Originally Posted by blackdragon

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.

Basically just staying away from sketch sites, chrome/firefox also has a nice malware/anti-phishing feature where when something is detected it prevents the loading of the webpage. And obviously a good antivirus that does realtime scans.

Going into third year now and from my experience bringing a laptop to a lecture is both a waste of time and a huge distraction. In first year I would bring it quite alot in the beginning and quickly realised using it for lectures was pointless. First of outlets are non existent in some lectures while in others (MDCL, ETB??) there may be a few, secondly you wont be able to keep up with what the prof is saying and typing, and lastly you may get distracted and open up solitare during those physics lectures lol. Paper and pen is all you need. Where the laptop is useful is maybe for those 1D04/1C03 lectures I guess or maybe even the tutorials for 1D04.

Originally Posted by Colin

Going into third year now and from my experience bringing a laptop to a lecture is both a waste of time and a huge distraction. In first year I would bring it quite alot in the beginning and quickly realised using it for lectures was pointless. First of outlets are non existent in some lectures while in others (MDCL, ETB??) there may be a few, secondly you wont be able to keep up with what the prof is saying and typing, and lastly you may get distracted and open up solitare during those physics lectures lol. Paper and pen is all you need. Where the laptop is useful is maybe for those 1D04/1C03 lectures I guess or maybe even the tutorials for 1D04.

Did you use a Mac or a PC?

Very hard decision. I want a Mac, but I'm thinking the smarter choice would be a PC, since almost all the applications we need are Windows only.

PC. I bought a Dell Studio 15 in first year. Solid laptop and haven't had any major problems with it or anything really. The only thing I regret though is buying a 15.4" laptop. At the time I was thinking a bigger screen would be better and stuff but when I had to carry it around to and from school (I lived of campus) everyday for the first few weeks it was a pain in the ass. So I do suggest getting a smaller screen but only if you plan on bringing it everywhere you go.

If you really want the Mac then go for it. You can just dual boot right.

Just finished first year eng: I did well to say the least.

I used a tablet. A lot of people ridiculed it throughout the year, but as I said: I did well. Use OneNote to take your notes... Formatting and organization is easy when you use "Pages" and "Sections", all of your notes are digitally organized and tracked, and you can draw graphs, lines, etc. on your page from templates (quickly too). You also get to add notes that prof's post on their site, and just scroll down through them, adding more space, making your own notes, and annotating the prof's notes as you go.

You want to know why I laugh at the ridicule? My total paper consumption for the year was 6 "200 page" notebooks (didn't use all of the pages) and about one pack of paper. Ask anyone else that printed their notes: they used at least a stack for printing notes alone, not to mention practice problems, practice tests, etc etc etc.

If I was to go back and do it again, I wouldn't have it any other way. Losing notes, losing worksheets, etc... It's a pain. Just backup your files like you should anyways, and your notes can always be with you, in your backpack which always has only 2 things: A tablet, and lined paper notebook... No worksheets, notes, (heck even your textbooks can go here).

In case it's not obvious: I VOTE TABLET FOR SAVING INFINITE AMOUNTS OF PAPER, AND FOR A SUCCESSFUL FIRST YEAR

Honestly, for the price you pay for a mac, you can get a SOLID PC. And most probably, most specs will double those of the mac...

Originally Posted by mike_302

My total paper consumption for the year was 6 "200 page" notebooks (didn't use all of the pages) and about one pack of paper.

My paper consumption was probably less than that and i didnt have a tablet. Granted I studied from the textbook and not from my notes...

I bought a PC for school. I ended up being majorly distracted all the time by it...which is also why i didnt have very many notes at the end of term. And yes i have a personal bias towards PC for being like 1/2 the price of a crappy mac (spec wise)

Quick and to the point.

Reasons to get a mac:
-Long battery life.
-Good waranty.
-Great graphics cards.

Reasons to get pc:
-Runs every single program needed for engineering (with the same battery usage as a dual running Mac).
-Same specs for less money.
-More upgradable (you can actually open it!).
-Ussually 1yr waranty.

If money is no issue and you like the mac os get a mac cause they're just much easier to surf the net with and look @ notes with the long battery life but if you're into performance and want a good solid computer go with pc (research carefully though for a good model).

Happy hunting and grats on getting into Mac Eng


Also it matters how lucky you get. My Dell had one problem this entire year. My friend's 2k macbook had to be sent in twice for repair becouse it more or less crashed on him completely.

Originally Posted by Sasha

Also it matters how lucky you get. My Dell had one problem this entire year. My friend's 2k macbook had to be sent in twice for repair becouse it more or less crashed on him completely.

I second that. Luck is essential, so if you don't have much of it lock yourself away and make that leprechaun with the pot of gold buy your laptop.


haha but seriously, I would go with a PC (but again I'm biased) for all that a mac is, it really isn't. In other words under that shiny good looking UI, the OS is based on linux and at the end of the day Mac's just like PC's will crash. As a matter of fact 2 of my profs last year (Doyle for 1C03 in first term, and Hatala for Summer chem -_-) have had their mac's crash in class in lecture!
in Doyle's case he cancelled class and had to reschedule, while with Hatala he rebooted a couple of times. Point is Mac's are just as bad as PC's. Technology is Technology and for all the gimmicks Mac's have (the not getting viruses thing is a myth), PC's have others.

One plus Mac's have is battery life. However great thing about a PC is, like someone else said, you can open them up! and even if you know nothing about motherboards and such like me it's a great experience for an engineer! either way it's all about you're personal taste at the end of the day. Don't listen to anyone.

Personally I used a netbook for taking notes in classes without lots of formulas and whatnot, and a big-ass gaming laptop for solid edge and other things where you have group projects (and not at all for playing TF2 in the lounge >_>). But if I had to choose just one computer to get, I'd go Mike's route with the tablet, we were all insanely jealous of it XD.

Originally Posted by blackdragon

Honestly, for the price you pay for a mac, you can get a SOLID PC. And most probably, most specs will double those of the mac...

WELL SAID.

Maybe last year one could be inclined towards a mac because of Microsoft's AWESOME Vista. But after the release of Windows 7, I don't really see the point of going with a Mac instead of a PC for an Engineer. You'll definitely have to use Windows for a couple of softwares in first year and it is a hassle to switch back and forth. Whe peopl talk about the battery life for Macs, they forget that it lasts that long only due to OSX. With Windows loaded on a Mac, its battery life sucks. In my opinion, go for a PC(Tablet, Laptop or a Desktop) but make sure you have a good video card and a good large hard drive. From my experience, if you don't care about the looks, Lenovo's Business laptops are amazing. They would never give you any problem. Good luck for first year.

[quote=Sasha;139443]Quick and to the point.

Reasons to get a mac:
-Long battery life.
-Good waranty.
-Great graphics cards.

Great video Cards.....what planet are you on. The Current 330m and 320m cards are capable of doing very little gaming and are low level cards. They are found in 700-800 dollar windows based laptops.

[quote=Commie8507;1394 64]

Originally Posted by Sasha

capable of doing very little gaming

Always an excellent argument for someone asking specifically about schoolwork.

I'm going into my 4th year of engineering now and I've been using a Mac every year. I love my mac and I'm sticking with mac for the next computer I buy too. I didn't even use the boot camp to have windows on my computer because their are a number of computer labs on campus that you can use that all have the C# and solid edge programs on them. I never had a problem just going to one of the labs to do my work.

Macs are more expensive so I would only suggest getting one if you are really willing to spend the money. I really wanted one so I had saved up the extra money to buy it.