Should I get a Macbook for College?

[dfdave12]

Hi all.

I'll just preface this by saying that I've never ever used a Mac before, only PC's, however I'm considering getting a Macbook for college. I've read much about Mac's reliability, and it seems quite popular with many people so I would just like your opinions on what I should do.

The problem is that I don't do much in the way of photo editing, DVD burning, or video stuff, but I do use iTunes alot and have a decent sized music library. I will however be doing quite a bit of word processing for my major, and the standard OS around the campus is Windows. Just a few questions then:

1) Do all Macbooks straight for the website come standard with bootcamp so I can run Vista?

2) Because I won't be doing much in the way photo, DVD, video stuff (you know what I mean), is it even worth getting a Macbook?

3) If anyone has taken a Mac to college, how strongly can you recommend it?


Thank you in advance!

EDIT: I just noticed that Mac runs Microsoft Office 2008. This is done without even having to Bootcamp, correct?

 

[Wonderful Pork]

1. macbooks running OSX 10.5 Leopard have Boot Camp installed standard; those running 10.4 Tiger dont (if you buy new you'll be running Leopard).

2. I don't do much with Photo or DVD and I love my macbook pro because of the OSX operating system.

3. Sorry, had a PC in college; I wholeheartedly recommend Macs to anybody and everybody I speak with now however.

4. Yes, there is a version of MS Office 2008 for OS X, it runs natively on the Mac (no bootcamp). Personally, I don't like it; it feels sluggish, but it does work.

 

[Kaido]

In all honesty, you are probably better off with a Windows laptop for college. OS X is my main OS, but I use Windows for most of my school-related activities. I do prefer using Office on Windows, even in a VM like Parallels or VMware. Most of the business world is PC, therefore school is PC. My C++ compiler is Windows-only etc. You could go the VMware route (I recommend it over Parallels), but then you'd be running Windows all the time on your Mac.

What classes will you be taking and what's your degree in?

 

[dfdave12]

My major will be in Intelligence Studies at Mercyhurst College. Not alot of people know about it, so don't expect you to, but I will be doing a fair deal of analytical work, word processing, and probably creating presentations as well.

My main concern is that all of the campus computers are PC's, and that somehow if I did use Bootcamp, I would still not be fully compatible with all of the features on the campus PCs.

 

[Parasitic]

Sure, why not switch to a Mac? It doesn't hurt to try it, especially if you're new to the world of Macs.

Unless you're going to use very specialized software (say for engineers) that doesn't run natively on a Mac, most things will be fine, unless you play games and such.

I actually got into Macs for less than a year and I've just grown accustomed to the simplicity. Back in undergrad I didn't have a laptop at all until my 3rd year (even then it was exclusively Windows), and to be honest I should've made the switch sooner.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: dfdave12
My major will be in Intelligence Studies at Mercyhurst College. Not alot of people know about it, so don't expect you to, but I will be doing a fair deal of analytical work, word processing, and probably creating presentations as well.

My main concern is that all of the campus computers are PC's, and that somehow if I did use Bootcamp, I would still not be fully compatible with all of the features on the campus PCs.

Boot Camp simply makes a partition for Windows, nothing more. All you have to do is install Apple's drivers for the Windows side and voila, you have a fully-functioning Windows machine. I have a friend who is in business school and his parents got him a MacBook...apparently he really hates it because he doesn't care about platform, he just cares about being compatible. iTunes runs the same on Mac as it does on Windows, and if most of your apps are on Windows, it's probably a better choice to get a Windows machine. With that said, you could turn your MacBook into a Windows machine and it'd work just fine in that capacity. I don't mind dual-booting or using virtual machines, but that may prove to be a hassle for you. But again, you can just run Windows without a problem, so it's not a big deal.

 

[dfdave12]

I've found a good deal on the Apple site through the student discount, so might go that route. This is really a big decision for me, ha!

Still a bit tentative on only 2 gigs of RAM. Does everyone else find that sufficient for their Macbook use?

Also, if I have Windows installed correctly via bootcamp, that means I can use all of their network features, correct? Was reading on the IT site of my college, and it said if I was just using OS X, there might be some things I wouldn't be able to access through the campus network..

 

[bearxor]

Originally posted by: dfdave12
Still a bit tentative on only 2 gigs of RAM. Does everyone else find that sufficient for their Macbook use?

Oh yeah.

q]Originally posted by: dfdave12
Also, if I have Windows installed correctly via bootcamp, that means I can use all of their network features, correct? Was reading on the IT site of my college, and it said if I was just using OS X, there might be some things I wouldn't be able to access through the campus network..
[/quote]

Running Windows in Boot Camp is exactly like running Windows on any other computer in the world. You could, theoretically, completely remove OS X from the machine and use a MacBook as a Windows computer.

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: dfdave12
My major will be in Intelligence Studies at Mercyhurst College. Not alot of people know about it, so don't expect you to, but I will be doing a fair deal of analytical work, word processing, and probably creating presentations as well.

My main concern is that all of the campus computers are PC's, and that somehow if I did use Bootcamp, I would still not be fully compatible with all of the features on the campus PCs.

you would be FULLY compatible...i use it on my colleges PC only network...which runs a series of checks to see if your computer is "valid" or not. passed it perfectly...and even better, they recently made the check "runable" on osx, and all in all, the check only checks if your computer can log onto the internet/aka it doesnt check for anything! hahaha...

*hearts osx with bootcamp into xp pro*

 

[The Bakery]

If you want a mac, go for it. Fully compatible with PCs. Plus you can bootcamp windows if you want to.

Considering you will only really be doing word processing, you don't need a mac specifically.
A PC will be cheaper. Macs crash and get messed up too - it's about the user as much as it is
the operating system.

That being said, I love my macbook pro to death, but I spent a lot of money on it. If you just
need a computer for browsing the web and typing papers, PC would be a better value.

Personally, I don't like the MAC os as much as windows, but that's likely because I'm so
familiar with Windows that some things just aren't natural yet. Its growing on me.

 

[dfdave12]

What version of Windows do you all recommend getting to Bootcamp into? My college recommends Vista Business, so might have a go with that, but does anyone have any experiences with Vista in general via bootcamp?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: dfdave12
What version of Windows do you all recommend getting to Bootcamp into? My college recommends Vista Business, so might have a go with that, but does anyone have any experiences with Vista in general via bootcamp?

It's a PC. There's no reason to qualify anything - it IS a PC. If your college has a recommendation reCs, it applies exactly the same with Bootcamp.

IMHO, the best thing to do WRT schools is ask the school what they suggest and then buy exactly that. Most have a bookstore to buy on the cheap.

 

[MovingTarget]

I had a similar decision to make when I bought my iBook my junior year of undergrad. I was a desktop pc only kinda guy back then, having never used nor owned a mac. Nowadays I don't regret it. The workflow/simplicity of OSX really does make things easier/faster once you get used to it. A few of the finer points do take some getting used to (installing apps, configuring preferences, lack of right click, etc.), but overall no more so than going from, say, XP to (hrrrk!) Vista.

Mine is a bit older now, running Tiger on a PPC chip. With the exception of gaming, I've never found anything that I couldn't do on it for college that could be done on a pc. Heck, once I moved to Grad school, I found it to be even more useful as I started doing some programming/UNIX stuff which OSX is better than windows for.

I honestly wish I had the money to get a macbook, but I do understand where you come from. If you have the funds, I'd say for for it because if worse comes to worst, you can always slap windows on it via bootcamp. There are many finer details about macs that make the OS more suited for working on a laptop imho, but it would take too long for me to go into that. I have nothing against Windows personally (Still a big fan of XP), but I'd take a mac laptop over a windows laptop anyday.

 

[rangda]

"Mac" at this point refers to software not hardware. The only thing that makes a "Mac" a "Mac" is OSX, the hardware is windows PC hardware. Boot camp is really a fancy name for dual booting, boot camping windows is no different that dual booting two versions of windows (or windows an linux, etc), you have two operating systems which you choose when you boot. Both run as if they are the only operating system on the computer.

My background is windows; my only Mac is a penryn MacBook Pro I picked up for professional audio use (TI firewire). XP on it is like XP on any other laptop. It has apple drivers for things that are uniquely apple (like the multi-touch pad); but things like hard drive controllers, USB bus, firewire bus, video card, network, use the standard off the shelf drivers from the appropriate manufacturers. Apple conveniently collects them onto a single CD for you, but you can (and I have) upgraded various drivers to more recent versions (sound and video in my case).

I can't speak for the MacBook, but here are my thoughts on the MacBook Pro from the perspective of someone who's used PC's for 20 years and hasn't used an Apple since the Apple //gs:

• The mac partition is not accessable from windows unless you get 3rd party software to make it accessable. Keep this in mind when making your partitions. In my case I bought MacDrive to make the mac drive accessable and made a small windows partition to just hold apps/games. Note that OSX can read NTFS but not write to it w/o some 3rd party applications.
  
  Apple includes an application KbdMgr.exe which adds full support for the keyboard (it also puts the bootcamp icon in the tray). This app is poorly behaved IRQ wise; it won't matter to you but it kills latency for pro audio applications. Killing it solves that problem; and running w/o it does nothing except prevent you from using the function keys to control hardware (they end up always being function keys).
  
  As I stated before you can update 3rd party drivers as you see fit. I've already updated audio and video for gaming.
  
  The laptop chews through the battery faster in windows than OSX; apparently there are some optimizations in OSX that don't happen in windows (whether this is because of poor Apple drivers or some functionality that exists in OSX but not windows I cannot say). I get battery estimates of about 2 (windows) hours vs. 4 (OSX). I've never run the battery to nothing so I cannot comment on the accuracy of the estimates.
  
  I find the trackpad works better in OSX than windows. You lose all multithouch gestures except scrolling, and scrolling is WAY too sensitive to in windows and the drivers give you no way to adjust the sensitivity. (It's too sensitive for general mouse movement too but that you can adjust through the standard windows mouse control panel applet.)
  
  Games (tried TitanQuest and Neverwinter Nights 2) work as good on it as any windows laptop with a similar hardware configuration (note that the 8600 is a so-so video card in the absolute sense). I updated video drivers as a matter of course and updated the audio drivers to fix stuttering audio in NWN2.
  
  OSX is pretty neat and will be easy enough to pick up if you want to bother (took me a day or two). I don't necessarily think it's better or worse than windows, just different. Some things are better than windows, some things are worse. Finder, in particular is horrible, especially with large folders. Some of the OSX apps are really cool (Adium for example) but on the other hand there are some windows apps that I also find indispensable that have no OSX equivalent (MediaMonkey). OSX is a 64 bit OS so it will take advantage of 4gb of RAM if you install it; obviously you need a 64 bit windows OS to do that (XP on my laptop sees a hair under 3GB because of the 512MB video card). As far as reliability I don't find it any more or less reliable than windows. It does seem a bit less bloated than Vista (which I run on my desktop).
  
  Office for the Mac is totally different than Office for the PC (Mac office does not use VisualBasic scripting for example). I have office 2007 in windows, and I've installed Neo Office (donationware) in OSX but haven't used it much yet.
  
  If you start using OSX and want access to your windows apps w/o having to boot into winodws, you can pick up one of the two virtualization apps (parallels or VMWare fusion). Both will create virtual machines from your boot camp partition so you can use it in OSX w/o having to reboot (with all of the benefits and flaws of using a virtual machine). If you do this with vista I'd strongly recommend 4gb of ram, 2 for OSX and 2 for vista. Note that when you install the vm drivers into windows it will force you to reactivate; so it's best to do this before activating windows.
  
  I find myself using OSX a lot because of the better battery performance which matters for the things I do when using the battery (web browsing, ebook reading). I use windows for gaming, and music library management. For pro audio I'm still undecided (apps work on both just a matter of picking which OS version I decide to activate). I'm leaning to OSX here because of the full access to the 4GB of RAM which is very meaningful for pro audio.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: MovingTarget
I had a similar decision to make when I bought my iBook my junior year of undergrad. I was a desktop pc only kinda guy back then, having never used nor owned a mac. Nowadays I don't regret it. The workflow/simplicity of OSX really does make things easier/faster once you get used to it. A few of the finer points do take some getting used to (installing apps, configuring preferences, lack of right click, etc.), but overall no more so than going from, say, XP to (hrrrk!) Vista.

Mine is a bit older now, running Tiger on a PPC chip. With the exception of gaming, I've never found anything that I couldn't do on it for college that could be done on a pc. Heck, once I moved to Grad school, I found it to be even more useful as I started doing some programming/UNIX stuff which OSX is better than windows for.

I honestly wish I had the money to get a macbook, but I do understand where you come from. If you have the funds, I'd say for for it because if worse comes to worst, you can always slap windows on it via bootcamp. There are many finer details about macs that make the OS more suited for working on a laptop imho, but it would take too long for me to go into that. I have nothing against Windows personally (Still a big fan of XP), but I'd take a mac laptop over a windows laptop anyday.

Don't let him scare you, Macs are perfectly capable of secondary clicking. There is no right button on the trackpad, so in the case of the MacBook, you simply place two fingers on the trackpad and then either tap them, or click the button, easy peasy.

 

[Kmax82]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Don't let him scare you, Macs are perfectly capable of secondary clicking. There is no right button on the trackpad, so in the case of the MacBook, you simply place two fingers on the trackpad and then either tap them, or click the button, easy peasy.

Funny part about this, is I thought I would hate that I had to use a one button mouse, but it's is actually easier for me to put two fingers on the trackpad on my Macbook Pro than it ever was for me to right click on a Windows machine.

That big button/trackpad is awesome!


Oh, and about the MB purchase. I say go for it. I switched to Mac just to "see what it's like", and I can't go back. I just love how OS X works. You might find the same thing, and if you find that Windows is better, well you can boot via Bootcamp solely and still have the resale value of a Mac whenever you decide to buy another machine later.

I think everyone should at least get a Mac and "try it".. and by that, I mean really give it a go.. use it for about a month, on and off, and see how it fits into your workflow. Most people who pick up Macs to use, tend to use them for one hour and say "forget it! I'm going back to Windows".. but I remember that switching from Windows 3.1 to '95 was quite an ordeal, yet you get used to it, and you find things that work much better.

 

[dfdave12]

For word processing on a Macbook, do you all suggest getting Microsoft Office 2007 and using that with Vista? I'm still not sure if there is a decent word processor that comes standard on OS X. I'll be doing alot of writing for my major so it's pretty essential..

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: dfdave12
For word processing on a Macbook, do you all suggest getting Microsoft Office 2007 and using that with Vista? I'm still not sure if there is a decent word processor that comes standard on OS X. I'll be doing alot of writing for my major so it's pretty essential..

If you're ok with rebooting into Windows all the time, sure. Otherwise, Microsoft has Office 2008 for the Mac. There's also "Pages", a part of iWork, available for $80 or so for the entire suite (a bargain!). Software and hardware are both cheap at the university bookstore; I suggest waiting until you're there. There may be other requirements you don't know about.

 

[MovingTarget]

Originally posted by: dfdave12
For word processing on a Macbook, do you all suggest getting Microsoft Office 2007 and using that with Vista? I'm still not sure if there is a decent word processor that comes standard on OS X. I'll be doing alot of writing for my major so it's pretty essential..

Standard? Depends on how you define it. Appleworks (abandonware) and Textedit do come truly standard on a mac, preinstalled. iWork at least has a trial, but you can have that preinstalled for the full version as well. It is pretty cheap and does wonders.

If you want Office for mac, you may want to check out your university bookstore. If they have a deal for the windows users, they should for mac as well. I was able to get both the 2007 for pc and 2004 for mac each for under $20. (Sadly, my university was slow to get around to selling the new office for mac version)

Or you could go the free route and use Openoffice/Neooffice.

Honestly though, word processing has never really been an issue for me softwarewise.

 

[dfdave12]

Cheers all. Looking at my college's IT department site now and they have great deals.

 

[dfdave12]

How does this Macbook look?:

2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM - 2x1GB
160GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm
SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
Apple Remote
AppleCare Protection Plan for MacBook Air/MacBook - Auto-enroll
AirPort Extreme Card & Bluetooth

= $1,401 w/ my student discount.
Not a bad deal if I do say so myself.

 

[dclive]

That's the standard .EDU price. Go to the Apple store online and you can easily see all that.

 

[dfdave12]

Right, I know. Was just saying thats not a bad price for that system. And that was directly off the Apple site.

 

[ColdFusion718]

Originally posted by: dfdave12
Hi all.

I'll just preface this by saying that I've never ever used a Mac before, only PC's, however I'm considering getting a Macbook for college. I've read much about Mac's reliability, and it seems quite popular with many people so I would just like your opinions on what I should do.

The problem is that I don't do much in the way of photo editing, DVD burning, or video stuff, but I do use iTunes alot and have a decent sized music library. I will however be doing quite a bit of word processing for my major, and the standard OS around the campus is Windows. Just a few questions then:

1) Do all Macbooks straight for the website come standard with bootcamp so I can run Vista?

2) Because I won't be doing much in the way photo, DVD, video stuff (you know what I mean), is it even worth getting a Macbook?

3) If anyone has taken a Mac to college, how strongly can you recommend it?


Thank you in advance!

EDIT: I just noticed that Mac runs Microsoft Office 2008. This is done without even having to Bootcamp, correct?

How much are you looking to spend? I have a 15" MacBook Pro 2.4GHz, 160GB HDD, superdrive that's still factory sealed.

Let me know if you are interested.

 

[dclive]

How much?