What kind of a laptop should a first year student at VIT (enrolled for CSE) bring? Is an internet dongle necessary too? I need the specifications of the laptop—the company, the size, etc.

1. Internet 5 GB Thats all you get. You are allowed to surf the net from 4 in the morning to 12 30 in the night. Try it for a month or 2, 5 GB is generally sufficient. Later on its for you to decide whether you need a dongle or not. 2. Laptop My suggestion. WAIT !!! I understand how over hyped it is for you to have a laptop. But for the First Sem, I would say you are better off without it. Reason ??  => No Latop means nothing to do in your room.  => Socialize more  => Talk more, make friends  => Explore the campus  => Explore the city Finally - The Laptop => Case 1: General Student  > A laptop with 3rd/4th gen i3/i5 ,  > about 4 GB RAM ( helps windows 8 run comfortably )  > Intel HD 5000 is good but 1GB Nvdia/AMD wont do much harm  > Backlit/ Full HD ...random excess features => Only if you can afford it. Specific Suggestions. 1. Take a look at the Lenovo G series  2. Dell Inspiron 15 / 15r  3. Lenovo ideapad  4. HP laptops priced between 30-50k My personal suggestion would be Dell Inspirion 15r. ~Approx price 43-45k free advice: Let the college start, use your friends laptops ,experience the feel and see which one do you like the best. Then go and buy your own. Hope it helps :)

Any brand, any specifications will do, as long as it runs counter strike and call of duty multiplayer You will need a dongle if you play DOTA :P

I took 2.5GB mobile plan and 10GB  aircel. Apart from that, Had other means to get high speed internet through out my 4 years. Coming to laptops: Get an i7 laptop. if you love playing games. Dont buy any shit from india. Import a sager laptop from US. 1300 dollars. You get a awesome laptop with full HD screen. You can play any game. When I was in first year. dell sold customizable laptop. Got a 15 inch full HD RGBLED screen. you dont get that stuff in india anymore.

Internet You get 5 GB of internet  free every month and the speed is enough for normal surfing and stuff.If you want a high speed internet or are some sort of download addict or online gamer then you might require the dongle Laptop Laptop specification all depends on the money you are willing to spend  and the use you foresee for your laptop like say you are a guy who loves playing hardcore games then you require a one with very high specification like i7, 4 GB RAM, 1-2 GB graphics card and it will cost you around 70-80 k but if you want it for normal game playing and coding then a 40-50 k laptop will be much more than enough. You can also try what Mayuresh  suggested i.e buying the laptop in the next sem .

Dell is the most prefered brand there. As you will get service very easily and quick. Specification, as per your wish, if you are a gamer...you will need high RAM and processing lower + may be a GPU! Of you are a coder, especially of web related app, you should purchase a wireless modem (dongle, as you have said), coz you will see that even the 5 Gb will be less. Computers helps a lot, so must have that.