Technology Laptop for medical school?

[Jloyay]

Hi,

I am going to be moving out to live by myself and I was wondering if it is worth upgrading the RAM to 16 GB on my current laptop which I will be using as my primary computer? I got this laptop last year and I stuck an SSD in which made load times much faster.

It currently has:
Intel Core i7 4700MQ Processor
8 GB RAM
Intel HD 4600 Graphics
500 GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD

Is this good enough for med school programs/work or should I upgrade the RAM too?

Not really much of a laptop user used my i7 desktop gaming PC with 16 gb RAM during undergrad but Im moving out and can't bring it with me.

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[Jpatrich2]

From what I can tell your computer seems just fine. There isn't anything in medical school that requires a state of the art computer. You will just be taking notes and watching lectures. I know a few people in my class that have $300-$400 laptops that do fine. That said, most schools factor in a new laptop into your loans if you want the extra money.

 

[NeuroMaster316]

Your laptop is overpowered for med school as is, you don't need to upgrade anything.

 

[Firegrove]

You could upgrade to 16gb...if you want to be left in the dust. I'd go 32 at a min but 64 would be ideal.

 

[Stroganoff]

You could upgrade to 16gb...if you want to be left in the dust. I'd go 32 at a min but 64 would be ideal.

As a power hungry computer geek myself, the more the merrier. But I politely disagree with you since I believe 8 GB or 16 GB for basic academic purposes is more than enough for the next several years, especially a laptop upgrade to 16 GB of RAM (which then makes it dual channel mode as well). I mean, I haven't been though medical school, but is there intense 3D modeling software being used? Or is it simply document management of a TON of PDFs and PowerPoints and OneNote and Word documents? And the usual web browsing. And the ability to watch video recordings of lectures, which any machine can do, even if the professor is 4K quality (lol).

OP: I have an old Dell 2007 laptop and put in a Samsung EVO 840-series 250GB SSD (same generation as your 500 GB model), and even in a slightly slower SATA-II mode, it's breathed new life and a ton of speed into my aging laptop.

Your Intel i7 CPU, the Samsung SSD, and 8 or 16 GB of DDR3 RAM will be plenty for general purpose academic use.

Back up all your stuff btw! It sucks losing data.

 

[Laito]

As a power hungry computer geek myself, the more the merrier. But I politely disagree with you since I believe 8 GB or 16 GB for basic academic purposes is more than enough for the next several years, especially a laptop upgrade to 16 GB of RAM (which then makes it dual channel mode as well). I mean, I haven't been though medical school, but is there intense 3D modeling software being used? Or is it simply document management of a TON of PDFs and PowerPoints and OneNote and Word documents? And the usual web browsing. And the ability to watch video recordings of lectures, which any machine can do, even if the professor is 4K quality (lol).

OP: I have an old Dell 2007 laptop and put in a Samsung EVO 840-series 250GB SSD (same generation as your 500 GB model), and even in a slightly slower SATA-II mode, it's breathed new life and a ton of speed into my aging laptop.

Your Intel i7 CPU, the Samsung SSD, and 8 or 16 GB of DDR3 RAM will be plenty for general purpose academic use.

Back up all your stuff btw! It sucks losing data.

I think he was being sarcastic.

 

[Bola_joepeters]

I think most important factors to consider when purchasing a laptop for med school it's convenience (light weight), durability (you don't want a laptop that would crash during school session, it should last u all through med school), battery life