Mac for college?

Alright so I need a LAPTOP for college. I already have a PC so don't recommend that. I want something that is extremely durable and lightweight. I also want something with a long battery, something that is extremely reliable. And i know Mac's are overpriced and all but i hear that they are really good for college. And i will NOT BE USING FOR GAMING, only for school purposes. I don't really want to spend over a grand, preferably not that much either. I like the sleek design of the macbooks and the sony vaio z series ( but that's over 2 grand ). And i am majoring in Biology/Pre-Med.

What's wrong with a good Windows based laptop? I wouldn't bother with a Macbook (or whatever they are called).

well, if you're not going to be gaming, then theyre are a lot of options to choose from for laptops. I think that the macs are overpriced, so i wouldnt consider one, would look for a laptop with a really long battery life.

If I were going back to school now I'd probably go with something from Dell's Studio line - the 14" one, most likely, as it's big enough to be usable and small enough to cart around campus.

http://www1.ca.dell.com/ca/en/home/Laptops/laptop-studio-1450/pd.aspx?refid=laptop-studio-1450&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1

There's nothing inherently wrong with Macs other than their excessively inflated price, but I passed on getting on in university for reasons like this:

The damn things are disturbingly invasive.

Something like this looks superb:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834127082

Another one i'm considering is this Sony Vaio VGN-CS215J/W . I know macs are overpriced but the reason they catch my eye is because 1) It's very reliable, 2) It's very sleek and nice looking, 3) A long battery life, 4) Very Lightweight and portable, 5) Excellent Quality and extreme durability. I have this like (OCD/ADD ?) thing where like if a laptop isn't sleek and nice looking i won't get it. And for the mac's since this is for college i get a free ipod touch that i could sell for a good $180 or so. Plus another say 50-200 Depending on the model if it's for college. @Tez --> Nothing, but if you can find something that fits my needs please suggest one. I would greatly appreciate it. RedxSniper

Macbooks aren't very durable at all. The plastic ones scratch and discolor very easily. The metal ones are more sturdy, but they dent. Maybe a Lenovo ThinkPad edge would be good for you?

Macbooks aren't very durable at all. The plastic ones scratch and discolor very easily. The metal ones are more sturdy, but they dent. Maybe a Lenovo ThinkPad edge would be good for you?

scoots9

I have a 13.3" macbook pro, i love it, i major in the same thing you will be majoring in, and my computer was the right choice. Dont listen to people that try to tlk you into pc's, ive had tons of them and always had problems, i havent had a single problem with my macbook. Trust me brother, go for the macstepuporshutup

Sounds like you're full of it imo.

There is no reason to buy a Macbook for college work. If you are feeble-minded enough to fall for Apple's marketing ploys (oh looks it's shiny!) then all there is to say is that I hope you enjoy wasting your money :lol:

[QUOTE="stepuporshutup"]I have a 13.3" macbook pro, i love it, i major in the same thing you will be majoring in, and my computer was the right choice. Dont listen to people that try to tlk you into pc's, ive had tons of them and always had problems, i havent had a single problem with my macbook. Trust me brother, go for the macTezcatlipoca666

Sounds like you're full of it imo.

There is no reason to buy a Macbook for college work. If you are feeble-minded enough to fall for Apple's marketing ploys (oh looks it's shiny!) then all there is to say is that I hope you enjoy wasting your money :lol:

Another one i'm considering is this Sony Vaio VGN-CS215J/W . I know macs are overpriced but the reason they catch my eye is because 1) It's very reliable, 2) It's very sleek and nice looking, 3) A long battery life, 4) Very Lightweight and portable, 5) Excellent Quality and extreme durability. I have this like (OCD/ADD ?) thing where like if a laptop isn't sleek and nice looking i won't get it. And for the mac's since this is for college i get a free ipod touch that i could sell for a good $180 or so. Plus another say 50-200 Depending on the model if it's for college. @Tez --> Nothing, but if you can find something that fits my needs please suggest one. I would greatly appreciate it. RedxSniper

I have a 13.3" macbook pro, i love it, i major in the same thing you will be majoring in, and my computer was the right choice. Dont listen to people that try to tlk you into pc's, ive had tons of them and always had problems, i havent had a single problem with my macbook. Trust me brother, go for the macstepuporshutup

Woah there's a lot of Apple hate in here. I'm a computing student at university in the UK and currently own a Dell Inspiron 13z as a partner to my main rig and it works pretty well. It's a thin and light with a Core 2 Duo ULV and it runs quite nicely, certainly a lot better than the Atom which is a dog of a processor and one that I wouldn't recommend to anyone at all. The only issue that I have with it is the relatively cheap & plasticy frame that it sits in and the slight lack of grunt that it provides from a programming perspective.

As for your dilemma, personally I would certainly consider a MBP 13 - despite what others have suggested. I do think that the build quality of the whole unit is sublime and you get something that not many other traditional Windows laptops seem able to provide, the combination of excellent battery life with a fairly powerful processor. I have a friend on my course who has one of the old aluminium models and he never really has a bad thing to say about it.

Edit: I forgot to mention, you can get a pretty nice discount on them if you're a student (15% if I recall correctly) which makes it slightly more affordable.

I'm a graduate from my University in the US and have seen the conflicts of many mac to pc users while I was at school. In the end I found that if you do not have to use a mac (not a graphic design artist or in a degree requiring a mac)then there is absolutely no reason to own a mac unless you just want one. Unlike macs though, the pc laptops allow for cheaper prices, vast amount of flexibility in choice, more open platform, easy installation of linux distros, and vast larger amount of programs to work for your system OS to OS . Now you may say that you can install windows on your mac but then that would be counterproductive and meaningless since you would be paying 2-3X the price to have windows compared to anyone else. The Mac OS is nice but for college it is a "whats hot" to have and not whats needed. I went to school with a eeepc with no problem but I only used it for light web surfing and taking notes in class and had my desktop for all my deeper class programs when needed. Easily a mid level 400-800 pc laptop with a 700 dollar desktop in your dorm will easily take care of any of your university needs. Let us not forget many colleges allow for windows OS discounts or is even put in your tuition so you can download it from the schools student websites.

Furthermore, they're only useful for taking notes in classes which have entirely verbal notes. If you take science courses, math courses, art courses, etc. a notebook will be worthless for notetaking. I'm a neuroscience major and I've seen many a college student try to take notes with their laptops only to fall far behind in class because they had to spend minutes putting together a simple graph that everyone else had finished drawing in seconds using pencil and paper.gameguy6700

From what i hear netbooks have bad performance. And this is making it harder to make a decision because there are people saying go for macs and there are people who aren't lol. :( I might wait a month or two for the new i5 cpus. And what about the m11x?

EDIT: Never mind the m11x is pretty bulky in size and isn't very sleek looking.

From what i hear netbooks have bad performance. And this is making it harder to make a decision because there are people saying go for macs and there are people who aren't lol. :( I might wait a month or two for the new i5 cpus. And what about the m11x?

EDIT: Never mind the m11x is pretty bulky in size and isn't very sleek looking.

RedxSniper

I wouldn't be against recommending a Mac is their prices weren't so high. I don't have a problem with Apple's software, just with their pricing and marketing.

For college work you want something inexpensive yet still reliable and with decent performance. Macbooks don't cater to those requirements. A 500-700 dollar Windows based laptop does. Often with the same performance as a >1000 dollar macbook.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220632 $700 (but currently $600)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114792 $600 (but currently $570)

And for comparison, a $930 laptop:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220717

Macbook costing $1000:

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook?mco=OTY2ODEwOQ

I like those two asus laptops. They look good and the 600$ laptop has worse parts than the macbook from what i can tell but im not very familiar with laptop specs so i don't really know. And it may be 1000$ but you get a free ipod touch so you'd be able to sell that for around 180$. So let's just assume it costs 820$ for now. I think theres another 50$ off since your a student, but lets just say 800$. Is this 200$ worth the performance gain over the 600$ laptop?

And the 600$ looks very nice and sleek but the only problem is it doesn't have a cd/dvd drive..

I like those two asus laptops. They look good and the 600$ laptop has worse parts than the macbook from what i can tell but im not very familiar with laptop specs so i don't really know. And it may be 1000$ but you get a free ipod touch so you'd be able to sell that for around 180$. So let's just assume it costs 820$ for now. I think theres another 50$ off since your a student, but lets just say 800$. Is this 200$ worth the performance gain over the 600$ laptop?

And the 600$ looks very nice and sleek but the only problem is it doesn't have a cd/dvd drive..

RedxSniper

The $600 laptop probably isn't as good as the $1000 macbook but keep in mind that there is a $400 difference. Interestingly though, the $700 Asus blows the Macbook out of the water. Sure the CPU isn't as fast but it's lighter than the macbook, has a great 8-cell battery, has more HDD space, has double the RAM, and looks nice.

Lets put it this way. If you really like the Macbook's look and you can find a way to get it cheaper than usual (or get some money back) then go for it. I'm merely trying to make you aware of all the options. I personally wouldn't get a Macbook over those laptops but if that's what you think would be best for you... it's your choice.

Oh... to reinforce those prices... The macbook goes up to $1150 dollars once you move to the compatible 320 gb hd and 4 gb of ram. It is well to know that its price moves to $1249 if its a 500 gb harddrive. Also, for some reason, the macbook have there Nvidia 320m vram memory dropped too 256mb I do believe (Macbook Specs)

At that price you are beginning to dwell into compatible powerhouse laptops in the 13-14 in screen size such as the Sony Vaio CW Series VPCCW27FX/B14 inch screen, Core I5 mobility 2.4 ghz, Nividia GT 330M 512 mb , 500 gb hd, 4 gb ram, blue ray player $1199

Belive me apple computers aren't as reliable as they are made out to be.I went from a windows based set-up to mac as i am currently studying sound engineering and studio engineering at collegfe (macs are the industry standard). So i bought myself the imac 24 inch and a macbook for college from my student funding from college. After 13 months the imacs hard drive failed, and after 15 months the macbooks screen decided to fail. The thing you need to remeber with apple is that it is the extensive costs of owning one, not the initial cost, you need to think of just little upgrades such as mouses and hard drives, that usually work out dearer than the windows couterparts. I bought myself the asus g513d laptop in the end for both my gaming needs and college needs and it awesome and runs like a dream. So what im saying is don't believe all the hype with apple products. They both have their upsieds and downsides, but for what you pay, in my opinion you certainly don't get what you pay for.if im going to pay 1000 pound for something i expect it to last longer than 12 months.

Woaw, slow down there peoples. If he wants a Mac, let him buy a Mac. Personally I'd take a Mac over a windows based lappy anyday.

How about this then.

Asus U30JC-AT Notebook 13 inch Core i3 2.26 ghz, geforce 310m 512 mb video card, 4gb ddr3 1066 ram, 320 gb harddrive, 8 cell battery $929.99

I will stress again though, you almost certainly will not need something even this strong for college. A nominal laptop such as those 600 and 700 dollar above would suffice easily. If you want a cd drive, you can easily just bring a usb dvd drive but for portability you could leave it in your dorm room.

If you want a cd drive, you can easily just bring a usb dvd drive but for portability you could leave it in your dorm room.

jedikevin2

True. Built in cd drives are not as useful as they used to be. An external drive in your room should suffice.. that is if you even need one. USB keys are all I have needed for my netbook (and I installed Windows and UNE that way).