Is a 15.6 inch laptop too big for college

For those of you in school who use a laptop to take notes in class, what size laptop do you use? How well does it fit your needs? Specifically, if you use a Pro, do you wish you had a smaller computer?

I'm off to grad school in the fall, and I'm torn between MB and MBP. Since they're nearly the same weight, I think that transporting it to and from class won't be substantially different.

What worries me is that a 15" laptop will be too big for taking notes in class. But then I notice that the 15" MBP is only 1 inch wider and a half an inch longer than my 14" Compaq. Would those inches really make a difference?

Ugh, I wish Apple made a 12" Pro.

I use my 12'' iBook and it's the perfect size for fitting on those little lecture desks or even on regular desks.

What are you going to study? If it's not film or graphic design or something where you need a really powerful computer, get the Macbook.

I'm in school and have found that it's not so much the size [within reason] as much as the weight that bothers me. I used to have a heavy 15" Dell and it sucked. However, I just got a 15" SR MBP and this will be great. 15" is not too big for taking notes. Although a smaller laptop is slightly easier to carry around to class, you'll be happy you got the bigger screen in general. 13" is too small if you get a lot of stuff going on at once, in my opinion anyway.

the 15" is not too bad as long as there is desk space for you to put it on. I've used a dell 14" laptop for my college classes and didn't really find a problem with the small desks, so i figure 15" wouldn't be much different. But if you are wanting to juggle opening a book and paper along with the laptop on the desk, 15" may be too large.

Small $2 notebook and a pen are really small....and never any battery issues.

I never really understood the idea of taking notes on a laptop. Its much quicker to write, well it is for me anyhow, and is SO much easier to copy diagrams and formulae using a pen or pencil.

Hey, thanks for all the replies. I'm headed to business school, so I won't *need* a computer with a lot of graphics capabilities. However, a lot of the stats and test-taking software is only for windows, so I will have to run Parallels or Bootcamp. Also, I may be required to use Office 2007 for windows, but I think that Office 2004 is pretty much compatible, so we'll see.

The MBP seems like a better value when compared to the black MB. Something about paying that premium for the black irks me [yes I know you get a bigger hard drive, but going from 120 to 160 won't make a difference for me.] And no, I don't want a white one.

As for actually taking the notes, I agree, graphs and charts are way quicker when done by hand. But I type much faster than I write, plus it's easier to reorganize and read later on when my notes are typed vs written. In the classes I've visited, nearly everyone has a laptop.

flopticalcube said:

I never really understood the idea of taking notes on a laptop. Its much quicker to write, well it is for me anyhow, and is SO much easier to copy diagrams and formulae using a pen or pencil.

Click to expand...

That's why I have a tablet PC,