<p>Which laptop is more beneficial for Wharton. If someone has been a PC user for ever, is it not wise to switch the summer before college. Any advice will be helpful!</p>
<p>Either Mac or PC will suite you fine, it depends on which you prefer.</p>
<p>Personally, I prefer Macs. The operating system is generally more secure and more stable than Windows thanks to it's Unix underpinnings. But most importantly for me, I find Mac OS X much faster than Windows (I'm talking about the operating system and software, not the hardware). Mac OS X also has a better Graphics User Interface and some features that Windows doesn't (it goes both ways of course: Windows has some features Macs don't, but I think Mac OS X is a more evolved and refined OS in terms of features and user interface).</p>
<p>Specific to your question about Wharton: Penn supports both Macs and PCs, so whichever you choose you should be fine. If necessary, you can run Windows on your Mac at native speeds.</p>
<p>As far as switching goes: moving over your music, documents, etc is really easy to do, the only "hard" part is getting used to Mac OS X. If you've used Macs before, this shouldn't be a problem. If you haven't, I'd recommend getting your computer a few months before school. You should get used to it pretty quickly, but you want to make sure you're used to it before school starts.</p>
<p>Wharton only supports Windows PCs. If you use a Mac, you're going to have to spend a lot of time in the labs, dual boot with Windows/BootCamp, or find some other creative solution.</p>
<p>Usually there's a mac equivalent of almost ever PC software out there. But if you really must buy Parallels or use bootcamp. As for getting used to a mac, it did not take me over two weeks to become 100% comfortable with a mac. Now everytime I use a PC I feel as if my hands are tied behind my back, it is so cumbersome.</p>
<p>For Wharton, there is no Mac equivalent of the software. You really must be using the Windows operating system.</p>
<p>Thanks Matt, do you think they could change this in the next year?</p>
<p>no, it won't be changing any time soon. (I work on campus for Wharton Computing, btw)</p>
<p>haha awesome, your the source I needed. So Wharton=PC, question answered. Thanks!</p>
<p>But it is important that although Wharton=PC you can still use a mac.</p>
<p>Yeah, that's fair.</p>
<p>If you already have a mac, you'll be fine. There are enough ways to make things work. If you're buying a computer before you go to college, and you're in Wharton, it would be better to get a Windows PC.</p>
<p>j/w -- what about Wharton requires a PC? Some kind of accounting software?</p>
<p>There's no way I'm buying a PC for college... I'll run bootcamp if I have to.</p>
<p>several classes have windows-only software. it's also a matter of policy - wharton has an official policy of only supporting windows, so any newly introduced programs or any support is limited to windows.</p>
<p>Wharton is a John Hodgman-style PC if there ever was one.</p>
<p>You can buy a Mac and then buy Windows (Vista or XP) from the Computer Connection for $80 and get the best of both worlds.</p>
<p>At this point, it's also one of the only ways to get Windows XP and avoid the giant steaming mound of fail that is Windows Vista.</p>
<p>I prefer PC w/ linux.</p>
<p>haha i had a similar thread a little bit earlier, but i’m not in wharton, so i’m probably going to go with a mac. whoo!
not to hijack this thread or anything, but does anyone have any fervent opposition to mac’s specifically at penn? (i heard stuff about bad connection or something. is that true?)</p>
<p>geez, don’t you guys watch the commercials? it’s pretty clear which one’s better if you watch them (the one with the fat guy)</p>
<p>the worst is definitely vista - people have problems connecting to wireless</p>