Arrive on campus equipped

It's that time of year again. Millions of freshman (and many upper classmates, too) are scouring the Internet for the best gear that could make your student the most admired on campus - or the loser next door.

￶Will the properly equipped student carry a red Dell or a silver Macbook? Should the computer of choice be a desktop, notebook, or netbook? Are students who use a pink flip phone without a qwerty keyboard scorned? Microsoft Office or Google Apps? Where are the bargains? And how about that camera? Can they tell it only has 6 megapixels?

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  Back to school special: QWERTY messaging phones

  Matthew Miller: I opted to pay premium price for a machine that doesn't crash, doesn't come to a crawl with multiple programs open and doesn't randomly disconnect from the WiFi network. And I'm feeling like a got a great deal.

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  Back to school: Must-have tech for every student

  Zack Whittaker: What technology do students really need to bring to school? With an unlimited budget, ￶it's easy to go overkill. With a limited budget, ￶choices really matter. Here's one student's ￶perspective on what's worth your consideration -- ￶and what's not.

  Ten technology temptations that students should avoid

  Gallery: Back-to-school tech for students

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  Back to school goes cheap: Mac vs PC

  Sam Diaz: I opted to pay premium price for a machine that doesn't crash, doesn't come to a crawl with multiple programs open and doesn't randomly disconnect from the WiFi network. And I'm feeling like a got a great deal.

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  Grads may require extreme social networking makeover

  Jennifer Leggio: Hey, graduates! You've got ￶all your ducks in a row -- résumé, references, ￶portfolio. But you've neglected to take down ￶those keg stand pictures on your public Facebook ￶page. Will this keep you from getting a job? Maybe.

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  Tech companies set sights on students

  Video: Sam Diaz: ZDNet correspondent Sumi Das and senior editor Sam Diaz look ahead to August and discuss what the tech companies have to offer to students as they prepare to return to school.

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  Laptop or desktop+netbook for back to school?

  Christopher Dawson: College is a no-brainer, at least on the surface. You need a computer. And I maintain that the average high school and college student’s needs would be best suited by two computers.

  Another "death of the PC post" - but I think it's true

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  Why DRM stinks for education

  Christopher Dawson: Or Amazon ate my homework. Amazon recently drew unwanted attention by erasing ebooks such as George Orwell's 1984 right off people's Kindle. Even Jeff Bezos admits it was a bad idea.

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  Andrew Nusca: Apology: 'Stupid,' 'thoughtless' to remove e-books

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  Walmart Compaq sells below $300

  Jennifer Bergen: The Compaq Presario CQ60-419WM will be sold for $298 at Walmart while supplies last. The 15.6-inch notebook has 3 GB of memory and comes preloaded with Windows Vista

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Featured Reviews

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  CNET's back-to-school 2009 retail laptop/desktop review roundup

  We are once again scouring the shelves of big retail stores to find boxed versions of popular PCs, from entry-level systems starting at $349 to quad-core powerhouses.

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  Reviews of the Toshiba Satellite M505-S4940

  Equipped with great speakers and a good screen but an inferior processor and keyboard, the Toshiba M505-S4940 just isn't a good enough buy for the money.

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  Asus Essentio CM5570-AP006

  The Asus Essentio CM5570-AP006 will give you fair performance and a well-rounded set of features for its price, and we recommend it if you specifically need a midbudget, midtower desktop.

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  Dell Inspiron 545s

  The Dell Inspiron 545s cuts a more robust profile than other budget Inspirons by offering better upgrade options and some decent performance for its price.

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  HP Pavilion dv7-2185DX

  HP makes excellent, slick multimedia machines, such as the Pavilion dv7-2185DX, but we'd still trade its quad-core CPU for a full HD 1080p display and Blu-ray.

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  CNET News' Ina Fried traveled to Campinas, Brazil, to explore the Bradesco Foundation school, home to one of Latin America's largest one-to-one computing projects.

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  Image Gallery: King of the QWERTYS

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