<p>What kind of laptop should i get before going to LA?
I wanted to get a macbook, but.. I think i remembered at the open house, the people said that macbooks aren't compatible with the programs they use or something.</p>
<p>with a macbook you can always bootcamp it</p>
<p>i would say get a 13" one (macbook-size), since anything bigger and it’ll be a major pain in the ass to deal with. I regret not buying a 13" one, since I thought I’d be needing the processing power for “uber hax engineering stuff”, but turns out, it was mainly used for facebooking anyways -_-. So if you want to get a macbook, it’ll be more than adequate</p>
<p>If you’re computer science (like me), I would recommend not getting a Mac. Its a nice machine, but it won’t really suit your needs. If you’re not a comp sci major, you can probably get one and not really have any problems until you have to take comp sci 31, which uses Visual C++. However, there are alternatives to VC++ that run on the mac.</p>
<p>uh there are other ways around it
you can bootcamp, run vmware, use xcode, g++, etc.</p>
<p>just to make myself clear, i’m not a mac fanboy of any sorts. just telling you that the perceived “need” for power is unwarranted. so that shouldn’t be a criteria which you will have to choose for.</p>
<p>^
lol you did sound like a fanboy. but yea anyways i’ve been using g++ this whole time. i cant stand microsoft visual c++</p>
<p>I’m going for EE, any requirements for that? I’d probably be going for a desktop tho instead of a laptop. That won’t be much of a problem right? Or should i go for a cheap laptop and a good desktop computer?</p>
<p>definitely have a cheap laptop incase you don’t work in your room, EE would do some CS (i believe 31 for biomed option, 31+32 for straight EE and 31+32+33 for EE-CS right?) it is much easier to work with groups, work in class and on campus with a laptop but make sure the battery life is good (i had a HP that runs about an hour or less: bad idea… so i switched to a macbook for the 4+ hour battery) when i took CS 31 i never listened in class, i just did the projects during those 4 hours of lecture 
i used bootcamp to run VC++, used xcode for a little bit and didn’t like it as the codes weren’t as compatible with C++ for some reason… i have vm fusion but it eats up ram, cpu and battery… but its a nice show to have my mac on 1 screen and xp on my external monitor (something you can look into if big screen is your reason for desktop, if you want it for gaming then go for desktop or get a ps3 :D)</p>
<p>^ Yep I’m all in for online gaming. That was the reason I was considering a desktop. Looks like I’ll have to go with both a laptop and a desktop. Thanks for the advice.</p>
<p>One thing you could do is get a decently powerful desktop (i7 maybe?) and one of those 10 or 12" netbooks. Those will run you ~400 bucks and they’re good for just doing small things on the go, like email, office, coding, etc</p>
<p>On a new 2.4 GHz MacBook with 4GB of RAM, will VMWare Fusion run Windows XP/Vista/7 as well as desktop/server Linux at a really good level of performance?</p>
<p>i JUST made the switch to netbook + desktop and i’m sad i didn’t so earlier! </p>
<p>just built my desktop for ~$800 and i have an acer aspire one ~$300. i have both power and portability - it’s really nice.</p>
<p>Don’t get macbooks (because most of the programs are only compatible with windows). Don’t get expensive laptops, because although theft is rare - it is still there. So you don’t want to get an expensive one for college.
If you’re majoring in CS related, I suggest you get a laptop with at least 2GB of memory and also a fast processor (Core 2 Duo or something). If you are planning on using your laptop alot outside your dorms, you might also want to get one that has long battery life.</p>
<p>A cheaper alternative to a netbook is an iPod Touch. You get all the capabilities and portability of an iPod, along with pretty good Web browsing and contacts/calendars/email/3rd party apps/etc. Best of all, in past years Apple has had a special where starting in June students who purchase a laptop get a $300 credit towards an iPod. If they reinstate this special, that means you can get a 16GB iPod Touch free with your MB or MB Pro!</p>
<p>vm fusion won’t run that well even for the 2.4ghz macbook, i have a 2.4 ghz with 2 gb of ram and the thing with fusion is that it pretty much takes half of the processing power of the computer even if you are not using both at the same time so it won’t run as smooth as bootcamp… as for ipod touch as alternative to netbook, i don’t think its a smart idea, i have a lot of trouble browsing online with my iphone and ipod touch, keep on hitting wrong links, have to zoom in then zoom out for everything and keyboard is very easy to hit the wrong keys… i seen lenovo have sales on their netbooks (10inch i think) for as low as $400 with capability better than a lot of the other netbooks…</p>
<p>kickserve, is you MacBook one of the new aluminum ones or one of the previous-generation white or black plastic ones? The current generation is significantly more speedy in comparison. I’m hoping that the 2.4GHz model, with an upgrade to 4GB of RAM, will run Windows XP fast enough in VMWare Fusion that I will be able to use it instead of Boot Camp for CS classes that absolutely require Windows. There’s also the option of having a remote connection to a workstation in Boelter Hall, which Mac OS X can do without a problem.</p>
<p>As for the iPod Touch, I still think it’s a great device for a student to have, especially if it comes free with a computer. WiFi at UCLA is pretty much everywhere, and the iPod Touch can even log into the UCLA VPN. For the quick browsing session (to look up something or to kill time) it’s much better than having to carry around a netbook just for that purpose (I will admit that it would be a horrible device for taking notes).</p>
<p>i have the previous generation… if you just want to do cs projects then it should be no problem (i did that a couple times), but if you want to use it to play games while having safari loading webpages on a mac os it gets a little laggy… why not just use bootcamp? because main reason is that vm fusion will chew up your battery (i get 5 hours on mac os while if i run fusion the battery meter reduce to around 2 hours)
remote connection is another option but it lags even more than vm fusion… i have to use it for matlab program and i would type some code and wait a second before they appear lol
but yeah ipod touch is a great device to have (i can’t seem to get good battery life on my iphone so ipod touch was really useful for music and web browsing) but don’t count on ipod touch+desktop for college combo…</p>
<p>Yeah I would just use Fusion for CS projects when absolutely necessary. I don’t game, and everything else I would use Mac OS X for. The battery issue is OK since I would probably be plugged in if I was working on a Windows-only CS project for any length of time.</p>
<p>I agree that iPod Touch + desktop computer is not so good. I’m looking at MacBook + iPod Touch, which would be way better.</p>
<p>oh yeah if you are in your room then battery is a non-issue and i use vm fusion all the time, i did a lot of my programming during class as there are no power outlet and i had 2 programming classes so i needed at least 4 hours of battery :D</p>
<p>Hopefully I will only have to use Windows every once in a while for CS coursework though?</p>