Shopping for a computer for the new grad to take to college. We have emailed the school and waiting for their recommendation.

 

Any college students, parents or teachers have advice on the first computer for the new college student? What do you recommend and why?

 

I have heard a lot of good things about the Mac.

 

Thanks!

We just went through this with our Grad. We checked with his school and told them he was wanting a Mac (I'm sure he heard they are the best so he wanted one )... The school say the Mac would work but they have Dell so he went with a Dell and loaded up on the memory and a 2 or 3 year warranty.

I know A LOT of people in my classes are using Macs these days. I've dabbled in their use and while they take a bit to get used to, I found them to work great.

 

If I may ask, what type of degree is your grad wanting to pursue? That can influence what type of computer to get.

Shopping for a computer for the new grad to take to college. We have emailed the school and waiting for their recommendation.

 

Any college students, parents or teachers have advice on the first computer for the new college student? What do you recommend and why?

 

I have heard a lot of good things about the Mac.

 

Thanks!

Macbook Pro is what I bought my oldest. I have one also. Love it.

Macbook Pro is what I bought my oldest. I have one also. Love it.

 

That sounds a lot better than, say, Macbook Amateur or Macbook Newbie. Those would probably be marketing disasters.

We've had good luck with Dells over the past several years for our two oldest so we just purchased another one for our youngest. However, my wife is an IT guru and she does a lot of work on them keeping them updated and operating securely. We are lucky that our older children are not gamers so while the units were bulked up, they did not need the very high end systems.

I had a Dell throughout college but it seems that Morehead started using a lot of Apple products towards the end of my collegiate career.

 

 

I recommend getting a Mac.

I have recently sent 3 children through college. I would say Mac and buy any extended warranty they offer. College kids are hard on their things. Mac has excellent customer service. Dell, awful.

I am hearing the split is about 50/50 of PCs vs Macs at schools. Recently looked at the MacBook Airs. The seem a good combination of function and portability since they use flash storage and not spinning hard drives. They run between $1,000 to $1,500.

I know many people in college are definitely moving towards getting Macs now but I'll say this.... If you get a regular laptop that is of comparable price to a Mac, you will get a similar performance with the main differences coming in what the Macs and PCs specialize in.

 

Many times colleges also tend to work with specific computer companies like Dell as well as others so they recommend you getting those types of computers and software to support you. UK, for example, works with and recommends Dell and also has support for McAfee anti-virus users. Just from my personal experience, after getting a Dell I will never get another one and McAfee offers little bang for your buck based on what you pay and what you get (I'd recommend WebRoot but thats for a different thread).

 

Honestly, the whole "support" program that these schools say they will offer those who have Dells, etc. doesn't really matter too much because in the end I had one or two issues with my computer and they helped me out no problem and walked me through what to do. I think the only time it really matters is when there is an actual physical problem with computer but I could be wrong on that one because I was never truly in that situation.

 

My advice? Get the laptop of your choosing and that you think is currently best for kid.

 

Just be forewarned, Macs cannot do everything a PC does because unfortunately some of the software, etc. hasn't all been retrofitted for those laptops. However the Macs can still do plenty but you won't ever have any issues with PCs as you have much more versatility in what you can do. Still Macs are becoming more and more like the PC laptops everyday as developers get access to the Macs coding and hardware to make their programs and software compatible. This is especially true for Games though on the PC. I don't know if your child is much of a gamer or not but if they are I would definitely stay away from a Mac because not all games are compatible with them.

 

Hope this helps!

In your experience what can a PC do that a Mac cannot? Past the game issue that is

Also of note, IMO Mac's have a much longer lifespan than a PC.

In your experience what can a PC do that a Mac cannot? Past the game issue that is

 

One example: The fiancee has a statistics class that uses a software program that doesn't work on our Mac. Luckily NKU offers remote access to their statistics lab and she was able to use it that way.

 

There are quite a few software applications that haven't been customized to Macs yet.

My first computer when I was a kid was the Mac SE (well we did have a Commodore 64 first) and my computer in college was a Mac. Since I was going graphic design most of my computer time in college was on a Mac. I've had PCs since then but that was due to not having money. When I talk to people about the difference between a Mac and a PC I compare it to cars. PCs are you domestic brand or even Honda. You can get a good one at a low price with not a ton of bells and whistles. Parts and labor are cheap and you can find plenty of people to answer your questions and work on them. You have a wide range from low base models to completely tricked out. Its much easier to find add ons at local places. Now the Mac is more like German/Swiss cars. Their "low end" is much closer to the upper midrange of others. They are well designed machines both in how they work and look. It might be harder to get some questions answered and there are a few quirks (just like were reverse is on some manual transmission foreign cars). Mac works off of (at least I am pretty sure this hasn't changed) a closed system which meant they didn't let just anyone develop things for their machines. This was much more of a limit in the past. As the internet has grown what restrictions Mac users would run into has become much much smaller.

One example: The fiancee has a statistics class that uses a software program that doesn't work on our Mac. Luckily NKU offers remote access to their statistics lab and she was able to use it that way.

 

There are quite a few software applications that haven't been customized to Macs yet.

 

Ok I can see what you mean there. The Mac can still do the job. Maybe not with that program but with another program. Part of the reason you'll see certain software not in a Mac version of course has to do with the market. The market doesn't have enough Mac users to warrant the creation of a Mac version. If you are in an industry that just uses a machine to crunch numbers and do general office suite things then it makes little sense to use a Mac. They can just lease crap PCs that they will replace ever few years cheaply. Demand for number crunching software or the such for a Mac would be small.

 

To me the limit isn't on the Mac machine itself but on the maybe the software made for it. The machine still performs the task just fine and well.