Laptop

Guidance for laptop computers

A laptop is disposable, buy cheaply and expect to get three years out of it, maximum, if you are lugging it around every day. Treating laptops kindly, they may however last for years.

Pick a processor which supports virtualization. Most modern processors do but check before purchase. Typically, students buy an i3 or i5 processor or the AMD equivalent.

I am now recommending 32GB of main memory for all students.

Every laptop has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth but check to be sure.

For performance, buy a laptop with an SSD (1TB) and learn how to use the cloud to store your data. This is the preferred option as otherwise when your hard drive breaks (it will!) you will lose important work. Newer laptops may have two slots for NVMe SSDs. On my main laptop, my OS is on the original 500GB SSD and I added a 2TB SSD for VMs.

Without that, you will need an external USB3 SSD drive for VMs and ISOs.

Think of comfort! You should get a large monitor, keyboard, and mouse for working from home. Laptop ergonomics do not suit working for long periods of time. My laptop connects to external screens via a USB 3 docking station.

Your laptop will come with Windows 11; that will be fine. You should not purchase additional software, as a registered student, you are entitled to MS Office and other software for free. We do NOT recommend buying commercial anti-virus software. Use the free version which comes with Windows 11. Make sure your computer is configured to download and install updates automatically. You may need to upgrade the version of Windows 11 on your laptop as the home version misses many important components. Again, this should be free, alternatively, buy your laptop with Windows 11, 64-bit, Professional.

If you are doing a technical module or will work with networking, you will need a USB<->RS232 serial adapter. These can be purchased inexpensively on-line.