I want your opinions on this

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I have one and I love it for school. Less shit for me to lug around and I also link to relevant websites in my notes, which I find really useful.

Also, Art Student's opinion is a) antiquated and b) I don't think most college art classes need notes the same way let's say a biology class does.

Yeah, I've noticed that the people who say they use their devices all the time are a biology student, a law student, and an anatomy/physiology student. It really really depends on what the coursework is.

I can see the usefulness of them, but I've never really used them, even when I did have a laptop I mainly just left it at home. In lectures I always take notes on paper, but then again my topics are very math intensive, so I have to write down a lot of equations, which are a pain in the ass on computers. When I do want to do some research/write a paper at uni I mainly go to the library, or the the physics department. But they have lots of computers there, if they didn't have as many computers I probably would have gotten a laptop to take to uni.

Oh, and that said I also do use my netbook occasionally when I'm on the train off to a different city, mainly for reading my teachers' online lecture notes.

It would also be nice to have my textbooks on it instead of carrying them around getting them ruined in the rain.

I got a Kindle for that, this year, uni has started back yet though, so I haven't really looked too much into textbooks yet. Also, that said a kindle vs an iPad would depend on your type of textbooks, over the past 4 years 90% of my textbooks were black and white, but other subjects may use much more colour, for which an iPad would be much better. (just an aside that)

Apples new iBook2 program looks good for that as well:
http://www.planetinsane.com/apple-offers-new-digital-textbooks-with-ibooks-2/2627183/

None of my textbooks are available in Kindle format, and every time I've done a conversion the formatting went to shit, but it is really nice that e-textbooks are becoming so popular.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I meant to mention earlier that if you think the primary use is going to be for textbooks rather than note-taking, A Nook Color Tablet or Kindle Fire might be worth looking into as they're much cheaper than an iPad and can do many of the same things.

Plus if you have a Nook we can lend each other books for free.

A lot of what I'd be using it for is reading papers, organizing projects, and taking notes outside of class. Possibly for recording lectures and watching videos, as well. If I was going to buy one, which I'm not.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Thinking about it, I can come up with a few reasons for your friends odd knee-jerk reaction:

- your older friends might think that since they didn't need a laptop/netbook/tablet when they went to college, nobody should need anything but the giant wooden abacus they used, which they could only access after a 35 mile hike, barefoot through the snow, uphill both ways.

This totally made me LOL! 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I feel that the reaction is just part of a consumer backlash.  People are tired of shiny new ways to play Angry Birds.  It's just that though, a reaction.

I feel that gadgets like the ones being discussed are classroom and prof dependent.  If the prof has a really engaging teaching style, where they actually expect some kind of back and forth or participation (rare but I get them), then gadgets aren't helpful. 

If they're lecturers who just talk and pass out work, then I like to have wiki, google, or wolfram alpha by my side.

I'm not even thinking about in-class, necessarily. It would be really handy to be able to do research or work on projects between classes, or even to be able to go to certain types of social events and still be able to work on a project, or to have the capability of going to an SE's house or away to the coast for a weekend and still getting homework done.

Oh, plus, if I needed info from a physical book in the library, I would be able to take a picture of the pages I needed. And I could install dropbox and have access to all my documents from anywhere.

Hah, now I'm thinking about my archivist friend, and how handy it would have been for her to have one when she was at Oxford.

[LMNO]

I think you've already made a decision, Nigel.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think you've already made a decision, Nigel.

Yes, I made my decision long before starting this thread. This thread is not about me shopping for a product, at all; I already know that I'm not buying one because for me right now the benefits do not justify the expense.

[Triple Zero]

Just as an anecdote, I have to say that my Acer is giving as good as I've got to throw at it.  Roger I'm sure can tell you how hard I am on my things.  I mean, ask him how many times last month he had to tell me off for leaving blood all over the bathroom after dorking around with some cute boy I picked up at the bar! I've had this thing for nearly two years; it's been dropped on hard tile at least twice (and crushed the lid a bit), had energy drinks spilled on it, hauled it around in a backpack full of hard textbooks (admittedly, I'm a bit more careful there), left it on for days on end to save my spot on some page on the internet, dropped it some more, left it in positions that destroyed the power cord's ability to work right without hours of finagling, and it is still going strong, even if the keys are a bit sticky.

Is it a netbook? Well this advice might be useful even if it's a larger laptop.

Seems as if you're giving your Acer about a similar hard time as I do with my netbook. Did, actually, because right now it's so wonky I don't really take it anywhere anymore. If I would start about all the things that are wrong and broken with it (mechanical/electrical all of them, I'm a software guy so I keep that aspect very shiny) this post would get really long I fixed most of it with tape and one clothing-peg End result is I can't move it around much or shit comes loose. It's had a good three (?) years though, it's been my main computer since my old one died in the fire of that terrible February.

Have to admit, to my shame, that most of the times I dropped it and some seemingly-insignificant bit of plastic broke off (or something inside got loose) was when I was a teensy bit too inebriated :$

Anyway, what I wish I'd have done before I broke it too much, was to pre-emptively duct-tape any bits that can come loose. I'm assuming you don't regularly take it apart (not a good idea to do too often with laptops anyhow), maybe do it one time to clean the dust from the insides, and then tape over all the edges and seams and whatnot (not the ventilation holes and the sockets, obviously!) until it's super sturdy! Also tape the battery in place (one of the things that broke were the little hooks that clicked it in place). Good proper duct tape will last a really long time, plus it provides cushioning at the edges and corners in case it ever drops again.

I'm going to have to order a new netbook THIS WEEK though, because last week something fucked up that causes me to disconnect from the internet whenever I move it, and that's way too annoying to put off for much longer, I should have gotten a new one a long time ago. I have the money set apart it's just that I get all flustered by the options, dunno which one to get, though I spotted a nice model today. Except the screen is glossy and reviews say the mouse buttons on the touchpad need to be pressed hard and click loudly. But there's only so many models available on the market at some point in time. I'll have to make a decision tomorrow, I suppose.

[Triple Zero]

If they're lecturers who just talk and pass out work, then I like to have wiki, google, or wolfram alpha by my side.

Curious, what sort of queries do you use WA for?

The technology behind it is fairly awesome, but apart from a few things I *know* it does, it hardly ever gives me an answer to an average query of the type I think WA should know. IMO it's a bit like Google Calculator that can do *slightly* more.

And Google Calculator gives *one* answer, which is usually the one you want. WA gives a whole page/table of answers from which you have to scan and find the one you need.

Things I use WA for:
- calculations with dates and seconds (<my birthdate> plus one billion seconds = in a couple of months!) though Google Calc can do that too.
- symbolic math calculations such as simplifying polynomials and taking derivatives. Because I don't have Mathematica.
- demographic and statistics info on countries and things--this is usually where it fails for me. sometimes with separate queries I find that it *does* have the data to answer my question, but I can't get it to present it to me in a single query.
- things about numbers, such as factorizing, being primes, or other properties.
- and that one time to find out where Phobos-Grunt was about to crash, because I know it knows (current, historical and future) locations of satellites and airplanes and everything.

what do you use it for? (if it's a lot, maybe start a new thread)

[Golden Applesauce]

As far as note taking in class - there are a ton of touch-based note-taking apps (so you can still do diagrams, etc).  I don't find them that useful for heavy notetaking, which might be because I don't have a stylus and the precision is therefore around the level of finger-painting.  The senior designer at my company (who has much more experience with drawing on a tablet-y thing than me) loves it for notes, though.

Touch typing is a PITA, though.  There's no touch feedback when you hit a key, so you can't type by muscle memory - eventually, your fingers will slide to one way or the other because you can't feel the center or the edges of the buttons.  Between that and Apple's moronic autocorrect, you have to keep pretty close visual attention to what you're typing.

[Rumckle]

Curious, what sort of queries do you use WA for?

I really like WA, I use it when I really get stuck on some difficult integrals. Also it is fun (and relatively easy) to compare various demographic statistics.

(also did you see the TedTalk by the creator? It was pretty cool)

[Freeky]

Just as an anecdote, I have to say that my Acer is giving as good as I've got to throw at it.  Roger I'm sure can tell you how hard I am on my things.  I mean, ask him how many times last month he had to tell me off for leaving blood all over the bathroom after dorking around with some cute boy I picked up at the bar! I've had this thing for nearly two years; it's been dropped on hard tile at least twice (and crushed the lid a bit), had energy drinks spilled on it, hauled it around in a backpack full of hard textbooks (admittedly, I'm a bit more careful there), left it on for days on end to save my spot on some page on the internet, dropped it some more, left it in positions that destroyed the power cord's ability to work right without hours of finagling, and it is still going strong, even if the keys are a bit sticky.

Is it a netbook? Well this advice might be useful even if it's a larger laptop.

Seems as if you're giving your Acer about a similar hard time as I do with my netbook. Did, actually, because right now it's so wonky I don't really take it anywhere anymore. If I would start about all the things that are wrong and broken with it (mechanical/electrical all of them, I'm a software guy so I keep that aspect very shiny) this post would get really long I fixed most of it with tape and one clothing-peg End result is I can't move it around much or shit comes loose. It's had a good three (?) years though, it's been my main computer since my old one died in the fire of that terrible February.

Have to admit, to my shame, that most of the times I dropped it and some seemingly-insignificant bit of plastic broke off (or something inside got loose) was when I was a teensy bit too inebriated :$

Anyway, what I wish I'd have done before I broke it too much, was to pre-emptively duct-tape any bits that can come loose. I'm assuming you don't regularly take it apart (not a good idea to do too often with laptops anyhow), maybe do it one time to clean the dust from the insides, and then tape over all the edges and seams and whatnot (not the ventilation holes and the sockets, obviously!) until it's super sturdy! Also tape the battery in place (one of the things that broke were the little hooks that clicked it in place). Good proper duct tape will last a really long time, plus it provides cushioning at the edges and corners in case it ever drops again.

I'm going to have to order a new netbook THIS WEEK though, because last week something fucked up that causes me to disconnect from the internet whenever I move it, and that's way too annoying to put off for much longer, I should have gotten a new one a long time ago. I have the money set apart it's just that I get all flustered by the options, dunno which one to get, though I spotted a nice model today. Except the screen is glossy and reviews say the mouse buttons on the touchpad need to be pressed hard and click loudly. But there's only so many models available on the market at some point in time. I'll have to make a decision tomorrow, I suppose.

Yeah, its a netbook.  I love it.  I don't take it apart at all, because I wouldn't know how to put it back together.  I wouldnt know where to start taking it apart, either.   I might end up doing the duct tape thing, if I ever drop it again and it survives, but I like having it just be purple and black.

Hope you have good luck finding another one quickly.

[Triple Zero]

I believe they have purple and black duct tape too :P

I don't like taking it apart for the same reasons, but one time it was necessary cause somehow a screw on the inside got loose and got into the fan and first made an awful noise, then jammed the fan, and then you notice how hot these babies can actually get if the fan's not working!

[Freeky]

I believe they have purple and black duct tape too :P

I don't like taking it apart for the same reasons, but one time it was necessary cause somehow a screw on the inside got loose and got into the fan and first made an awful noise, then jammed the fan, and then you notice how hot these babies can actually get if the fan's not working!

Oh!  Well that sucks.  Did your fan get permanently borked?

[Triple Zero]

No that's why I had to open it up, to discover and remove the screw. The fan works again, though it randomly makes a rattling noise as if it's slightly loose (but it's not, I checked) and then if you bash the netbook for a bit the rattling stops. Not recommended.

[Freeky]

No that's why I had to open it up, to discover and remove the screw. The fan works again, though it randomly makes a rattling noise as if it's slightly loose (but it's not, I checked) and then if you bash the netbook for a bit the rattling stops. Not recommended.