<p>I can’t speak about engineering software but MS offers student versions of Office, etc. for pretty cheap. But do you understand Office doesn’t come with a Windows laptop? You have to buy it no matter what computer you get.</p>
<p>[Best</a> Windows PC: MacBook Pro tops Acer, Dell, HP in Soluto reliability rankings.](<a href=“http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/04/25/best_windows_pc_macbook_pro_tops_acer_dell_hp_in_soluto_reliability_rankings.html]Best”>Best Windows PC: MacBook Pro tops Acer, Dell, HP in Soluto reliability rankings.)</p>
<p>Another story indicating that a MacBook Pro may be the way to go</p>
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<p>I knew plenty of engineering/CS majors who had no issues with computing needs on their Macs for 4+ years without pining for Windows-based PCs. </p>
<p>For CS majors, it’s easier as once they get past the initial CS intro course, most/all advanced CS work is done in the unix environment which Mac OSX is based on and can be accessed through typing “terminal” in the spotlight. Heck, most engineering/CS majors loved the “built-in unix” aspect of Mac OSX as it means they can jump right in to do their computing work.</p>
<p>As for office software, Mac MS Office is available and IME…tends to be more stable than their windows counterparts. </p>
<p>Granted, many of those engineering/CS majors tended to opt for a free open source alternative like openoffice and the like.</p>
<p>Another way to look at it, for a very comparable spec disregarding the build quality, MacBook Pro will be approximately twice the price. If you keep MacBook Pro for 6 years, you can buy 2 cheap laptops during that time. For me, I am itching to buy a new one after 2-3 years anyway.</p>
<p>I say, if you want to exist in mostly Apple OSX or be able to do both, then go with MacBook Pro, if you want to mostly do Windows, then I would get a regular PC laptop. Unless there is specific instructions or applications that are required by the school, they are very interchangeable these days. Some PC laptops brand are slightly better than others but it has become such commodity these days undistinguishable from one brand to another. Within the same brand, you can buy their cheap lines or the better quality lines based on price.</p>
<p>Also on Windows laptop, you can virtualize linux onto it, basically have a unix system that in many ways very similar to Apple OSX along with Windows. By this, I mean very similar in the inner working of the OS and programming environment, not exactly the gui and user interface of the system.</p>
<p>Thank… I think. Having some hard time understanding what you are talking about but I got it. </p>
<p>Sent from my LG-VM696 using CC</p>
<p>Ok… So I’m not sold on getting a Mac due to it missing several things so I’m sticking with windows 8 PC. </p>
<p>Sent from my LG-VM696 using CC</p>
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<p>Only if you’re doing an apples and oranges comparison between consumer-line notebooks and Macs when the more appropriate comparison would be with upper-mid to high-end corporate models. </p>
<p>And I DO feel that build quality is a critical factor in determining a laptop purchase…especially for undergraduates. </p>
<p>Seen far too many undergraduates and their anguished parents deal with consumer-line notebooks which had manufacturing/design defects, damage through normal daily use, or had certain parts just fall/break off without any prompting from the user because the OEM decided to cut some serious corners on build quality.</p>
<p>Moreover, my usage may be heavy, but with the exception of my very first crappily built notebook, every other notebook I’ve had lasted much more than 5 years. Incidentally, most of my older notebooks have either been sold off or given away to friends in need. One still functions well after 12 straight years of use. :)</p>
<p>One nice thing about MacBooks and MacBook Pros is that the power bricks are compatible - that is all old power bricks will work with newer models. They changed the connector in the RMBPs but you can get an adapter to use old adapters with new models. You can’t use newer power bricks (MagSafe 2) with older MacBooks and MacBook Pros. This means that the spare power bricks that I bought (so I don’t have to carry them around with me) will work far into the future. It also means that you will likely be able to borrow a power brick from someone else if you left yours somewhere else.</p>
<p>All of our laptops over the past 13 years still work. But they made the consumer models sturdier 10-13 years ago. The stuff that’s sold that’s cheap today is junk and I don’t know that I’d buy any budget consumer models. My last Windows laptop is a Dell XPS M1330. I bought it from Best Buy and brought it back a few days later. The keyboard space bar had a spring in the middle of the bar. If you pressed the spacebar at either side, it wouldn’t register a keypress. I couldn’t believe the design. They replaced the keyboard with a spacebar with three springs which is what I’d expect. This was on their XPS premium line! I imagine that tens or hundreds of thousands of customers had their keyboards replaced over this issue. Someone wanted to save ten cents per keyboard and probably wound up costing the company $50 per unit.</p>
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<p>Some OEMs like Toshiba did. Others…mostly companies which don’t exist anymore or moved onto smaller things not so much. </p>
<p>Build quality all around…especially consumer models started deteriorating in build quality starting sometime around 2002-3. Only exceptions during the '00s IME were IBM* and Apple. </p>
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<li>Have only one Lenovo so I can’t speak to them firsthand…though my business/engineering friends who use Lenovo corporate notebooks love them. If you’re willing to pay a premium for ruggedization and lower specs, Panasonic’s Toughbooks are also great. However, they may be overkill for all but the most clumsy/careless undergraduate.</li>
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<p>Why do you need to? If you have the same processors, same or similar disk drive, similar chipset that produce approximately similar performance running whatever program you are running, what is the difference (without any consideration for the build quality)? There is nothing wrong with wanting to pay twice more for build quality but let’s admit that is what you are paying for. And not saying that there is a lot more to it than build quality.</p>
<p>I am in the camp of not getting the best or top of the line for young college person. Apple does break also in plenty of different ways, and it costs a lot to fix it. The battery for example will not last that long, they never do and it will cost a lot to replace. Same goes for the charger. Their service is very good and they will take care of you as long as you are willing to pay, that I will admit.</p>
<p>If you keep MacBook Pro for 6 years, you can buy 2 cheap laptops during that time. For me, I am itching to buy a new one after 2-3 years anyway.</p>
<p>Why for gods sake? 
</p>
<p>[what happens when China wont accept our e-waste anymore?](<a href=“http://www.electronicstakeback.com/resources/problem-overview/”>http://www.electronicstakeback.com/resources/problem-overview/</a>)</p>
<p>[Where</a> does e-waste end up? | Greenpeace International](<a href=“Archive-It Wayback Machine”>Archive-It Wayback Machine)</p>
<p>I got a Lenovo last year and I love it. I didn’t get a Mac for two very simple reasons: I’m a gamer and I had a budget.</p>
<p>Good luck with your search.</p>
<p>OP: What is your budget? What is your intended use for the computer? Without knowing the answers to these questions, people here can only offer personal anecdotes and brand-name biases.</p>
<p>If your intended use is casual, i.e. you plan to use it for notetaking during lectures, watching Netflix and going on Facebook, I suggest you go to newegg.com and buy the cheapest laptop available and assume it’s going to break in 2-3 years. Laptops are incredibly frail. Even if Macs are supposedly more durable, they’re a D compared to an F. This isn’t just because of violently tossed backpacks and spilled beer; it’s also due to their atrocious heat flow. As a previous poster pointed out, you can buy two (three?) cheap laptops for the price of a Macbook, more if your Macbook hardware fails and you pay the cost of repair.</p>
<p>If your aim is more specialized, e.g. video editing, heavy gaming, or the specific needs of your engineering department, you need to say so. One can recommend you the best value gaming laptop or the most portable laptop or the most rugged laptop, but there exists no “best laptop.”</p>
<p>Also in terms of quality, the choice of which PC brand matters very little. They all use more or less the same parts. Better to choose brand based on customer service reviews.</p>
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<p>Lithium Ion batteries all have a shelf-life of 3 years at 100% charge whether they are used with some care or left sitting on the shelf or reaching the max of around 400 charge/recharge cycles. High heat and overcharging tends to drastically reduce that lifespan…sometimes to a matter of months. </p>
<p>As for laptop chargers, most macbook/Macbook pro users I’ve known are still using their original chargers after 6+ years of regular/heavy usage…including my mother who happens to be a heavy daily user. </p>
<p>Only thing I needed to do recently was to clean out 7 years worth of accumulated dust around the fans and it’s running like when I first gave it to her. </p>
<p>In fact, one thing I found about mac users who aren’t extremely clumsy or abusive with their stuff is that they go much longer without replacing their notebooks than counterparts using consumer-grade notebooks without the associated disruptions, losses of time/data, etc. </p>
<p>Only group which comes closest in the PC notebook area are those using more rugged corporate grade notebooks whose prices tend to overlap with those of their mac counterparts. </p>
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<p>This is mainly a problem with consumer grade notebooks. Good design is one thing OEMs tend to cut corners on, especially when they are incentivized to do so by consumers who believe in replacing a notebook with a new one every 3 years or less. </p>
<p>Corporations and institutions prefer stability over frequent disruptions. This is one reason why many aren’t eager to upgrade to Win 8 considering they started migrating to Win 7 after the first service pack was rolled out sometime in 2011.</p>
<p>I had a problem with my battery after four years on my MacBookPro. I brought it into the Apple Store and they popped in a new battery. No charge. There are some pretty cool things that I can do with boot options too like booting from the hard drive of another Mac.</p>
<p>Part of the value is the service aspect of The Apple Store. If you are near an Apple Store, then you can easily get service on your system. Similar options for other companies is an additional expense.</p>
<p>@Dwight. I already mentioned engineering. I intend for heavy school and causal uses. I probably play a game or two, that’s why I going for PC</p>
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<p>They don’t do that any more. They did that on our older laptop maybe 3-4 years ago. Now they turn on the laptop and look at the charging stat on the battery and see the number of cycles the battery has been charged. If it is over something like 100 cycles, they will make you pay for new one which is 100% true for all battery that is more than 2-3 years old.</p>
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<p>Because of Moore’s law. The new laptop is a lot better after 2-3 years.</p>
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<p>My replacement wasn’t that long ago. I’ve heard that customers may get different responses at different stores or even with different techs.</p>
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<p>It may be a lot better but laptop sales have really been in the dumps this year and last. The compute power, disk space and memory needs of the typical user haven’t really gone up by that much to make a new laptop a necessity after 2-3 years. Consumers have been spending their IT money on mobile devices as their PCs get the job done.</p>
<p>"It may be a lot better but laptop sales have really been in the dumps this year and last. The compute power, disk space and memory needs of the typical user haven’t really gone up by that much to make a new laptop a necessity after 2-3 years. Consumers have been spending their IT money on mobile devices as their PCs get the job done. "</p>
<p>For right now, yes. But for the last decade or so, you want to replace your laptop every 2-3 years. And if you want to do engineering work, programming, mathematical simulation and so on. Performance is very important, that is one of the things OP wants to use it for. Another thing is games, that is still true today if you want to play latest games.</p>