<p>Which laptop do Caltech students prefer? Specific models please. Either PC or Mac.</p>
<p>It mostly depends on your personal preferences. People use plenty of both, but it’s certainly easier to deal with downloading files and programs if you have Windows, or even Linux. Linux also works rather well; you don’t have to deal with some of the more annoying features of Windows. It isn’t a big deal either way, it depends mostly on what you prefer between the two.</p>
<p>I second jsd472- it really doesn’t matter. Pick one that you like and fits your budget.</p>
<p>Apple is evil so go with Windows LOL.</p>
<p>Macs are over twice as expensive, less compatible, and not any more reliable than a reputable PC brand (by this I mean abvoid Dell and Sony at all costs).</p>
<p>Additionally Mac parts are proprietary–Apple maintains a strict monopoly on them. If for any reason you need to repair your mac you’re in for some rather expensive bills. Also there will be fewer people around who will be able to help you with your mac in general.</p>
<p>Unless you absolutely need Final Cut Pro or something else, just stay away from Apple period.</p>
<p>Let’s not forget either that as crappy as Windows is OS X isn’t all that much less bloated, and runs a lot fewer applications. Parallels emulation is really slow also.</p>
<p>CarolusNorrisius: There are plenty of people here in every department who use macs, and they’re not using Final Cut Pro. People can use whatever they want and do just fine.</p>
<p>Not saying they can’t, shouldn’t, or don’t. Just saying they’re overpaying…</p>
<p>Compared to what I’ve seen at other universities, we have about twice as many Macs per-student. Probably about half of the CS students in my class use them. MBPs are getting pretty cheap–I’d get one of the new ones.</p>
<p>Almost all students take some CS courses, in which case Macs are so much easier, as they run on top of modified BSD Unix.</p>
<p>As for CarolusNorrisius’s argument about proprietary parts, chances are that you will get a laptop. And laptop parts are all proprietary except for hard drives and memory (for both PC’s and Macs).</p>
<p>I used PCs and Linux exclusively until my first year here. I got an MBP my first term, and haven’t looked back. I have a server and desktop (both run Ubuntu), but for a laptop, I would def go with a Mac.</p>
<p>I personally don’t really care whether people use macs or not, but this: “laptop parts are all proprietary except for hard drives and memory” is not right.</p>
<p>Most of the stuff in a barebones laptop is not proprietary; basically the only stuff that is case stuff (power, fans, LEDs, LCD etc.) and motherboard. You can replace and/or upgrade the graphics card (assuming there is one), wireless, bluetooth, memory, CPU, hard drives, optical bay (CD / DVD etc.) and even for the proprietary stuff like the motherboard, you can usually get replacement parts easier and less expensively than you could with macs.</p>
<p>That being said, if you were to buy the good warranty with the mac, you would never have to worry about replacing that stuff…</p>
<p>Additionally, if students are going to be coding it’s not like it’s that hard just to learn linux…</p>
<p>I personally don’t and never will own a mac, but it’s not for the reasons Carolus stated. For running electrical engineering programs, I need to use windows 99.9% of the time, and for the money I’d spend on a mac that COULD run windows I’d rather have a more powerful thinkpad.</p>
<p>Seriously, how many people have barebones laptops? Try replacing anything in an HP laptop. Also, the motherboard seems to be the #2 thing to replace in laptops, right behind the harddrive.</p>
<p>lol yes, both of these things are true. I’ve got a dell and pretty much everything in it has gone bad once, but I have onsite four year warranty so I don’t really care.</p>
<p>To avoid being misinterpreted, my main point is that Macs are just extremely expensive, the rest of my posts just try to say that you don’t get particularly much extra for the money. </p>
<p>I can’t be the only cost oriented consumer out there.</p>
<p>Perhaps on high end computers, macs are comparable in price to PC’s (I exist on a budget so I wouldn’t know), but for the average person’s needs, they are really obsecenely expensive. Check out any retailer’s website and start comparing specs to see…</p>
<p>I mispsoke about proprietary parts. I was only thinking of ram, hard drive, and wireless card, which are incidentally the only things I’ve ever needed to replace… I think most people share this experience.</p>
<p>@Lizzardfire: I thik we’re both in agrement actually “For running electrical engineering programs, I need to use windows 99.9% of the time, and for the money I’d spend on a mac that COULD run windows I’d rather have a more powerful thinkpad.”</p>
<p>Though thinkpads are a bit out of my pricerange…</p>