Laptop vs Desktop for a High-Schooler?

[Zwhaler]

you dont use laptops in High school...at least not that ive ever seen

stick with your imac, its a great machine

Yup, I am kind of in his situation, and I have been using a late 06 iMac and have no regrets. My friend bought a MacBook... and it sits on his desk forever and ever.

 

[iMpathetic]

Let me just throw a couple things in here..

First of all, I'm in the same psition as the OP. Sort of. Right now, what I have is a powerbook and a maxed out powermac G4. I can say that the desktop does imdeed get neglected when I have the laptop - I don't think I've fired it up in months.

Secondly, my next setup shall be a dual G5 and an IBM Thinkpad X41. The PCness of the thinkpad will probably cancel out the behemothness of the G5, and they'll most likely both get used the same amount.

Hope this draws some useful parallells.

 

[Wolf04]

you dont use laptops in High school..

That's a pretty huge assumption. To be honest, I got my first laptop just before going into high school because my high school had a laptop program within the academic program and my whole school had wireless, so it was very convenient to do work. That Toshiba lasted me almost 5 years...I'm almost done my first year in university and now I'm using a temporary laptop from my dad.

Anyways, I'd say to get a Macbook Pro. Perfect for note-taking and powerful enough to play the occasional game. After seeing how note-taking and studying using a laptop, I never turned back. Either way, laptops are the way to go these days.

 

[bluedoggiant]

Ok guys, I'm sticking with my iMac, even though the MacBook in the kitchen is just so tempting, I think I just want one for fun and surfing, ill stick with my imac until college, my original plan, then get a macbook pro, but you never know...

 

[compuguy1088]

Personally, an iBook G3/G4 running Panther/Tiger is decent enough for taking notes, Excel, spreadsheets, internet, basic photography stuff. If it has atleast 40 GBs of HD Space, and 512 MBs of RAM, I think that would be decent enough.

I am a Freshman in high school and had an iBook G3 Clamshell 466 MHZ, Combo Drive, 320 MBs of RAM, 40 GB HD, running Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2). I then got a first generation BlackBook in May 2006 from inheritance, the Uncle died about 2 days after buying the MacBook and I got to get it. I didn't use it for about 2 weeks after receiving it because I was tranced from the event, so I couldn't return it. I decided to keep it. I gave the iBook to a friend for a birthday present. The MacBook had numerous problems and after receiving 3 more MacBooks to replace it, they gave me a MBP for free. Even the MacBook was overkill, and now I even have more overkill. The iBook was wonderful, had a brand new battery so it lasted about 4 - 6 hours. It was more portable, more durable, and I wasn't afraid to bump it. I could run iTunes, FireFox, and Word all at the same time without much trouble.

You could easily buy the iBook I had with the same specs for 200 dollars shipped. It is better for a high schooler, that way, when you get to college you can buy a brand new, spanking top-of-the-line laptop for your whole 4-5 years of college life.

What would be better in your situation would be to get a Alphasmart Neo, or a older Alphasmart 3000. Then save up for something better after you graduate.

Ok guys, I'm sticking with my iMac, even though the MacBook in the kitchen is just so tempting, I think I just want one for fun and surfing, ill stick with my imac until college, my original plan, then get a macbook pro, but you never know...

I got a MBP for graduation, last August. It may be overkill for some things, but it is nice carrying around the horsepower (especially with some light gaming and video encoding).

 

[bluedoggiant]

What would be better in your situation would be to get a Alphasmart Neo, or a older Alphasmart 3000. Then save up for something better after you graduate.



I got a MBP for graduation, last August. It may be overkill for some things, but it is nice carrying around the horsepower (especially with some light gaming and video encoding).

video encoding is my thing, i have a 2.8ghz imac just for that.