<p>MTDad777, laptops can last longer than four years. My older girl (who is the one going off to college) was required to have a Toshiba laptop back when she was in 7th grade and it finally konked out last summer when she got home from CMU precollege. Of course, design has changed in the last 5/6 years, so it's bigger and clunkier than the ones made now. Also, having a laptop gives the kid the flexibility of bringing the laptop to class for the taking of notes, looking things up, etc. I may be wrong, but my guess is that most college kids, especially MT majors, will be using laptops versus desktops.</p>
<p>One nice thing about Macs is that they are not subject to the sofstware virus issues that hit PCs- We have had Macs since 1990 and have never had one virus.. The reason these college kids, especially in MT, find the laptop more convenient is that there is a lot of down time at rehearsals and kids bring their computers to get work done..At least mine does.. and my son, a junior but not MT, takes his computer to the library and on week-ends when he leaves the campus to go visit his gf- lots of train time.. the only kids I know that seem to take desktops are engineering, computer, and architecture students bc of the sheer volume of material- but they also have laptops. These kids need to learn to be responsible- my own D accidently spilt water on her laptop from her bottle while we were chatting the 3rd week of school and it took insurance until thanksgiving to replace it- many hard days and nights for her in the computer lab..Lesson learned.. BTW if you purchase your computer with American Express and anything happens to it( even accidental spill or running it over with car) you can get it replaced-$1000 per item regular card, $2500 per platinum.. Also, add the insurance on to your homeowners rider as well-pennies on the dollar.. IN addition to the service agreement, which for Apple anyway does NOT cover water or liquid damage. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>This was 12 yrs ago but at that time about 75% of the college kids used their laptops to take notes in class. Most classrooms were being rewired for the 21st century with plugs for the laptops even. I doubt many kids today take notes with paper and pencil. I realize that most on here are thinking vocal, dance and theatre subjects but at least some of you I know are going to schools with some academic subjects. And some classes I have seen even for MT require classes like History of Theatre - which I would think would include lectures and note taking.</p>
<p>ttmom, agree with all you wrote. Actually my older D is about to enter graduate school for architecture and she is only on a laptop and always will be. The arch students bring their laptops to studio. My older D owns two laptops. She has always been on a Mac as is our entire family and got a new Mac laptop when she went off to college. She attends Brown but took an architecture course that was digital at RISD and their students are on PCs and the architecture software programs that they had to use were not made for Mac. My D was fortunate that her grandparents bought her aa second laptop, a PC, to run those special programs and so she now has two, one of each kind, but for everything else uses her Mac. Just want to point out that even arch students tend to use laptops for all the reasons cited by myself and others here in terms of their portability and they do take it with them on campus to other locations, as well as when they travel off campus.</p>
<p>God should have a special place in heaven for grandparents who help out like that, soozievt! :)</p>
<p>NMR...my children have been very fortunate over the years to have two sets of doting grandparents who have helped and financed many opportunities for them and still do. Speaking of laptops, my in laws bought each of my D's their laptop for college as a graduation gift (and then the second one for older D during college that she needed to run that arch software). My parents have helped my kids a great deal. This includes money toward tuition. For my older one's upcoming graduation from college, we have purchased Certificates of Appreciation (wait 'til your kid graduates and you are bombarded with all the things you can buy...most of which we are declining) for both sets of grandparents (though my father has since passed away) with their names on them for our D to give them for helping her get to where she is today and helping to make possible having gotten this degree. I only wish my Dad could have seen it all as it makes me very sad that he cannot.</p>
<p>Just wanted to chime in about desktop vs. laptop, etc. Our D has a laptop which she purchased with some scholarship money she had won before she left for college. She had always used a desktop PC here at home, but she bought a Macbook laptop (not Macbook Pro--she couldn't afford that and it seemed like overkill for what she would really need). She LOVES having the Mac and LOVES having a laptop. I really can't imagine how she would survive with a desktop since she is rarely actually IN her room! Many days she leaves her room for an eight AM class and doesn't return until well after midnight. As an example, for the last three weeks she has been rehearsing or performing in four different productions, is filling her required tech assignment on another production and still has to do homework for all of her classes including her dance classes. She told me she has been lucky with her tech assignment because she sits stage left with a headset on and occasionally has to follow a direction to close a curtain or start a fog machine, etc., but has quite a bit of time to actually do homework. Since she is currently researching for a movie she is making for her biology class, she has been able to do some of her work while sitting backstage. Also, as mentioned, traveling is another reason to have the laptop. We live 11 hours away by car, so she flies home for breaks. She always has her laptop to use in the airport and while she's here. She also attended three summerstock auditions out of state, and had her laptop with her for those weekends. She is FAR too busy to be able to take a weekend off and NOT have access to her homework and research. She is taking 20 credit hours, including both MT and gen. ed. type classes, but honestly has papers to write, journals to keep, etc. even in her MT classes. There is SO much work to be done! We bought the Mac when they were having the college sales in August, at the Apple store, and got a free Nano with it. Her college gives the kids the word processing software since they want everyone on campus to have the same type--either PC or Mac version. We also bought the service plan through Apple, and also bought separate inexpensive insurance through NSSI which covers theft or breakage. We have not had to use either, thankfully, since her Macbook has worked great all year. Seriously, I can't imagine how she would survive in her MT program if she did not have a laptop!</p>
<p>My daughter and virtually all of her MT classmates take their laptops with them throughout the school day. Whether doing homework during down time between classes, taking advantage of wifi hot spots, group projects - without the flexibility of a laptop, she would be seriously handcuffed.</p>
<p>A while back I started a thread on the wonderful Mac Ichat feature for parents. Both my D's LOVE their Mac's (one D is on her 2nd (10% student disc.) - wanted to upgrade so as to have this feature as she is moving far from all of us). Once we switched from desk to laps it was a no-brainer... I take my Mac when traveling, and it's been so much easier/faster than any of my other Window PC's. So many features for an M/T.<br>
I love my Mac and will never go back! ;-) :-)</p>
<p>First, what a nice perk for the MT students at UArts.</p>
<p>BassDad - a poster on the Music Major forum, is really good with recording issues. He can recommend some toys for that. </p>
<p>I think a laptop is a necessity. In fact, at least one of the schools to which my D was accepted requires that each freshman have a laptop. I think the school my niece attends also requires it.</p>
<p>I just got a notice in the mail today from Hartt, were my son is enrolled as a freshman in MT next year, that there is a required laptop purchase program from the U of H bookstore. All freshman entering Hartt have to buy this computer. Unfortunately, I didn't see anything about this in the school list of costs so this came as a bit of a shock especially since it costs $2,797. It seems like a lot of money for a computer. It is a Macbook Pro ,which I have learned by reading this thread is a good one for music people but wow is this the normal price for this model? </p>
<p>It also includes a 4 year warranty.</p>
<p>Interesting feedback....... When D and I visited schools I asked the tour guide and they said that some have desktops and some have laptops. Laptops have gained tremendous popularity over the last 5 years and have come down in price so depending on the school I wouldn't be suprised if there are more laptops than desktops. I have also heard as mentioned that some schools require it. I have a nephew and niece in college, my niece uses a desktop and so does her roomate, my nephew didn't have a computer at all (he's graduating). I saw computer labs all over the campuses so I find it difficult to believe that a laptop is an absolute necessity. However, I can see where there would be a tremendous advantage and convenience to this LUXURY.</p>
<p>ajsurfs- It's ridiculous that they did not list that in the costs! Also, for them to make you purchase an overpriced MAC sucks. For all you MAC lovers they are terrific computers just a bit pricey.</p>
<p>MTDad777- I thought the price was pretty outrageous. We bought a laptop for my son about 3 years ago (HP) and it has really come in handy. He practically lives on the thing! It only costs us about $1,200 and has worked fine for him so far. I am really irritated that they chose such an expensive model. It sounds like it a very good one for a Music major and MT kid but it was a big cost that we did not plan on for this fall. We thought we had the computer thing handled with his old one. </p>
<p>My son is still going to Hartt, but I think I will drop the admission dept. a note and let them know that it is better to be forthcoming with the costs ahead of time. He didn't even think to ask about a required purchase program when he went for a visit.</p>
<p>My son is now in his second year with an imac. He loves the larger screen and uses it to view videos, keep his many gigs of music on, as well as ichat and other applications. He augments this with and older macbook pro that I was able to loan him, but for him the desktop machine works well. ichat can be very helpful for parents who would otherwise miss seeing their kids.</p>
<p>One thing I don't understand about the MAC thing is unless there is some new built-in technology that I am unaware of, what does it do that a IBM laptop can't do? Most programs are written for IBM compatibles and you can download thousands of free programs from download.com. When I started in IT Macs were big in the grammer schools (still are) as the interface was much easier to use and big in desktop publishing and graphic arts. However, all business software was run on IBM compatibles. Regarding costs you can find laptops for less than 400.00, pop an extra gig of RAM in it and you have a faster computer than the one you bought last year for 1,000. The best site to find bargains on technology is dealdump.com</a> | one page, all best deals on the internet this site has links to the best technology bargains and is updated realtime.</p>
<p>I use an HP running on Windows XP and I just love it! Personally I can't stand Macs, I find their interface much more difficult to use and many programs and other things are not compatable with Macs. And I love my right click option too much to let it go!! haha </p>
<p>If you need extra space, well that's what an external drive is for!</p>
<p>Until November of '07, I used only Windows based PC's and laptops. I also serve as the IT administrator in my office running Microsoft Server on a network of 12 PC's running Windows XP Pro. I have switched to Macs for all of my personal use outside of the office. The operating system is more stable, far less prone to virus and other malware attacks and runs faster, without resource robbing add ons running in the backround all the time. In addition, media and presentation software written for the Mac OS integrates much more seamlessly with each other. Music, photos, video, burning cd's and dvd's can all be merged with basic drag and drop techniques. What convinced me to make the switch is that all the new Macs have Intel processors so that it is easy to set up dual partitions on a Mac hard drive, using Apple's Boot Camp application that comes with the Mac OS, so that you can also run Windows in a native environment. All of my Macs at home are configured this way and as a result I have the best of both worlds - including the ability to run all of my office specialty Windows applications on my Macs.</p>
<p>MTDad777 asks what an IBM (now Lenovo) laptop can't do that a macbook can. The very short answer is nothing and it comes down to personal preference. I support macos, linux and windows operating systems at work and find productive people on all three. Personally, I just find windows very awkward to use and Vista worse than XP. The ilife applications on the mac (and their pro version upgrades) are, I think, far better than anything in the windows world. As to free downloadable programs, that can be a greater source of mischief than benefit. What specific application do you need for a mac that you can't get?</p>
<p>But I digress. Each student should get information from their school as to the appropriate computer for their needs.</p>