A lot of professors have two. There is one that lives in there office and one they cart back and forth.

If you think about it, a laptop doesn't really take up all that much space...it can always be put in a drawer (the storage in res [at least some....like whidden] is waaaaay bigger than you think it is).

And if you're a gamer like Chad said, as well as the reasons you mentioned J-Met, having both is really useful.

And if you find it doesn't work, you can always bring one of the two home, or have your parents bring it back when they come to visit.

hey j-met. I actually brought both my PC into residence and my laptop, so hopefully I can help give some advice. In terms of having a PC, i wanted it so I can listen to music and watch movies like chad said. However, sometimes for some classes, the professors do speak really quickly and I find copying notes by hand not fast enough, so laptop is nice. I like the convinence of being able to bring my laptop to the library to study or to use for group projects and presentations in class.

In terms of running both computers at once.. It would start getting a bit heavy load for the electricity. Also, it might start getting a bit warm, depending on the room and if you have a roommate/fridges, etc. Also, the other concern would be desk space. Some residence, the desks are not that big to fit alot of stuff. If you want to put your monitor, keyboard, laptop, and books, it might get pretty crammed up. I think in regards to desk space, see where you get in to residence and the size of the table. Look at pictures online and check them out to see if you even have enough room to put both. I think that would be the biggest concern for bringing both. I lived in Les Prince and Keyes, so the desk was big enough and I could put both up. However, desks in Brandon for example, would be difficult to do that. So wait and see when you get your residence choice!

But in general, having both was nice. Sometimes annoying to transfer files though between the two, but that's alright.. also i tried dual screen for a while, it was pretty nice. w/ my laptop and monitor. that can be an option as well. hope that helps!

Originally Posted by J-Met

I have another related question...I currently have a pretty nice desktop at home and if I leave it here, it will just sit there wasted.

However, I know I am getting a laptop for university, so I was wondering....would it make any sense at all to bring both?

I know when Im multi-tasking at home I find it useful to have two computers running.....its also great to have an extra in case one of them crashes or gets a virus. However, space constraints are alot more prominent in res...so what do yuo think I should do...leave my desktop at home or would there be any use in having two computers?

Your desk in res is big enough to hold a PC and a laptop. To conserve space I recommend putting the PC under your desk, and only having the monitor up ontop of the desk. Then you can save a bit of space... you basically want enough space to see the screens and also have some space to have a textbook open on the desk at the same time (when reading/quoting for essays, etc). I'd recommend having both computers because if you're like me... I'd prefer not to type up an essay all night squinting at my laptop screen... I'd prefer having a large LCD screen to look at at eye height on my desk. Plus, when watching downloaded TV shows or movies having a larger screen is nice too.

One thing also to note is that if you're bringing a printer it's easier to have it hooked up to a PC and leave it hooked up, rather than having to plug it into your laptop and set it up each time you want to print in your room.

If you are bringing only a laptop be sure to bring some extra speakers so you can play music with decent sound quality instead of out of tinny laptop speakers

You're required to get an Anti-Virus program when you live in residence so that shouldn't be too too too much of an issue although you can still get one.

As for your computer crashing-- e-mail yourself all of your documents. If you haven't even bought your laptop yet I'm pretty sure you won't have to worry about any crashes for your first year.

Do you need both? No. Do you want both? Maybe.

I'd recommend bringing your laptop first and then if later on in the first term you realize that you need your desktop bring it. I brought far more things after actually living in residence. You realize what's important once you've moved in.

Originally Posted by Chad

Your desk in res is big enough to hold a PC and a laptop.

Not all the desks in res are that big. The ones in Brandon I found were pretty small.