MacBook Pro || For a Computer Science Degree? Yes or No

[Frosties]

Thanks for that, just unplugged it (here at work now) says 4:24
well see

Could be some program that is forcing the Nvidia card to stay on. There are threads regarding this here and at the apple macbook pro forum. The consensus is that an update from Apple will solve or help in the near future.

 

[rmbrown09]

Could be some program that is forcing the Nvidia card to stay on. There are threads regarding this here and at the apple macbook pro forum. The consensus is that an update from Apple will solve or help in the near future.

Don't think so, though I do keep popping in and out of World of Goo.

Perhaps it just estimates low and goes up slowly, i had 6:30 last night at one point when I unplugged

 

[vasuba]

Seeing as you already made the jump my input isnt that important but it really just depends on schools. My Degree program required a macbook pro as part of the program while other degrees by the school required different laptops.

MBP are nice and I was mostly just glad tuition paid for it because honestly I would have had issues paying $2100 for it myself simply becaue I dont feel the price matches with what you get.

 

[rmbrown09]

Seeing as you already made the jump my input isnt that important but it really just depends on schools. My Degree program required a macbook pro as part of the program while other degrees by the school required different laptops.

MBP are nice and I was mostly just glad tuition paid for it because honestly I would have had issues paying $2100 for it myself simply becaue I dont feel the price matches with what you get.

I agree with that, pricing is tricky though. If it's all about hardware, then yea.

But take into account;
OS
Form Factor
Battery
Weight
MagSafe AC (I just like them)
And the fact you can easily run Windows Linux and OSx is nice.

And since the refresh it isn't sooo bad

 

[billakay]

First Hand Advice

As a graduate student at Rutgers University (relatively highly rated CS department), I think I can contribute to this.

I didn't own a portable until after I finished my undergrad CS degree and got to graduate school. My first semester, I purchased a MacBook. I now have a Mac Pro at home and a new MacBook Pro to carry around.

So I have two stories, my undergrad school, and Rutgers.

While I was an undergrad, I was still a Windows user at home (as were most of my peers). After my first semester, the CS department put their Unix systems online, and I ended up being of charge of administering them. I pretty much lived in Solaris and Linux, and started liking being on Windows less and less. The school was a "Java school," where most CS concepts were taught in Java, so it really didn't matter what you used at home. Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, anything worked.

When I got to Rutgers however, I found that the entire department was Unix oriented (Linux, actually). Rutgers CS was founded in 69, and I think they have had a Unix system culture forever. As I said, when I got there, I bought a Mac and never looked back. I can easily share stuff with the Linux workstation on my desk. Most code compiles just as readily on Linux and Mac (and for the stuff that doesn't (some synchronization code, etc.) you can either run Linux in a VM or ssh to a Linux box).

In the end, it all depends on your school. If you are in the type of school that Windows for everything, it might make more sense to run Windows to avoid hassle. At a Unix school, stay as far away as possible. As a Teaching Assistant, I cringe when students submit C code that was written and tested on Windows, because it is highly unlikely that it will work on Unix without further modifications. Mac is going to be much, much closer in most cases.


Sorry for the long winded response, but I hope I've helped.
-Bill