| First, look at the Information Technology section of the website for the school or schools in question. That should tell you 1) whether Macs are supported there at all and 2) their recommended minimum configuration.
Next, consider what you want to do with the machine. If you are mainly using it for running iTunes and Safari, Finale or some other notation program, and writing the occasional paper then either laptop will provide sufficient computing power, provided you do not skimp on RAM. If you are going to be doing things that are CPU intensive, like recording or processing multiple audio tracks simultaneously or working with any sort of video, then you will want the fastest machine you can afford and might even consider a desktop over a laptop because you generally get a better price to performance ratio that way. |