The iMac is one of those few electronic items that can satisfy both the geek male and his girlfriend who has an eye for decoration. I'd say dew eet.

I'm deciding on a laptop for my university use. Is there any other reason to get a Macbook (Pro) over a similarly spec-ed Windows PC besides the OS? Looks aside that is.

I'm deciding on a laptop for my university use. Is there any other reason to get a Macbook (Pro) over a similarly spec-ed Windows PC besides the OS? Looks aside that is.

The Mac will almost assuredly cost more even with an education discount but fi you can afford it I'd go with one anyway. Looks aside I find the usage of the Mac to be much more straightforward and it's a better built machine than the windows based lappy I have.

I'm deciding on a laptop for my university use. Is there any other reason to get a Macbook (Pro) over a similarly spec-ed Windows PC besides the OS? Looks aside that is.

each gen. of macs are different, but the spec list of these latest computers is getting awfully nice.

I'm deciding on a laptop for my university use. Is there any other reason to get a Macbook (Pro) over a similarly spec-ed Windows PC besides the OS? Looks aside that is.

Depending upon your major, the choice could be determined by the software you will be using. If it doesn't matter, get a MAC.

If you are going into engineering (other than possibly CE) get a PC or you will end up dual booting anyway for CAD software and other tools.

^^^ Damn, that's good advice. Where did I hear that before?

^^^ Damn, that's good advice. Where did I hear that before?

He's considering being a mac user so I wanted to make is simple and so it required a limited amount of thought

He's considering being a mac user so I wanted to make is simple and so it required a limited amount of thought

Basement. Now.

He's considering being a mac user so I wanted to make is simple and so it required a limited amount of thought

Because if you were trying to explain why to get the winpc it would have taken at least 3 CRTL-ALT-DELETE/END PROGRAM cycles and a few reboots to relay the same message.

Interesting... I have friends who are in electrical engineering and most of their work is done in the lab because it's just too slow to remote login to do stuff otherwise. But they do like the fact that macs can just ssh from the terminal, though this is easy to get around on a PC. Dunno if that helped. Hopefully it at least made a little sense.

Mac laptops at least have the legal option of dual booting. While it's also possible on a non-apple laptop, it's of questionable legality. If that matters to you, you get more flexibility with a mac than a non-mac. But modern mac laptops are very comparably priced to comparable, name brand non-macs with similar specs and size.

Interesting... I have friends who are in electrical engineering and most of their work is done in the lab because it's just too slow to remote login to do stuff otherwise. But they do like the fact that macs can just ssh from the terminal, though this is easy to get around on a PC. Dunno if that helped. Hopefully it at least made a little sense.

All the work I do is remote. Most stuff is done via command line, but physical layouts are done in GUI just fine remotely.

What about just having a virtual machine inside that runs Windows, just for the CAD software?

you don't want to run cad in a vm

you don't want to run cad in a vm

I've verified that.

Thanks for all the great replies. I'll be studying accountancy, don't think there's any funky software that requires Windows to work. Though I'm a little worried that there might be some compatibility issues for group projects/presentations if the other members are using Windows. Would there be such an issue?

depends on how the vm handles graphics card translations I guess

(un?)happily the refurb 24" iMacs that I was looking at are sold out for now so my wallet can breath a little easier until the lists get updated again with more options.

If those prices are in the range of what you were hoping for, let me know

Thanks Dan, I almost have to go refurb in order to get something with dedicated video RAM. I don't like shared, non-discrete video memory.

Seems like that's met by the 2 on the right

OOB

Out Of Budget

Thanks for all the great replies. I'll be studying accountancy, don't think there's any funky software that requires Windows to work. Though I'm a little worried that there might be some compatibility issues for group projects/presentations if the other members are using Windows. Would there be such an issue?

Sorry if this is making an unfair assumption but I believe the mac version of Microsoft Office's Excel does not feature the formula support that the PC version has. Dunno if that's something you'd take into consideration.

Edit: I think it might actually be Word.

I'm not sure why you think that, Microsoft's differences page doesn't mention it.