Computers

With the new aluminum macbooks on the market, the previous versions are a good buy for less than $900. Should be great for school. Good display, light weight, dependable.:cheer2:

 

I'm not sure why you think a MacBook would be "bogged" down running BootCamp. Essentially BootCamp is a set of drivers for the specific Mac hardware and also a "boot" routine that allows XP or Vista to use the more modern EFI boot loading routine instead of the older BIOS boot loading.

Here is more info: Mac 101: Using Windows via Boot Camp with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

BTW: I have been running SolidWorks (solid modeling program) under VMWare Fusion (virtualization) and it seems about as fast as when I was in classroom training using a Dell desktop. My MacBook Pro is a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo.

 

I have a 13" Macbook with the polycarbonate shell that we bought year ago. We paid $1300 but it is currently on sale for $899 with rebate. That is 2.1 GHz, 1GB RAM, and 120 GB hard drive.

Don't expect that any computer you buy today will be useful after you are done with college. We bought a $2000 laptop for my wife when she started grad school in 2005. Now you can get a netbook for $299 that is more powerful and 1/3 the weight.

This is our first Mac and we won't be going back. In the year we have used this computer we have never had the OS crash or even an application crash. No viruses and no virus protection needed. The software stability alone is worth the little extra you pay for a Mac.

 

My MacBook (Core2Duo) runs XP just as fast if not faster as XP runs on a Dell Laptop. The best price I can find (free shipping) is at Mac Connection - MacBook for just under $900. You can't legally run Mac on a Windows Laptop but you can legally run XP on a Mac.

 

Have you looked online? Tiger has some pretty good deals, check out here Laptops & Notebooks at TigerDirect.com
I've used the HP 6820 and it's quite impressive, Acer seems to be the brand that everybody bad mouths, but my expierience with them is quite good, if you notice they have one at the bottom of the page with BluRay.
You seem to see people with Dell almost everywhere, but I am personally less than enthused about them, they stand up, are reasonably trouble free, but dogs, they do have the XPS however that is impressive, but also on the high end of your price range.
I see your getting a lot of sales pitches on Macs, but I think you are wise sticking with the PC platform given what you mention you are going to be doing, IMO the PC is better suited for the job. Oh, and before the Mac lovers start throwing their entire shoe closits at me, Macs are indeed fine machines, but better for the arts world.

 

The business world and the real world are two very different concepts.

 

I'm not sure where your priorities are regarding size and weight, but take a look at the netbooks for small size and still decent power. Less than 3 pounds to lug to class might do it for you. Paired with an external dvd drive you could handle most programs just not all running at the same time. Pick up an external monitor for home use and this might work for you. Netbooks have long battery life, low weight, small size and can be had for $350 to $500. Just bought the Samsung NC10 and am impressed with what it can do. There are several others available too.

 

Basically it comes down to the weight vs power. I also have a Dell 15" Dual core and they are just two different machines. Sure love the small size and low weight of the Samsung for traveling though. Glad you looked at the netbooks so you can see what they look like. Lots of people haven't heard of them yet.

 

Personally, I've been really happy with our Lenova IBM Thinkpad notebooks.

Granted, I've only ever bought used ones, but they've been very durable, fast, and well made. The new ones may be even better! (currently we have R52 models).

 

I've had my current Dell Laptop (a 600m) for 5 years now and it's a real workhorse. I recommend Dell laptops in a heartbeat. I travel with it a lot and it takes a beating too. Dell has some great deals on laptops now and you can get a great one for $700 or under. Another good thing about Dell is their 24 hour on-site service if you buy and need it; it works great.

 

FWIW, i've been running windows on my MacBook for two years now, ever since i got it. Using Bootcamp, it runs natively - in other words, it's just as fast as a similarly spec'd laptop from Dell. Running in Parallels (god i love using that, though), it's a hair slower, but for most things it's not really noticable.

For me, the choice of computers/OS's is more a question of quality and what the computer does for me. In terms of quality, i've never had a laptop that had less probblems than my MacBook, and i really abuse the thing. I can't count the number of times i was helping one of my friends get their laptops from Dell, HP, etc fixed when something went wrong/broke. In terms of what it does for me, it simply manages all of my real life "stuff" much better than anything i've ever found in Windows. And everything just works - no putzing around trying to fix something on the Mac. In fact, having the MacBook and probably freed up around 20-40 hours per month of fixing things on my computer.

And just for reference, i'm a computer engineer and work with robotics in my spare time. My MacBook is all i need.

 

we have people in it all over campus that will buy macbooks and mbps and put only windows on it....just for the superior hardware.

im running a macpro at home with a windows partition for my blackberry. if i need to really get windows to crunch stuff ill use bootcamp, if not i just mount the partition in vmware fusion and suffer only a tad of speed loss

 

I'm a Mechanical Engineer, but unemployed since my company was shut down in October. Maybe I should try the arts since I have the perfect computer for it.

I just installed XP on my MacBook Pro last night because I have some training software that requires it. (I prefer Win 2000 since it doesn't call home constantly). What a PITA it is to use XP compared to OS X. I have to install WMP 11 since the software I'm using requires it (for the DRM features, another PITA) All the while, XP is popping up little dialog balloons all over the place to tell me I haven't registered yet, I don't appear to have anti-virus installed, yada , yada , yada. And there are at least a dozen "critical" updates waiting to install themselves including Window Genuine Advantage (advantage for who?) I can't install any of this crap without using Internet Explorer, the single most insecure piece of software in existence. I downloaded Firefox and installed it, but WMP 11 won't download unless I use IE.

You windows people have no idea. It doesn't have to be like that. For Mac OS X, you don't even enter a registration number. There are no nagging balloons popping up. Your computer doesn't issue threatening warnings to tell you to install anti-virus software.

Anyway, you can run that POS software (XP) on your Mac, if you need to. But if you get a Mac, you can also use OS X and that is worth paying extra for.

 

SDTundra,

I'm an mechanical engineer, (graduated in 2000) and my wife is a biomedical engineer (finished masters in 2007)

I would recommend that you wait to buy a computer until you actually start classes. My gut feeling is that you won't use your computer for much more than word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. Most of the engineering specific software will be installed on university computers that you will use in labs. Go to school, ask around and then decide what type of computer you need. Join a couple clubs and talk to some juniors and seniors. BTW, networking is very important in engineering school and in the business world beyond.