Currently shopping for a college Laptop. Any Advice (Mac vs PC)?

[Small White Car]

EDIT: Major Chord, If you get a Mac, here's my handy-dandy guide for getting Windows-users into the Mac world. Think of it as a crash course. Give me 45 minutes and I promise you that you'll be in the top 25% of Mac users in terms of what you know!

http://videocarpenter.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/your-new-mac/

^There are three main ways.

There are 3, but you listed Parallels and Fusion as 2 different things, which I cound as 1 thing:

1) Windows in Boot Camp
2) Windows in Virtualizers (Parallels or Fusion)
3) Windows PROGRAMS in WINE-based software:

http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/

That last option there will let you run IE in OS X without a copy of Windows.

That kind of thing is not great if you really do want Windows and Outlook and Word and so on and so on.

But if you just want one program and ALL you need it for is things like signing up for classes...then a Wine-based solution might be best.

(DISCLAIMER: I have NEVER used a Wine program...all I know about it is reading thing on the internet.)

And Major Chord, remember to buy your Mac using their student pricing. Get the Macbook but change the RAM to 4 GB and the hard drive to 320 GB. You'll get a better computer and it will STILL come to $1,034 after the student discount.

Also, get the Mac without buying a word processor right away. Download the free trial of Pages and see what you think. It's $79 which is a lot cheaper than Word which is $150 for the student version.

But get the trial. You might not like Pages in which case it's worth buying what you like.

But know that Pages can open Word files AND save as a Word document, so if you can learn the interface, you'll be fine to work with other students by sharing Word files back and forth even though you use Pages.

And finally, buy a small, bus-powered USB hard drive (500 GB) and plug it in whenever you're sitting at your desk. Give control of the drive to 'Time Machine' and then ignore it. Hide it in a drawer whenever you leave the room.

Automatic backups are SO easy on a Mac that it's downright stupid to skip this step. ESPECIALLY with a laptop that can be lost or stolen or broken.

 

[Lindley]

Boot Camp is the most reliable solution. You buy a copy of Windows, you run the Boot Camp tool on your Mac (you'll also need your Mac OS X DVD that came with your Mac for this), you choose how much hard disk space you want to give over to Windows and then you can install Windows on your Mac. When you start the computer it will ask you whether you want to start Mac OS or Windows.

You have to hold down the option key in order to get this choice on startup. Otherwise, you'll boot into whichever system was last selected in the Startup Disk control panel (which is in the Boot Camp control panel under Windows).

 

[Warp Coil]

Another faithful Mac user chiming in. A Macbook sounds like a great idea to me. You should definitely configure the computer to suit your needs and give the machine a longer life span (like a larger hard drive, more RAM, etc.). Make sure you buy through the Apple educational store to get a student discount. At some point over the summer, Apple will offer their "back to school" promotion which usually includes some sort of free iPod (or a credit of up to $200 towards one if you buy a more expensive model). Apple offers their "buy a mac, get a free printer" deal on a fairly regular basis.

As for software, check out the free trial version of Office. Also, see if your university offers cheap student prices for software. You might be able to get Office for Mac from your school for substantially less than buying it in a store.

 

[Hermiod]

^There are three main ways.

There are 3, but you listed Parallels and Fusion as 2 different things, which I cound as 1 thing:

IIRC, Steve Jobs called it "three ways" in a Keynote, which is good enough for me.

You have to hold down the option key in order to get this choice on startup. Otherwise, you'll boot into whichever system was last selected in the Startup Disk control panel (which is in the Boot Camp control panel under Windows).

Okay, didn't know that. I've never used Boot Camp. No real need to since I have a Windows PC as well.

 

[Shikarnov]

As a user of both Macs and PCs, I highly recommend two things:

1- Do not get a Macbook. They're underpowered, and will never serve your needs through the full course of your college career. If you get a Mac, go with a Macbook Pro if you need portability, or get an iMac.

2 - No matter which system you get, max out the RAM. You'll pay more upfront, but it's absolutely vital. PCs especially are frequently sold with too little RAM to handle even basic tasks. They do this to get under various artificial price points. ("It does all this for under $1000."... Yeah, right. )

 

[Bisz]

For all of my life I have been a PC guy. You know the type, I didn't just use Windows, I belittled Apple and its products because well, that's the thing to do (see gturner in this very thread).

That changed in January.

I've never owned a laptop and I was looking for a new one because I will be doing a lot of long term traveling and I'll want to bring my own computer and not rely on the work laptop I'll have with me.

After putting together a detailed decision matrix (yes, I am an engineer) considering numerous models from various brands (excluding Apple of course) I couldn't find a computer that would do what I wanted it to do, that was designed as well as I wanted mine to be (cheap plastic vs a solid chunk of Al on the MacBook Pros? No contest).

So, I decided to put aside my biases for a few minutes and look at the Macs. I watched some online videos, I played with a couple in the stores, etc. And you know what? OSX is very very easy to learn, you won't have any problems with it. Just watch some of the vids they have on the Apple site, they have Mac basics videos, they have "Windows to Mac" vids that tell you how things map over, plus a bunch of other stuff.

Fast forward 2.5 months and I still don't have my MacBook Pro because I am waiting for the refresh that will introduce the new Intel chips. But what I have done was to buy the white MacBook for my mom who was in desperate need of a new laptop since her HP was virus infected and barely breathing. She is by no means a compute expert but after showing her the basics she's managed to pic up OSX with ease and has no problems with the computer. If you aren't an 'expert', that actually helps because if all you ever do on a Windows machine is the basics like Internet, email, word processing, spreadsheets, mild picture editing, etc, then there really is very little to learn in switching over to a Mac. Its the "l33t haxorz" who go around editing the system files and all that junk on a Windows box that would have problems switching.

As to your question about word processing, I would echo others suggestion that you try out the free stuff first, OpenOffice and NeoOffice. I am an MS Office guy, most people are, to the point where its the most popular software... for the Mac. In the end you may want to get it because its what you are familiar with, in the end I may want to get it for that same reason. But before I make that decision to spend $130+ I will be giving Open and Neo a long test-drive. I have installed them on my mom's MacBook and from what little I have played with them they seem to be just fine. And yes, you can save documents in MS Word and Excel format so if you have to submit course work as a .doc you can do that using Open and Neo.

Hope that helps. Good luck, and do let us know what you end up going with.

 

[Small White Car]

2 - No matter which system you get, max out the RAM. You'll pay more upfront, but it's absolutely vital.

I disagree.

I agree that boosting the RAM over the stock amount is a good idea, but maxing it out is not always the right choice.

Look at the 13" Macbook Pro for example. Spending $100 to get 4 GB of RAM is a great idea. I would totally suggest that.

But spending $700 to get 8 GB of RAM is not a good idea, certainly not for the kind of use the O.P. is talking about. If you're doing school reports, surfing the web, correcting some photos, and watching DVDs then there is no advantage to 8 GB of RAM over 4 GB. That's just a huge waste of money.

Bear in mind that you can replace the RAM yourself. I am certain that 8 GB of RAM will be much, much cheaper in 2 years. That'd be a much better time to max it out...when it's cheaper and you're upgrading to a new OS or something like that.

I'm also unclear on what you think the regular Macbook can't do for the O.P. I do all the same stuff he wants to do on my 2006 Macbook Pro with a Core 1 Duo chip and 2 GB of RAM. Besides the fact that I have firewire and a larger screen, a new $999 Macbook beats my computer in pretty much every single way that counts. I would sure hope it could beat a 4 year old computer, which still works fine for me.

 

[gturner]

Why not go with an AS/400 from IBM?

 

[The Fatman]

Small White Car beat me to it, but even with 2GB ram, the MAC OS has a small enough footprint that it will do everything he needs very well. If he wants a performance boost, going to 4gb is not a BAD idea, but it is not necessary. and a 2.26GHz core2duo is a very good chip. I'm running Photoshop CS4 doing pretty heavy photo editing on a mac mini with way less power than that and I am very happy with the performance.

 

[RyanKCR]

I'm currently looking at getting a laptop just for personal use and looked a little at a Mac. When my Mother-in-law learned I was doing that she advised me to stay away from Macs. She works at the printing services at Lehigh University and she said anything done on a Mac will not work on their machines. So you should find out if any documents you do on it and need the college's printing services you should find out if it will work.

 

[The Fatman]

^^ This is the reason for dual booting/virtualization. The ability to put Windows on your mac for just those circumstances mean that insurmountable compatibility issues are gone.

I also would like to know what your MIL means specifically... like anything written in Pages won't work, or if that also includes .doc or .pdf files written on a mac, as those should carry over without any issue. I know Photoshop projects carry over from any mac to any PC without issue.

Finally, Mac is now used by something silly like 20% of all college students in the US thanks to their ads targeting the youth demo and student pricing, so any college that still doesn't support Mac formats is woefully out of touch.

 

[Small White Car]

I'm currently looking at getting a laptop just for personal use and looked a little at a Mac. When my Mother-in-law learned I was doing that she advised me to stay away from Macs. She works at the printing services at Lehigh University and she said anything done on a Mac will not work on their machines. So you should find out if any documents you do on it and need the college's printing services you should find out if it will work.

Well, not that you'd ever use this information for anything (I'd never say this to my MIL!) but your mother-in-law is bad at her job. Take it from my wife who ALSO works in a school printing lab.

If they (apparently) can't print from a PDF, PSD, TIFF, PNG, GIF, JPG, TXT, RTF, HTML, XLS, or DOC file (all things a Mac can create) then I'm really not sure what they can print!

Finally, Mac is now used by something silly like 20% of all college students in the US

A lot of times I see numbers closer to 50%, actually.

http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/2009/09/24/nearly-58-of-college-students-using-macs/

There are no "official" national studies. You just get things like that...something written by a student or teacher talking about their particular school.

Hardly a scientific survey.

The point is, I've seen many articles just like this one from many different schools. I think 50% is a very common number at very many schools. Probably not all, but many, yes.

And here's more support for that: If you look at laptops that are bought in stores (so not online) that cost more than $1,000 then Apple has a 91% share of that market. Clearly, there are a few qualifiers there, but how many college students fall into that category? They're looking to buy something that will last 4 years, so $1,000 is a reasonable minimum, and their parents are probably buying it so going to the mall for some 'hands-on' time is very likely a part of their off-to-school shopping. I'm betting that students are a LARGE part of that particular demographic.

So, quite frankly, seeing 50% Macs on college campuses looks downright conservative when compared to that number.

 

[doubleohfive]

Mac.

A world of Mac.

 

[RyanKCR]

I'm currently looking at getting a laptop just for personal use and looked a little at a Mac. When my Mother-in-law learned I was doing that she advised me to stay away from Macs. She works at the printing services at Lehigh University and she said anything done on a Mac will not work on their machines. So you should find out if any documents you do on it and need the college's printing services you should find out if it will work.

Well, not that you'd ever use this information for anything (I'd never say this to my MIL!) but your mother-in-law is bad at her job. Take it from my wife who ALSO works in a school printing lab.

If they (apparently) can't print from a PDF, PSD, TIFF, PNG, GIF, JPG, TXT, RTF, HTML, XLS, or DOC file (all things a Mac can create) then I'm really not sure what they can print!

Finally, Mac is now used by something silly like 20% of all college students in the US

A lot of times I see numbers closer to 50%, actually.

http://plzkthxbai.com/blog/2009/09/24/nearly-58-of-college-students-using-macs/

There are no "official" national studies. You just get things like that...something written by a student or teacher talking about their particular school.

Hardly a scientific survey.

The point is, I've seen many articles just like this one from many different schools. I think 50% is a very common number at very many schools. Probably not all, but many, yes.

And here's more support for that: If you look at laptops that are bought in stores (so not online) that cost more than $1,000 then Apple has a 91% share of that market. Clearly, there are a few qualifiers there, but how many college students fall into that category? They're looking to buy something that will last 4 years, so $1,000 is a reasonable minimum, and their parents are probably buying it so going to the mall for some 'hands-on' time is very likely a part of their off-to-school shopping.

So, quite frankly, seeing 50% Macs on college campuses looks downright conservative when compared to that number.

If I remember correctly she indicated that if it was written using a Microsoft Office for Mac program they can print but the formatting would be all messed up. They can print pretty much anything but would prefer pdf files. I don't know about the dual-boot ability. That might work. I'd have to ask her.

 

[Small White Car]

If I remember correctly she indicated that if it was written using a Microsoft Office for Mac program they can print but the formatting would be all messed up.

I'll give her that, but "you have to remember to export it as a different format" is a far cry from "anything made on a Mac won't work."

I'm not doubting you, I'm sure she actually said that. People who deal with computers AND the public (a bad combination) tend to exaggerate a lot to protect their sanity.

 

[Major Chord]

^The good thing is that if something is not compatible, I will still be living at home, and will have access to 3 different computers, all running windows. Or, like mentioned, I could use the dual boot capability.

Thanks again for all the suggestions. I think this weekend I will go to the Apple Store and play around a bit. See what I can learn. Just from the 30 some posts here, I'm pretty confident that a Mac will do what I need it to do. And since at this level, the costs will be about the same, I really don't see what I have to lose.

 

[Omnius]

Random question regarding Apple laptops, do they come (standard) with either a VGA, DVI or HDMI ports?
I once worked with a MacBook once, and I couldnt find any. Maybe it was just this model, but I was wondering how to hookup a beamer...

 

[kimc]

Last summer I made the switch from a PC to a Macbook Pro and don't regret it. In fact, I still have to use a PC at work so get to compare the two daily. Mac wins.

I use Parallels to run Windows apps I can't live without like Quicken. I also use Open Office (free!) for word processing, etc. You can save docs with the Microsoft extensions (.doc, .xls, etc) so PC users can read the stuff you distribute.

Oh, and I'll second whoever said get an external hard drive and use Time Machine.

 

[Lindley]

Random question regarding Apple laptops, do they come (standard) with either a VGA, DVI or HDMI ports?
I once worked with a MacBook once, and I couldnt find any. Maybe it was just this model, but I was wondering how to hookup a beamer...

My MacBook Pro has a DVI port on the right hand side.

As far as printing goes, any "printing service" which requires the file to be opened by a different machine does not deserve to be called such. At Carnegie Mellon, we could just select any of the print stations as network printers and send print jobs to them directly.

 

[Bears Discover Fire]

Random question regarding Apple laptops, do they come (standard) with either a VGA, DVI or HDMI ports?
I once worked with a MacBook once, and I couldnt find any. Maybe it was just this model, but I was wondering how to hookup a beamer...

My MacBook Pro has a DVI port on the right hand side.

As far as printing goes, any "printing service" which requires the file to be opened by a different machine does not deserve to be called such. At Carnegie Mellon, we could just select any of the print stations as network printers and send print jobs to them directly.

Agreed. When you're saving on a mac, click the 'cross platform capatibility' box in the save dialog. Problem solved.

In the 15 years since I first used a Mac, I've sent text and photographs in every concievable file format from Macs to print services, large CMYK presses, individual end users with bubblejets, et - and I've never had a rejection issue because of a platform incapatability.

That's a piss-poor printing service if they can't accommodate the industry-standard platform for most graphic arts and imaging fields.