<p>Hi, I posted on the MIT 2015 page, but I wanted to expand more on my questions on getting a new laptop for college.</p>
<p>1) I currently have a working laptop. It's not top of the line, but it's gotten me through the last year of high school. I'm wondering if it's worth getting a new laptop for college, or if I should just duke it out and see how long this one lasts. At the moment, I'm running out of storage and I can feel it slowing down... <_< </p>
<p>2) What product discounts are available through MIT? (e.g. software and hardware) And are these discounts only able to be used once as a freshman? Or does this last throughout the 4 years?</p>
<p>3) Which operating system/brand of computer is most popular? Why?</p>
<p>4) Say my current laptop crashes halfway through the year. Is a transition into a newer, better computer viable? feasible? a pain in the butt? Can anyone say from personal experience?</p>
<p>1) It’s your last sentence that concerns me You don’t need a computer at MIT - there are many machines available for students to use in our Athena clusters - but it’s certainly useful to have a functional laptop, and most students do.</p>
<p>2) Check the IS&T website</p>
<p>3) “Windows, Mac, and various forms of Linux”. As for non-Macbooks, I see a lot of ThinkPads and Dells around. But I don’t pay much attention to this, though, so take that for what you will.</p>
<p>4) I just switched over to a new computer about a week or two ago. Just keep backups :)</p>
<p>I have a Lenovo. Dells suck, I love my Thinkpad. If you don’t have a laptop, you will be unable to read Reddit in class. This can be either a pro or a con depending on how you look at it.</p>
<p>But seriously, I have the T410, it is wonderful, I would highly recommend it. If you buy a cheaply-built laptop, it will fall apart. I dual-boot Windows for when I want to play videogames and Ubuntu for when I want to do actual work. I hate the look and feel of Macs, though, so it was an easy choice for me.</p>
<p>For reference: I’m a junior in 6-3 and I’m on my second laptop. My Dell started overheating and shutting down randomly after about a year. My Lenovo has gone through way more abuse and is still working like a charm. I use it for a lot of coding / videos / browsing the internet - probably at least 6 hours a day.</p>
<p>I have a 15" MBP that I bought the summer right before MIT - it’s approaching it’s 4th birthday now and it is getting to the point where I will get another laptop this summer, but I’m very happy with its performance over the last 4 years. (still functional, but it does have issues like the keyboard and trackpad don’t work anymore)</p>
<p>I understand why a lot of the computer people hate Macs (because it’s for “computer idiots who have too much money to burn”), but this computer has been excellent, and has been with me to several dozen different cities without ever giving me significant issues on the road. Apple has great customer service, so get the AppleCare warranty when you buy the computer - it’s worth its money several times over. Basically, Apple’s customer service philosophy is that if something is broken and you’re covered by AppleCare, they don’t try to fix the problem - they just give you a new part. I’ve gotten $1400 worth of new parts through AppleCare (the logic board on this computer needed to be replaced 1.5 years ago - that part alone cost almost $1000). I couldn’t fix the keyboard and trackpad issue because AppleCare expired right before these problems happened : ( (AppleCare is for 3 years).</p>
<p>Also, if you wait a month or so for the Macbook+iPod promotion to start, you get a free iPod touch with your Macbook, which helps offset some of the cost if you think Macs are too expensive.</p>
<p>I don’t do coding or anything, but I do use a lot of Photoshop and a decent amount iMovie - this computer is fantastic for media-related stuff. I don’t play games though, so it’s not really a problem that games don’t exist for Mac OS - you can also just dual-boot Windows using BootCamp if you really need Windows for something, though.</p>
<p>(I don’t know the broad breakdown of computer choices across campus, but I suspect it differs significantly by living group and choice of major - for example, 80% of the people in my living group (of 22) have Macs, but I’m quite sure this is not the norm, hahaha (we also don’t have any course 6 majors =p))</p>
<p>I live in a dorm that is about 45% course 6 (comp sci) and 22% course 18 (math). I am course 6 and I have a MacBook. Among my friends’ computers, I see a happy combination of MacBooks and Thinkpads, with a smaller minority population of Dells.</p>
<p>In case of computer emergencies, my dorm has several laptops you can borrow while you wait on your shiny new MacBook Pro. I don’t know if all dorms have this; if not, there are also a gazillion Athena clusters on campus and communal computers in dorms that you can use, though I prefer not to (keyboard==petri dish).</p>
<p>I can’t say that I’ve done anything my first year at MIT that required a particularly powerful computer, though it is nice to be able to handle Facebook, Gmail, an Excel file with my progress bars, my calendar, iTunes, several YouTube videos, all the 18.03 lecture notes from the past three weeks, zephyr, a book on Perl, and the p-set I have due tomorrow afternoon all open at once.</p>
<p>^i’m positive that in a webcast they said that you don’t need to bring a printer. there are printers everywhere to print stuff for free. correct me if i’m wrong.</p>
<p>Yes, you do not need to bring your own printer - I think all tMhe dorms have a communal printer for people to use. However, I have definitely wished that I had a printer because I didn’t want to walk down the stairs to get a pset, so YMMV.</p>
<p>I use our dorm’s one communal printer when I can, but it’s nice to have my own printer on days when the dorm’s printer starts covering all paper with bonus ink splotches, or lots of people are printing lots of things and class starts five minutes ago.</p>
You don’t need a computer at MIT - there are many machines available for students to use in our Athena clusters - but it’s certainly useful to have a functional laptop, and most students do.</p>