<p>Back in “the day”, I had an apple IIc. My MOTHER had a MAC. D has a MAC, m sister has a MAC, my brother has a MAC.</p>
<p>Son (engineering…so far…) got an HP, a Zune mp3 and an android phore. He is not one to follow .</p>
<p>Our two boys (both engineering majors) used/use Dell laptops in college, but they were high end not cheap. I never heard them express a desire for a Mac or mention that their friends had Macs, so can’t say what the majority of students were using. We bought the older one a new laptop for college graduation (he wanted another Dell) and H uses his old one, which is still going fine at age six. Like geezermom, I am self-employed and am my own IT person. I use a Dell desktop. I’m used to their web site, so appreciate how easy it is to customize what I’m buying and am happy to pay a premium for that.</p>
<p>S waiting on the release of the new MAC book air…any day now. It is all about preference. One not better than the other. I have a Dell, H has a MAC. </p>
<p>On our final college visits the macs out numbered the PCs.</p>
<p>Engineering in general is going to tend more towards PCs. These are not going to be lightweight and the savings is not going to be much over that of a MAC. The final two schools that my 2011 grad considered both strongly recommended PCs over MAC. Small sampling, but I think this is more the norm then the exception. He ended up with a Lenovo t420s.</p>
<p>Count me among the very few MAC converts that regrets the switch several years ago. I hate the thing but after the money I spent, and several kids needing computers, I have stuck with it. They are easy…if you haven’t had a PC for a million years. It is insanely frustrating, and my DH can’t help because he knows nothing about MAC’s. I am gladly adopting my son’s sony vaio when he leaves for school with that lenovo. Good riddance to the MAC!!</p>
<p>I was the last one to switch in my family, but I finally did after I spent a whole weekend with India over a blue screen.</p>
<p>DD (engineering) has a PC. DS (the musician) has a Mac. They are both happy with their choices. We have both platforms in this house.</p>
<p>the mac is not immune to the blue screen of death. </p>
<p>[Your</a> Mac won’t start up in Mac OS X (Mac OS X 10.3.9 or earlier)](<a href=“http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1411]Your”>http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1411)</p>
<p>Annoying as they may be, the solution is rarely very hard for anyone who knows to start in safe mode and understand that restore does not mean to return the computer to the store. :)</p>
<p>The kicker with my blue screen was Dells help desk couldn’t solve it for me, I had to re-install the operating system myself, then installed each application one at a time to figure out which one was not compatible. It turned out to be one of their utilities that was causing the problem. </p>
<p>We really don’t use our laptops for anything fancy, but mostly for pictures, music, emails, Internet and office. I think any laptop would be sufficient, but what H likes is if and when there is a problem, he could just go to an Apple store to speak to an English speaking person. I think Dells and other companies that offshore customer service is losing a lot of customers like H.</p>
<p>I can only think of two family members who still use a desktop - my parents who are in their 80s (and even they have a laptop for travelling) and one of my sons-in-law who is a musician and has sophisticated music software on his computer (he, too, has a laptop for travel and daily use). Of my 5 Ds, 3 have Macs and the other two continue to use Dells. I’ve always had Dells and they’ve been reliable and the ease of use combined with my age continues to make me skeptical of changing to a Mac. ;)</p>
<p>My vote as to the original question would be to let the student get the computer he wants. I wouldn’t want my child to start off the college years with a computer they weren’t happy with, because it is such a big part of their academic, and social, experience these days.</p>
<p>While there are pros and cons to each platform, it’s a bit of a misnomer to state that Macs are more expensive than PCs. Apple is in the high end “luxury” market, true, but it you configure a competitors laptop similarly the prices are relatively competitive. </p>
<p>I recently looked at Apple, Toshiba and Lenovo. Apples quad-core i7 MacBook with a solid state drive was only 10% more than a similarly configured Toshiba with only a dual core i5. Additionally Macs can run Mac OS, Windows and, or Linux natively. </p>
<p>Certainly there are less expensive options available if required, and many end users will never need the power of a quad core i7, but all things being equal a $300 netbook is not really in the same class as a $2000 MacBook. </p>
<p>In the end “the right tool for the job” should be the paramount defining characteristic.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is going from one extreme to an another. The comparison in this case should be between a basic but full featured laptop and a “similar” Mac. We already know that students with higher STEM needs should look at the PCs. That leaves most people who are mostly interested in running simpler programs such as MS Office, need a note taking program, and need plenty of storage and memory to run the multimedia they like. Most people do NOT much more than that with a computer. </p>
<p>The question is really about a HP, Dell or Lenovo that cost 500 to 900 dollars being comparable to the Mac that costs 500 dollars more. For many students, that is an answer that is hardly clear.</p>
<p>College student here. I purchased my own laptop through a website ([Gaming</a> Laptops - XOTIC PC - Gaming Notebooks - Custom Laptops - Custom Notebooks](<a href=“http://www.xoticpc.com%5DGaming”>http://www.xoticpc.com)) where you can customize your own laptop from top reputable brands like Asus, Sager/Clevo, and MSI. I bought and Asus N81VP-D2 for $1500 including taxes and warranty, which has way more features than my friend’s competitively priced MAC. I paid so much because I wanted a laptop that is going to last a loooong time. I have had my laptop since January 2010 and I haven’t had ANY problems with it. It still runs as smoothly as the day I received it.</p>
<p>I quickly glanced at the three most important features to me between two models:</p>
<p>A 15" MacBook Pro starts at $1800 (not including student discount) before any customization. It features a decent video card, 4GB RAM, and 500GB 5400RPM hard drive.</p>
<p>A 15" ASUS N53SV-A2 starts at $1160 (not including 3% discount) before any customization. It features a decent video card, 6GB RAM, 750GB 7200RPM Primary Hard Drive.</p>
<p>Both have i7 processors.</p>
<p>I’m biased but based on the starting price, specs, and ASUS’ great reputation for quality, the ASUS wins. The MacBook Pro does dominate in one area though and that is battery life with an estimated 7 hours while the ASUS only clocks in at 2-3 hours.</p>
<p>That is a quick version of the process I used to choose which laptop to buy. I was researching for about a year before I made the decision. It was exhausting.</p>
<p>Not going to argue with the price but the battery life alone on the above ASUS would make this a no-go for a lot of students who want to carry their computer on campus. Yes you can get and carry a second battery and most students are willing to do that to bump the life of a 4-5hr battery…but 2-3hrs is pretty bad.</p>
<p>2-3 is typical…but I would think a college student wouldn’t care much…because there are usually outlets throughout campuses. My toshiba is that powerful and I get 4.5 hours. Asus has worse battery life than apple, dell, sony, and toshiba PCs. Also, the apple does have turbo charge. But the price is just so high! Watching HD movies on macs you would think would be smooth for a $2000 computer, but I got better speeds on $600 computers. If I had the money I would get the top MacBook Pro for luxury and the top Toshiba or Sony for greatness lol.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC App</p>
<p>Oh and the macbook pro DOES NOT get 6.5 hours when you are really using it. The OS trys to conserve RAM and processor usage to save battery, something windows does not because they would whether utilize speed and such. But when using the macbook like my pc, I get approx. 3.75 hours. But thats snow leopard.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC App</p>
<p>Yes, the battery life on an ASUS is pretty bad. But I knew that going in and purchased an extra AC adapter for when I’m on the go. I am a college student and I don’t have any trouble finding an outlet to plug my laptop into around campus. On the power saver mode I can get about 3.5 hours out of my laptop which is sufficient since outlets are readily available around campus. The battery life was a trade off. The deciding factor to me was the beefed specs for the price.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Sounds like a difference in technology. Apple has dynamically switchable graphics so it uses integrated graphics when discrete graphics aren’t needed. You can force Mac OS X to always use integrated graphics for all applications for maximum battery life. I’m a bit surprised that ASUS doesn’t use this technology as other companies besides Apple have this technology or the technology to manually switch between integrated and discrete graphics.</p>
<p>My guess is that you can get better battery life on PCs but running Linux instead of Windows. Windows seems to be a power hog to me - I suspect that’s because there’s a ton of stuff that runs by default that isn’t really needed for most users.</p>
<p>BCEagle91,</p>
<p>The switchable graphics card feature is a nice feature. It would be a little more convenient if my laptop had that feature but not entirely necessary. Back in 2008 ASUS did manufacture a laptop with switchable graphics (N10Jc). I’m not sure if they have a recent model with this feature but you would think that by now it would be standard.</p>
<p>I usually uninstall the massive amounts of bloatware that come with computers. I also turn off all startup programs. They really bog down performance.</p>
<p>Ok just checked ASUS website. The U series (Thin and Light/Mobility line) has switchable graphics…not sure about others though.</p>
<p>I’m a Toshiba girl.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Don’t have a Mac, but my iPhone needs a periodic kick in the butt - the e-mail or Safari would freeze, and only a power off/on will cure the problem. Annoying, but I’m used to it, and not bad enough to make me look for another phone. My Dell… Never seen a blue screen of death. I do the OS updates, virus scans, HD defrag etc. periodically. IT folks love me.</p>