<p>I am a high school senior looking to buy a new laptop in June. I am asking “parents” what they think and why?</p>
<p>I had learned that PC tend to not last long as a Mac would. However PC may be more powerful and affordable than Macs.
Taking price out of the equation, what should I get and why?</p>
<p>-Much be 15’ or more
-Engineering- I do know the specs require for my schools so any modern laptops would do.</p>
<p>Just got a Dell laptop for my DW last December. It came with Windows 8 which we both hate. If I had known how much of a pain it is I would have tried to get Windows 7. Windows 8 is designed to use a touch screen like a tablet and is very frustrating to use with a mouse.</p>
<p>@dadx3. Was that the only issue? Could I still use the mouse on internet and Microsoft office like with any other windows?</p>
<p>Sent from my LG-VM696 using CC</p>
<p>i thought we already covered this!!!</p>
<p>Jk. Generally for deciding between windows and mac i would go windows because for the same price of a mbp 13 inch, you can buy a laptop that can run anything. </p>
<p>that said, if you’re considering iphone app development you need a mac because of required software exclusively available for mac osx (unless you want to hackintosh which is a pain in the butt from what i hear)</p>
<p>otherwise, you can get more computer power through a windows computer. as a future comp sci major Im going to probably sell my mbp for another computer thatll run the heavy programs.</p>
<p>Regarding hackintoshes, they don’t have to be too painful if one does research up front on every component of one’s desktop/notebook PC…especially graphics.</p>
<p>Have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 running with all latest updates off of an old 2005 P4 Prescott Dell Optiplex with the intel 950 video chipset. Runs PPC and intel apps at reasonable speed considering the age of the machine. </p>
<p>In my view, this comes down to preference…though if one goes for PC…I personally prefer getting more rugged higher-end corporate models (i.e. Dell Latitudes/XPS…not Vostros/Inspirons). </p>
<p>I’d also avoid Sonys like the plague due to excess price and poor build quality. Then again…if you’re paying money for a Sony…you may as well get an Apple. </p>
<p>As for Apple, I’ve had great experiences with their Macbook Pros. Mom’s still running hers after 7 straight years. Just opened it up to clean out 7 years worth of accumulated dust from the fans/fan area.</p>
<p>Must say our family loves the Macbook Pros. They are sturdy and easy to use. </p>
<p>According to DS, the only disadvantage of the Macs is less gaming capability (i.e., video games being written for pcs but not Macs) but there is software to allow games to be run on Macs. If you are a gamer you may want to explore this.</p>
<p>If your college courses have assignments which can be done on computer (other than just writing papers and doing web searches that can be done on any computer), such as computer programming assignments and projects, consider whether the computer you get can run the operating systems, compilers, interpreters, etc. used for such assignments. If it can, then you can more conveniently do the assignments without needing to be connected to the campus computers.</p>
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<p>With the exception of the first CS course or two where you’d be programming on Windows or Mac GUI environments, most CS students in my day(mid-late '90s) moved on to programming almost exclusively in the unix command-line/X-Windows environment. </p>
<p>Considering Mac OSX has a terminal application to access its unix underpinnings, most CS students shouldn’t have much problem finding ways to adapt their Macs/hackintoshes to completing CS assignments beyond CS 101 type courses. </p>
<p>If anything, the lack of built-in unix in Windows meant the students either remotely accessed their university unix accounts to complete assignments or downloaded and installed early versions of linux.</p>
<p>Granted, they also moved to linux because they felt the versions of windows then available (Win9x, NT 3.51/4.0) were crap.</p>
<p>I like my Windows 8; it’s one click to the applications I use most often. For those who don’t like 8, you click one tile on the start page, and you’re into something that looks and acts exactly like 7. I don’t have the mouse frustrations that dadx3 has.</p>
<p>I’ve never owned a Mac, but those who do tend to rave about them. One downside I’ve heard is that virtually all software will work with a PC, but some won’t work on Mac. I work at a company whose product is a database, and some of our Mac customers have trouble using all the features of the database.</p>
<p>You can get a Macbook and install Parallel or VMWare or Virtual Box and Windows 7 or 8 on it. You then can run OSX and Windows at the same time on the Macbook.</p>
<p>You can also buy a Windows machine and virtualize linux on it, that would also be a good setup for engineering major. Dual boot is another option with Windows and Linux.</p>
<p>I’m another member of the I-Hate-Windows-8 club - got it on my new laptop for work and, after fighting with it for a month, returned the laptop to IT and “traded down” to Windows 7. I was far from the first - the tech said that they had over 400 Windows 8 machines in the back room. </p>
<p>At work we are issued PC laptops. I tend to need a new one every 18 months, with reoccurring HW failures around that time frame. Lenovo, my current machine, does seem to last longer. My team also gets a similar lifespan with their machines. I just looked at the online inventory and of the 10 team members, only one has a machine older than 2 years.</p>
<p>As for Macs, DS and DD both got their Mac laptops in 2009 - one has an Air and the other a macbook pro. Both are still running great today with no issues along the way other than a memory problem on DS’s after he installed additional memory and failed to get the right chips. </p>
<p>DS did have to get a PC laptop as well in the fall of his senior year (this fall) in order to run some Financial Analysis package that required the underlying Excel to support full macros. He could have used the ones in the lab or installed parallels and a copy of windows etc- but the used PC laptop was $100 and thus it was cheaper and easier to just buy the used laptop. </p>
<p>My home Mac laptop is a 2008 Macbook Pro which had a broken screen hinge a year or two after I bought it - perhaps I should stop dropping heavy objects like pictures onto my laptop.</p>
<p>DW has a Mac mini from 2006 connected to a Apple Cinema display from around 2005. I’ve tried to get her to upgrade but she claims it works fine for her and doesn’t want to upgrade further.</p>
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<p>If she runs applications from the PowerPC era, she may not want a new Mac which no longer supports Snow Leopard which is the last version of OSX to support PPC applications. </p>
<p>Several friends who upgraded their macs from Snow Leopard to Lion or Mountain Lion found their PPC applications “tombstoned” as one put it.</p>
<p>Oh, you can use a mouse with a Windows 8 machine, it’s just that the operating system does not behave (in our experience) anything like Windows 7. Once you are in an application like MS-Word everything is fine. But navigating between applications is a royal PITA.</p>
<p>We tend to keep our home computers longer, PC or Mac, because we’ve paid for them. At work it’s much easier to send things back to IT. I have a Mac that I hate, I’m one of the few. I’m just not cool enough for it I guess <said through="" gritting="" teeth="">. I’ve hated the blasted thing since I got it but refuse to replace it because of how much I paid. Do not get a Mac with the intention of running windows on it. You have to reboot and the graphics are hideous. All of a sudden your pristine Mac screen looks like Atari circa 1980…okay, that’s an exaggeration, but not much better then my first desktop in 1993.
We’ve had two sonys and been really happy with them. My son, who is second yr mech’e, has a Lenovo and is really pleased. It a pretty rugged laptop for college kids who aren’t too careful with them/have to carry them all over creation. Every e’school he looked at either didn’t allow or strongly discouraged macs. </said></p>
<p>I haven’t looked at Windows 8 yet. DH brought home some toy the other day from work to evaluate that had it, but it had the touch screen & detachable keyboard. He seemed fine with it. </p>
<p>Honestly, for the money (and I have no problem paying for good things) I’d stick with a PC. Look at the Lenovo’s. they are exceptionally well built.</p>
<p>Interesting responses. So far the only advantages I heard from you guys is that Mac is durable which I already said :p</p>
<p>It would help to actually name the PC you got of course. It’s like saying Android sucks without accounting for HTC or Samsung</p>
<p>Sent from my LG-VM696 using CC</p>
<p>Sorry, you’re right, specifics are helpful. My mac is a 17" MBP that is over 3yrs old, can’t remember all the specs but it was top of the line at the time. TBH I would have hated any mac. I miss my PC, it’s just that simple. My son’s Lenovo is now two years old so models are all going to be newer but his is the ThinkPad T420s. He does a lot of CAD/Solidworks type of work and never has an issue with closing all other windows so it doesn’t crash, etc. As much as he liked his sony there were times it would just lock up with things on design programs. The Lenovo has no problems. Depending on what type of engineering you are going to be doing this will become a major pet peeve if your computer can’t handle what you throw at it.</p>
<p>I’m a proponent of Dell Latitudes through Dell’s Business outlet website. Most were returned for minor problems right after purchase and then fixed, with a warranty. I’ve bought 3 and been very happy with them. You can also get a coupon code online or emailed discount codes for 25% off the already reduced prices. The Latitudes are much more durable than other Dells. For my two kids in college, I bought ones with solid state hard drives, which reduces potential problems.</p>
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<p>The intro CS course may use a Unix/Linux computing environment as well.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/sp13/disc/disc01.pdf[/url]”>http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/sp13/disc/disc01.pdf</a></p>
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<p>The class appears to use Python, which is available on Windows. The syllabus is [url=<a href=“http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61a/sp13/]here[/url”>CS 61A Spring 2013: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs]here[/url</a>] .</p>
<p>I think computer programmers and even general computer users should learn to use command line, but Windows users rarely do. Windows users who want/need to learn Unix commands can install cygwin . Mac owners are using a Unix operating system, but I wonder how many realize this. We use Windows at home now, but I will try to get my kids familiar with both Unix/Linux and the Windows command line.</p>
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<p>That wasn’t an issue with my clients/coworkers who used bootcamp or parallels* to run Windows. Granted, on the former one does need to install drivers including ones for graphics within Windows which some Mac users tend to forget…even though those drivers are located on the very OSX installation DVD that came with their Mac. </p>
<p>*An application which allows one to run Windows or other PC compatible operating systems within the Mac OSX environment. </p>
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<p>That’s interesting. I’ve seen plenty of engineering/CS majors at schools like MIT, Columbia SEAS, etc who use macs and are happy with the ability to not only run unix within OSX, but also dual-boot into Windows/run windows within OSX through parallels as needed. </p>
<p>Many of the ones with a tinkering bent also tend to try hackintoshing though that can be an issue if one doesn’t know what one is doing and ends up borking the entire install. </p>
<p>I managed to successfully create 2 hackintoshes using old Pentium 4 based Dell desktops. However, major hurdle for me was compatible graphics drivers with one while the intel 950 integrated graphics on the optiplex worked beautifully. :)</p>
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<p>Apple effectively buries it as “Terminal” isn’t prominently displayed. </p>
<p>However, typing “term” in the spotlight or selecting it through other means is enough to access the unix underpinnings within Mac OSX.</p>