Versatile PCs Help Students Live And Learn

Friday, March 1, 2002

by Ralph Bond, Consumer Education Manager, Intel Corp. (NAPSA)—From the first day at school through the last college final, the right PC can help students live and learn. How do parents pick the right PC? Start with a clear understanding of how and where the PC will be used. Will “mobility” be important? For manycollege students, mobile computing is essential. With a laptop, students have the flexibility to study anywhere—in the library, while on a dinner break from a part-time job, from a fellow student’s dorm room, while exploring the ocean’s habitat from a floating lab or unearthingartifacts from an archeological dig. For a Laptop computers are a smart choiceto fit in with a college stu- dent’slifestyle. studentstill living at home, a desktop PC maybe a better choice since it will likely be used by more than one person and for multiple tasks, A higher “hertz” number equals a faster processor. Currently, the Internet access and entertainment. Is the living space small? Students tend to live in tight quarters whether in a bedroom in their parents’ home, a dorm room or an apartment shared with roommates. If living space is confined, a laptop can be used in more spaces around a room and then locked away when not in use, freeing other pieces of furniture to do double duty as a dining table or a gametable. Both desktops and laptop PCs can beall-in-one entertainment Mobile Intel Pentium 4 Proces- including education, home finance, centers, as well. With the addition of a TV tuner, PCs can be televi- sion sets. PCs can also act as stereos, radios, DVD players and gaming systems. Oneversatile PC can replace several other spacehogging devices. * How much PC performance do students need? Today’s students tend to be the most demanding computer users in the world, largely because they view their PC as a study center and anall-in-one digital jukebox, photo darkroom, DVD player and gaming system. These types of applications require a powerful processor, lots of memory and a big hard drive. A processor is the PC’s brain andit tells the computer what to do. A processor’s speed is measured in megahertz or gigahertz. Intel Pentium 4 Processor at 2.53 GHz is the world’s fastest desktop processor while the sor-M at 2 GHz is the world’s fastest laptop processor. Buy as much processor performance as you can afford to ensure the longevity of your PC investment. Memory—or RAM—works with the processor to make software programs run more smoothly. Lookfor at least 128 megabtyes of RAMfor a laptop or desktop PC. The hard drive is the PC’s “filing cabinet.” Since music, video and photos and manyof today’s hottest software programs tend to be big files, look for at least a 10-gigabyte hard drive in a laptop and a 40-gigabyte unit for a desktop. * Does the school have computer requirements? Increasingly, colleges expect students to have PCs and manyinstitutions have built networks to provide wireless Internet access campus wide and “e-learning” programs. Before you buy a desktop or laptop PC, find out what the school requires andif it offers technical support. Also, find out if the campus has teamed up with PC manufacturers to offer discounts or promotions that might help you save money. For more information on how to find the right laptop or desktop PC for your student, go to www.intel.com/home.

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