<p>What kind of laptop should I buy if I am planning to study civil engineering?</p>
<p>It really doesn't matter. Pretty much all civil engineering programs are for PCs, but even if you get a Mac, you can run Windows programs through if you have... (i'm not sure what the name of the program is).</p>
<p>Just get whatever you feel best with.</p>
<p>it's called boot camp.</p>
<p>One that can run programs like a word processor and lets you check emails. These are very important tools!</p>
<p>Check if your school has a recommended setup. As a civil engineer you are bound to use AutoCAD or a similar program, so a laptop without integrated graphics would be better (in my mind). My school issued the Compaq/HP nw8440, which is a "mobile workstation", only real difference from a normal laptop being a 5200V FireGL graphics card which I believe is optimized for programs like AutoCAD, Solid Edge, etc, but it is based off of the mobility radeon X1600 I think.</p>
<p>My advice:
-Check with your university
-Avoid Integrated Graphics
-15" or an external monitor for CAD work (I don't feel burdened by a 15" and I bring it to every class, some people would say smaller=better though)
-At least 1GB of memory
-Core 2 Duo or equivalent</p>
<p>I'm an Apple fan, but I can't imagine running something like AutoCAD on a 13" screen(MacBook) and the graphics card is integrated, right? You could probably do it. If my school didn't decide our laptops then I would have probably gotten a MacBook Pro and used Bootcamp when necessary.</p>
<p>You can run a virtual machine - basically running two OSs at the same time - its called Parallels (on a Mac). You can use BootCamp, but you can run either Mac OSX or Windows XP/Vista one at a time.</p>
<p>As far as laptops go, I would say this: Get an IBM ThinkPad or something similiar. I'm an EE and I have a MacBook. Its been great to me, but when I need to run things like PSpice - can't really do it. Also, MSWord tens to be a little slow, compared to a PC (and yes I do have my MB maxed out to 2GB of RAM). I'm just stating off of experience.</p>
<p>If you do get a Mac, as JohnWillkins said, get an external monitor. I purchased a 24" monitor (not mainly for school, but for entertainment purposes, and it has helped me a ton for school).</p>
<p>I second getting the external monitor as well. Running a dual monitor setup has helped me a lot in being more productive.</p>
<p>Is a Macbook Pro good for a ME major that needs to run Solidworks/AutoCad/Pro/E?</p>
<p>It would probably be better to just NOT get a mac. No reason to make everything harder on yourself.</p>
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Is a Macbook Pro good for a ME major that needs to run Solidworks/AutoCad/Pro/E?
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<p>an MBP is more than enough. it's as powerful as a high-end gaming PC...</p>
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[quote]
Also, MSWord tens to be a little slow, compared to a PC (and yes I do have my MB maxed out to 2GB of RAM). I'm just stating off of experience.
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<p>this has to do with the software optimization from the factory - MSOffice, IE, etc. are tuned specifically for Windows, and Adobe products are tuned for Apple, for example.</p>
<p>is there a way to ‘tune’ msoffice for apple?</p>