<p>
</p>
<p>True, but it probably still has the same proportions.</p>
<p>Does anyone here run Boot Camp (Microsoft OS on some portion of the drive) on their Mac? I know a fair number of gamers who do that because they prefer the Mac’s hardware and virus-free-ness but many high-quality games are PC only.</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>That’s about to change soon enough. Steam has officially released their Mac client, and will offer (almost?) every game on their catalog in a native Mac version sometime in the near future. Currently they have Team Fortress 2 and Portal as Mac versions. What’s even cooler about the service is that if you have a PC at home or have friends with PC gaming rigs, you can sign into your Steam account and play RIGHT WHERE YOU LEFT OFF (your levels/achievements are saved) whether you are on a PC or a Mac. If you want to know more about that, just Google “steam mac” and you’ll be able to find all the info you need. I don’t know much about it off the top of my head, but I’m fairly certain what I said above is correct. I also can’t post a link since that’d be advertising ):</p>
<p>But yes, if you have a game that’s Windows only, you can definitely run Bootcamp.</p>
<p>Can’t use demanding programs with a mac? You mean like Turbomole, Stata 64, Igor, Mathematica, PyRx, Molegro MMV, Labview, Circuitmaker (and even OriginPro with WINE)?</p>
<p>These programs run beautifully on my 4 year old white macbook with 4gb of ram. </p>
<p>Quantum chemistry might not be coffee shop computing, but I certainly do a lot of it at coffee shops.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>To be honest, the recent MacBook i5’s come with a GeForce 330M, which is an equivalent of a Radeon 5650. It’s a very competent graphics card. Probably run every game on the market today. </p>
<p>Then again, a MacBook Pro with those specs cost nearly 2000 dollars. My Acer with similar specs cost me 750. </p>
<p>I have no idea why people complain about viruses. It’s not like people remotely hack into your PC just sitting your desk. Very Matrix like, but not in real life.</p>
<p>I honestly am going for a PC. As sexy as a Mac is, the cost of features and specs will just be far too high by comparison to a similarly loaded PC.</p>
<p>
The average user does not need to care about the specifications you delineate. The most important aspect of a laptop for college would be its reliability and user experience, in both of which aspects Macbooks have the upper hand if compared with most of the Windows machines.</p>
<p>^ Depends on how you use it. I’ve never had a PC fail on me, and I’ve never had problems with viruses, malware, or adware.</p>
<p>I agree with what’s being said: get a PC. Frankly, the cheapest Macs (with student discount) are $849 ($999 without). With that money, you could buy a PC that has all the specs that you care about and then buy a good spyware subscription… and STILL save some money;p</p>
<p>Well, I’m going to be using the labtap that I’ve always been using so… PC for me.</p>
<p>^I LOVE your location: that book brings back childhood memories:) well, the good ones:p</p>
<p>^Haha, thanks :).</p>