The latest and greatest

by Neil Petkus

August 2005 - It’s that time a year again. Some of you are headed to the Hallowed Halls of Higher Education for the first time and some of you are already experienced veterans of weekend binges and all-night cram sessions. So what kind of educational necessities (OK, toys) are out there to help you survive, maybe even flourish in, your academic life? What, you ask, are the best laptops, cell phones, and even – for you overachievers – Personal Data Assistants, a.k.a. PDAs? Well, I’ll tell you ~ but bear in mind that technology is changing so fast if you don’t see something you want on this list, just wait a few minutes; by day’s end the local Best Buy might have a pocket-sized cellphone/ printer/microwave/TV that can cook your Ramen noodles while downloading your research and TiVo-ing your favorite shows.

Laptops
No-one can argue that computers, portable or not, are now an intrinsic part of education at all grade levels. And of course laptops have the added advantage of being able to, well, fit in your lap, saving precious dorm room desk space for books (or rather, desk space that should be used for books). So here’s how to choose a laptop that will serve you as more than just a paperweight.

Any laptop you pick should have a processor (CPU) with a speed of at least 1.6 Gigahertz, a memory of at least 512 megabytes (try for a full gigabyte if you can, though), a hard drive of at least 40 gigabytes, and a wireless LAN adapter that is 802.11b\g compliant. The processor should also have a front-side bus speed of at least 400 Megahertz. OK, so that’s a lot of computer geek-speak but I promise that if you copy down the specs and throw them at a tech store employee, you’ll get instant respect and noone will try to sell you an inferior machine. So here are three laptops that I’d rate as some of the best on the market right now.

For those of you who enjoy computer gaming more than studying and typing reports, let me introduce the Dell XPS Gen 2. This bad boy, released in February of 2005, is loaded with all the high-speed components that make gaming a pleasure/addiction. Its price is also loaded, however, coming in at over $2K.

Another Dell product worth knowing is the Inspiron 9300. It comes with multi-media features and gaming abilities and is also about $800 cheaper than the XPS Gen 2. Both of these laptops will run all your Office software smoothly and their multimedia capabilities will help make your PowerPoint presentations shine, guaranteeing you that all important A.

Since there are a good number of Mac users out there, I’ll point you towards Apple’s latest offering, the Powerbook G4 with SuperDrive. It’s standard Mac, giving its users the smooth allaround performance that we’ve come to expect from the brand. This model is another pricey one, breaking the $2000 ceiling, but if you are a Mac fan, it’s probably worth it.

PDAs
You might think that PDAs have become almost obsolete in this age of mega-multi-function cell phones. But a good one can support all the fancy cell phone functions (except phone calls, of course) plus extras like Microsoft Office applications and infrared data transfers. Also, many new PDAs support the ubiquitous Bluetooth technology. And if you shell out a little extra cash, your little helper will also be able to play back MP3s, so you can listen to your favorite
legally downloaded music while interacting with the virtual world or checking your email from your favorite coffee hang-out. A good starter PDA that can lend a little extra help in organizing your life is the palmOne Zire 31. You can find this little guy for under $100. The Zire 31 isn’t Bluetoothenabled, but it does support all the main functions that
other fancier models do.

The Dell Axim X30 is a midrange priced ($200-$400) goodie that supports Bluetooth and also comes with Microsoft Mobile Office 2003 so you can use your familiar Excel and Word applications on the go. The top of the top of the line is the Sony Clie PEG-UX50. This is the beefcake pantyhose of PDAs with Bluetooth and wi-fi, maximum data sharing capabilities with wireless computer networks and all other Bluetooth capable components; it has a clam shell design with a full keyboard and camera and is only 4” by 3.5” in size. But good things come in small and expensive packages - you won’t find this PDA for under $400.

Cell Phones
For most cell phones owners these days, being able to make a phone call is almost secondary. They want to take pictures and shoot videos, access the Web, check email and download fancy ring tones (some of the most annoying sounds on Earth). About the only thing cell phones don’t do yet is drive your car – but no doubt that’ll happen in the near future. Cell phones are also getting on the Bluetooth bandwagon, enabling any electronic gadget with Bluetooth to talk to any other gadget with Bluetooth ~ soon including (I’m not making this stuff up!) your toaster.

One of the super-hyped cell phones ~ sort of a cell on steroids ~ is the RIM’s BlackBerry 7230. Another hype-king that backs up its hype with actual performance is the Motorola Razr, a sublime melding of form and function. Both support high-end messaging functions and Bluetooth. The Razr has the advantage of being much cooler looking than the full-keyboarded and large view-screened 7230.