<p>Trying to figure out what kind of laptop to buy</p>
<p>I don’t know what kind of school it is, but why anybody would pass up on a $1000 Mac with free iPod touch and printer baffles me.</p>
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<p>Because you can get a better PC, better mp3 player, and better printer for less than $1000. Obviously, it’s a matter of opinion.</p>
<p>And a lot better viruses.</p>
<p>viruses=true story</p>
<p>MAC!!! i hardly know anyone with a PC. and you do get a free printer and ipod. and if something goes wrong, the student tech people are much better with macs than they are with PCs. i’d say it’s worth the money.</p>
<p>If something goes wrong with a PC, you ought to know basics of how to fix it.</p>
<p>Viruses shouldn’t be an issue if you use proper protection and don’t download sketchy files.</p>
<p>I love my mac AND my sketchy files!</p>
<p>Whichever one you feel more comfortable with. But if you are to get a PC, I would recommend a business-class PC, like a Thinkpad (R, T, X series) or a Dell Latitude.</p>
<p>I heard Yale is about 1:1 Mac:PC ratio.</p>
<p>yes, i’ve heard the same thing (1:1 mac to pc ratio.)</p>
<p>i’ve also heard that the student techs are equally adept at fixing problems with both computers.</p>
<p>Linux, Mac, PC… Yale ST’s can handle them all.</p>
<p>HOWEVER, even though it will cost slightly more in terms of hardware, GET A MAC. I use both macs and pc’s, and, although Linux is also good, I cannot express to you how much cleaner (in the backend) the Mac OS is. Macs are easy to use and they will be able to run 99-100% of what you need to use at Yale. But most importantly, WHEN YOU ARE BUSY IN THE MIDDLE OF A PAPER OR LIFE IN GENERAL AT YALE YOU DON’T WANT TO DEAL WITH CRASHES OR VIRUSES. Quite simply, macs have less of both of those… and they can also boot up Windows if necessary.</p>
<p>HOWEVER, even though the mac software is way better, do buy the Applecare with your mac laptop. I find that the laptop hardware can screw up in the 2nd or 3rd year, and Applecare makes fixes free and easy. According to macrumors (a fan site), get applecare on ebay because it is cheaper than getting it direct from Apple and Apple will honor even the cheap ones you get from Ebay.</p>
<p>If price is too much of an issue, you don’t reallly have a choice… but I’d say definitely get a mac if you can afford it.</p>
<p>As an alum, the fascinating thing about this conversation is that not many years ago, the then doofus in charge of Yale technology tried to impose a Windows only standard. Look it up. Besides the infringement on choice, it was a dumb decision from a learning perspective because life is not one operating system. </p>
<p>BTW, another school which I then had ties to imposed a Windows only policy and said their graduates could - I’m not making this up - “parachute in” to corporate environments. I told them, in rather harsh language, that if they actually wanted to prepare their students for corporate life, they’d give them a mix of legacy operating systems that don’t speak to each other.</p>
<p>When I go to Koffee at Audubon, there’s a pretty fair mix of both. And I go there every weekend lol.</p>