<p>Im going to be an engineering student at Berkeley, and am trying to find a laptop to buy that will fit my needs in engineering and is very portable since I'll have to walk up and down the hills on the Berkeley campus with it everyday. Which of these laptops would be best, and Im talking the Macbook, not Macbook Pro. If you have another suggestion for a laptop in this range (i.e no more than $1200) then you can add that too.</p>
<p>Do you prefer mac or windows? Matlab will run on both, and all your standard office programs will run on both. Heck, with bootcamp you can run any windows programs on the mac too. Any serious CAD/CAM programs will be run in a computer lab, so you don't have to worry about having to get a laptop that will run that.</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>I've always used windows, but I've heard that Mac OS, is a lot less frustrating and doesnt do all these quirky things like windows. Are there any programs in school that i'll need that wont work on Mac OS.</p>
<p>Doubtful...and again, if you really need a windows program for class, you can either run it in the mac through bootcamp or use a computer lab.</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>So which of these computers would you suggest.</p>
<p>I'm thinking of the Macbook myself but beware, there are reportedly overheating issues and i'm gonna hold off for awhile until those issues at least get looked at...</p>
<p>However, as far as XP vs. OSX goes, OSX is just as quirky as Windows especially if you dont know what you're doing. For example, I was a native windows user all my life until a few years ago I got a G5 for audio stuff and I used a USB wifi card and sometimes it would come out and well.....there is no ctrl+alt+dlt for macs....once they freeze up, they are about as useful as an anchor on land.</p>
<p>also, dont believe the hype, macs can get viruses too, its just that since windows is the predominant operating system for most of the business and recreational world, most viruses are made for windows...but there are still mac trojans out there.</p>
<p>go to a mac store or find a friend or something with a mac and play around on it for awhile. surf the web, fiddle with itunes, play a Blizzard game(warcraft3, diablo2, etc..all run on mac natively), etc... and see how you like it. if you like it better than XP then go with the macbook.</p>
<p>one final note: i personally hate dell laptops...i've never had good experiences with them and to me they just feel really flimsy, but that's just me.</p>
<p>also, another note: </p>
<p>Macs are terrible for the majority of programming. Yes, yes unix is fine and dandy but Visual Studio doesnt have a port for the mac. Most programming nowadays is some derivative of C (c, c++, c#) or java(java, j#) so be mindful of that....if you have a programming course it'll mean you have to work in a lab the whole time</p>
<p>same goes for CAD...having taken 2 years of CAD/engineering design, it's annoying as hell to not be able to work on certain things at home especially if you are in a crunch time </p>
<p>if they'd just fix the overheating issues on the macbook i'd be all over them with a dualboot for OSX and XP but until the issues are fixed....well, its hard to reccomend the macbook.</p>
<p>First off... if you ever think about purchasing a Dell Laptop, buy it from the large business division... and never the home or small business divisions... because they WILL feel flimsy.</p>
<p>The Macbook/pro is great... but you cant play as many games as you can on a PC. I have a macbook pro right now... 15.4 inch... but it's not as great as the PC... which is why I went ahead and built a PC for myself. Sure, the Macbook pro is sleak and is a mac, but sure, the osx software has problems too.</p>
<p>Since mac has migrated over to the intel duo's... their software has become obsolete... forcing individuals to wait for the production of the "Universal" version of the specific software that is needed. Even Adobe took a while to develop photoshop and dreamweaver for the universal software.</p>
<p>If I were you... and if I was looking for a laptop, I'd go with a dell large business model... specifically the D series. These are great and are extremely sturdy.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>
[quote]
First off... if you ever think about purchasing a Dell Laptop, buy it from the large business division... and never the home or small business divisions... because they WILL feel flimsy.
[/quote]
wrong, there is no difference. There won't be any difference if you buy the latitude from the home or small or large business section.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Macs are terrible for the majority of programming. Yes, yes unix is fine and dandy but Visual Studio doesnt have a port for the mac. Most programming nowadays is some derivative of C (c, c++, c#) or java(java, j#) so be mindful of that....if you have a programming course it'll mean you have to work in a lab the whole time</p>
<p>same goes for CAD...having taken 2 years of CAD/engineering design, it's annoying as hell to not be able to work on certain things at home especially if you are in a crunch time
[/quote]
True, although other than visual studio (which is a microsoft product), other IDEs work fine on the mac.</p>
<p>While matlab runs on both macs and windows, I would still be inclined to get a windows based system (because bootcamp isn't that dependable yet). For eg, my engineering lab partner couldn't work in his room last semester because the software we were using in class (quartus for electrical engineering) wasn't supported on macs. And since we were working on a project together he ended up dragging me down there as well :(</p>
<p>In short, its going to be a while till all the issues with boot camp are fixed and as of now windows supports more engineering software than the mac, so get the dell. Or you can wait for a while and buy the laptop after a month or two after checking out the progress of boot camp.</p>
<p>anyone thinking about tablet pc's?</p>
<p>right now i'm trying to decide between ibm x41 tablet which is pricey, the new macbooks, and a dell..it looks like you get the most bang for your buck with Dell but the new apples look nice, I'd stay the hell away for 3 months though.</p>
<p>Quote
wrong, there is no difference. There won't be any difference if you buy the latitude from the home or small or large business section.</p>
<p>Actually i believe you may be mistaken as there is no latitude in the home section, unless you were simply saying that either way you go in you opinion they will feel flimsy</p>
<p>i have some friends who are going to VA Tech and they have to get tablets (admittedly they are like 3000$ tho) and they look nice....</p>
<p>mit_2009: where have you seen the reports on the instability of bootcamp? i've never seem them and i'd be interested to..</p>
<p>i think a great laptop is the new lenovo IBM T60(w/biometrics :D) which is something not mentioned but since the OP didnt mention it, his school probably doesnt give ibm discounts...</p>
<p>
[quote]
Since mac has migrated over to the intel duo's... their software has become obsolete...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Their software hasn't become "obsolete" when you consider that the majority of the Mac market is still on PowerPC based system. Plus, most programs will run stably (albeit with a speed hit in most cases) with Rosetta. </p>
<p>
[quote]
The Macbook/pro is great... but you cant play as many games as you can on a PC. I have a macbook pro right now... 15.4 inch... but it's not as great as the PC... which is why I went ahead and built a PC for myself. Sure, the Macbook pro is sleak and is a mac, but sure, the osx software has problems too.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You do realize that you can boot into Windows, and that the x1600 performs pretty much like a Windows based x1600 (once you adjust the clock), right?</p>
<p>I mean, I play Oblivion with the textures turned to high, most of the bells and whistles turned on, and fairly comparable frame rates to my Windows box with a Prescott 2.8 and a GeForce 6800 GT.</p>
<p>I'm an engineer currently. Go with the PC save yourself the headache. AutoCAD for one will not run on a mac. And do you want to be doing your hw in the labs all the time? True you won't have to use AutoCAD too often , but you still should save yourself the headache and leave apples to the starbucks crowd.</p>
<p>scorp,</p>
<p>Except, as has been mentioned more than once, the new Intel-baed Macs run Windows flawlessly.</p>
<p>Well in that case, what would be the point of buying an apple machine? To dual boot Windows and Mac OS?</p>
<p>It's a brave new world we live in, amigo. Welcome to the jungle. </p>
<p>I run 90% of my life in Mac OS, and then my gaming and occasional Windows only software is on my second partition.</p>
<p>It's no different from running a dual Windows/Linux box.</p>
<p>i'm the other way around...10% of my computing time is spent on a mac, mostly doing audio oriented things (i record, mix, and level for people) and 90% on windows just because i'm comfortable with it but even i realize the benefits to dual-booting an apple laptop...heck, i used to use a dual linux/xp box just for fun when i wanted a change</p>
<p>HEY, yeh tablets are pretty neat.</p>
<p>i really want the new ibm t60 tablets that are coming out in the next 8 months or so, the t60 are great but i just don't know if i want to shove down 2000+ for a non-tablet.</p>
<p>I helped my friend install Windows XP w/ bootcamp on his new Mac Book pro, very impressive. Battlefield 2 ran pretty damn nice, the lcd is nice too, like zero or minimal light leakage and widescreen, cool.</p>
<p>quick question though, with NTFS on the windows partition and mac os running ext2 or w/e it runs, can you safely copy files, I remember an issue with this when running linux.</p>
<p>thanks.</p>
<p>rage_fan,</p>
<p>If you use FAT32, then you can read and write. If you use NTFS, you can only read.</p>