<p>I am attending UF Honors in the fall, and I want to major in mechanical engineering. I want to get a MacBook pro with bootcamp and parallels,but I've been warned that even dual-booting is insufficient and I need a PC. Any current UF students have any input on this? Thanks</p>
<p>I don't know why dual booting would be an issue? Windows/Vista OS are the same on Mac as on any other computer with BootCamp, so they should function the same..</p>
<p>Yes, but I've been told that the inconvenience of constantly rebooting to switch OS's can be insufferable, and virtualization doesn't work for every application.</p>
<p>Any reason you want a macbook pro? Without completely trashing apple, there are plenty of native pc laptops that are cheaper and are guaranteed to run the software required for your classes. I don't know of anyone in my engineering department with a mac anything (though one industrial had one).</p>
<p>I want a mac because I've had a PC all my life and I want a computer that doesn't crash and, though this sounds totally insignificant, I want a computer where the computer itself looks nice and all of its programs work well together. The alternative for me is an Alienware laptop with virtually the same price and tech-specs, so price isn't an issue for me.</p>
<p>A PC doesn't crash if you know how to use it...</p>
<p>Excuse Me? know very well how to use a computer. PCs are more likely to crash than Macs because Macs use a UNIX based operating system which is less prone to kernel panic. Vista in particular is known to be very unstable.</p>
<p>I've owned my vista laptop for 9 months now and it has not crashed once, nor have I had to restart it outside of software updates, and I bought it for 700 bucks at best buy and it does everything I've ever had to do for electrical engineering. I really think you're overstating the instability of it. I'm not trying to push Vista, it's just that nobody uses Apple anything (in fact get XP if you can).</p>
<p>Why does your alternative have to be alienware? I'm trying to head off a bad decision by you where you get a laptop that has "high" performance but a) weighs too much to tote around and b) burns you if you place it on your lap. Starting with your first drafting class, your laptop will be something you're going to bring pretty much everywhere, so you want something that is actually highly portable (which alienware tends to not be). I had a pentium 4 "performance" laptop for years and I hated walking a mile or two from my dorms to the lab with this gargantuan laptop weighing me down.</p>
<p>It's obviously your money, but I just know what my peers have chosen and what I would have done differently if I were matriculating to undergrad this fall again.</p>
<p>You're going to have to run Windows for specialized engineering software. So, if that's the case, it makes sense to run the Windows version of Office, so you are not swithcing back and forth between OSes when you are documenting results and writting reports. So, at that point, why do you need the Mac OS? If you want it for other reasons...great...but I don't see it as enhancing your engineering productivity.</p>
<p>@gthopeful Thank you for your advice about the stability of vista. The reason why I want an alienware is because I'm a power user. I do a lot of music and ideo, and video conversion, and a lot of CPU intensive multitasking. My current laptop isn't powerful enough for what I do in the RAM, hard drive, or processor, and it causes me endless frustration. In other words, I would rather have a laptop that is on the heavy side than one that I want to drop kick into a wall.</p>
<p>Is getting a desktop out of the question? That's what I ended up doing because I didn't want to pay out the wazoo for a good laptop, but I also wanted to have power. UF gives out free copies of windows so you can build one from scratch and keep costs down. Of course Apple is well-known in the digital media industry so I can see why you're leaning toward it.</p>
<p>Anyway, I have nothing new to add. I'm sure either way it will be fine.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the help guys. After this thread and talking to some professors, I'm gonna go with a 15.4 inch alienware laptop. I figure that a mac's just not worth the hassle when the PC is guaranteed to work. I still want to get a mac when I graduate though.</p>
<p>with parallels you can run both at the same time,unlike bootcamp.</p>
<p>I personally like PC-based computers. No offense...I never got the fascination with MAC's. Isnt the starting price for most MACs $2000? However, I know it's a good computer if you go into graphic design and related stuff.</p>
<p>Well, macs cost that much because they're excellent computers. As my search proved, if you buy a PC with the same tech-specs as a mac, it will cost roughly the same. The problem with virtualization through a program like parallels is that it doesn't always work for every program. Boot-Camp is more reliable, but you have to reboot the computer into a different operating system.</p>
<p>"if you buy a PC with the same tech-specs as a mac, it will cost roughly the same"</p>
<p>i do not agree.</p>
<p>one example:</p>
<p>Try a fully loaded XPS M1330 (what i'm planning on getting) its under 2.5 K with all dell/uf discounts it's a litle over 2K. This is with CRAZY GOOD WARRANTIES and the best possible specifications dell has (such as Intel® Core 2 Duo T9500 (2.6GHz/800Mhz FSB/6MB cache).</p>
<p>if you want go try it yourself. and i bet you anything Macbook/Macbook pro can't get anywhere near this price and still keep all the things dell has to offer.</p>
<p>if you want a specific list of all the things you get and exact price let me know and i'll go back and do it.</p>
<p>You say you know computers and then you buy an Alienware.</p>
<p>Sorry, I'm not convinced.</p>
<p>I'm buying an Alienware because I want something guaranteed to be powerful enough. Loaded the way I want, it costs $3,233. If you guys have other recommendations, just make sure it can have the following specs and weigh 7 pounds or under.</p>
<p>-14-15 inch screen
- 2.4-2.6 GHz dual-core processors
- 3-4 GBs of RAM
- 250-300 GB Hard Drive
- 256-512 MB of Graphics Memory
- DVD-RW and CD-RW optical drive</p>
<p>An XPS (~6-7 pounds) of those stats will net you about half that. I didn't check other brands, but I'm sure none (except maybe sony) will even approach $3,200. With Alienware you pay for the case as much as for the machine. They are infamous for their ridiculous prices.</p>
<p>@ABCB Do you have an XPS? I was considering one but I have heard mixed reviews.</p>