Windows Laptop or Apple Mac

• May 16, 2015

• #1

Buford_Dawg

Senior Member

My oldest is going off to college this coming fall and needs a new computer. We have no experience with Macs, but his friends are all getting Macs for their college experience. They are twice the cost of a really nice Windows laptop. I am wondering if it is worth it. I would like anyones thoughts who has used the Mac or used both. I want the best reliability as he will be several hours away and I can not run up there with computer issues often.

 

• May 16, 2015

• #2

dwhee87

GON Political Forum Scientific Studies Poster

My son has a Windows laptop, and my daughter an Apple. She uses hers strictly for schoolwork (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, research), surfing, and streaming for movies, etc.

He uses his for all kind of other stuff, as he's more of an IT geek. If yours is more on the tech side, he'd probably do better with a Windows machine.

The Mac machine, while not "immune" to viruses, will be less likely to be infected than the Windows. Either way, make sure to have a good anti-virus/anti-malware program installed, and keep it updated.

 

• May 16, 2015

• #3

C

creekrunner

Senior Member

My son got a MacBook Pro when he went to college in 2008 and he uses it everyday still. I've been using Macs since '92 at work, we have a 20 year old power Mac we still use for some word processing. It's a screaming 8 mb hard drive

 

• May 16, 2015

• #4

PappyHoel

Senior Member

You don't need a Mac unless you are doing programming or development, video editing, etc. Get one if you want them to be cool like the rest of their friends and hipsters.

 

• May 16, 2015

• #5

SGaither

Senior Member

A coworker of mine was faced with this very decision A few years ago as his son was preparing to begin school at UGA. He went to the bookstore and asked the computer repair people what their opinion was and the said they saw and worked on more windows based machines than Apple, something to the effect of 10:1. The most common windows problems were virus related followed by failing hard drives. He ended up getting his son a Mac through the bookstore, interest free financing and service plan. To my knowledge his son never needed the service plan or warranty and used it heavily.

Moral of the story, go ask the people he will take it to when it breaks to see what type they most often repair and buy the opposite

 

• May 16, 2015

• #6

blood on the ground

Cross threading is better than two lock washers.

Hard to beat a Mac

 

• May 16, 2015

• #7

PappyHoel

Senior Member

blood on the ground said:

Hard to beat a Mac

Click to expand...

$2000 vs $350 it's an easy decision for me. Not to mention the $400 apple warranty you need to buy to fix any apple problem. Whereas you can order any laptop part and fix it yourself. You can't do that with a Mac.

And yes I've had both, I'm an IT professional. I found on my Mac book pro in a business environment I have to run a program called parallels just so I could do my job. That means I spent the majority of my time running windows in a virtual environment on my Mac book pro.

I'm an IT professional and buying a Mac was the worst money I've ever spent. Again unless you plan to spend most of your time developing software and video editing. There's no reason to buy a Mac.

 

• May 16, 2015

• #8

PappyHoel

Senior Member

Oh and on top of that, I would just buy a regular laptop and put Redhat, Fedora or Suse on it if I was going to use it as a development laptop. Save your money.

 

• May 16, 2015

• #9

S

steeleagle

Banned

I was given a macbook air by my company for my job (sales for app dev company). I bought a new windows laptop for my wife for $375. Having used both, I would NEVER get a mac....No need to spend 1300 to get an inferior version of MS office. Utilize online backup or office 365........I look at it this way: I can use and break 4 windows machines, throw them away and still come out ahead than having a mac........Of course, I hate apple

 

• May 16, 2015

• #10

NOYDB

BANNED

As above 3-4 windows machines vs 1 apple device. The windows will come out less expensive as long as you practice safe computing.

Has he grown up on one or the other? Go with what he already knows.

 

• May 16, 2015

• #11

Robert28

Senior Member

Apple recently released a new Mac laptop that's supposed to be somewhat cheaper than an Air or a Pro. Might wanna look into that. I've always used Windows computers, Dell's specifically. I usually get 3 years out of them, my last one I got 6 years out of it. I also custom build mine from Dell, I never buy off the shelf computers because you have to add all of the programs you want and then you end up spending the same money as one you custom built.