PC user Switch to Mac for college?

[goldenboy6392]

Ive been using Windows my entire life, and recently ive been researching laptops for college. The Windows laptops ive been looking at have either what I want, which is a powerful laptop which can be used for some occasional gaming, and shoddy battery life, or great battery life and not-so-decent graphics and processing speed.

After seeing the refresh of the MacBook Pro's, the hardware seems to be what I'm looking for, with the battery life I need. But the switch to OSX seems drastic and I'm hesitant about buying one becasue I am a huge PC person.

Do you guys have any advice for me, or suggestions on what to do?

 

[Hellhammer]

Have you used OS X before? Do you like it? You can run Windows on Mac too and it's recommended for gaming. Keep in mind that in gaming the battery life is nowhere near 8 hours, probably less than 3.

 

[miles01110]

Stick with Windows.

 

[goldenboy6392]

Ive only really used it for maybe a max of 30 min at a time. I do like it, but I feel very inexperienced with it, I'm not use to it. I think that if I did use it, I would get use to it quickly, since everyone says it's an easy operating system to use.
Yeah, I assumed I would only get 3ish, but thats still better than others, and with steam coming to OS X thats a definite plus. Also, I wouldn't play that many games away from my dorm room, so thats not much of an issue for battery.

 

[Hellhammer]

Ive only really used it for maybe a max of 30 min at a time. I do like it, but I feel very inexperienced with it, I'm not use to it. I think that if I did use it, I would get use to it quickly, since everyone says it's an easy operating system to use.
Yeah, I assumed I would only get 3ish, but thats still better than others, and with steam coming to OS X thats a definite plus. Also, I wouldn't play that many games away from my dorm room, so thats not much of an issue for battery.

Yea, OS X is very easy to learn. Up to you, with MBP you get power and battery life but you pay a premium for it. You could get a lightning fast PC for the price of MBP but the battery life would suck

It's:
Battery life vs performance
OS X vs Windows

 

[Airforcekid]

Ive only really used it for maybe a max of 30 min at a time. I do like it, but I feel very inexperienced with it, I'm not use to it. I think that if I did use it, I would get use to it quickly, since everyone says it's an easy operating system to use.
Yeah, I assumed I would only get 3ish, but thats still better than others, and with steam coming to OS X thats a definite plus. Also, I wouldn't play that many games away from my dorm room, so thats not much of an issue for battery.

Buy one soon see if you like osx odds are you will if not use bootcamp to install windows. Worsr case you still have osx if windows is corrupted and a paper is due.

 

[aiqw9182]

Don't forget you're also paying for build quality and customer service. You can spend as little money as you want on a computer but that won't matter much when it adds up due to you have to pay repair fees.

I'd say go for the MacBook Pro.

Oh and watch some of Apple's tutorials:
http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#switcher

 

[PandaOnslaught]

Ive only really used it for maybe a max of 30 min at a time. I do like it, but I feel very inexperienced with it, I'm not use to it. I think that if I did use it, I would get use to it quickly, since everyone says it's an easy operating system to use.
Yeah, I assumed I would only get 3ish, but thats still better than others, and with steam coming to OS X thats a definite plus. Also, I wouldn't play that many games away from my dorm room, so thats not much of an issue for battery.

i had a gaming notebook my freshman year of college(last year), and it SUCKED, period, it was the worst experience i've ever had, thing weighed 12 lbs, could only go through one class with a charge on it, that or i would have to hibernate when i wasn't typing up notes(which doesn't work well), i also had to wipe the thing like 4 times that year, and everything on it broke while carrying it from place to place. and i promise that i didn't treat it like dirt for this to happen. i ended up booting ubuntu on it so it was actually useful, the funny thing was is that i didn't even end up playing games on it, i thought in my spare time i would play games when i was done with homework, yeah right man, going out drinking with your buddies, going to parties, joining school clubs, and just lounging with people on your floor was way better than games anyway.

i went and bought my macbook pro 15 2010 last week, and wish i would have made the switch when i was going into college, i would have been much happier, and this laptop has plenty of power, i dont know if it was the OSX that was so fast or what but even when i use things like itunes or safari it runs really smooth, on my gaming laptop(3.0 C2D 4GB RAM 8800m GTX) it ran slower, plus you don't need to lug around a mouse with the macbook, trackpad works fine, i was playing WC3 with my brother last night with just a trackpad lol

this is just my experience, windows is good OSX is great, macbook just seemed like the right choice for college.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

You didn't mention how you would be using your computer.

If you don't need it for games, I'd look at this.

That's more than good enough for any word processing. Then, with the money saved, get yourself a desktop or 360 for gaming, or save it for a rainy day.

Really, it depends on how you need to use the computer.

I will say though, that you (almost) can never go wrong with the MBP.