A few points (Score 2, Insightful)

A few points:

1. tech != learning. Fancy, expensive computers and organizers don't help most people in the lecture hall or seminar room. Lots of folks have gone into why: the imput for paper & pen(cil) is fast and flexible. You can do what works for you, and you can do it fast. Think you can take calculus notes on a laptop? Think again. In a hard class, you don't want to have to wrestle with your input device. The time you spend trying to remember how to work your fancy little widget is time you can't spend drumming Green's Theorem into your head.
2. Laptops get lifted, both in your room and outside of it. At big public universities they will grow legs in five minutes. Where I work and study, laptops get ripped off grad student offices in the time it takes the poor sleep-deprived bastards to get their coffee from the crap machine down the hall. You don't want to see your 17" PowerBook vanish because your roommate didn't lock the door when he went to take a piss. If you're gonna go laptop, be sure your life won't end if it vanishes on you.
3. You are poor. Unless mommy and daddy are spoiling you useless, you don't have tons of money to throw around on cool toys. Go cheap -- if you have to have a laptop, think $1000. If you're going desktop you can get equipped for half that, especially if you do the building yourself. If you're one of those kids whose parents are treat them like a goddamn Emperor, go nuts. Your folks can buy you whatever you want and replace it when you forget to lock your door in your hurry to leave for spring break on your personal Lear jet. For the rest of us, three magic words: second generation hardware.

My computer use has changed a lot while I've been a student. When I was a dirt poor undergrad, I had a desktop machine. As I graduate student (working both a half and a fulltime job, so the money is findable) I find that I like laptops -- I don't have a dorm room on campus to return to, and computer labs are filled with those damn yappy undergrads. I've never wanted an electronic organizer, and I've never had any luck taking notes with anything but pen and paper, whether I was studying calc or body theory. Save your cash for beer. One palm = lots of beer.

I'm with the folks that recommend desktops. They're harder to steal, more powerful for the money, and you can use them as a cornerstone for your stereo/dvd/game console of choice. If you elect to go laptop, go Apple, and for god's sake keep the damn thing with you all the time.