Laptop Advice

good post (except for the last part) durability is the key. don't fuck around with plastic for school. and buy in store so you can hold/feel before dropping money.that's probably as much as NS can actually help you.

as for the "wtf buy a mac comments", how thick are you guys? he specifically said he would not be buying a mac. dual booting is fucking inconvenient for the average user idgaf what you say. and macs dominating industries and unis? not relevant and not true. its cool that you posted CERN as an example but generally outside US most people are overwhelmingly running pc's.

 
This is not true. I am from canada. People here are not overwhelmingly running PC's. At university here it is probably > 80% macs and that is a conservative guess. From what I understand the same goes for western europe and australia, and even asia to a lesser extent.

It is absolutely rediculous to label someone as a trend whore because they buy a mac for school. I mean everyone buys the same textbook, but you don't call them trend whores for buying a different one and trying to make it work. A macbook is a very good choice for most students and that is why most students choose one. I'm not saying that buying anything else is stupid, especially if your school tells you that you need a computer running windows. There are lots of good computers from other manufacturers to consider.

If you have the choice though, a mac is one of the best choices you can make. Sure you can buy a $600 plastic dell with better specs, but it will probably be 1.5" thick and have a battery that lasts like 3 hours max. All the little things like the keyboard and the magnetic power cord and the body construction and the thickness add up to make a mac one of the best computers on the market and expecially for the 13" you wont find much better of a deal.

As I said, I have spent a LONG time looking for a computer and basically the best computer I have found is still the apple. Even though I don't run OSX.
 
Surprised no once has mentioned Acer. I've only ever heard amazing things about them for the price that you pay.

also, I seriously cannot in any way shape or form begin to fathom the idiocy of hardcore Mac proponents.
 
mate Cnada/USA same fukn thing i basically meant outside North America and just wanted to comment on some of the naivety in this thread (not necessarily you specifically). i wont really reply to that massive wall you just wrote cause TLDR. posting this from my mac.
 
You don't even really need a 15". I just do this for multiple windows and it works pretty well

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I got an Asus for $300, and it rocks. Runs super fast, rarely gets viruses, and does everything I need it to do (Internet, Jibbin, Winrar, itunes, etc.)
 
What are you taking in college. I've been rocking a macbook pro 15" for 3 years of mechanical engineering never had a problem. I thought the same as you before going that i'd need something to run all these special programs on. Truth is, if you need to use programs that are for some reason not compatible with a mac, they will be provided for you on the machines there. I have friends using macs in every kind of engineering ranging from software to chemical and have never head complaints from anyone. I'm just mentioning the engineering part because its typically the discipline that uses the most advanced software programs that might not be primarily designed to run on a macintosh platform
 
Honestly i've never had an issue conflicting with a university class after all this time. My macbook runs as fast as the day i got it and i've put in a solid number of hours of porn on it. No worrying about that firewall and antivirus bullshit cuz macs dont get that as long as your somewhat sensible when it comes to your downloading decisions. Only downside I could see there being is that you can't play as many games on it but that doesn't affect me. Theres a reason why 4 out of 5 kids in uni these days are rockin a macbook pro. Pay a little more but it will last and not give you problems.
 
what's your budget and required features?

-just as an fyi i'm a systems admin that manages ~200 workstations and ~30 virtual servers. just placed a purchase order for 50 workstations or about 40 grand....so i know what i'm talking about. some serious bias/butthurt in this thread
 
Do you work at stevens? or just somewhere close to it and I'm just thinking you do
 
So i'm not crazy!

My question is why does Stevens need all those workstations? I'm sure running their website, passholder information, etc. But does it really require that much power?
 
we can really make a whole nother thread for this but short answer is yes. the big package is with the ticketing software (it's called RTP|ONE by Resort Technology Partners...fairly popular in the industry). it controls our RFID gates, all sales points, rentals, passholder info (around 20,000 people), estore (which is something the IT department 100% in-house and custom...industry first), ski school, expense/revenue reporting...it's a huge critical piece of our operation.

and as far as the servers go it's very intensive...for each RFID gate there is a virtual machine (windows server 2008) that runs in the background to process people's passes/tickets. then the two main servers that just manage the database.

all the ticket stations are PC's, we host the e-mail, and then all the servers for a healthy windows environtment

it doesn't have to be this way it's just the way we decided to do business
 
wow, now that I think about it there is quite a bit of processing that needs to be done for all that stuff. Must be really fun to manage some of it though, sounds sick. Plus it's all skiing related, can't be that
 
Im in the same situation but I need a powerful one because I have to run design softwares. The up envy looks like a solid choice IMO. Solid components and I haven't been able to find bad reviews. Also, wait until like August or right before you leave to get it. Windows 8 was just unveiled, so in around a month tops, all windows computers will have been upgraded to run the windows 8 processes, and will come with a free upgrade for when it is released to the public in October
 
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i have a sony f series game edition its a lil bit heavy, so i wouldn't reccomend it if ur going to haul it to all ur classes.

but what i came here to say was buy refurbished..... so much cheaper and better. ur getting the same computer for 200-500 cheaper. and they've checked every thing that could possibly go wrong with it.
 
I never said apple had a dominant market share. I said in many universities they do. You said that "outside of the usa" people were overwhelmingly running PC's, which implies that apple only has a significant market share in the USA, which is not true. apple has almost as great a market share in western europe as it does in north america. I would be willing to bet that the universities there are also dominated by macs. I can't think of a single foreign exchange student I had class with who didn't have an apple computer.
 
this is such a stupid argument. fwiw i took courses at 3 different universities in western europe and there were literally no macs in sight except for the odd north american exchange student, also posting this from a mac so idc.
 
by something with a dual core (prefferably intel core 2 duo or something) go into a shop and just ask the dude if it can run videos hd 1080p on youtube, and go into a store and use it to find out, get a warranty, because laptops suck, youll be good brah.

dont worry about qaud core and shiyat, and dont buy a mac just to fit in theyre pretty expensive yo.

 
LISTEN TO THIS!

If anything is taken away from this chaos of a thread, it should be this. I was all proud and nifty making a nice Dell with much better specs than a Mac for way less money. But it doesn't matter since it is falling apart after only 3 years of use. I enjoy PC's, but I'm tired of this stuff happening. I am not a trendwhore, but simply someone who realizes Apple is just doing it right as far as laptops go.

As soon as I get the money I will be switching to a Mac. Not for all the bullshit hype that they are for artsy/creative people, because honestly a Mac doesn't run programs any better than a PC. I will be switching simply because they are overall a better built computer with less individual, shitty parts.
 
I also have a dell (17r or w/e) and so far it does what needs to be done , take notes, type hw/essays, browse and stream videos, and I got it for pretty cheap. For my gaming needs I have a desktop
 
Got my laptop off of Dell outlet site, and also had a 25% off coupon, got an awesome deal (Sorry for some of the unneeded info, couldn't change it without messing it up)

Subtotal:[/b]



$884.25[/b]

Alienware M14x R2

14.0 Inch High Def (720p/1366x768) with WLED backlight

Service Software

Information

Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium

Certified Refurbished

Software

8X DVD +/- RW Drive

Power Cord

Stealth Black with Soft Touch Finish

Processor: Intel Core 3rd Generation i7-3610QM Processor (2.3GHz up to 3.3GHz,6MB Cache,w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)

2 GB DDR5 NVIDIA GeForceGT 650M using NVIDIA Optimus technology

Killer Wireless-N 1202 a/g/n 2x2 MIMO for Gaming and Video and Bluetooth 4.0

Service Software

Software

Wave Systems Software

AlienFX Color, Terra Green

Alienware AVATAR 4

150W AC Adapter

Software

Software

Software

Information

Placemat

English keyboard

64BIT Operating System

8 GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz (2X4G)

Processor Label

Label

Information

500 GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200 RPM)

Image Restore Software

8 Cell Battery
 
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