to prioritize my studies over setting up and learning a completely new OS until I am sure I can find enough time to consider switching, so for the time being I am going with Windows. Moreover, the cheapest models among the Macbooks available here cost way above my budget and aren’t feasible either.
  • Newly purchasable models only: My college is offering a grant for newly bought laptops and it is in my best interest to avail the offer to get the most capable model possible, so I will not be purchasing any used laptop.
  • Price matching allotted budget: For the same reason above, I will not be deviating from my budget by more than $100 from either side.

I understand that these constraints narrow down my options by a large margin. If no one can offer something that fulfills the above criteria, that’s OK. I will ask someone else or simply buy one by my own intuition. I will only request you to comment if you actually have a suggestion that respects the above constraints and not just to complain about them.

  • Zangoose@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    Worth noting that a GPU could be useful if they want to do game development courses but realistically you should be fine.

    I’m a rising senior in college for CS and the only thing I’ve ever had that was remotely hard on my PC was my poorly-optimized freshman year assignments and an intro to cyber security assignment that had us using password hashing tools (it was a really cool assignment but kind of sucked for people who didn’t have access to a computer with a decent GPU)