Hello All, this is my first post to Macrumors, though I have been an avid reader for a year now. I have been a PC person for years, but after using a G4 sawtooth for the past year at work, I am convinced that the Mac is the machine for me!
At any rate, my question boils down to this: I am looking to buy a Powerbook 15", 128mb vram, 512mb memory (though I'll prolly do a Crucial upgrade later). As a graduate student I can get an educational discount. However, it looks like if I join the Apple Developer Connection as a student member for $99, I can get an additional $200 off the price of the machine over the already good student discounts. I can't seem to find a catch to this, aside from being limited to a single system purchase under the program, though how many machines do I need (I chuckle at this point, since I already own 3 PCs of varying age)? Has anyone utilized the ADC program? It seems like such a good deal, yet I don't hear of anyone taking advantage of it.
On a side note, what is your opinion of the screen quality of the 15"? I am currently using an IBM A31p Thinkpad, which has, in my opinion, one of the most fantastic LCDs that I have ever seen on a portable machine. I am especially curious about the brightness levels of the screen. Is it bright and shiny? I'll mainly be using the machine for development and mathematical simulations, so I want to make sure that I won't get a headache staring at the text on the screen all day!
Well. I think that is a sufficently long post. Thanks in advance for your advice and thoughts!
Aaron
At any rate, my question boils down to this: I am looking to buy a Powerbook 15", 128mb vram, 512mb memory (though I'll prolly do a Crucial upgrade later). As a graduate student I can get an educational discount. However, it looks like if I join the Apple Developer Connection as a student member for $99, I can get an additional $200 off the price of the machine over the already good student discounts. I can't seem to find a catch to this, aside from being limited to a single system purchase under the program, though how many machines do I need (I chuckle at this point, since I already own 3 PCs of varying age)? Has anyone utilized the ADC program? It seems like such a good deal, yet I don't hear of anyone taking advantage of it.
On a side note, what is your opinion of the screen quality of the 15"? I am currently using an IBM A31p Thinkpad, which has, in my opinion, one of the most fantastic LCDs that I have ever seen on a portable machine. I am especially curious about the brightness levels of the screen. Is it bright and shiny? I'll mainly be using the machine for development and mathematical simulations, so I want to make sure that I won't get a headache staring at the text on the screen all day!
Well. I think that is a sufficently long post. Thanks in advance for your advice and thoughts!
Aaron
