Hello, I will be attending UIUC for Computer Science this August and was wondering what laptop you guys would recommend. I know that some programs do not run on Mac, so should I go for another laptop? If so, which one do you think is the best? I am looking for something that is lightweight and will last me all four years as well as allow me to program well. Thank you for your help!
The manager of the Tech Zone (sells computers in the Student Center) said there is no specific recommendation from the CS department. Tech Zone has a sheet with suggested computers on both platforms, at three price points, that will have enough power and memory for students. Anecdotally, we’ve heard a lot of the teachers have Macs, but the students have a mix of PCs and Macs. We also had a tour of the CS department, led by 3 current students. They all had Macs. Also, the computer labs have plenty of computers for student use. (My S will be attending this fall and hasn’t chosen a computer yet.)
If you’re a computer science major a Mac should be perfectly fine. Because of its Unix kernel, OSX is actually more convenient than windows for computer science (though Microsoft is adding a Bash shell to Windows 10 so that point may become moot in about a month).
So don’t feel like you HAVE to buy a new computer, but if you are going to get one any machine with a modern processor and reasonable amount of RAM should be just fine.
Thank you for your advice,
I am actually in undecided engineering as of now, but I am leaning towards CS. If I end up going into another engineering discipline would a Mac be an issue? I am looking to buy a Mac Air, but if it will cause issues I would rather go with another brand.
A Mac should be fine for most engineering majors. If you go into MechE you may run into comparability issues (CAD software has a tendency to be Windows only), but you wouldn’t be doing much hard core CAD wiork on your personal machine and UIUC will have lab computers for that kind of work. There’s also parallels and bootcamp for the lighter weight windows stuff.