The question isn’t how “people” use them; the question is how will YOU use it? Will you use it to take notes or access things online or locally while in the classroom? If that’s what you expect to do, then get a small, portable one, and get a big monitor (or even a docking station) to connect to it when in your room. They were far too expensive for me to have one when I went to school (graduated B.S. computer science in 1990), but I’d have given a LOT to have one in my classes, and that was back before the internet was nearly as good as it is now! I can tell you one thing for certain – books for university classes tend to be HEAVY (it was no big thing for me to lug around 20 or 25 pounds of books), so a lightweight laptop is a must if you want to take it around campus.

This really depends on many factors. Do you use your computer a lot? Some professors breeze through notes quite quickly, so I bring my laptop to classes like that to try and get as much as possible. Some only have notes on-line, so I’ll bring my lap-top to download the notes and add my own notes to them.

Other people can’t write fast or well and use them to take notes in class.

What settings do you need to write papers? I like to have music and people around me, so I carry my laptop to a coffee shop when I’m writing papers. If you need solitude, your room or the library might be right for you.

Also, large screens aren’t that heavy anymore. I just got one last Christmas and it’s lighter than my old, laptop with a normal-size monitor.

I know some people whom take it to class and type out there notes… although the problem with that is you can get easily distracted by programs such as MSN, aim, facebook, ect. Some people also take theirs to the library to get work done.

I personally left mine in my room and used it for work/games. Whenever I needed to use a computer at the library I would go on one of the school ones.

One thing my little brother did tell me is that having a large screen is a pain if you wanna bring it to class. He stopped lugging his computer around because of the 17″ widescreen taking up too much deskspace.