Going to attend business school..should I switch?

[HyperX13]

Just get a nice Lenovo x200 with 4 gigs of ram for like $1100 and be done with it. I went to Kellogg and it was a pain with the Mac. We started using a very old statistics program that would only work in windows. When I went to school Parallels was in version 1.0 I think. Last thing you want is to fight with IT dept when it comes to supporting you, especially when projects are due.

 

[macjunk(ie)]

Just get a nice Lenovo x200 with 4 gigs of ram for like $1100 and be done with it. I went to Kellogg and it was a pain with the Mac. We started using a very old statistics program that would only work in windows. When I went to school Parallels was in version 1.0 I think. Last thing you want is to fight with IT dept when it comes to supporting you, especially when projects are due.

So I am hoping that with Parallels 5, things will be much better!!!

In fact, it does look better!

 

[macjunk(ie)]

An update guys...it looks like my MBP cannot fully handle Win 7 in Parallels...the machine gets sluggish. So I have rolled back to Windows XP...VM is only 4 GB and it performs much better!

I think I am ready to take on the college admin now!!!!

Thank you all...

 

[NSK123]

I didn't bother reading all the replies but I went to business school so I'll give you my personal experience.

as people might have mentioned they don't want you to get a Mac because of the Apps you'll need to run, Excel and maybe a few other and these are only made for windows.

Get the whole Mac/PC thing out of your head at once.. a Macbook IS a PC! (personal computer) just like any other laptop. A Macbook can run Windows natively just like any other laptop can run windows natively. There's no special voodoo going on that somehow makes your macbook less capable of running windows than a 300 dollar cheapo machine like someone advised you to buy.. bad idea.. seriously.

Apple created bootcamp for people who don't want to run OSX on their macbooks which is you. Out of all the laptops I've owned the Macbook was the absolute easiest to install windows onto.. no driver issues at all, it's actually a breeze to install the drivers and it just runs better on a mac than on other laptops In my opinion. With bootcamp it's easy to install Windows and there's almost no issues.. Even if you're mildly technically challenged.

If I were you I would get the cheapest 13inch macbookpro and then spend the 300 dollars on an SSD drive. Not only will you have the sturdiest, best built best looking quality laptop in class but it will also blow your classmates cheapo plastic laptops out of the water with the sheer speed that it will run windows with on an SSD drive.

A Macbook+SSD drive is the way to go in my opinion. Honestly you don't need some greasyhaired ubuntu loving college tech support guy to disencourage you from buying a macbook.

The resell value of a mac is also ALOT higher than other notebooks.. People who buy 1000 dollar Acer/HP or whatever other brand won't even be able to sell them for more than a couple of hundred dollars a year later. I sold my 1 year old Alu macbook last month 300 dollar cheaper than I bought it... A one year old laptop.

It would be dumb not to get a macbook, I know most other laptops have better hardware but when you can't sell them afterwards it's no fun paying over 1000 dollars for a product that will be 0 dollars worth because you can't sell it again.

Windows is well supported on macs today so there's no reason not to buy one.

 

[HLdan]

Apple created bootcamp for people who don't want to run OSX on their macbooks which is you.

WRONG, Apple created Bootcamp to help bridge gaps until all your daily computing can be eventually be done on Mac OS X. Some people need to run specific Windows apps so Apple created the ability for Macs to be able to do this easily. The keyboard on a Mac is still tailored for OS X, the system is still optimized to run OS X in terms of battery life, multitouch gestures and the ambient light sensors, neither of which run well under Windows or at all. If Apple truly didn't care what OS you run, they would offer only their hardware and advertise to bring your own OS and they certainly wouldn't call it a Mac.

 

[macjunk(ie)]

I didn't bother reading all the replies but I went to business school so I'll give you my personal experience.

as people might have mentioned they don't want you to get a Mac because of the Apps you'll need to run, Excel and maybe a few other and these are only made for windows.

Get the whole Mac/PC thing out of your head at once.. a Macbook IS a PC! (personal computer) just like any other laptop. A Macbook can run Windows natively just like any other laptop can run windows natively. There's no special voodoo going on that somehow makes your macbook less capable of running windows than a 300 dollar cheapo machine like someone advised you to buy.. bad idea.. seriously.

Apple created bootcamp for people who don't want to run OSX on their macbooks which is you. Out of all the laptops I've owned the Macbook was the absolute easiest to install windows onto.. no driver issues at all, it's actually a breeze to install the drivers and it just runs better on a mac than on other laptops In my opinion. With bootcamp it's easy to install Windows and there's almost no issues.. Even if you're mildly technically challenged.

If I were you I would get the cheapest 13inch macbookpro and then spend the 300 dollars on an SSD drive. Not only will you have the sturdiest, best built best looking quality laptop in class but it will also blow your classmates cheapo plastic laptops out of the water with the sheer speed that it will run windows with on an SSD drive.

A Macbook+SSD drive is the way to go in my opinion. Honestly you don't need some greasyhaired ubuntu loving college tech support guy to disencourage you from buying a macbook.

The resell value of a mac is also ALOT higher than other notebooks.. People who buy 1000 dollar Acer/HP or whatever other brand won't even be able to sell them for more than a couple of hundred dollars a year later. I sold my 1 year old Alu macbook last month 300 dollar cheaper than I bought it... A one year old laptop.

It would be dumb not to get a macbook, I know most other laptops have better hardware but when you can't sell them afterwards it's no fun paying over 1000 dollars for a product that will be 0 dollars worth because you can't sell it again.

Windows is well supported on macs today so there's no reason not to buy one.

THanks a lot for your inputs...I tend to agree with most of them.
However...I do not like to run Windows even in Bootcamp (reasons mentioned in my posts before this one)

Since you have already been through the B School experience, maybe you could tell me whether Parallels 5 would prove to be sufficient to run the gamut of Windows applications one might have to run in B school?

Thanks

 

[SolRayz]

I am using VMware Fusion 3 with Win7 x64 and it runs and integrates work related Windows programs I am using quite well with SL. You can customize the processor and memory allocation how you want, so running most win programs should be no problem.

But bootcamp is always there if you need it to run natively. I couldn't see myself ever switching back to any other "pc" notebook options currently available specifically for the purpose of running Windows. That simply doesn't make sense anymore, unless you really can't afford a mac...I suppose.

 

[NSK123]

THanks a lot for your inputs...I tend to agree with most of them.
However...I do not like to run Windows even in Bootcamp (reasons mentioned in my posts before this one)

Since you have already been through the B School experience, maybe you could tell me whether Parallels 5 would prove to be sufficient to run the gamut of Windows applications one might have to run in B school?

Thanks

I can't see why Parallels shouldn't be able to run specific apps? I used bootcamp in business school which runs natively. I'm currently running parallels as there's only a few windows apps I'd like to use on windows, I'm switching to vmware fusion soon as I think it's better but still..
Virtual machines run pretty much anything only difference is that they're slower because they're not running native.
You won't have any issues with parallels or vmware fusion for that matter, both run beautifully in my opinion. The few apps they use in businessschools aren't anything special anyways... You'll mostly be using microsoft Excel.