<p>Which one is better? Is one recommended over the other?</p>
<p>Just do a search...there has been plenty of talk about computers.</p>
<p>FWIW, I think you'd be fine with either.</p>
<p>Commerce wants you to use PCs. But either will work with the addition of virtual software to run windows.
Be mindful that apples do NOT have accidental damage protection like the Dell and Lenovo have, and the battery warranty has been extended this year for the dell and lenovo. The apple will cost you dearly if you drop it, and they most likely will not cover any warranty if the case is damaged or the cause is not due to an apple manufacturing issue.
With Dell and Lenovo you will not have to worry about that.</p>
<p>The Dell four year on site warranty has been worth it. They had to come to my dorm to fix my machine when I dropped it. Worth every penny.</p>
<p>Lenovo, Toshiba, and HP are all great. I'd stay away from dell, horrible quality that has been steadily declining over the years. Macs are WAY too overpriced for what they offer (being a hardware guy). I don't like restrictions when it comes to computing, and Mac is about as limited as it gets.....
Security wise, the whole idea that Mac is more secure than PC is utter garbage. They are about equal nowadays. </p>
<p>If I were in your shoe's I'd pickup a nice HP or a nice Thinkpad!</p>
<p>They are great. But if you want to get them fixed in this area you will have issues.
I do have over 13 years of experience at repairing, Lenovo, IBM, Gateway,Sony, Toshiba, Apple, Compaq, HP and Dell at UVA. Even longer before I was hired here.
Currently Apple, Dell and Lenovo are warranty repaired by Cavalier Computers by manufacturer certified employees.
The huge benefit of buying the CAV Dell, Lenovo and Apple is the loaner computer if the repair will take longer than normal.
We also have those computer parts in stock and ready.
We have gone back to using the business class Dell Latitude computers. The consumer class , what most of you see advertised, may have all the bells and whistles, but just can not take the beating that you guys give these computers. The Latitude and Thinkpads are by far the better computers that we have offered through the CAV and older DCI programs.
If you ever spoke with me at orientation meetings you would know I was really pushing those computers due to their warranty, accidental damage protection, ease of repairing, parts availability, next business day repairs when home, and reduced total cost of ownership.</p>
<p>Based on your experience which one would you recommend:</p>
<p>Lenovo T410 or Dell Latitude E6410</p>
<p>Either will do okay. I personally like the keyboard on the Thinkpad better.</p>
<p>I think other posters have covered the more technical sides of the question, so I'll try to offer some input as someone who just finished the 3rd year ICE program in McIntire.</p>
<p>There's a ton of group work in the comm school, so you will likely be bringing your laptop to group meetings (there are a lot) and to class (if you prefer). I have a 15 in. Dell which wasn't bad to carry by itself with a notebook, but was a little heavy with a finance or accounting book.</p>
<p>In terms of compatibility, both Macs and PCs work fine for the comm school. I had several members of groups who owned Macs and it was pretty much no problem. For example, on one project my group used Excel on a Mac to do the valuation for the project. In general, the only compatibility issues I saw were that occasionally the formatting for Powerpoint or Word got a little screwed up when moving documents from Mac to PC and vice versa. However, with the ability to run Windows on a Mac this isn't a big deal. Another issue is that for Quantitative Analysis, to the best of my knowledge, the MegaStat add-on does is not available for Macs. This also is not a big deal because you can still do the problems in Excel, and MegaStat is available in all the computers at the comm school (I always did QA homework there).</p>
<p>Last but not least (FWIW), I plan on getting a 13in. MacBook Pro over the summer to use for my fourth year. Battery life, portability, better specs (relative to what I own now), and the multi-touch trackpad (I never use a mouse anymore, I'm always on the go) were the key selling points. Also, I've gotten a little fed up with my Dell and the maintenance required to keep it performing up to par. Plus, I have some money to spend thanks to my internship.</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>ITC has recently started offering VMWare through its Hive software service, so you can run any Windows application on a Mac -- you won't have any trouble if you get one.</p>
<p>it is still in beta and we have been told that release wont be for quite a while. Until then there could be issues.</p>