<p>I saw a post similar to this in the UCB forum. What type of laptop would you guys recommended. I have always loved mac and I was wondering if having a mac would somehow be a disadvantage because of compatability?</p>
<p>Maybe I should just get a vaio?</p>
<p>i have a vaio and i love it. </p>
<p>that said, i have lots and lots of friends with macs and they don't have any issues.</p>
<p>Thin and light? The Sony VAIO SZ and Gateway NX100X are good choices then, for only $1200.</p>
<p>compatibility with what? theres a lot of mac users here.</p>
<p>i like HP for a good mix of style, size, price, and quality. (the glossy lid on the dv series notebooks is perrty :D)</p>
<p>A mac would be good choice considering that UCLA has a promo that gets you a pretty loaded laptop for 999 vs the 1299 pricetag everywhere. You should not find any compatibility issues because you would probably be using it for word processing and surfing the net. </p>
<p>I haven't researched prices lately so I may not be entirely accurate, but about 1 semester ago I compared prices for Vaio vs anything else and you really pay for the name. I think I made my friends Vaio which cost like 1849. for like 1149 with Dell; there were minor differences but did not make up for the 700$ price difference.</p>
<p>i have a macbook pro, and i love it. its the best computer.. ever. my friend has one too and goes to ucb, he doesn't seem to have any problems with compatibility. :D </p>
<p>happy shopping!</p>
<p>doesnt UCLA store have a promo for $1999 on the 15" 2.33 ghz MBP? pretty good deal considering MSRP is $2499.</p>
<p>or was it $1499 on the 2.13ghz? i forget....</p>
<p>The HP Pavillion 6000 is a great machine and it's about 699 after rebates at Circuit City. Plenty of horsepower, speed, memory, connectivity, 15 inch screen. A college student doesn't need anything more than this machine has.</p>
<p>notebookreview.com</p>
<p>If you like the mac's style, but want Windows compatibility, you can always use Boot Camp.</p>
<p>I thought you get 100 dollar off the regular price when its macbook and 200 dollars off for macbook pro... well thats what it says online</p>
<p>thats the normal academic discount price, but UCLA store has been having a sale on MBP's for a few months now.</p>
<p>oh cool is that online? if so plz give me a link... or tell me how to find it... I normally just go to applestore page and click on schools then pick ucla but the discount is only 200 bucks</p>
<p>nvm I found it... so we have to buy it at UCLA store on campus? and do we need to present anything to them? since im still in highschool but pretty sure of going to UCLA next year... 99% chance going to LA and 1% for Berkeley(have to check out senior weekend before decision)</p>
<p>not sure what they require since ive never bought any computer stuff from there. probably just a bruincard (which you dont have yet...)</p>
<p>haha #13... same numbers for me. 99% UCLA - 1% Berkeley for a similar reason ;]!</p>
<p>
[quote]
The HP Pavillion 6000 is a great machine and it's about 699 after rebates at Circuit City. Plenty of horsepower, speed, memory, connectivity, 15 inch screen. A college student doesn't need anything more than this machine has.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>How about good product support and service when something goes wrong?</p>
<p>good point</p>
<p>I mean, I think that a lot of undergrads just look at the $700 price tag and go, "Oh! It must be a deal!"</p>
<p>Well, ask yourself some further questions.</p>
<p>How reliable will the machine be?
What kind of value is there on the margin? (think extras)
What happens if something goes boom?
What happens if I want to upgrade something?
What kinds of service plans are available? How much?
Battery life?
How good are the individual components?
What's the turnaround on service?</p>
<p>Etc.</p>
<p>get a mac... get it in august or something when apple has a lot of student discounts</p>
<p>
i've had a good experience with HP service (well, after getting the indian tech support to stop asking retarded "troubleshooting" questions and submit my service request). my backlight went out. total turnaround was like 3 days...picked up from my door, and delivered back to my door.</p>
<p>the only real component in question for reliability is the motherboard. everything else is made by a handfull of 3rd parties that sell their parts to all the PC makers, so components like hard drive, optical drive, LCD, etc are more or less the same between brands. i mean, i checked a macbook pro a while ago, and it had a fujitsu hard drive and toshiba optical drive....just like my HP (the fujitsu drive crapped out on me, btw).</p>