I see soooooooo many students using MacBooks in class.
Is it really better than Windows laptops?

The short answer, yes. I could blabber on like every other Mac-lover about how great it is but the truth is, find a friend who has one, and spend some time around them and use theirs as much as you can. Then you will truly see and feel the difference. I found an incredible improved personal computing experience when I switched to my Mac. Love this interface, design, hardware, reliability, and overall feel of the products. Will never go back. Try it for yourself and make your own decision.

you get excellent, but fragile, build quality. You will pay more. You will be a part of a fad. When is a macbook better?
1) Design + movies
2) Software Development (open you up to ios development)

otherwise windows pcs have actually seen more innovation than macbooks in recent years. Windows 8 is amazing with a touchscreen but downright a pain in the ass without one.

It's mainly used by people in media/visual arts or programming for iOS. Mostly other people use it to look "cool" or cause it's "virus free"

Depends what you use it for. If you find yourself barely using word or excel, like I have, during the school year and have more of a paper&pen approach to doing work then save yourself the money. You can type/download notes onto anything. Besides, all the places I've worked during the summer as a student use a standard dell laptop.

Originally Posted by qwerty91

you get excellent, but fragile, build quality. You will pay more. You will be a part of a fad. When is a macbook better?
1) Design + movies
2) Software Development (open you up to ios development)

otherwise windows pcs have actually seen more innovation than macbooks in recent years. Windows 8 is amazing with a touchscreen but downright a pain in the ass without one.

I would not say fragile. My MacBook Air has seen some rough times and it looks and runs great. I think you just notice any external damage more on a Mac because it looks great to begin with. It's easy to spot imperfections on the clean silver casing, rather than the typical black PC plastic.

It just depends on what you're used to? The battery life is a plus, and macbooks have nice screens (especially the retinas), but personally I can't ever get used to the mac interface. It's just not intuitive or functional for me. I have a desktop PC at home that I use for design because it can run a lot of third-party art programs, so having a macbook and switching back and forth between windows and apple shortcuts would be a massive pain.

I can never get used to such tiny differences like having to use the command button instead of control, or not being able to double click to maximize a window, or having your applications/windows stay open after you think you've closed them... etc.

And if you're the type to download third party programs or obtain your programs in less than legal ways, they're often not available for macs.

So yeaaaah. It depends on your needs, your learning curve and what you plan to use it for.

Macbook Pro is a brand that has held consecutive awards for the past several years for best laptop from several big sources such as consumer reports and CNET.

Here's why;
Apple has got a lot going for them in the laptop.
- Best battery life in their class (they've held this title for a while)
- Longest lifetime (I have a friend still using a 10 year old macbook, you won't find this with hardly any brand)
- Easiest to service/repair (every other product you go to a shop or mail it in, etc) With apple, you bring it to the store and its handled. (average turnaround time @ Yorkdale for instance; 20 hours.)
- Significantly better design; macs are generally more efficiently cooled. In a family of PC-Only gamers, even my brothers admit that apple's macbook designs are exceptionally well built

And none of the above has to do with media design or viruses. These are easily tangible benefits.

Originally Posted by Commie42

I would not say fragile. My MacBook Air has seen some rough times and it looks and runs great. I think you just notice any external damage more on a Mac because it looks great to begin with. It's easy to spot imperfections on the clean silver casing, rather than the typical black PC plastic.

You do know that PCs are made in more colours than just black.....
In fact I'd say I've seen a pretty even split on campus between people with coloured PCs (white, silver, red, pink) and black PCs.

Wow, thanks for sharing your opinions!
I must agree that Apple has one of the best designs.

I definitely wouldn't call it fragile - a really heavy mug fell on my old macbook pro over one of the speakers. It dented, the side panel popped out a bit to compensate, and performance wasn't even the slightest bit affected.

I find Macs really easy to navigate, but I also grew up using them. I very rarely have had computer problems; much less than my friends who have PCs.

if laptops went to highschool:

macs would be the cool, slightly artsy kids.

I have only one thing to say about PC vs Mac.

Choose what you want but compare in the same price range. A $500 HP is gonna be shit compared to a $2100 Macbook pro retina. A $2100 lenovo/asus/etc may still not be as good, but its gonna be at least comparable.

In terms of pure design (cooling, ruggedness, battery, performance) pretty much nothing beats a thinkpad in the same price category, macbooks included. Macs are good but thay are not the end-all.

Also dont trust CNET for apple products. Their parent company, CBS, owns significant stock in Apple and CNET has been banned from tech conventions due to their known bias towards apple products. They have gotten better though.

This study analyzed Windows 8 versus Chrome OS versus Mac OSX Mavericks (still in beta at the time).
The test included a total of 20 laptops.
Similar results can be found elsewhere; and not saying that macs are an end all. Just saying that, especially in newer software, they have taken many measures to conserve battery life, and likely when considered against other laptops in their class (and especially in their *weight* class...) they will outperform most.

Choose what you want but compare in the same price range. A $500 HP is gonna be shit compared to a $2100 Macbook pro retina. A $2100 lenovo/asus/etc may still not be as good, but its gonna be at least comparable.

My lenovo Y510p kicks MacBook Pro's ass anytime. The only downsides to it are the screen and subpar touchpad, but as it costs over $1000 less, I can't really complain. In terms of performance tho, it's like comparing a muscle car to a Mercedes.

Also add a batery life there. But I'm a student not a business man, I tend to study in places with plugs, not airplanes or bullet trains.