Taking a degree program in criminal justice is just the first step towards an exciting career. Once you’re armed with your degree, you can choose to follow a huge number of career paths from working in the police to being a CIA agent, working in public safety or helping inmates improve their lives before they’re released. The options are endless, there’s great job security, and you can easily change careers and do something else in the industry should you be inclined to. You’ve definitely made a good choice.
But at this stage, you need to think about the tools you’re going to need for school. Investing in a desktop PC for college is a great choice for many reasons. Laptops might be convenient, but desktops offer better power and performance for the price – and if you’re studying online, you won’t need to worry that much about portability either. And when you’ve written your essay or spent a few hours researching case studies, you won’t have to move far to play; desktops tend to be much better performers when it comes to playing the latest games at the highest settings.
We’ve rounded up some of the best desktop PC choices for criminal justice students.
ASUS Chromebox
If you’re not bothered about using MS Office and tend to get your work done in the cloud anyway, this PC will be ideal for you. It runs on the Chrome OS operating system which is basically Google Chrome and nothing else. It may seem quite restrictive for a student desktop, but you’d be surprised at how much you can actually get done using Chrome; you can create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations plus edit photos and even low-res videos. You won’t miss MS Office at all! Priced at just over $200, this desktop is ideal if you’re looking for something that’s reliable and offers good value for money.
- Type: Mini
- Processor: Intel Celeron, One core at 1.4ghz
- RAM: 2GB DDR3
- Graphics Card: Intel HD (Integrated)
- Hard Drive: 16GB SSD
- OS: Chrome OS
Acer Aspire
This desktop is super basic, but it’s very solid and reliable with some flexibility for upgrading. It comes with an i5 processor and a nice 8GB of RAM – it’s well-equipped to keep up during those study all-nighters before an assignment is due. And with a 2TB HDD, you won’t need to worry about data storage.
However, don’t go for this laptop if you want to use it for things outside of studying other than browsing, like gaming or editing high-res videos.
- Type: Tower
- Processor: i5-7400, 5 cores at 3.0ghz
- RAM: 8GB DDR4
- Graphics Card: Intel HD Graphics 630 (integrated)
- Hard Drive: 2TB HDD
- OS: Windows 10 Home
CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme
Now, if you’re looking to invest in a really good desktop that you can use for gaming in your free time, this is your guy. The i7 7700K is a fantastic processor that’s great for single-core tasks like gaming, but bear in mind that it’s slightly slower for multitasking – but it’s only a slight difference, so don’t let it put you off. Plus, the SSD hard drive offers a nice performance boost for day-to-day use. It’s got it all – it’s fast, performs well, is great for gaming, and it has a super graphics card.
- Type: Tower
- Processor: i7 77oo Kaby Lake, 4 cores at 3.6ghz
- RAM: 16GB DDR4
- Graphics Card: GTX 1060 6GB
- Hard Drive: 120GB SSD & 1TB HDD
- OS: Windows 10 Home
21.5” Retina iMac
There was once a time when having a Mac put you up there with the coolest of people, but these days, PCs seem to be the more popular choice. That being said, there’s a reason Apple grew so big; Macs don’t break easily. If you’re looking for a desktop that lasts forever, this is it. And Macs perform well even if their specs aren’t quite up there with some of the PCs on the market. This particular iMac boasts a super high resolution and a decent graphics card. While it might not be the best for editing videos or gaming, it’s absolutely more than enough for anything you’ll need to do for your criminal justice degree.
- Type: All-in-one
- Processor: i5, 4 cores at 3.0ghz
- RAM: 8GB DDR4
- Graphics Card: Radeon Pro 555 2GB
- Hard Drive: 1TB HDD
- OS: Mac OSX
So, there we have it; some of the best computers on the market if you want to invest in a new desktop as a criminal justice student. What’s your ideal PC setup?
