MP or MBP for college

[B3CK24]

Im a design student and even my macbook (1st gen) has worked very well for me! I take photos, work in CS3 w/ illustrator, ID, pshop.. ect ect... its fast, but at home I like to sit at a desk and work with a larger screen and my Dell desktop doesn't do jack... ive been hooking the MB up to the screen with a wireless keyboard and mouse but still, it gets really hot with the cover closed and using most of the integrated card to power the screen...so i've been looking into a MP..

We have G5 towers in our lab that run great, but I want something for home use...

IMHO..the perfect combo is a MB for portability and a MP for home..

 

[barijazz]

I've recently (within the past year) graduated from college with a degree in Computer Science & Engineering, and I found that for notetaking during class, I'd only use pen and paper. However, I'd disagree with the statement that research should only be done with books in the library. Many colleges today have online access to large databases of published scholarly material, like JSTOR, which allows access to much more material than you'll be able to find in your local library. In addition, my university had online access to other libraries' material, and several other online-only sources. If you're talking specifically about sites like Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers, I'd agree with the statement that the internet is a poor source of research-worthy information. However, the amount of quality research resources available at colleges and universities today truly put someone who only uses printed material available at a local library at a disadvantage.

In addition, only having a desktop limits the locations in which you'll actually be able to do work, unless your college has a fairly large amount of public-use computers, which I never liked using anyway. I found myself always taking my laptop to the library, study sessions, and quiet places to do work. If your college is anything like most, you may need to prepare to deal with a lot of noise in your dorms, which can make doing work on your desktop next to impossible.

Also, are you going to be doing any work in which you'd be actually using the processing power of the Mac Pro? I can't say for certain, but I'd think that a MacBook Pro (and an external display if you need some more real estate) would be more than enough for your needs.

Sorry about the lengthy post, but I hope that helps a little bit.

He's got a point there, if you're gonna stay in the dorms then you should be ready to buy some pimped out noise canceling headphones too.

The MP is more bang for your buck with the lack of portability. So it really depends on your budget. If you can afford a nice mbp and still want the 30" display or whatever you can just hook it up. I haven't done a lot of photography so I can't really tell you how much power you're gonna need.

 

[Sbrocket]

The Mac Pro is extreme overkill in both price and processing power for any college student. Now, I find my laptop to be extremely useful to me for doing work but my university is a very technically-oriented one. The simple question of "What kind of computer do I need for college?" depends on many different factors.

What kinds of work are you going to be doing?
If you're going to a liberal arts school and aren't going to be doing much more than surfing Facebook and typing papers, then a MacBook is more than good enough for your needs. There's no need for a MacBook Pro in this case UNLESS you're going to do more than just that with it (play games, do heavier processing for some other reason, etc).

If you're studying in more of an engineering school, then you may need a more powerful computer for certainly things. In my case I got a MacBook Pro because a MacBook would not have worked (at all) for Computer Aided Design work (plus many other things too, I use a good bit of my MBP's power )

Typically your school has guidelines for what you may need, or if they have a laptop program and you still want to get a Mac then try and match or exceed the specs of the laptop in the program.

There is no simple answer to "What kind of computer is best for a college student" because it depends on what you're going to do with it just the same as if you weren't a student. However, I can definitely say from your posts so far that an 8-core MacPro machine is EXTREME overkill.