I’m going to college this fall and I need to buy a laptop. My first choice was HP because I own an HP desktop but I don’t like the fact that it is sometimes very slow and always gets hosed with virus. I also thought of dell but I don’t know how that is. I feel like I want to get a Mac because I heard it’s really stable and safe but I’m not familiar with their operating system…
What should I get for a laptop that is reliable and not so expensive?
PS I will probably be playing a lot of computer games and I think I will use my laptop primarily for writing papers and browsing the net.
Hp is a very solid brand; they’ve been around for decades and know what they’re doing. Toshiba is the best, but given your familiarity with HP, it’s probably best to stick with them.
DO NOT, FOR ANY REASON, BUY A DELL! Dell takes the cheapest parts they can buy and slaps them together into inefficient, high-maintenance, utterly useless heaps of high-tech garbage.
As for Macs, they’re stylistically nice and are good for creative projects-and that’s it. Despite what the ads with Justin Long and John Hodgeman might say, PCs are far superior in pretty much everything relevant.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220517
Amazing hardware, and in come with a $100 mail in rebate!
Try beating this deal!
I hope this helps. Best answer, please!
If you can afford it, I recommend the Mac, and here’s why. I switched from PC to Mac after working in the computer industry as a programmer and network tech for almost 20 years. One of the reasons I left the computer industry was that I simply got tired of maintaining Microsoft products. I was a Mac basher for years, and told Mac users that they needed to get "real computers." In my first year of graduate school at Wake Forest University, I needed to play a video for a presentation, and all of sudden my PC started playing the audio in the video I had at half speed while playing the video itself at full speed. i was able to fix the problem after about an hour and half of work, but it was, for me the straw that broke the camel’s back. I had been reading some about the new Intel Macs that could run both OS X and Windows, so I decided I had nothing to lose and bought my first Mac.
I also purchased Parallels with the Mac so I could run Windows. Within a few months, however, I was not running Windows at all, and I decided to delete it off of my system, and I have not run Windows on my Mac since. I simply have no reason to.
The biggest thing for me, is that in the 3 years I have been a Mac owner, I have never had to re-install a single piece of software to get it working right. I have not had to re-install the OS. (I typically had to reinstall Windows every year to year and a half because it simply got too slow.) When the case on my Macbook developed a small crack, I took it to a nearby Apple store, and the problem was fixed within 2 hours. Apple has much better customer service than any other computer company I have ever dealt with.
After years of making fun of Macs, I decided that Apple does indeed have a superior product. It is going to take a lot for me to ever go back to using Windows. Do they cost more, yes. But I believe they are worth it. Not to mention, they are the only computer on the planet that allow you to easity run Windows, Mac, or Linux software.
So, obviously I recommend the Mac.
Here is the thing about asking a question like this. Make sure you get an answer from someone who has used both Macs and Windows based PCs. It is the only way you can give a fair answer. You won’t see me bashing Windows in the same way that some PC users bash Macs. What I am posting is my own personal experience.
It is also nice not to have to worry very much about viruses or spyware. Do Mac viruses exist? Yes, but there are very few of them. A PC virus cannot run on a Mac, so I don’t have to worry about any of my office mates infecting me. (I run the only Mac.)
If you decide on getting a Mac, you will have some choices in word processors. The first and most obvious choice is Microsoft Office ’08. The second choice is OpenOffice.org (or the special Mac version called NeoOffice, both are free). This is starting to be used a little bit more in university settings, and is very compatible with Word. (You can load and save Word files.) When I was in Grad school, I used Apple’s Pages (the version of Word available at that time ran slowly on Intel Macs) and e-mailed my papers in .pdf format (I never had a professor have a problem with that.) Pages can also save in Word format, but it is not quite as compatible as OpenOffice.org. (I have not had any need to write a paper in the new version of Pages, so I don’t know if the new version is any better.) Pages is a part of the iWork suite, and is still my favorite word processor on the Mac. It combines the features of a Word Processor and desktop publisher, and is a great program, in my opinion.
I have included links to all the software I mentioned below. As for which model to get, any Mac is going to be a nice computer. I personally use one of the new aluminum MacBooks. I like their compact size, and don’t need any of the features in the MacBook Pro. (And the difference between the two is now much less than it has been in the past.)
My suggestion would be to buy your Mac and then try the free demos of Office and iWork to see what you like best. Links for all these programs are below.