Netbooks are nice to take notes on in lectures, but they are a pain to study off of because the small screen size. However, if the bulk of the studying will occur at home, then investing in an external monitor and keyboard with a netbook will make it worth it. Netbooks also have issues with poorer performance than a regular lappy, but if all you need are viewing PDFs, surfing the net, checking email, and typing up that term paper, then a netbook is alright.
Otherwise, I'd invest in a regular laptop and consider battery life and weight as major factors in your decision. Another important factors is tech support and warranty. Apple wins that hands down, but you are looking for a PC unfortunately. I've heard good and bad things about every single laptop maker out there (Dell, Gateway, HP, Toshiba, Sony) in terms of their support and the consensus is their support all sucks.
I personally go with Dell because I can customize all the parts, their prices are sometimes cheaper than the others. I avoid Sony because but they are insanely expensive because they make quite nice looking laptops (including light laptops). HP, Toshiba, and Dell are typically what many people in my dental class use if it isn't a Mac.
Make sure you get a 32-bit Windows Operating system because if you ever need to install software, it may not install if you have a 64-bit Windows operating system. Average laptop now comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2.0 GB of RAM, 250GB HD, a ton of USB ports, 802.11g wireless card, and battery life of about 3 hours.
The best advice I can give to a laptop user: (1) get a second battery, and (2) ALWAYS fully discharge and ALWAYS fully recharge your battery. By fully discharge, I mean let the battery drop to <10% of capacity before recharging. By fully recharge your battery, I mean once you start charging, you charge it all the way. Do not recharge part way to 50%, then start using it again to 10%, then start charging again. Not doing full discharge-recharge cycles make the battery capacity indicator useless. Many people in my class started with decent battery times and now can't get more than 60 minutes without a plug. I had a 6-cell Dell battery (initially lasted 3.5 hours w/ wireless) and a 9-cell Dell battery (initially lasted 4.5 hours w/ wireless) and after 3-years, both batteries still had 66% of its original capacity left, and I used my laptop practically every day (I was a computer science major in undergrad). The first laptop I had contained a Lithium Ion battery that had a 2.5hr life, and after three months went down to 5 minutes, because I didn't do full discharge-recharge cycles. I let it discharge part way, started charging again, didn't charge fully before I let it discharge again. While Lithium Ion doesn't have a memory, I do not believe in that BS for a laptop. Short story is, you want a long lasting battery, be good on your discharge-recharge cycles.
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