The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Buying a laptop, a good student laptop.
The Last Gent
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Alright, so for christmas, my parents are giving me a thousand to get myself a laptop for school (no small favour on their part). Now, I have some money of my own so that thousand isn't necessarily the limit (though I dont really want to go blowing another thousand on it, thatd really hurt me financially). Anyway, seeing as I suddenly have the funds, I was looking at getting a nice Mac Laptop. Now heres the thing: I know jack about buying computers, and the hardware and stuff. I can WORK them fine, and I'm fluent with both PCs and Macs, but once I start looking into processors, and system specifications and stuff, my mind just glazes over. So, help me out, PAers. I'm a university student, enrolled in Journalism, got a fair amount of money to spend on a lappy, looking to get a Mac Lappy, what stuff am I looking for? What should I get with it? What are the specs I have to memorize? Tips, facts, recommendations, all are welcome, bear in mind I know nothing about hardware. It would mostly be used for work, though finally having my own computer rather than a family one WOULD mean I'd kind of like to trick it out, too. Also, good battery life would be obliged.
The Last Gent on
0
Posts
Portability: If you plan to use this as anything other than a desktop then you're going to like the size. If you decide to go with something else, I'd advise you not to exceed the 15" screens.
Battery life: Battery life on the newest Macbooks is pretty substantial; around 5hrs depending on how you do things.
Design: magsafe power chord, front row, remote, keyboard, camera, all of this stuff blends together in an indescribably useful way.
Generally your shit breaks less: There is plenty that can go wrong with a mac but, in my experience, there are far more things that go wrong with PC.
OS X: In my opinion it is about the best OS out today.
If you go the mac route, get the one in the middle (the white one with the larger processor) and the lowest RAM they have (they charge waaaay too much for RAM). Consider bumping up the HDD, but don't do that at the expense of speed.
And, now, this is important:
Look at your school's literature or computer store and see about student discounts. I know apple offers a pretty decent student discount of around 100 off for a Macbook. Definitely look into this.
Ryan M Long Photography
Buy my Prints!
Run powerful programs?
Fit in small spaces?
Run forever on it's battery?
Come on, give us some wants.
What exactly do you want to do with it? Just type up assignments? Considering you are on PA, is gaming a concern? What programs will you NEED to run? Are they compatible with OSX?
If they are not compatible with OSX, you will need to look at bootcamping Vista or XP. You may want to take the extra cost of a license for this OS into consideration too.
Speaking of extra costs, things like a Wireless router for home, Bag or some kind of sleeve and obviously, software.
Also, all Thinkpads are on sale right now. Just saying.
Shogun Streams Vidya
Thanks a TON for the comments, I'm going to bed now, feel free to add anything else you think is useful.
Thanks again!
The portability is the big selling point for me. Not just how easy it is to carry with me, but it has great battery life. If you plan on carrying it around from class to class you're going to appreciate the portability.
Unless you will be using the graphics card for graphics-heavy applications, the regular MacBook would be ideal. For reference, my friend's several-year-old iBook G4 can run World of Warcraft amiably at the lowest settings, and the platform has gone nowhere but faster since then. If you were curious.
This is all good stuff right here.
I used to have a thinkpad and I've set up a few nice ones when I was working in IT; definitely a good option if you go the PC route.
Ryan M Long Photography
Buy my Prints!
installing ram on a laptop is ridiculously easy. Isn't it like 3 screws? On macs the RAM slot is isolated so you can access it without exposing anything else inside.
Yep. If you look at the RAM pricing on Apple's webpage they're looking at, what, +750 to put in 4 gigs of RAM on the new Macbooks? 2x2GB sticks of the same RAM cost like $80.00. So there's no reason a sane person would let apple install their RAM.
Ryan M Long Photography
Buy my Prints!
Macbook is a great choice though.
If you really want to burn DVDs bad enough to drop an extra $200, upgrade to the SuperDrive. I didn't, and don't regret it.
I recently looked up what you have to do to install RAM in a Macbook. All it takes is removing the battery, removing three screws from a small face-plate, and slipping the RAM in the slot. Pretty simple. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303721
Quick hijack (though it's on topic) because I don't think the OP may have considered this. How necessary would you guys deem Apple Care on a Macbook? And does upgrading the RAM yourself void anything from it or the built in warranty? I'd considered it myself, and if the OP wants to move around at all with this thing he might want to concern himself with some sort of protection from accidents.
You get a student-discount on the AppleCare plan as well, and in the end MacBook + AppleCare after discounts costs minimally more than MacBook by itself before discounts.
Sadly my student store on campus has closed until something like mid-January, so I may have to go the big-brick-and-mortar route. I hope that the student discount thing applies out in the wild, too.
Umm, I don't know if it's important, but I probably should have mentioned in the OP that I'm based in Canada, if that matters at all in these times. But yeah, I've gotten enough tips on the model here (I'll have to print them out or write them down or something, I can feel them going through my head as I read them) so, remembering that I'm in Canada, how much money are we looking at needing for, lets say, 2GB ram, 13-14'' dimensions (archonwarp's post) (I'd have to see them in person to pick the size) a good sized HD and lasting battery, and maybe a decent MS Office software bundle to go with it (I know they exist, the Imac at home has one).
Also how much would that Mac Care thing cost?
I've built two PCs from scratch from them, and done multiple upgrades, and I get everything from them. Very good, very cheap, very good service. You will be able to get any brand and size of RAM you want, and you'll get it pretty much as cheap as anywhere (barring a few exceptions).
Also, consider waiting until January if you can; there's always the chance that the macbook will get a bump in performance or apple will release something that you really want.
Ryan M Long Photography
Buy my Prints!
* A good monitor, 'round $250 (and you can get one with a TV-tuner by adding $100 to this)
* A full-size keyboard and a mouse, say $50
* An external USB hard drive for your music, $100
* A good set of speakers, hmm... starts at $20 for crap, but the sky's the limit
* And maybe even a printer, although that could take you over the $1000
Admittedly, you won't be doing much gaming on such a setup but that's what consoles are for. ;^)
"Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!"
~ Dr. Emilio Lizardo