What Computer Should I Buy? What equipment do I need for Normandale Community College courses?
Normandale Community College does not require students to have a personal laptop or desktop computer to be enrolled in programs and courses. However, many students choose to bring them. Should you choose to do so, we would like to provide recommendations for hardware for you to consider.
Recommended
Devices must have a manufacturer-supported operating system in order to provide a good user experience, security, and bug fixes. The operating system will often determine recommended hardware specifications. Different University programs and courses may require software that will increase hardware requirements.
This list of hardware specifications provides basic requirements to access University-provided software and technology such as Office365 and D2L Brightspace in order to provide a preferred level of performance. Some programs and courses may use specialty software that requires upgraded hardware.
- Computer: Windows or Mac laptop or desktop
- Operating system: Windows 10 or macOS 10.15 Catalina*
- Processor: Intel Core i5 or AMD equivalent
- Memory: 8GB or larger
- Storage Drive Capacity: 256GB Solid State or larger
- Wireless network card (802.11n, ac, ax, WiFi-6)
- Your wireless card and device must support 802.1x, AES and WPA2-Enterprise. Compatible Wi-Fi adapters are available at the Campus Computer Store.
- Web camera, speakers (or headphones) and microphone
*Additional information regarding support for Apple operating system and devices can be found here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210222
Minimum
This list of hardware specifications provides minimum requirements to access University provided software and technology such as Office 365 and D2L Brightspace.
- Computer: Windows or Mac laptop or desktop
- Operating system: Windows 10 or macOS 10.13 High Sierra*
- Processor: Intel Core i3 or AMD equivalent
- Memory: 4GB or larger
- Storage Drive Capacity: 160GB or higher
- Wireless network card (802.11n, ac, ax, WiFi-6) ; wireless card and device must support 802.1x, AES and WPA2-Enterprise.
- Web camera, speakers (or headphones) and microphone
*Additional information regarding support for Apple operating system and devices can be found here: https://support.apple.com/kb/SP777?locale=en_US
Normandale Community College recommends students do not rely on tablet devices (e.g., iPad), mobile phones, or netbook computers (e.g., Chromebooks) as their primary computer due to software limitations. We do, however, continue to test these kinds of devices in our classroom environment so that we can provide basic troubleshooting support.