Son will be going to college next fall. What sort of tablet or laptop should we get? He will be studying Economics, Political Science etc.....

I'm about to pull the trigger on a rMBP for the gf.

Any decent laptop in the 600 to 700 range will be more than sufficient for the vast majority of undergrad work.

If he ends up doing cad or solid works he might need better but even then probably not.

Econ and polisci means nothing but paperwriting anyway, so just make sure it has a comfortable keyboard.

Tablets were coming into vogue when I was finishing college, bUT a decent 7 to 10 inch tablet (asus, nexus, Samsung, apple) is awesome for reading textbooks.

Inb4 tardmonkeys tardmonkeying about how if he isn't taking engineering he should go ahead and work at burger king

Commadore 64 worked for me.

64k of ram is plenty.

Microsoft surface of some flavor is pretty popular at my grad school.

The whole STEM thing is a FRAUD. The studies show that most STEM grads of the last 20 years don't work in STEM fields.....but there is such a huge demand for STEM? Horseshit. You have petro engineers in Texas right now thinking about a second career washing car windows at stoplights....H1B's are gutting the rest of STEM anyway- and that's fact, the analysis I saw not long ago of wages was pretty convincing on that point.

http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-130.

http://cis.org/more-us-stem-grads-than-jobs

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/silicon-valley-h1b-visas-hurt-tech-workers


It's no different than "healthcare" or "computers".....Business made a HUGE push to dump people into those career tracks over the last 20 years and they have essentially ruined them. They will do the same for STEM, it serves THEIR purposes.

Besides, Engineers WORK FOR OTHER PEOPLE......look at the folks on Shark Tank for good examples of what people with Liberal Arts degrees CAN do.....

I'm not here to start that argument. I majored in a social science and minored in a hard one, with the plan of working law enforcement that really didn't relate to either degree. It didn't matter and I got the job that will lead me to the job I want, and your son should study what he wants as well. If someone pressures him into a career he hates he has just wasted 4-6 years anyway.

Regardless, I was just heading off the retard deluge. I don't think it's a sham, by any means, but not all stem students are landing stem jobs worth having, either.

Sorry about that but it's a sore spot with me. I do much better than most STEM grads and I studied History and Poli Sci.......The smug, "I'm so smart and you're not" gets old especially when we compare 1040's.....

spoiled          we worked with the    slide rule

My dad's a PE and ran his own construction company for 40 years.

 

I'd recommend a macbook. It could potentially last him 6-8 years, well through college and into his first job. Get one of those $400 dollar specials at Best Buy and you'll probably be replacing it before college is over.

actually talk to the school first.  specialized tracks are selling the reading material for multiple classes/semesters in a specific format.  apple devices are popular.  srsly.

grad student here.  for an undergrad, any laptop is going to be perfectly adequate, so long as it can run MSoffice (preferably the windows version, but the mac version is fine).  a tablet is inadequate, because either of those degrees is going to involve a lot of typing or a lot of spreadsheet work.  this can be done on a tablet, but even the surface pro isn't optimum for it.  yes, the university will have desktop computing, but it isn't the same as a kid having his own machine.

for grad students (who will likely be assigned a desktop for their office), a surface pro would be ideal.  i chose the apple ecosystem, but the ipad isn't enough to act as a laptop replacement (which the surface pro does quite well as long as it isn't the primary productivity machine).  if i had it to do over again, i would go with a dual-boot mac desktop along with a surface pro.



edit: also, talk to the campus IT department and bookstore--the educational deals are incredible.  i got office pro for windows and mac for $30 total, which is a 99% discount.  hardware also sees good discounts (though not as deep).

Macbook if you can afford it
Then for windows only software use boot camp or load up boot camp or load up parallels
It just works... I wish I bought one sooner

Other wise the new generation dell inspirons are nice make sure it has an i5 with 8 gb of ram

if you can swing it get a mac book pro, not the retina if you can find it
it's gonna cost you but it's a solid piece if equipment seeing that my roommates that don't' have macs have replaced their computers more than once since freshman year
i wouldn't suggest a tablet unless you like that kind of stuff, i honestly cant stand those things

Here is what I just did as a current student.  Might not be the best idea but just sharing what worked for me.  I wish I would have done this a few years ago.  My mistake was going to Wal Mart and buying a Compaq that was around $250...while it never died on me, it was slow as shit from the start.  I finally gave up on it couple weeks ago.

I went on ebay and picked up a used ThinkPad T400.  It has a Intel Core 2 Duo processor running @ 2.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM (but can work with up to 4 or 8), Windows 7 and MS Office 2007.  I paid about $135 for it I think.  And honestly, it's the cheapest yet fastest laptop I've ever had.  The keyboard feels nice and it feels pretty solid.  

I went this route because a lot of people said that Thinkpads are great machines, and so far I love mine...it does everything I need it to as a student, it was cheap, and works pretty fast.  You could also go into a T410, T420, T430, etc...they have a bunch of different Thinkpad models.

A basic $500 laptop you can get at best buy will do just about anything he needs in terms of running Microsoft office and web browsing. If your son is going to dabble in some classes that use Photoshop, some sort of 3d design program or maybe some occasional pc gaming, he will need a good GPU and CPU. For brands i recommend Asus, or Alienware. I would also stick with PC, to avoid compatibility problems and avoiding expensive proprietary apple software.

Business class Dell (latitude) or HP (elitebook) with an accidental damage warranty/onsite repair.

Don't waste the money on a Macbook.  Go to Staples, Office Depot, Best Buy, Amazon, OR try the school book store (seriously) and get a basic middle of the road PC.

Snag microsoft office and call it a day.  He doesn't need a $2000 facebook machine.