Any reason you don't want a desktop?

If ur in college then u probably need to take it to classes and shit

if he wants to do schoolwork presumably so he can have a laptop to use at the library etc

I want a desktop, but the my current school laptop's screen is broken/breaking. The screen freezes and lines start appearing and shit.

Having a chromebook for using in class/ the library and a desktop in my dorm worked really well for me at college, if you need things other than using an internet browser not the best choice tho

I made the mistake of buying a $1300 laptop for games and school my freshman year of college. I'm a junior now and I finished building a pretty nice $900 PC today. Trust me, I got a really good deal on my laptop and it still wasn't worth it.

I'd really recommend getting a chromebook, although there are a few fields where having a "real" laptop is more necessary. What are you studying?

With $1200, buy a desktop and a laptop you will be much better off. You can get a halfway decent laptop with an i3, 8GB RAM, 500GB HDD for like $300. Then put the rest into a desktop. Or you could get a chromebook or something for school and put the rest into a desktop. Most laptops capable of playing games well will be bulky and have have poor battery life and depreciate very quickly in value.

Getting a cheaper laptop sounds like a good idea if u want to play computer games but ur studies are more important so make sure that whatever laptop u get can run the stuff you need and make sure that the screen is big enough to see etc. Dont be one of those kids who gets the $100 laptop and complains that they are disadvantaged because they spent the rest on computer games.

Besides u can always save up and wait hardware is only going to get cheaper

Depends on what courses you're taking.

If you're taking a course that requires heavy processing power like engineering, you might want to get a strong Windows 10 laptop for the applications required. But if you're in courses that require just mostly non-computer materials and light searching/document writing, you can make do with a Chromebook or a cheap W10 laptop.

Add another for the chromebook+desktop reccomendation. Personally, I got my toshiba chromebook two refurbised for $100 and then a 64 gig sd card and put Linux on the card (its a relatively painless process, google will guide you.)

I have yet to run into a situation where I was in class and I wished I had more computer, and the lightness of the chromebook means I can still bring my 3 tons of physics books around all morning!

I'd recommend waiting until Black Friday

macbook pro