What computer to get?

<p>How long does a mac laptop usually last for? Alot of ppl say it will only last my 4 years at college.</p>

<p>I have a Mac and the engineering department at Clemson said that it is ok as long as I run Windows on it (running Vista on Boot Camp), just get a Mac with a good graphics card and max out the memory.</p>

<p>I’m hoping it will last me at least the 5 years in college</p>

<p>the cheapest and then get a new unit every two years.</p>

<p>DS experience with mac bookpros (3) has been two years before major failures occur. He’s had minor software problems that needed mac patches. </p>

<p>DS’s IBM T30 lasted 6 years before PS failure.</p>

<p>If i get a mac, I’ll probably get the macbook 13 inch. What kind of specs would be good to go and probably how much more would it cost?</p>

<p>There is a whole lot of misinformation on here about Macs. I own a Windows PC, a Linux box, and a Macbook. Let it also be noted that I was not too high on Mac before I got one. The MacBook and the Linux Box have the least amount of problems. The windows machine has slightly higher specs, but runs noticeably slower than the MacBook. The Mac OS X is a Unix based OS and I can only assume that the reason it is quicker is because like Linux it hogs less resources. My MacBook idles at 256k ram, whereas my windows machine idles at just over 512k. I enjoy all OS’s windows, linux, openSolaris, and Mac OS X. I just want to make sure people are not misinformed.</p>

<p>just get the regular macbook. it’s a pretty nice machine as is. upgrading the RAM is a good idea however. don’t buy the extra RAM straight from apple though–it’s way overpriced. just buy it online somewhere and put it in your computer yourself (it isn’t very hard).</p>

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<p>4 years is probably generous, but I wouldn’t say it’s a mac problem. I have only had the laptop I am typing this from for about 2.5 years and it’s already showing its age, specs wise.</p>

<p>If you are talking about the laptop only lasting 4 years, as in it breaks down in 4 years, you are misinformed or mistreating your laptop. If you are talking about your laptops specs being aged by 4 years, then I will tell you this your laptop and/or any computer you buy is old the day you buy it thats how fast silicon valley moves.</p>

<p>I agree, if you get a mac, get the lowest level macbook</p>

<p>regular as in the white one or the aluminum one?</p>

<p>get the white one, it’s cheaper and works just as well as the aluminum one (get a case though, it scratches easily) the only thing you should change when ordering is add as much memory as you can (4 GB)</p>

<p>scratch what i said actually about buying ram elsewhere. i just quickly looked at prices for the type of ram that the macbook uses, and paying $100 extra for apple’s ram upgrade is pretty reasonable.</p>

<p>I think I will get the MacBook Pro 13 inch with 4 GB RAM and the 320 GB Hard Drive for $1,350.</p>

<p>Of course, what’s to stop anyone from getting the better hardware for a Windows PC and putting linux on it and using that? Nothing, that’s what, and I know a ton of people who have done that. Of course if you’d rather stick with Apple - and there are pros to this, sure - that’s up to you. But don’t pretend that the preloaded OS is an overriding concern. If you’re going to use linux performance as the measuring stick, you can put linux on a PC…</p>

<p>I agree Auburn, which is what I have done in many cases. I was simply stating that Macs are not what some of the people on here are saying they are. If I had my way Linux would be the standard OS, but were long way from that if it ever happens.</p>

<p>didn’t Dell start producing laptops with ubuntu on them?</p>

<p>Someone did, but they probably came with the standard 1 year Dell lifespan anyway.</p>