<p>At the moment I'm debating between purchasing a Gateway C-142XL from online or a Dell Latitude D830 from the upenn website. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>Well over either of those I'd suggest a ThinkPad--and above that I'd suggest an Apple ;)</p>
<p>But that being said, the Dells you get through Penn include a 3 year warranty that has next day on-site service. PLUS accidental damage protection. If you spill coffee on your laptop or drop it down the stairs, you get it fixed or replaced for free.</p>
<p>Make sure your Gateway can do that before you sign off thinking it's a better value.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice bagels. Oh by the way, I was also wondering does it matter if you have Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate? Because on the campusexpress website it says that Premium is suitable for Penn.</p>
<p>Premium and Ultimate are about the same. Both are 64-bit processors, except Ultimate has some fancier bells and can support more RAM, but no one is ever going to need 32 GB of RAM....</p>
<p>I really wanted to make the switch to a mac, but I heard that it might be difficult for someone in SEAS. It's not that I am fully committed to it, I just think I would prefer it, would it be possible to manage SEAS with a mac?</p>
<p>SEAS is totally fine with a mac. A good chunk of the lab pc's are linux, anyway.</p>
<p>Wharton is where you need Windows. Everyone else is good with Macs.</p>
<p>Macs are over priced b/c they need to charge more to off the same customer service other providers offer. I would not get a Mac since the specs will be bad.</p>
<p>EX.</p>
<p>I just got a Dell 1525 customized with 2.4 GHz Intel Duo Core, 4 GB RAM and a bunch of other fancy bells for $1049</p>
<p>A Mac Book (which I was originally eyeing) costs $1099 comes with 1 GB of RAM and a 2.0 GHz Intel Duo Core processor...50 bucks more and less fancy and slower processor and ONLY 1 GB of RAM...</p>
<p>Heads up, you get an educational discount with the MacBook, making it $999 + a free iPod touch (which is worth 300) or an iPod nano if you'd prefer. Plus, OSX puts much less strain on your system. Popular Mechanics did a test between two computers of similar price, one Windows Vista and another Mac OS X, and the Mac performed better. So don't discount Mac that quickly.</p>
<p>Another bonus of the penn computers is that they give you the opportunity to downgrade from Vista to XP.</p>
<p>Vista Home Premium is supported by the school but not recommended (it lacks some enterprise networking features that are needed for various purposes in Penn's IT infrastructure). Vista Business and Vista Ultimate are the recommended ones.</p>
<p>"Huh. Macs just have one version with all the stuff you need on it" ;)</p>
<p>
[quote]
I just got a Dell 1525 customized with 2.4 GHz Intel Duo Core, 4 GB RAM and a bunch of other fancy bells for $1049
[/quote]
.</p>
<p>Congratulations, you just got an Inspiron. The Inspiron series of Dells has a lower price because it uses lower quality consumer-grade components and has been consistently rejected by the University's IT community as an acceptable machine for enterprise use. Whoops!</p>
<p>macs work for SEAS?! SCORE!!! Someone stole my ipod too, so getting a free touch would be awesome!</p>
<p>if you're in seas, you get a free copy of vista business via msdn download</p>
<p>though i have that, and a powertogether copy of vista business, and i don't think i'm using either anytime soon...</p>