<p>D started college just as Vista was coming out. I refuse to purchase a Microsoft OS 1.0 release; just too risky that things won’t work. She got a Mac and loves it.</p>
<p>Let’s see, son will replace his powerbook g4 laptop that is from 2003 with a macbook pro this fall when he goes off to grad school. He has an imac that he purchased his first year in college that he will keep. I have a macbook that serves as my main computer hooked into a samsung screen. I had to replace the fan this past spring. I have an older imac with the swivel screen as a back up that is still running after many years. I recycled my bondi blue last summer after many, many years of service. When I purchase a new mac I usually max it out with as many features as possible so it will last as long as possible. I have never had a “virus.” I am a mac customer since 1987. I don’t care what other people buy. Each to his or her own.</p>
<p>If you want to play games, then BootCamp is the better way to go. If not, then a VM is more convenient. You will need to purchase a Windows license with both approaches. If you are a CS major, you may be able to get a Windows license for free or $10 from your CS department if they have the proper arrangement with Microsoft.</p>
<p>You should be able to get an OEM license of Windows XP for much less than $160. I usually pay about $95 for Windows XP Home. A coworker mentioned to me last week that he bought a Windows XP Pro license from Fryes for $100.</p>
<p>BootCamp is pretty easy to use. Mac OSX is pretty cool in that files are just files. There aren’t hidden areas or files that have to be in place so that you can backup your OS by just copying files. This makes it easier to remap the disk so that there is an area of empty space on the disk so that you can repartition.</p>
<p>I’d suggest MacForums.com for getting information on BootCamp or anything else.</p>
<p>The whole no virus thing might have been a good argument a few years ago, but it probably won’t be for long. As the number of Mac users skyrockets it’ll make Macs a lot more attractive to attack. Couple this with the fact that I don’t know a single Mac user who has antivirus software, why shouldn’t virus makers attack Macs in the next few years. I have yet to get a virus on my PC (knock on wood) though our PCs at home are a bit more virus prone because my brothers do god knows what on the computers.</p>
<p>About college students experiencing computer problems: my friends are spilt between Mac and PC. The ones who have Macs love them. I, personally, don’t like the Mac OSX very much. I love my Thinkpad though it has a few annoying problems. Only two of my friends have had a major computer problem this past school year. One was a Mac, the other a Dell. My friend whose Mac died on him had to send it back to Apple and didn’t have a computer for the last month of school (killer with final papers). My friend whose Dell died had a warranty through our school where Dell IT came to our apartment and fixed the computer there in person.</p>
<p>“The whole no virus thing might have been a good argument a few years ago, but it probably won’t be for long. As the number of Mac users skyrockets it’ll make Macs a lot more attractive to attack.”</p>
<p>Macs are only 10% of the market and having Unix as the base is an advantage over Windows. Virus writers may indeed target the Mac OSX platform but it will take some time before Viruses get to a critical mass point where anti-malware software has to consume significant resources to fight malware.</p>
<p>Those users with G4 and G5 based machines probably won’t have to worry much about viruses for a long, long time.</p>
<p>No. My kids have to get jobs and buy their own Macbooks. At least D did. S now has a job and is researching his purchase, who knows what he’ll end up with.</p>
<p>I’m not a parent, but I have a PC and a lot of my friends have Macbooks.</p>
<p>I would probably offer to pay the cost of a good PC as a graduation gift, and if they wanted a Macbook, they could pay the difference themselves. In my opinion, a PC is just as good (assuming you don’t get a crappy PC, which just involves a little research).</p>
<p>I must be getting old. I read the post as “would you buy your kid a Maybach”. </p>
<p>[Even</a> the used ones are slightly over my budget](<a href=“http://www.mbzsales.com/Specials.htm]Even”>http://www.mbzsales.com/Specials.htm)</p>
<p>We are also considering buying a mac for my soon-to-be college student. Would you recommend iWork or Microsoft Office?</p>
<p>MS Office. Many students will need to create excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations. As pro-mac as I am, I think that you don’t need to introduce extra cross-platform variables that will inevitably become evident at 3 am before the presentation is due.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do you mean MS office 2008 for Mac? When that version of MS Office for Mac was out years ago, many users seem to have a lot of complaints about its quality/stability/lack-of-crucial-features as compared to PC’s version.</p>
<p>Is it much better now?</p>
<p>mcat2, </p>
<p>Are there any specific issues you read about MS office for Mac? I’ve used most MS office versions on the Mac, I keep Word open 24/7, and as long as I don’t open documents that have several thousand pages, it runs smoothly. Since it is a Microsoft product, it is less stable, less polished, and has more security issues than Apple’s native applications. (and you do have to download many 200+ MB security updates) They have issued many other stability updates since it has been released, which may have solved some of the issues you’re talking about. </p>
<p>Some of my friends in a biology department have noticed that Microsoft omitted some things in the Mac Excel version; but in upper level biology courses they use more specialized programs than Excel anyways. </p>
<p>I haven’t noticed any major quality/stability differences between the Windows and Mac version of Word 2007/2008. The Office applications in the Windows computer lab at school do crash often, but I assume they wouldn’t on a personal computer.</p>
<p>AMB2005,</p>
<p>Actually my S is the user of Office 2208 for Mac. not me. (His Windows PC died earlier this year, so we purchased a Macbook as well as Office 2008 for Mac and shipped them to him.) So the “issues” are what I learned by browsing Mac-related sites.</p>
<p>I also heard about the Mac Excel issue you mentioned. Another issue I heard about is that it takes much longer to open a Word document, even compared to the previous Mac office version (Office 2004 for Mac, I think). Many Mac users seem to keep using Office 2004 for Mac rather than upgrade to Office 2008 for Mac. Some claim the older version is “better”; for examples, the old version can open an Excel sheet containing Macros. </p>
<p>It is a comfort for me to hear that MS Office 2008 may not be as troublesome as I thought.</p>
<p>My S is a biology major. I learned from him that next year, the professor may ask the students to run some PC-only software. This is the reason why I am considering to buy/install Windows XP in addition to Mac OS. I do not expect him to use Windows XP much though.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Doing graphics for a living, I’ve had macs from day one, but the rest of the family worked on PCs. I’d find myself having to open some odd documents on one of the spare PCs from time to time, but it’s been years now that I can’t get it all done on the mac.</p>
<p>Kid 1 is heading to college in the fall and wants a mac. I’m good with that because 1) the bundled software will give him what he needs. 2) As the resident IT household rep, macs have less problems and are more intuitive once you get the hang of them. I can trouble shoot problems 200 miles away on a mac. PC, not so much. 3) I have Office '08 with 3 site licenses. I don’t run it hard, but it gets the job done.</p>
<p>I’m finding the “educational” price isn’t as good as bargain shopping at mac.connection etc. once you figure in tax and shipping.</p>
<p>Why am I happy with our Macbook purchase? My daughter’s PC laptop crashed with one week to go of her senior year at college. She was going to get a Macbook Pro for graduation, the last computer we will purchase for her (hopefully!) We bought the computer 4 weeks ago, before the free ipod give away. When Apple announced the give away early this year, I went into the store with the receipt only and they were happy to give me the ipod touch; they had to return the computer and apple care (on paper only) as the itouch had to be on the same receipt for me to be eligible for the rebate. This weekend, my daughter decided she wanted the 16 GB itouch and would pay the difference with some of her graduation money. We went to the Apple store today, and again, they were happy to upgrade the itouch. One, problem, yesterday with the announcement of the new Macbook Pros Apple reduced the price of the Macbooks. I ended up leaving the store with a $299 16 GB itouch and a $400 credit!!! I will still get and $229 rebate for the free ipod itouch, so really we are ahead almost $700.</p>
<p>Now my daughter can not decide of it is worth the 10% restocking fee to get the new Macbook Pro. I think now that she has transferred all her stuff, that she may not want to go through that again. She isn’t a computer geek, so I do not think she would every noticed the difference between the two, other than to know she had the newest available.</p>
<p>I have found the people at Apple so easy to deal with as a company. I will continue to buy Apple!</p>
<p>Another vote for macbooks here. We have 3 in our household–2 macbooks and a macbook pro. I love my macbook pro. I love how easy it is to use after owning a Dell, which I hated. </p>
<p>One word of warning about macbooks — don’t spill any liquid onto them! It happens a lot. My D spilled her water bottle (onlly a quarter full), and ended up spending $400+ to have it fixed (and she got off easy). Since then, I keep hearing the same story from friends, neighbors, etc. It’s an extremely costly mistake.</p>
<p>On another note, is it important/a good idea to keep doing the software updates? I generally ignore them because once or twice, some applications started acting funny after.</p>
<p>The apple.com site’s help sections are much better than the Help on the toolbar, btw.</p>
<p>mcat2, </p>
<p>Office 2008 is optimized for the intel processors on the Mac (so, all macs released in the last 3 years or so). The main improvement in it over Office 2004 is it <em>should</em> be faster to use on all new-ish Macs. It also introduces a new file format, .docx over .doc. However, I always use Office 2008 in .doc mode, for compatibility reasons.</p>
<p>I have a macbook pro- no microsoft apps here</p>
<p>D has my old G4 ibook, but we may get her a new one in sept with the snow leopard OS.
maybe it will make freshman year 80 miles away palatable considering she is comfortable being 8000 miles away.
;)</p>
<p>Hell no!! I’ll nvr ever giv a small boy the macbook!!!</p>
<p>I recommend the Mac, hands down. DD2 got a Mac and it has been trouble free. </p>
<p>DD1 got a nice Dell for her freshman year at college. After 3 years, the DVD player has failed, the battery lasts about 20 minutes now ($100 to $150 to replace it), I pay about $50 per year to renew the virus protection software, and I was NEVER able to connect it to a shared printer on my home network (XP to XP!). From a user perspective, it seems everything is more difficult to accomplish with a PC - especially creative projects.</p>
<p>For DD2, we got a nice Mac for about $1500 (2 years support included). When we got it home, I rolled up my sleeves ready to do battle with getting it on my home network, setting up her email, attaching the shared printer, etc. It picked up the network immediately, I answered a couple of questions and her email was set up, and the printer was already automatically recognized and attached. It literally took 3 minutes. That is when I was sold on Macs.</p>
<p>She used it her senior year in HS for everything. From a user perspective, the applications seem far more intuitive. I can’t remember her asking me for assistance even once, and she has never had a need for MS Office – the Apple version of those tools have been just fine.</p>