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Hardware

For all Bethel students, a personal laptop is recommended but not necessary due to the public labs that are provided and managed by ITS. If you would like to purchase a personal laptop for yourself to use for your Bethel program, we recommend the following brands and devices:

 Mac

 MacBook Air - Price Range: $1,199-$2,499

The MacBook Air is a very compact and lightweight machine yet powerful enough to handle everyday tasks and some media production. If the basic model isn't powerful enough for you, the MacBook Air can be custom ordered from Apple to fit your needs.

MacBook Pro - Price Range: $1,299-$4,000+

The MacBook Pro has many configuration options, which makes it extremely versatile. Knowing the nature of the work you will be doing on it is the key when determining whether customization is necessary or not.

Note: Any Mac with a Solid State Drive and purchased within the last 5 years should be functional for most students.

 Windows

Dell Latitude 3000 Series - Starts at: $416.93

Good for: Google Docs, Microsoft Office, Spotify, browsing the web.

Dell Latitude 5000 Series - Starts at: $741.93

Good for: Google Docs, Microsoft Office, Spotify, browsing the web, Adobe Creative Cloud, Math/CS software.

Dell Latitude 7000 Series - Starts at: $899.00

Good for: Almost any software you will need to run.

These devices are similar to the ones that we choose to deploy to our employees and support on a daily basis. Owning one of these devices allows us to support your technology better at the Help Desk.

If you would like to purchase a device not listed above, the following recommendations will be helpful in making sure that it is functional for you:

  • Linux and ChromeBooks are not recommended devices, although we can provide limited support of these. Many Chromebooks appear to utilize Wi-Fi adapters that are not certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance. The non-certified Wi-Fi adapters may not connect to Wi-Fi Enterprise Networks.
  • In most cases, we recommend that you have at least 4GB of RAM. Some software programs will require 8GB, however.
  • We recommend that you have an SSD (Solid State Drive) with 128GB of storage or more.

If you have any questions or would like us to help you decide which laptop would be best for you, please call us at (651) 638-6500 or visit us on campus in RC 419.

Software

For word processing and documents, we recommend using either Google Drive (Docs, Sheets, Slides) or using Microsoft Office. The online version of Microsoft Office can be accessed for free using your Bethel Email.

Specialized software is available in department labs and available for use by students in related programs. Some professors will provide you with the information needed to install specialized software that is needed in their class.

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