<p>I love the idea of sitting under a tree un a beautiful spring day working away on my laptop. However, are mobile and laptops with long battery life the best option or are powerful and big laptops the best?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>If you want to do that, get the iBook or Powerbook (for power obviously)</p>
<p>Second on the iBook and Powerbook.</p>
<p>I'd go for mobile laptops with good battery life, like the Ibooks and Powerbooks, but there are many Windows alternatives as well, I'm a Windows guy myself. Why not give us some basic info like your budget and what you'll be using the computer for and how much battery life you would like?</p>
<p>Budget is $2500 and under. The powrbook looks really good. Is that good for college?</p>
<p>Powerbook is great for college. iBook is great for college too. It is so not fun to get a big heavy unit......if you don't like small visual screen jack a big screen into it for your desk, that is a very popular option at my school.</p>
<p>What I am typing these letters with will be my last windows machine as a primary computer for a long time :)
And if you don't start until Fall 06, wait a little bit because I am sure apple will upgrade them significantly in the period between now and August 06...</p>
<p>With your large budget, I'd get the Powerbook over the Ibook. Both machines are great, but if you can afford the Powerbook, then I'd go for that, it is an excellent notebook for college. I just don't use Macs thats all, plus I don't have the cash, otherwise, I'd be all over the Powerbooks.</p>
<p>I've heard that sometime early next year, they'll be making Powerbooks with Intel processors which will be able to run Windows as well as Mac OSX....maybe you should wait?</p>
<p>"However, are mobile and laptops with long battery life the best option or are powerful and big laptops the best?"</p>
<p>No one can answer that for you, only you can. The best thing to do is to go to a store and see whether you are willing to live with a 12" screen laptop.. I know I can't.</p>
<p>It really depends on your preferences. Personally, I like the 17'' widescreen laptops more (preferably what HP/Apple/Dell offer), but that's just me. Watching movies and TV on those things are SWEET. Although they're alot less mobile, I still find it worth it. I'm willing to carry an extra 4-5 lbs if it means getting a sweet screen and system, but again...that's just me.</p>
<p>Get the small unit and then later get yourself a bigger flat screen to jack in for watching movies etc.</p>
<p>"I love the idea of sitting under a tree un a beautiful spring day working away on my laptop. However, are mobile and laptops with long battery life the best option or are powerful and big laptops the best?"</p>
<p>For $2500, you could get a notebook that is small, light, and powerful. I don't like the idea of being limited by a two-hour battery life when sitting under my tree and working. I use an IBM T42 that gets almost five hours of battery life and has enough power for Rome: Total War, not to mention any academic requirements.</p>
<p>I agree with those who suggested the Powerbook.</p>
<p>12" - 4.6 lbs
15" - 5.6 lbs
17" - 6.9 lbs</p>
<p>You choose. Battery life is ~5 hours for all of them, according to [url="<a href="http://www.apple.com/powerbook/specs.html%22%5DApple%5B/url">http://www.apple.com/powerbook/specs.html"]Apple[/url</a>].</p>
<p>What will you be doing with the computer? Will you be doing simple things like word processing, surfing the internet, listening to mp3s, etc. or will you be doing things like Gaming, heavy Photoshop, etc???</p>
<p>I'm going to be another person who recommends Apple here. I've got a 12" iBook which I absolutely love. It only weighs 2.2kg, so very light and easy to carry around, and I get about 4.5 hours out of the battery when using the wireless internet connection in college. However if you can afford it, go for the PowerBook, because they're more reliable than the iBook.</p>
<p>I'm majoring in Computer Science. Is the Apple even a good development computer? I can't believe it doesn't have Microsoft Visual C++.</p>
<p>PC's wise an IBM t-42 is good.</p>
<p>Well I have an iBook and I'm a CS major... there's great support for Java, there's C++ plugins for Eclipse if you want an IDE, then of course good ol' vim/emacs and GCC if that's what takes your fancy :)
There's a whole world outside of Microsoft :D</p>
<p>go for the iBook or powerbook, with that budget I'd get a powerbook (i'm typing on a 15inch right now =P)</p>
<p>I never use the computer for an extended time on the battery (I'd say I get about 4 horus?), but I could probably get longer battery life if I stopped running 9 programs at once...</p>
<p>Go for the ibook! It's practically bulletproof; the powerbook is more fragile which is especially important if you plan to be carrying it around and bring it outside. the ibook is plenty for college, and you wouldn't even notice the differences in a powerbook</p>