Dell or Mac Book cost from Dartmouth

sybbie719
Sat, 23 Jun 2007 10:03:32 +0000

I just went directly to the source, I asked my kid. she said if you have a problem with your computer and it is a small thing, they will take it on the cuff and won’t charge you. However, if you need a new hard drive, you have accidential damage, or something replaced and you are out of warranty they are going to charge you parts and labor. (in our house, D had to have a hard drive replaced this year. when we went to the genius bar here in NYC, she had a small ding in her computer and they assumed that she had accidential damage and wa going to charge her $700 to fix her computer. I told her to wait until she got back to school with the worse case scenario, of purchasing a new one when she got there. She got back on campus, they looked her up fixed her computer for 0 and even replaced her keyboard).

The net-net is I guess you would have to do the math and decide for yourself what option works for you)

Stictly talking from a parent’s perspective. if I had to purchase a new mac the OP mentions by the time I added the cost of the service plan (I would never purchase a big ticket item with out a service plan. D just told me that new students have a 4 year svc plan) and sales tax (NH has no sales tax) the computer would cost me more purchasing on the outside than it would purchasing it through the school. Also looking at the current macs on sale to purchase the computer he talks about is (1582) before tax and software.

The fact that it comes out of the box and I don’t have to do anything but sign on and it is one less thing that has to be carried to Hanover is also appealing to me (but YMMV).

Macs are very user friendly. We were a hard core windows household (D had just gotten a new dell laptop the christmas before she graduated h.s., and ordered a mac, because they were “cute” and much smaller and lighter than the dells. She has never turned back and said she will never be a PC user again).