Eh. I got a new macbook (the most basic) a couple months ago and was shopping around. Dells and Sonys and blah are cheaper, sure. But you need to buy annual anti-spyware/antivirus software, which is NOT cheap. Plus you have to buy Microsoft Office (which is total RAPEAGE) at $150 when all a student really needs is Word and possibly Powerpoint/Excel (I'm a history major and have used neither since I've been at college so what it comes down to is paying $150 for Microsoft Word.). Oh, and to boot, you can only download it 3 times. Apple's iWork comes with unlimited downloads for $80. Owning a PC adds up FAST what with the ease of contracting viruses, etc, imo. Just my $0.02. P.S. Dell Support BLOWS. P.S.S. Macbook's come with GarageBand, 'nuff said. Hours upon hours of glorious fun. If you want the same kind of program on a PC, what would that run someone? This is rhetorical, I know nothing like it could be called cheap.
Well if you want an advanced program like Garage Band while using linux it cost $0.00. plus theres's open office and abiword. Microsoft Office isn't mandatory you know..
I have an ASUS netbook, it's small easy to carry around and has an amazing battery life. You should definately check out netbooks.
You mean the thing that gives you the stupid viruses in the first place? I'd rather have legit programs running on my computer. I don't think I'll ever go back to Dell or HP.
Yeah, but how well do those cooperate with being able to open .doc or .docx? All of my professors use Word. iWork is compatible with all. I'm sorry, I don't know much about it, or how to obtain those programs, so I'd rather just go with what I know is the safe bet, seeing as how I am in college and need to know that my professors will be able to open the papers that I send them.
I also see someone goes to the bad sites or uses P2P programs like Limewire for piracy. Public sites are filled with people uploading viruses and such because they can. There's private closed websites that are strictly regulated to prevent viruses and uploads come straight from the scene. Of course, this isn't the place to talk about it, so /discussion. Just saying, piracy doesn't mean viruses. OpenOffice can open .doc and .docx just fine, and is absolutely free. Open source software is pretty amazing, and there's plenty of it available for Windows and Linux (OSX, not as much, but a good amount still) - you don't always need to buy stuff (or pirate).
Download openoffice here http://www.openoffice.org/ as for other programs I'd have to know which kind you'd want before I could help you.
i don't wanna give you an advice on what laptop to buy... just a thought: think about getting a netbook. i read, that you want to use it for work, maybe take to the campus every day. i, personally, have a 17'' laptop and i have to say it's sooo unhandy. i'd love to take my laptop with me to college, but very often i decide not to, cause it's simply too big, too heavy and all that... so, a netbook is really a great thing for students imo. (i know not every laptop is as heavy as mine, though ) for me my laptop is great, cause i don't have a PC and so i'm using it for everything... but just for working and using it on campus, i'd recommend a netbook. (maybe you gotta stop playing around w/ photoshop & co. while you're at college... you're there for studying anyways )
I considered a Netbook but it seems a bit small to me. MacBook Pro is bigger but it's certainly very light as well.
Oh man, you still didn't buy it? It took me two-three days to decide which laptop to buy. Go to a couple of websites, compare the preferences and the prices and just buy one.