Time for a New College Laptop Again

Back in February I wrote about how my youngest son will soon need a new laptop. I didn't see the urgency in making a decision at the time because heading to college seemed so far off. In two weeks he will be home after spending two years in Armenia and getting ready to attend college.

As I wrote before he will need to talk with his academic advisor to see the best recommendation for his engineering program in school. Some engineering software is only available for Windows and so a Mac might not be a good choice. Or the opposite could be true. I doubt it, but it could be.

A quick stop at Best Buy shows that there are even more choices than before. In addition to Windows or Mac, you can also choose a Chrome OS laptop. If you can get by with using online applications for everything you do, then it is a viable option. I don't think it is a good choice for an engineering student though and so I won't bother looking at one of those.

The next question boils down to budget: How much do I want to spend for my son's laptop. I always joke with my other children about how I like my youngest son the most. They all think that is true but reality is that whatever I do for one child, I have to make it fair for all of the rest. When my older son went to pick his laptop, I looked at the lowest price MacBook Pro and used that as the maximum budget. Why? That is what I got his two sisters. While time passes and laptop specifications change, Apple has done a pretty good job identifying realistic price points for student computers. Yes you can get a lower-priced computer but they don't last nearly as long as if you spend a bit more. Just look at my oldest daughter's experience as most of her college roommates needed new computers before the end of the first year.

I am often asked if brand makes a difference. The short answer is, "Yes." You want to be careful about what you purchase online. However if you are visiting a reputable store like Best Buy, they won't carry a junk brand and so your choice will boil down to features for a given price. I recommend more RAM over a faster processor. I also favor a solid-state drive over rotating disk even though you can get enormous disks for next to nothing. If you think your child will have a lot of large files, spend $60 and get an external USB drive and factor that into the cost of the computer.

Writing all of this down has helped me organize my thoughts as I get ready to help my son with his computer. Hopefully it helps you as well. Naturally I will be sure to let you know what I decide.

God Gives the best Christmas Gifts

Today is Christmas and this morning I received one of the best Christmas gifts ever: Christmas snow. There is something magical about Christmas snow. If you watch the "Frosty the Snowman" Christmas special, that is the important ingredient that brings Frosty back to life after he melts in a poinsettia greenhouse. In my case, I always have a wonderful ski experience with Christmas snow.

The whole family was up at 6am this morning opening gifts. We hung out eating candy from our stockings and then used Skype to talk to my son currently living in Armenia. Once we were done, we headed outside and had a serious amount of snow to remove from the driveway before we could head up the mountain to go skiing. That is always a good sign. It was especially nice to pull into the parking lot and immediately find a premium parking spot so close to the lifts.

We spent the next several hours skiing the wonderful fresh powder that has fallen over the past few days. It was glorious skiing where you could point your skis downhill and make the smallest of turns. There was so much snow, you didn't need to make a lot of turns to slow down. When you got to the bottom, you could look up and see your superb figure-8 ski tracks. It was as perfect as a day of skiing as could be. Life is good this Christmas.