<p>The trouble with PCs is people don’t want to spend the same amount of money they would for a Mac. They have troubles with their cheap PC, then buy a MAC and complain their $500 PC wasn’t nearly as well built as their new $2000+ Mac.</p>
<p>Well… duh!</p>
<p>You said you’re in “Science”, but didn’t elaborate. PCs are much more the norm in “Science” and absolutely dominate in engineering. G-d forbid you’re going for engineering and are evening thinking of a Mac! </p>
<p>Before you make this decision, you ought to have a conversation with people in your major… at your school. </p>
<p>Don’t even start me on the dual boot thing. We’ve got an iProduct uber-fan at work and he has nothing but problems with his Mac. Always blaming the PC applications. Funny thing… the rest of us never have a problem. </p>
<p>Come to think of it, he used to drive a Taurus, then bought an Infinity M-something. Now he complains his $20K-something Ford wasn’t nearly as well built as his new $40K+ Infinity. </p>
<p>Anyways, I always suggest Thinkpad out of experience. I’ve dropped it more than a couple times, and the only problem I’ve had in my 2-3 years owning it was a tiny chip on the corner of the bezel. Which Lenovo gladly fixed. </p>
<p>I’ve played around with some friends mbps, and they seemed sluggish. Which was surprising, especially considering they weren’t power users. Admittedly though, I didn’t know the specs, so they may have been underpowered. </p>
<p>Edit: Wierd. I was trying to quote maikai.
Sent from my HTC Glacier using CC</p>
<p>If the price of the mac is not a big deal, buy a mac and you can put windows 7 on it aswell as mac osx and you basically have a mac and a pc! Thats if you look at the mac vs pc argument solely on software.</p>
<p>All of the engineering and honors college advisors at my school said that a Mac would work well for bioengineering. I’m not positive about other schools or other disciplines, but that’s how it is at Maryland. The majority of bioengineering students I talked to recommended a Mac. </p>
<p>In terms of cost… My school’s academic computers for Terps program lists recommended systems. A Mac and a PC with exactly the same specs cost the same most of the time. If not, the PC was actually more expensive. I was surprised when I saw this because I was under the impression that PCs are always cheaper. If you want a cheaper PC, it will be an inferior machine usually. Along with the Mac’s OS and unibody construction, the choice to switch from PC to Mac was easy.</p>
<p>If you learn how to upgrade your own computer , Windows based laptops will ALWAYS be cheaper. All computer companies like to rip off people when it comes to upgrades.</p>
<p>Lenovo Thinkpads generally have great build quality and are generally cheaper than MacBook Pros. </p>
<p>Also the only Mac laptop that has an IPS LCD screen is the retina MacBook Pro. </p>
<p>I can buy 8 GB of DDR3 RAM for $30-40 and put it in a Windows based computer myself.
I can buy a 256 GB high quality SSD for $200 or less.</p>
<p>Apple makes about half of their laptops hard or impossible to upgrade.</p>
<p>Here is an example… I effectively paid ~$650 for my Dell Vostro 3550 including the upgrades I put in myself.</p>
<p>Compare that to a MacBook Pro with similar specs. How much would it be? Also keep in mind I can change my battery whenever I want without voiding my warranty or paying someone to do it.</p>
<p>The point is you don’t have to buy an Apple computer to get a good , durable computer.</p>
<p>I prefer not to buy Apple laptops since they don’t have the hardware support I’m looking for.</p>
<p>If you rather spend $1000+ on a computer and be stuck will something that’s hard or impossible to upgrade , an Apple computer would be great for you.</p>
<p>Personally I’m used to changing CPUs , thermal paste , RAM , HDDs , etc in laptops so I don’t like that Apple makes it hard or impossible to do that. I also like that some laptop companies offer a modular battery for their laptops ( Apple doesn’t though).</p>
<p>@del_psi yeah I agree that if you want to upgrade it yourself PCs are the way to go, but the only way to get the 4 year warranty through the school (including repairs and loaner laptops) is to buy a recommended system through ACT. I was mostly responding to the Mac for engineering comment, just pointing out how it is in my situation.</p>