Laptop for School

So, I'm going back to school in the fall, and I just built myself a pretty nice desktop. For law school, though, they wholly recommend that you have a laptop.

Thing is there are so many choices that it's totally frying my brain.

The system I built is running Windows XP and that will remain my main rig for playing games and watching TV shows/movies with. I also currently have all my music stored on it.

I've been thinking of going Mac, so many people who own MacBooks seem to love them. Plus, they're running that student deal again with a free iPod, free printer, and $100 off. I'm a little concerned, though.

1) Assuming I continue using my desktop for gaming and my MacBook for school work, how annoying will I find it if I can't share anything between my two comps?
1a) The Mac commercials pretty much say, "Hey, we suck at working, use PCs for that. Use us for fun!". Considering my laptop will be my main workspace, does that mean Mac is a stupid choice?

2) Might I be better off with a non-Mac laptop?
2a) What brands are good these days? Last time I bought a laptop, which was 6 years ago, Toshiba was the hot manufacturer.

I actually tried firing up my Satellite recently but since I've built 2 or 3 desktops since I purchased that, it now just seems unbearably slow.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

You can share pretty much everything (in terms of files) between the computers. Filetypes don't change just because the OS changes.

Unless you're talking about software. But I imagine you can get a pretty sweet deal on all the productivity software that you'll need from your school (e.g. $10 Office Suite, $10 OS upgrades, etc). I know that Microsoft and Apple both have deals with most large universities as far as that goes. And most of the other "must have" software for Macs is already free or very inexpensive. And with the growing population of mac users, it's becoming easier and easier to find five-finger discounted software through various means, as well (hello photoshop, toast, dreamweaver, games).

I've had my PowerBook for going on three years now. It has never crashed once. No BSoD (equivalent), nothing. It just works.

As far as working goes, what do you mean "work?" Word processing, file organization, article reading and the like? I don't really know what you need to be able to do for law school, but I can't imagine it's similar to what comp sci students need to do, so I really don't think there's anything you won't be able to do on a MacBook.

I'm glad that you're even considering a Mac, though. It's a big step. But once you go, you'll wonder what took you so long. If you're really skeptical, I suggest going and trying one out at an Apple store, or asking a friend who has one if you can see some of the features.

Additional Spam:
Just to give you some perspective:

My aunt works for IBM, she's a head marketer for the Z-Series business serverblades. For years and years everyone in my household swore up and down about IBM (Windows) PCs. She's always had an IBM laptop that she gets for work (because they give it to her for free), and they upgrade her about once every two years. Everyone in my family has had IBM desktops of some sort or another. But this last round of computer purchases, everyone got Macs. My sister and younger cousin got minis, my older cousin and my aunt got 15" MacBooks. And now my younger cousin just graduated from high school and got a MacBook as well. And all this because I was the deviant and bought a PowerBook three years ago and showed them all how easy, fast and reliable my computer was.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

According to the law school website, they do support Macs except for one program, ExamSoft, which is used for, obviously, taking exams. I checked out the ExamSoft website and they suggested that people with Macs can set up a dual boot with Windows. I suppose that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to have to set up.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by BlueMikey

According to the law school website, they do support Macs except for one program, ExamSoft, which is used for, obviously, taking exams. I checked out the ExamSoft website and they suggested that people with Macs can set up a dual boot with Windows. I suppose that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to have to set up.

Don't know how you feel about pirating software, but an easier solution would be to use Parallels for Mac. It basically lets you run another OS (such as XP) inside a window or full screen. Perfect for everything except games since Parallels won't give you anything close to decent 3D acceleration.

On a side note, it's really cool to use Parallels and VirtueDesktops in combination. Virtue adds multi-desktop support with neato visual effects when changing between them. So you could have your Mac desktop on one side of a spinning cube while running Windows XP simultaneously on another side. Makes life so much easier.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Oh yeah. It's very easy to run windows on a MacBook. You'd have no problem running that software.

How ya doing, buddy?

I got a BlackBook some four months ago, and haven't had a reason to regret it. To be honest, I primarily bought it because I like the design, and because of its small size. My previous laptop was 17 inches -- aka way too large; MacBook's 13 inches are perfect. I pretty much haven't had any problems with it. There are some Windows programs that I must use daily, so I virtually always have Parallels Desktop running, and it doesn't seem to affect system performance very much at all.

Get Mac, at least you know it'll be a reliable machine. With many other brands it's kind of hit-or-miss (my previous Fujitsu-Siemens laptop was a total piece of shit).

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I've had a Macbook Pro after switching over from my Dell, and have absolutely loved it. But yeah, just get Parallels 3.0, it's around $80 retail, so not too bad. It'll let you run all your Windows stuff in OSX, which is actually more useful than it first appears. I needed it because I still use a Dell printer, which doesn't have Mac drivers unfortunately.

I've had a couple of crashes on my Mac, but it's mostly because I toy around with things that I really shouldn't when on vacation. When using it as my work computer, I've never had a single problem.

Also, Leopard is coming out soon, and it's looking really nice. You can't really go wrong with a Macbook, and since you have a Windows box for gaming, you should be set.

FELIPE NO

I'd say just get a computer with a nice screen (perhaps one of those tablet PCs for when you're just reading long PDFs and you can just rotate the screen to view it portrait style) that's fairly cheap and has a long battery life. You really don't need much since you've got a quality desktop, so a cheap inexpensive laptop would be your best bet.

And if you do go buying a Mac, you should try to get it through the school since they'll give a 10 or 15% educational discount (not sure if that'll stack ontop of the rest, though).

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I guess I just have one more question. How useful is the extra $183 3-year warranty usually? I've never owned anything Apple...is there a fair chance I'll use this at some point?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

AppleCare isn't really necessary, and you can add AppleCare to your computer at any time within the first year of ownership (you don't have to get it initially).

Quote:

Every Mac comes with 90 days of telephone support and one year of service coverage at an Apple-authorized repair center. By purchasing the AppleCare Protection Plan with your Mac, you can extend your coverage to three years.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

That's one thing I've never liked about Apple warranties: only one year. Even a shitty HP or Acer will have three years coverage. Does Apple's warranty cover the battery at least?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Render

That's one thing I've never liked about Apple warranties: only one year. Even a shitty HP or Acer will have three years coverage. Does Apple's warranty cover the battery at least?

Pretty much yeah.

But then again, you don't really need warranties for things that don't break as often as shitty HPs and Acers.

And yeah, batteries are covered.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Shouldn't they be more willing to give a longer warranty as a selling point if they know it's going to last longer? =\

I was speaking idiomatically.

Sort of late, but whatever laptop he chooses, I recommend that BlueMikey gets the best quality LCD he can afford, without breaking his budget. I imagine he's going to be doing hours of reading on it, so something easy on the eyes is key. I'd say at least a 14.1" widescreen!

(Trade-off between portability, power, and screensize is something you have to decide for yourself though!)

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Originally Posted by RacinReaver

Shouldn't they be more willing to give a longer warranty as a selling point if they know it's going to last longer? =\

Probably because people are a lot meaner to their laptops after the one year mark. I took care of my Dell pretty well for the first year, but now I'm tossing it about and putting in bad positions ie, on the edges of desks or the trunk of my car. And Apple wants to make money. Even if their laptops are "better made aka by ASUS," shit happens. Three years a long time and I bet somewhere along the line, some people are going to run into breakage. One year, maybe not so much. I assume that if they're unwilling to do a longer warranty means the marketing potential versus profit comparison is showing that they'd rather save from the extra two years they aren't providing warranty service.

I would have suggested a shitty laptop for 600 dollars because you aren't using it for much. I mean, word processing and exam taking isn't going to require much. Law school is only three years, so you can toss that piece of crap after you're done. You have a nicer desktop for everything else.

FELIPE NO

I thought about that, but I'm going to be using it all the time. I wouldn't want a $2000 tablet or anything like that right now, but I'll probably be unhappy with my purchase if I use this nice, fast PC at night and don't have something at least somewhat comparable when I go to school in the morning.

Originally Posted by Zergrinch

Sort of late, but whatever laptop he chooses, I recommend that BlueMikey gets the best quality LCD he can afford, without breaking his budget. I imagine he's going to be doing hours of reading on it, so something easy on the eyes is key. I'd say at least a 14.1" widescreen!

I actually bought a 22" widescreen monitor for my desktop, so I figure if there's any heavy reading I need to do at home that I can't do on the PC for some reason, I'll do it on the Mac hooked up to this nice monitor. When I'm away from it, it will mostly be used for taking notes.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by BlueMikey

I thought about that, but I'm going to be using it all the time. I wouldn't want a $2000 tablet or anything like that right now, but I'll probably be unhappy with my purchase if I use this nice, fast PC at night and don't have something at least somewhat comparable when I go to school in the morning.

If you're just using it for school work (typing, reading, etc.), you probably won't need a very fast laptop. A super fast computer won't run office applications any faster than an outdated computer (unless the outdated computer is VERY outdated). If you're really only using it for school, just get something cheap.

And if you're considering buying a MacBook Pro, you should look at the Lenovo T series (aka IBM Thinkpad). I don't know anyone who has had both of these who has not liked the Thinkpad better, except for dumb Apple fanatics who are like "BUT IT DONT HAS OSX LOL." Keep in mind that if you have used both and like the MacBook better, don't think that I am calling you dumb.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

IBM thinkpads are pretty awesome. it dont has os x though.

Seriously though, I recommend a MacBook. They are fast, have amazing battery life, and (imho) OS X is better then windows (plus you could even run windows if you wanted.) The only downside to getting Apple hardware really is the price. ;_;

On the other hand, Radical is right; If you're just going to use it for typing, reading, and light browsing or whatever, you don't need a top-of-the-line machine. You can get a good hp/Apple/IBM/whatever pretty cheep used.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Radical

And if you're considering buying a MacBook Pro, you should look at the Lenovo T series (aka IBM Thinkpad). I don't know anyone who has had both of these who has not liked the Thinkpad better, except for dumb Apple fanatics who are like "BUT IT DONT HAS OSX LOL." Keep in mind that if you have used both and like the MacBook better, don't think that I am calling you dumb.

My aunt works for IBM, gets free ThinkPads (her latest is a Lenovo) for work. She still bought a MacBook for personal use. Granted, you haven't met my aunt. But she has worked with computers her whole life, and has worked with IBMs for 75% of her career. She likes how the new macs "just work."

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

It is not hard to get Windows to "just work". That said, I can see why people like Macs, and I have never met your aunt. Also, if she gets free Thinkpads and doesn't use them, she should give them to me.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by BlueMikey

I thought about that, but I'm going to be using it all the time. I wouldn't want a $2000 tablet or anything like that right now, but I'll probably be unhappy with my purchase if I use this nice, fast PC at night and don't have something at least somewhat comparable when I go to school in the morning.

A MacBook Pro is approximately 1800 to 2000 dollars. However, you do get $300 worth of extras (iPod Nano and the Printer) which is a good deal. I'd suggest going for the All-In-Ones than the photo-oriented ones. You may have to fork over $50, but scanning/copying is a wonderful tool.

I'm going to suggest a smaller laptop, and go for the regular MacBook. The smaller screen may offer less visual real estate, but lugging at 15'' is annoying. I also feel the MacBooks are more competitively priced than the MacBook Pros. I can easily find an HP or Dell laptop that is cheaper than a MacBook Pro, but finding one that's the same price as a Macbook is harder to do and you'll have to depend on Dell's random coupons and whatnot.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Oh, well, I was never planning on a Pro...you're right, if I wanted to spend that much I would have gone with a Tablet PC. I got the regular MacBook (just finished placing my order), the slowest processor they offer right now (Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz). I upped the hard drive to 120 GB (extra space to load Windows and possibly use it as my music storage rather than my PC). After tax, it came to a little over $1500 with the iPod and the printer, $300 of which I'll get back in a rebate.

Good idea on the all-in-one too, that's what I went with. There've been so many times that I wish I had a scanner and now I'll have one. Yay!

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Congratulations. You just bought your first Mac.

FELIPE NO

Wait, don't forget your accessories! You must have a Black Turtleneck sweater and a black beret.

Fucking hippies.

More importantly, did you get a Mighty Mouse? And did you NOT order Mac Office 2004? Because if you did, return that shit and wait for Mac Office 2008.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I did NOT order any additional software. I figure I'll use OpenOffice until I decide I don't like it.

No mouse yet, I'm gonna go to the Apple Store to see what I like best.

Jam it back in, in the dark.