Computers that use a standard case and motherboard often allow you to upgrade your processor or add more memory after your peers' brand-new systems start making you envious. At the University of Florida, the colleges of accounting, architecture, building construction, business administration, engineering and pharmacy all require a laptop. At those schools, the computers are used in the classrooms. Medical and law schools at most colleges suggest that students purchase laptops instead of desktop systems, Nelson says. The main advantage of a laptop is portability, but students living in cramped quarters often buy laptops simply to save on square footage.
Most buyers start by quoting the processor speed.
Faster processors will take less time churning through the millions of calculations so your programs run faster. RAM is the temporary storage area that lets you do such things as run lots of programs simultaneously or open large graphics files. Your hard drive space is like a stand-up file cabinet, storing files and programs that are not currently open. Computer software released in the DVD-ROM format has been slow to catch on, but law or medical students might find large reference materials released on that format, Mouret says. For most, choosing a video card has become a pretty simple process.