My sons off to uni in september and has said he`d like a macbook /pro to take with him ..
question is are they worth the extra money over a normal laptop ??
Wheres the cheapest place to get one from ?? .. had a quick look around and they seem to start at £816 !! 😯 .. which for a small laptop is alot of money

No.

Yes.

Unless he's doing a graphics / media based course I'd say no. Any pc laptop will run a hooky copy of microshite office and store porn

M6TTF – Member
Unless he's doing a graphics / media based course I'd say no. Any pc laptop will run a hooky copy of microshite office and store porn

Yes … sorry .. forgot to say that hes doing a graphics / media course ..

Thanks

+1 to grum. Definitely.

In that case then definitley – pcs just don't cut the mustard for graphics/design. You should be able to get a decent eductation discount through the uni/apple store online. Also look at the refurb store. Same warranty, the machine will look brand new but up to 25% cheaper

Is it this time of the month already?

Anyways, as a Macbook Pro owner i would say no. Not because they are not suitable or any good, but if he just wants it for general student noodling then a Dell for about £500-£600 will be just fine.

Edit: Read OPs second post. Yeah get a MBP.

if hes doing graphics, music or video – yes

If you are into creative stuff the built in software on the mac is great – very well integrated together and provides good upgrade paths if you get more into it.

My 3 and a half year old macbook is still running Logic, Photoshop cs4, editing video in iMovie etc just fine – don't know many people running PC laptops that old.

Definitely use the higher education store if you can – big discount and free/cheap apple care I think.

I work in the graphics/publishing industry and 99% is on a Mac

So yes!

yes yes yes – he says typing on his macbook – as much as anything they just feel & look nicer than the cheaper alternatives.

Best toy I have ever had 😀 And the amount of hassle it saves you with regards to Anti Virus stuff etc is amazing. I get called to a meeting, close the lid on my macbook, it sleeps. Get into the 3 hour meeting with no power supply open the lid and in 2 seconds its back awake. Connects to net perfectly and Im good to go. If that was my work laptop, Id be sitting there 5 minutes later not being able to get net connection, and having to reboot. So defo worth the extra

My neanderthal son's MacBook has survived 3 years of university and he is pretty rough on it.

It has suffered all sorts of amusing in hindsight incidents.

I work in advertising. All graphic designers, bar none, use macs.

(If any don't, they're clearly rubbish!)

I'm an art student and I use a macbook. funnily enough though I don't really have any of the 'arty' software on it. in fact, I have adobe flash and photoshop on my pc… which is a shame because I spend so much more time on the mac as it's far nicer to use.

my friends 'survive' perfectly well with their dell laptops so I wouldn't say a mac is essential.. but if you get a lot of nice adobe stuff with it, it'll definitely come in handy. (which will be incredibly expensive.. and your son will prob do most of his work on the university macs)

remember that if he orders it when he's at uni on the uni computers network, he can get about 14% discount! Plus from july to september apple do this cashback offer where you get a 'free' ipod ( you pay for it first, fill in a form, and get a cheque a few weeks later). If he orders from a uni network, the warrantee also extends to 3 years!

Also check out the refurbs
http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/mac?mco=OTY2ODY3Nw

Plastic macbook (plus maybe a bit more RAM) is fine for students. Plenty of ways to get discount off RRP too, as well as the student deals the tax-free Dixons at the airports and eurotunnel do them at VAT-free prices even if you're not leaving the EU.

Bit pricier upfront, but it will see him through 3 years nicely and still be worth a fair bit at the end when he'll want an upgrade.

If you wait a few months Apple start doing student discounts and deals, they were doing free ipod touches with macbooks last year which you could easily flog afterwards

yes.
I've got one, they're epic

I get called to a meeting, close the lid on my macbook, it sleeps. Get into the 3 hour meeting with no power supply open the lid and in 2 seconds its back awake. Connects to net perfectly and Im good to go.

exactly what my £350 samsung windows 7 laptop does 😉

anyway, as above for graphics/design, get a mac.

i'd of said no, until i had a pc and my wife had a mac. if i wnted to do anything quickly I'd use hers. now i have a mac book pro and it is superb. everything just works… will never go bck to microsoft and dodgy PC's. only complaint (highlighted by shoddy typing) is I find the keys a bit weird and my typing has suffered, but you get used t it eventually i guess.

also, find someone in the NHS, I got a decent discount through the NHSdiscounts website…

also, the spec compared to Pc's seems tiddly… where PC's will insist they have a gazzillian gigathumps per ejit as a selling point, if you don't know how to use it its useless.

I don't really understand the "mac for graphics design" argument, as they run exactly the same programs as you'd most likely use on Windows (Adobe Creative Suite or Quark for print stuff). Only advantage is Final Cut Studio which imo is better than the adobe video stuff. Garageband is alright for quick recordings as well but Reaper can be had for free and is way more capable.

I've been doing a Media Production degree for the past 3 years all on Windows and have never had any problems. In fact it's better because I have hardware capable of rendering 3D graphics easily, and you can't even get 3D Studio Max for OSX as far as I'm aware. And I find apples mouse acceleration to be really horrible and imprecise compared to windows.

Macs are very pretty though and it is a nice operating system, but I don't think they're worth the extra cost.

I don't really understand the "mac for graphics design" argument, as they run exactly the same programs as you'd most likely use on Windows

Except that you can run Windows just fine on a Mac too if you really need to – there's no specific need to run OSX for design stuff – it's just much nicer if you do. 🙂

Garageband is a superb piece of software imo – very easy to learn to use but surprisingly powerful. The latest iMovie is really nice as well. Everything integrates together really nicely.

If you factor the resale value in macs are not expensive at all. My 3 year old Macbook is probably worth at least half what I paid for it – a 3 year old PC laptop would be barely worth anything.

Good point on that, my PC cost about £650 new a few years ago, I'd be lucky to get about £200 for it now probably.

Not really true. We're selling off three year old work computers (pc) with no os and they're still getting about 1/3 of the original value on eBay…

Not really true. We're selling off three year old work computers (pc) with no os and they're still getting about 1/3 of the original value on eBay…

When people say MacBooks are expensive they generally aren't comparing like with like.

Go look at a top end ish well constructed small light Sony laptop with good battery life etc and they don't seem so pricey. You are getting what you pay for, they're nicer to use, and probably will last longer with lower cost of ownership.

Well, the Mac Pro (desktop PC equivalent?) starts from £1940 without a monitor. Ridiculous imo. My desktop cost £650 a few years ago and is a pretty similar spec to the cheapest Mac Pro as far as I'm aware.

edit – just realised you're talking about Macbooks and not apple computers in general!

The iMac is the desktop pc equivalent Tom.

Tom – mac mini and iMac would be cheaper 'desktop' alternatives.

We used to have a mac pro tower at work, it was expensive but then so was the dell (I think) quad core machine it replaced. It was used as a build and test machine 24 hours a day, with wither mac osx or windows running. You wouldn't need that sort of power generally, it was a server not a desktop.

Edit – oops, I meant 8 core.

Sort of but not entirely, as you can't really interchange the components like you can on a Windows desktop/Mac Pro and last time I checked their graphics cards were a bit rubbish. I'll probably still end up getting one after uni though because they're likely to be much more efficient than my beast of a pc and I probably won't need much computing power after anyway.

yes I'm being picky for the sake of it, procrastinating whilst doing my final year project write up 😆

What computers does the university have? If he's going to be working on PCs he may come across some pc specific stuff, in which case, get a high spec pc laptop. I'm using a MBP right now and it's a nice machine but I'm not sure they represent value for money, especially when you're buying it for someone else.

having had to set up the SO's new windows laptop what struck me was the crap software bundle. The stuff you get on a mac works, it is full copies etc. So much of the supplied software on the SO's laptop was trial versions, or simply not there.