<p>More boarding schools now seem to be embracing the Mac - Deerfield recently announced that rather than issuing all new students with a Lenovo ThinkPad, they will be giving out new Aluminum MacBooks. This is big deal for Deerfield considering their laptop program has been active since 1998 and since that date has run on Windows. It will be a significant shift to Apple infrastructure, and the fact that a school like Deerfield is making the effort to make that shift should say something about the Mac.</p>
<p>I saved up some money and my mom and I pooled together to buy me a new Aluminum MacBook Pro. She paid the cost of a base-level MacBook, and I made up the difference needed to upgrade to the Pro. I can tell you that it works flawlessly, as I am sure the normal MacBook does as well.</p>
<p>Screen is superb, excellent graphical capabilities, big hard drive, DVD burner, FAST processor… The list goes on. I made sure to buy the 3-year care plan though - that thing is priceless. So far, no problems whatsoever and the machine is nothing short of a joy to use. My dad was so impressed that he decided to order himself a 17" MacBook Pro. He’s an art teacher, so he could use the bigger screen, etc.</p>
<p>If you’re prepared to invest a little more (and it doesn’t have to be that much more - Apple has great education discounts and iPod bundles) the Mac way is the only way. So reliable and easy to use, and if you don’t want to go cold-turkey on Windows, you can run XP or Vista natively on the Mac alongside the Mac operating system, OS X.</p>