<p>Also, the OP (Very handy!) said that they do not want the capability to go on the internet, but isn’t that pretty neccesary for college?</p>
<p>oh. i already have a bigger laptop that can connect to the internet. but it’s too big and heavy to drag everywhere. that’s why i don’t need the second one to.</p>
<p>It’ll be very hard to find a new laptop these days that doesn’t have the capability to get on the internet easily, because most have wireless cards–even the absolute cheapest that I’ve seen at the local electronics store (about 400-500) have them. But you can turn these cards off if you so choose.</p>
<p>Can you recommend a really good laptop to bring to college?
Thanks</p>
<p>Macbook</p>
<p>Easiest to connect to any internet, no viruses, no spyware, you cant screw it up. You dont have to mess with installations, it comes ready to go out of the box. 80 gigs of memory. If you really need windows for some applications, you can install Bootcamp or a similar program, and just use Windows for that specific program, but use the Mac OS for everything else (sounds much much more complicated or annoying than it is!)</p>
<p>[Apple</a> - MacBook - Technical Specifications](<a href=“http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html]Apple”>Mac - Apple)</p>
<p>Personally, I am planning on getting a Macbook. Simple and easy to use, which is exactly what I was hoping for.</p>
<p>Asus Eee is cool but there are a 2 huge problems:</p>
<p>1) because of short supplies, You’re not going to find a new one for less than $600 (if that)
2) they are too physically small and weakly powered, to be practical for everyday use</p>
<p>shouldn’t this thread be in the computer section of this forum?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, it does not. Only a high end server has 80 gigs of memory. A Macbook pro will come with 2, expandable to 4.</p>
<p>I’m going to get accused for being a Mac hater again, but wsuwarrior10 you have to give up with the fud in this thread. Every modern pc comes with the ability to connect to the internet “easily.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You can screw up on any computer in the world. Very easily.</p>
<p>Macbooks are the best overall- generally speaking, they’re better built than most Windows units, and Mac OS X is also a lot more stable than either XP or Vista. Plus, if you absolutely have to, you can run XP or Vista on the Mac.</p>
<p>My apologies, the low end one has 80 gigs of storage. </p>
<p>And yes, anyone can screw up any computer. In my experience (I go to a laptop university that supports both Mac and Windows) the Mac users have far less problems, visit tech support much much less, and in general have less difficulties with the computer. </p>
<p>As far as the ease of connecting to the internet, yes, every new computer has the ability to connect. Macbooks are just very good at searching for open networks and connecting easily. Again, this is my experience on a laptop university, so if you disagree, thats ok, its my opinion. </p>
<p>I think for just about any college student, wanting a virus free, easy to use, and much quicker starting computer(boot time for Macbook is less then 1/2 of MOST PC’s)</p>
<p><a href=“boot%20time%20for%20Macbook%20is%20less%20then%201/2%20of%20MOST%20PC’s”>quote</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yeah, and most PCs cost around the $800-$1200 area. A Macbook pro costs in the $2300-$3100 region. If you want to compare the performance of a computer, you need to keep some kind of controls. On average, in terms of boot time or any other performance category, a Macbook pro does not do any better than similarly-priced PCs.</p>
<p>boot-time plus startup time is faster on a Mac, pro or not, unless you have an extensively tweaked PC. i’ve done lots of registry tweaks to my computer and went through my startup services and programs, and it’s still slower, and it’s not some cheap good-for-nothing laptop either. the main issue for me is startup time, and i theoretically could make it as fast, but i’d have to eliminate my firewall, power management, and one or two other apps to make it that way. i’m also convinced that tweakXP is slowing it down…but there’re certain things i can’t do easily without it. the hard drive speeds are the same between my computer and the Macs i’ve compared it to (5400 rpm).</p>
<p>MBPs are $2000-2800 not including discounts, btw. you can throw the warranty on top and get the $2300-3100 figure, but it’s not as if you’re not paying extra for PC warranties.</p>
<p>a white Macbook is difficult to beat for the price, and an MBP isn’t that extravagant a purchase as some make it if you buy a 15". sure, you can buy a similar Windows laptop…but it won’t have OSX, one of the best keyboards, the best monitor, and well above average build quality, among other things.</p>
<p>Apple’s small market share is not the sole reason for why Macs do not have viruses.</p>
<p>however, i don’t understand why Apple is so unwilling to put more USB ports in.</p>
<p>and just to make this post more balanced, you can justify just about any non-Dell Inspiron PC that’s the same price or cheaper than a Mac as long as it comes with XP, or you have a copy of XP to put on it.</p>
<p>I have the basic Macbook, starting price for these would be $1099. The most expensive Macbook is the 13.3 inch Black Macbook for $1499. </p>
<p>2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
1GB memory
160GB hard drive
Double-layer SuperDrive</p>
<p>Im done pushing the Mac, I think what I’ve put on here is pretty sufficient. The hardest thing to do is to get PC people to try and switch. My experience is that anyone who made the switch wouldnt go back. But if PC is your thing, by all means, go for it.</p>
<p>wsuwarrior10, as a user of both macs and pcs i can say that networking is just as easy on both machines so long as you aren’t going cross platform. if you want to share files over a network on Macs and PCs you have to enable some settings. It’s doable for sure, just a bit of tweaky around on both systems. i actually bought a Mac Mini just to learn the OS X. It’s definitely easy to learn and I recommend it to some people depending on the things they do. However you’ll never catch me using a Mac as a primary computer that’s for sure. I can come up with a list of things that isn’t straight forward on the OS X and requires tweaking that is easily available on a XP/Vista machine. The one thing that is hard to dispute is that Macs do maintain better value over time than a similarly priced PC.</p>
<p>tetrahedr0n, spec for spec, you can definitely build a PC for cheaper. How fast the OS boots up is all relative to the specs on your machine of course.</p>
<p>toxic_waste, any machine running Vista will run fine so long as the machine was build to run Vista. I use Vista and have used most flavors of XP (Tablet Edition, Media Center, Pro, Home, except x64) and I could never go back to XP. Vista just loads so much quicker and handles my programs so much better. I only use XP on my tablet because that’s what it came with. Most complaints about Vista stem from 3 things: software compatibility, drivers, and hardware. The first two are not the fault of the OS as it’s up to the software developers to make their programs compatible with each new OS that comes out. A lot of these companies had the beta and RC versions of Vista for a while and still didn’t develop or update as needed. The last issue is mainly the fault of the computer manufacturers putting Vista on machines that have the minimum req. for Vista. All three were issues with XP when it first came out as well. And indeed, as with XP all three were improved after a year. I’ve used Leopard and Vista and I personally like Vista better. OS X makes it so simple that some options you’d get on Vista can’t be configured unless you go into terminal and use the respective commands.</p>