<p>What is the best college laptop to buy? Does the brand matter (Toshiba, Dell, HP)?</p>
<p>there is no best. pick your favorite one.</p>
<p>ideally u need to be able to use the basic programs such as powepoint and word.</p>
<p>Many students have a Dell. I think it's nice how you get to customize it and you really get one for a relatively cheap price. I recommend it.</p>
<p>Most students in CS and engineering majors don't get Macs.</p>
<p>If you don't plan to major in engineering, then get whatever you want.</p>
<p>what is the right laptop for an engineering major. I have a macbook pro :O. slightly worried by your post</p>
<p>ccbound,</p>
<p>You'll be fine. You just might need to use Boot Camp.</p>
<p>are there programs that engineers need that aren't available on Mac? well I will definitely have vista running on my mac before i get to berkeley</p>
<p>(Don't take this seriously, I'm teasing)</p>
<p>Hahah...Macn00b!</p>
<p>(Now I'm being serious)</p>
<p>BootCamp is a program that lets you install and use Windows on your Mac.</p>
<p>when is Boot Camp actually going to be released? i only see beta versions of it right now. i am currently running a different program to use windows on my computer right now</p>
<p>Parallels? That's fine. Probably even better.</p>
<p>Boot Camp runs great in beta, by the way. In some ways it's better than Parallels if you need to really allocation 100% of the computer's resources to one OS.</p>
<p>are they eventually going to charge for Boot Camp? thanks for the advice!</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, they have no plan on charging.</p>
<p>They'll charge only if you don't upgrade to OS X Leopard.</p>
<p>Did they actually announce that?</p>
<p>I don't remember for sure, but you can't use Matlab on a Mac, right?</p>
<p>I suggest a lenovo. i've used an x60 this year and I love it. Small, lightweight, amazing battery life, and still good performance. I see a lot of engineers and professors using lenovos. that and macbooks.</p>
<p>Oh I guess you can. Either that's a new product or I'm thinking of something else.</p>
<p>I have a T60, however I'm not in college yet :P</p>
<p>Lenovo/IBM is coming out with T61 soon (14 widescreen).</p>
<p>if you're really hardcore you'll have a server workstation in your dorm connected to the intranet and then you'll VNC/remote desktop into it from your laptop over the campus wifi :P</p>