Oh, and PC FTW...Windows 7 is simply amazing

Mac or PC doesn't matter, but your going to be booting Windows a lot, ie for soild edge ( 1C03) and C# (1D04) and many other programs in the years to follow.

I own a Mac myself and believe me it's not a big deal switching over to Windows to do some work since the new Boot Camp on Mac allows you to access your files on the OS X partition and vis versa from OS X to Windows.

You might not want to buy anything bigger than a 15.4 in since then it's hard to fit into the lecture hall seats and carry around all day. Tablets are nice but your will have to draw tonnes of diagrams and that might not work the way you want it to.

Originally Posted by blackdragon

For those of you that suggest MAC, give me a solid reason why?

I have a Sony Vaio with Windows and it sucks :( It freezes like twice a week, to the point where I have to cut all power to restart (ie. take out battery). It's less than a year old!!

Whenever I ask people about their Macbooks, they say their laptops NEVER freeze.

Originally Posted by 5XLH

Mac or PC doesn't matter, but your going to be booting Windows a lot, ie for soild edge ( 1C03) and C# (1D04) and many other programs in the years to follow.

I own a Mac myself and believe me it's not a big deal switching over to Windows to do some work since the new Boot Camp on Mac allows you to access your files on the OS X partition and vis versa from OS X to Windows.

You might not want to buy anything bigger than a 15.4 in since then it's hard to fit into the lecture hall seats and carry around all day. Tablets are nice but your will have to draw tonnes of diagrams and that might not work the way you want it to.

I'm not sure if you know this, but do you find that dual booting Windows affect battery life? (If yes, has it ever been a problem for you?) I'm considering doing that (Or using Parallels so I won't have to - if I get a Mac, that is), but I'm concerned about battery life.

(Thanks for the help guys - you've been great so far)

once you go mac .. you never go back!

Originally Posted by blackdragon

For those of you that suggest MAC, give me a solid reason why?

Dependable with a rock solid OS. My old laptop from about 6 years ago still works, and runs reasonably fast for something that age. Never had major problems with 'em, and when I had a small problem, it was fixed within 1 or 2 days.

Plus, Titles bookstore does warranty repairs, so it's very convenient knowing if something goes wrong, I can take it to somewhere on campus to get it fixed for free.

Originally Posted by MiniDragon

I'm not sure if you know this, but do you find that dual booting Windows affect battery life? (If yes, has it ever been a problem for you?) I'm considering doing that (Or using Parallels so I won't have to - if I get a Mac, that is), but I'm concerned about battery life.

(Thanks for the help guys - you've been great so far)

Doesn't effect battery life. You may notice a little drop because rebooting any computer uses a bit more power than if the computer is idle, but otherwise, Windows on a Mac is like Windows on any other computer.

I've heard that PC World has said that the best Windows 7 computer is a Macbook Pro.

Originally Posted by aaront

Doesn't effect battery life. You may notice a little drop because rebooting any computer uses a bit more power than if the computer is idle, but otherwise, Windows on a Mac is like Windows on any other computer.

I've heard that PC World has said that the best Windows 7 computer is a Macbook Pro.

Oh. Hm. The reason i was wondering was because I read this:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10301015-1.html

It was almost perfect, that is. What's missing has been a known issue with Mac laptop running Boot Camp: the battery life. According to Apple, the MacBook Pro offers about eight hours of battery life (in my experience it's more like about five hours, which is still very impressive). However, when running Windows XP and Vista, this reduces the life to just merely an hour and a half. And you guessed it: it's the same with Windows 7. The battery somehow drains really fast, even when the screen brightness turned down, I couldn't get two hours out of a full charge, even when just doing regular work on the machine.

A Google search shows other people have this issue too :/.

Originally Posted by Kathy2

I have a Sony Vaio with Windows and it sucks :( It freezes like twice a week, to the point where I have to cut all power to restart (ie. take out battery). It's less than a year old!!

Whenever I ask people about their Macbooks, they say their laptops NEVER freeze.

... you aren't the kind of person that uses internet explorer and has every toolbar imaginable installed, are you?

Originally Posted by aaront

Plus, Titles bookstore does warranty repairs...

Real engineers void their warrenties .

in terms of battery life .... mac's all the way

when you're sitting in a 3 hour night class ... its good to know you're not going to be the loser who has to sit along the sides because you're a PC owner and need to plug in your laptop for battery power well after ....... 5 minutes into the class..

you'll be happy with a mac .. trust me

I thought having a mac was a good idea, until i realized how royally screwed I would be if I didn't partition your hard drive. Take it from a mac user: go with windows.

Originally Posted by valconrj

I thought having a mac was a good idea, until i realized how royally screwed I would be if I didn't partition your hard drive. Take it from a mac user: go with windows.

Sorry - can you just elaborate on this a bit more? Why would you have been royally screwed? Because you need to use some Windows programs? Did you realize that in first year? Did you use boot camp to daul boot another operating system, or did you do it some other way?

Thanks.

Regardless whether you get a mac or a pc (cough get a pc cough) jus make sure you get one with a solid graphics card. I know my friends had onboard graphics and it made solid edge work a pain in the ass.

I tried taking notes with my laptop the first few days but abandoned it pretty quick, too many formulas.

Lol.. my laptop never freezes.

You just need to be a little more careful on windows with spyware/viruses. If your not, problems like you mentioned could happen easily.