cheersfan

Does anyone have a recommendation on what would be a good laptop for eecs? and separately for MechE? Macs dont offer accidental damage protection so they are not a good choice for me.

LauraN

Here's the link to IS&Ts recommended configurations. If you follow the links on the site you can use your MIT ID to get a discount. Anything off of that page will definitely be sufficient for whatever computing you need to do, regardless of your major.

MIT IS&T: Recommended Laptops

rainynightstarz

I am going to do EECS. But I've seen quite a number of Macs and IBM and well pretty much any computer companies (HP, dell, sony).

for MechE, I heard Mac doesn't support Solidwords, so if you are doing MechE you might want to stay away from Mac (although they are soooooooooooo pretty!).

I have a HP right now. It was pretty cheap compare to some other laptops (less than 800 a year ago (like 1/3 of Mac book pro), 2.2GHZ, 2gb ram, DVD write, webcam. etc etc)
In maybe 2-3 years, when this laptop dies, I think I might get a Sony. Macs are expensive. ThinkPads aren't as great as before (IBM to Lenevo)

but yeah go to the IS&T for recommendations of configs if you don't know where to start.

LauraN

While its true that you can't run many MechE software packages on Mac OS, all new Macs come with Bootcamp, which allows you to partition the hard drive and add Windows OS to the system. And, as an MIT student you get a couple free downloads of XP....errr...you did anyway, not positive if that's changed recently or will change soon with Vista and all.

So yeah, don't let that stop you from getting a Mac. =)

thekidhere

MIT students get 2 copies of XP and 1 copy of Vista.