<p>I will be entering Howard University in the fall as a computer science major and am looking for a laptop that will fit all the needs that i will have. Something that won't cause any problems for me working in class, that isn't slow at all, and preferably a webcam. My parents have promised me ever since I was a small child that they will provide my first laptop when I am going to college so i have been waiting patiently and just want my first one to be as good as possible and last me all four years. I believe I was able to talk them into getting me a macbook pro so I was thinking about waiting till the new one was released but I have heard that it wouldnt be best to get a mac for computer science. I dont know if this holds any truth, but I wouldnt know. I have about $1200 to work with, I dont know what specs I will need or anything I am hoping you guys will be able to help me as much as possible.</p>
<p>If your school’s CS program is respectable…you will be taking courses where you’ll need to program in the Unix command-line environment. </p>
<p>In that case, Apple will have you covered as OSX is built on top of a variant of BSD unix…which you can access through “Terminal” either by typing it in the spotlight or if you’re like me…place that icon on the dock.</p>
<p>Also, considering Apple has bootcamp…you can also dual-boot Windows if needed…or run Windows within OSX through virtualization software like parallels. Keep in mind, however, that the latter option will incur a speed/performance penalty because you’re effectively running 2 operating systems at the same time.</p>
<p>would it be a big performance difference? And would I be able to turn it on and off if I have it up </p>
<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC</p>
<p>If you’re just running office apps or some business type software, the performance penalty through virtualization won’t be a big deal.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t do it if I was doing something intensive though…like multimedia editing/processing.</p>