<p>I'm an incoming freshmen needing a laptop. I've used Microsoft pretty much my whole life. But I recently discovered that Mac are not as complicated as I presumed. So now I'm stuck in whether I should get a Mac or Microsoft based laptop. I haven't used the Mac enough to determine the pros and cons of the two companies... Please help!!</p>
<p>Dell is pretty crappy... if you're going windows, pick some other company.</p>
<p>thanks!!
how'bout a Sony Vaio or HP?</p>
<p>I wouldn't say Dell is crappy - some of the PCs/Laptops they make can be crappy, but those are the ones which are half the price of an HP or Vaio, that's expected. </p>
<p>If you consider yourself somewhat tech savvy (you know about Adware, Firefox, and how to use a firewall), then Windows-based laptop might be a better option. If you don't really care for those things, I think you would be best with a Mac. And nowadays you can run XP/Vista on MacBooks anyway, so there aren't compatibility issues anymore). The disadvantage of MacBooks is that they're a bit more expensive.</p>
<p>Thanks!! </p>
<p>but Macs come with more applications right? Windows, by contrast, need to have applications such as Word, Exel etc installed...?</p>
<p>Installing that stuff takes like 5 minutes. Insert CD, follow directions. If you don't have the CD, download the bin and cue or iso file and run the setup. Not sure if Macs come with more applications. I believe Windows still has better software compatibility. If you're a programmer, you'd probably be better off with Windows.</p>
<p>Not sure why people hate on Dell, they're more than sufficient for what any student needs, and at like what...$600? Which is pretty cheap. I used a 5 year old Thinkpad for my first year and it was fine. Also, I recommend Acer. They're computers are nice and affordable.</p>
<p>Yeah, but phroz3n, you need to buy it first. Office 2007 for Students costs something like $100. That's not a small number, especially for people on a budget.</p>
<p>If a PC doesn't come with it, I doubt a mac would. Secondly, just use notepad then...it probably beats the word processors macs come with. Third, when you get to Berkeley, DC++. Problem solved.</p>
<p>All my friends who purchased Dell comps (expensive ones at that) told me they had lots of problems with reliability and functionality.</p>
<p>If you like to customize your own laptop, go to site like: ibuyPower, cyberPowerPC, Asus... These are pretty good laptops with very solid hardware's specs. I heard both positive and negative reviews about Dell, but negative more than positive. Sony and Toshiba are high-end brands, but there are no guarantee that they're better than Dell's.
Now you can experience Windows on a Mac machine, so go for it if you like both OS's. Boot camp is an option to do so.</p>
<p>Get a Gateway dude. Problem solved.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If a PC doesn't come with it, I doubt a mac would. Secondly, just use notepad then...it probably beats the word processors macs come with. Third, when you get to Berkeley, DC++. Problem solved.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Erm... not quite.
In any case, basically all Microsoft Office applications that are in Windows are also in Mac. Not preinstalled, but just as easily amended with torrents or DC++.</p>
<p>I actually like the Mac versions somewhat better because they forced Microsoft to abandon some legacy code in their Office applications, so my Mac versions are faster.</p>
<p>I used to use exclusively Windows too until Bootcamp came around and I could run both Windows and Mac stuff.</p>
<p>The nice thing about a Mac is it has a lot of things designed for convenience of the user, and whenever something breaks, you give it to the Apple Store and they send it back to you fixed in 3-5 days after you dropped it off.
<em>shrug</em></p>
<p>If you're more comfortable with Windows, go with Windows.
But I suggest if you do--don't use Be Secure (the CD of "required" security programs). It messes up your machine more than a little. Come with your own security suite and use those--the checking system ResComp uses doesn't care what you use as long as it can't get into your system.</p>
<p>This comes up all the time on this forum, and a lot of misinformation gets passed around...</p>
<p>Office does not come free on the Mac. It is rarely included on Wintels these days, either. However, these are bold new times, my friends! You can actually get robust, well-developed FREE office suites on both the Mac and Windows (and Linux if you're a nerd like me.) OpenOffice.org and all of its mutated variants are excellent and robust alternatives to Office. In fact, I prefer some of the features on OOo to Office. </p>
<p>Quick sidenote: Macs are only more expensive if you only consider the pure hardware specs. If you add everything (including service) up on the margin, then Macs are actually fairly competitively prices with other "luxury" computer brands like Lenovos. </p>
<p>Back to Office and software on the Mac...</p>
<p>You can get 99% (games excluded) of all games on the Mac that you can get on a Wintel. And these days the software selection on the Mac is exploding thanks to the move to Intel hardware. In reality, I find that a lot of the open source and freeware on the intarweb is better on the Mac than Windows. Part of that is Aqua, and part of that is the sort of myopic "Macthink" that developers for the Mac tend to suffer from (good for us Mac users, really.) </p>
<p>But in reality, much of the open source community is doing the whole cross platform thing, and great software like VLC and OOo are available on all sorts of platforms.</p>
<p>Oh, and Office for the Mac currently sucks if you're working with large Excel files, thanks to Rosetta. I actually try to use OOo as much as I can, as it's universal binary (in other words, it runs on both Intel and PPC.) But I also tend to believe in the whole open source mission, and I think it yields a wonderful bounty of free software.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You can get 99% (games excluded) of all games on the Mac that you can get on a Wintel.
[/quote]
Do you mean you can get 99% of software on Macs that you can on Windows. That's somewhat true, but in engineering there are a lot of programs that are Windows only.</p>
<p>I really support the FOSS movement too, and OpenOffice is a great alternative to MS Office. But it still has its problems, especially in interacting with Word documents (reading stuff that others made in MS Office 2007, for example).</p>
<p>
[quote]
You can get 99% (games excluded) of all games on the Mac that you can get on a Wintel.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I bought a Macbook Pro as a gamer, and find that it performs much better than same-generation laptops (and many desktops) that my friends with PCs use.</p>
<p>Just use Bootcamp for the games that require 3D acceleration.</p>
<p>Generally, everything being put together when its meant to work together (because Apple builds them, and does it all alike) makes things work better because it's all perfectly compatible (weird sentence, but nice rhythm). It does make comparable systems more expensive on Macs, as UCLAri points out though.</p>
<p>I guess I'm a convert (only for Intel Macs where I don't have to sacrifice being able to run things, however), but my view is I'd rather have a high-priced laptop for a long time rather than one that quickly starts petering out on me even though its cheaper. I've already made back the price difference on my Macbook on a complete LCD replacement on the thing anyhow (for free, covered by warranty). Apple support for their products is very good--better than my experiences with PCs, in any case.</p>
<p>cppdev,</p>
<p>Yes. That was a typo on my part.</p>
<p>Again, engineering software equals maybe a percent of the software on the market for most end-users.</p>
<p>Allorion,</p>
<p>I'm quite satisfied with gaming on my Mac.</p>
<p>I guess the consensus here is that you get what you pay for, and in the MacBook's case you get the advantages of Apple's customer support and OS, among other things, but you do have to pay more for it. I completely agree with this, and to the OP, if you're willing to pay that much, a MacBook might be a good option. If you can't spend that much, there are alternatives.</p>
<p>I also suggest a look at Lenovo and Asus if you maybe want to shave off a few bucks. You lose MacOS, however. And that's a real shame in my opinion, as it's probably most of the reason I prefer my Mac.</p>
<p>UCLAri: do you know anything about programming on Macs? I've read a few times that if you're going into computer science, a PC is better, though I'm wouldn't be surprised if the opposite were true.</p>
<p>As an added note, in looking for laptops and trying various different companies, it seems that most either 1) can't compete in specs with the new Macbook, or 2) can compete, but can't compare in price (i.e. much more expensive). It could've been just because of what I personally was looking for, though.</p>
<p>I'm not much of a programmer myself, and I tend to avoid it at all costs (unless it means doing some Java or php...) but I tend to agree with Amit Singh over at kernelthread.com:</p>