Unofficial Advice on Buying a Laptop for UNC Use

By Dr. Gregory Newby

In order to provide alternate viewpoints and my experience with laptop purchases, I have assembled these pages.

None of this laptop information is official documentation or official advice from UNC or SILS. It is simply one individual's attempt to help people in making their laptop purchase decision.

• Buying a laptop: guidelines, background and choices
• CCI price tracking
• Partial vendor list and vendor resources

Here are links to some of the official information sites:

• CCI, the Carolina Computing Initiative, which describes the laptop requirements and policies for UNC undergraduates.
• SILS Computing requirements for SILS graduate students; the requirements are compatible with the CCI.
• The RAM Shop's CCI pages. This is where you buy CCI computers from UNC. The pages include pricing and options.
• IBM, for pricing and specs for their current laptop models. You need to navigate yourself to the Notebook/Thinkpad page, as directly linking didn't work for me. (Updated November 7, 2001: I got email from someone at IBM recommending these instead: http://www.thinkpad.com/ or http://www.ibm.com/thinkpad/)