<p>Hi,
So I'm going to be a Political Science major who plans on dual majoring or minoring in Information Technology or/and PR. I was wondering if Mac or a PC would be better for this? I currently use and love my MacBook (its about 5 years old). </p>
<p>But I'm considering Windows 7 (HP ProBook, Dell Latitude, or Lenevo ThinkPad T430) or Mac OSX (MacBook Pro 13). The largest screen I'll go with is 14 and the smallest is 13. </p>
<p>I don't mind paying the price for a base MacBook Pro with a student discount ($1099, w/ $100 gift card so its more like $999), but thats the highest I will go. </p>
<p>Out of curiosity, is there any reason why you can’t continue using the 5 year old macbook assuming it is in reasonably good condition? </p>
<p>Mom and many folks I’ve known have used their 2006 era intel-based macs…or PPC based macs for longer than 5 years…or in most cases…far longer without too many issues. </p>
<p>You may want to dual-boot Windows through boot-camp or run it within OSX through virtualization software like parallels. </p>
<p>Also, if the IT program is run along the same lines as a respectable CS program, you should be getting some exposure to programming/computing in the unix command-line interface. OSX already has that accessible through the terminal application…which you can access under applications/utilities or typing terminal in spotlight.</p>
<p>If you must get a PC notebook, I’d stay away from HPs or Dells. Both of those brands tend to have serious issues with build quality/reliability…even on their corporate models. </p>
<p>Got two Dell Latitudes from a friend’s company and one HP corporate notebook from a client free because they were all so fed up they didn’t want to deal with the heat or other crippling issues they encountered with them. </p>
<p>Have no problems using them myself and it wouldn’t be a problem provided you have no problems stripping laptops down for maintenance/repairs…especially in a college dorm environment.</p>