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Status: The Abundance of the Mac on College Campuses

1

12dylan34

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 3, 2009
884
15
I'm a University of Colorado at Boulder Student, and was genuinely surprised to see the abundance of Macs in use on campus when I first started. I would put the number at around 60% of all computers here. To a Mac fan on the outside, this may sound like a great situation. Clearly these people know what it means to use a really great computer, and they must have reasons for choosing it, right? Wrong.

It's really quite obnoxious to me how much of a status thing it is to use a Mac here. I'm not going to deny that status is at least part of the reason to own a Mac, but I've sort of always seen it as a way of life, bringing with it a set of beliefs about computing and how it should be done. I can't help but cringe at the sight of a makeup-claden sorority girl open up her 13 inch MacBook Pro plastered with stickers to reveal a dock that takes up a quarter of the screen, filled only with Safari, Word, Spotify, and Skype, her desktop cluttered with un-ejected disk images that have been there since God knows when.

I just don't see the justification in getting an (at least) $1200 computer if this is all you're going to do with it. I think that this is sort of how and why Mac people get a bad rap in some PC communities for not being able to use computers. Buy a $400 PC laptop or an iPad.

This has really just been my ranting, but I just want to see what people think about this.
 
for me it's always been a build quality issue...

i've had 400 USD HPs and 1500 USD HPs.

and the build quality is always worse than a MBP, even if the specifications aren't.

just my .02€
 
Status: The Abundance of Judgmental @#$%^& on Campus.

Why the hell do you care what other do. Live and let live dude.
 
12dylan34 said:
It's really quite obnoxious to me how much of a status thing it is to use a Mac here. I'm not going to deny that status is at least part of the reason to own a Mac
Click to expand...

So, you agree with them, but not as much?

It's a computer. If you want a status symbol, get a trophy wife.
 
Well I guess it's a bit annoying that people have such a fickle and shallow desire to own a Mac. It's the flavour of the moment, and for many it's more of a status symbol brought for image instead of an appreciation for what it is.

On the flip side, I'm not really bothered if the PC die-hards group me with those folk, I'm perfectly happy with my Mac :)
 
juanm said:
Yep. That, and the aluminum palmrests.



Or get an ugly wife and it'll symbolize you being poor.

:D
Click to expand...

I meant the Al unibody. it makes a huge difference if you travel a lot. sure, the ThinkPads have the magnesium unibody which is nice (as in the spill-resitant keyboard area), but the MBP to me seems the more user-friendly durable package available.
 
Tomorrow said:
So, you agree with them, but not as much?

It's a computer. If you want a status symbol, get a trophy wife.
Click to expand...

I guess my point was that it's only a status symbol, and I don't feel like they're bought because of build quality, OS preference or the like. I only say that having a Mac is sort of a status symbol because I feel proud to take it out in public and let other people see it. Take that how you will.

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. I'm just sort of trying to get at why Mac use is (from my perception, this is not a real figure) like 60% on college campuses, but under 10% everywhere else. I kind of doubt it's because college students have a better sense of quality than anyone else.
 
I've had to put up with judgemental, arrogant people. Especially at College, who would laugh at my PC whenever I pulled it out. They kept asking me why I didn't buy a Mac. I tried explaining that I felt more at home in Windows, but eventually they convinced themselves that I didn't have a Mac because I was "poor". And couldn't afford one.

Eventually I bought a new laptop that cost more than all but the high-end 17 inch MBP's, just to prove a point. But they still kept mocking it every time it came out the bag with "Aww can't afford a Mac?".

Don't let those people change your decision, get what feels right for you.
 
Also depends which part of campus you are on. Go hang around the engineering department or computer science department and the time goes heavily the other direction.
Reason for it is a lot of the software they need to use are windows only or developing in those platforms. For software dew to be blunt windows just has better tools.
 
12dylan34 said:
Buy a $400 PC laptop or an iPad.
Click to expand...

Except an iPad doesn't even have a reasonable file management system and including the cost of add ons like BT keyboards or keyboard+cases, you could've gotten a great $500-900 Windows laptop instead ;)

It is sort of silly. I'm a tad older (just a few years), so at my college with the Apple craze the most annoying thing was seeing people (mostly girls, though both males and females) with white MacBooks just covered in filth and usually cracked in a variety of places. On top of the 100 files on and .dmg files and un-ejected disk images.

Style > substance is always annoying and it's far from limited to college computer purchases. Heck, even sticking to computer purchases, I work a non-profit with a 98% Mac/Apple environment (one W7 workstation I set up for our part time CPA). My co-workers vary from "sort of competent" to "technologically brain dead", but swear that things are so much better with their Apple computer than a Windows computer... although they bug me 1-10x a day to help them with the most idiotic issues, almost all due to user error.
 
acidfast7 said:
for me it's always been a build quality issue...

i've had 400 USD HPs and 1500 USD HPs.

and the build quality is always worse than a MBP, even if the specifications aren't.

just my .02€
Click to expand...

That's exactly why I ended up going back with a Mac notebook. A couple of years ago, it became clear that my Powerbook wasn't cutting it as an everyday laptop, so I looked around for a new one. I decided I wasn't paying the extra for a MBP, so I bought a Dell Studio. It was better than the MBPs of the time in the hardware department: better processor and graphics card, and a better hard drive.

The problem was I hated the trackpad and buttons. It was small, and after about a year, the buttons felt like they were going to come off at any time. It was a powerful computer, but I hated using it because of the keyboard and trackpad. I ended up buying a MBP a couple of months ago.
 
What's even greater is that to be *rilly-rilly* cool, you have to have the newest Apple product, not just be in the Apple club. Whip out a 3GS iPhone and count how many times you hear, "Oh, you *still* have a 3GS? Does it still even work????"

How about, "I need the New iPad really bad, because the text is soooo much harder to read on the OLD iPads."

Anything seen as an underdog is always the new cool. Apple is so popular these days (particularly in colleges and artsy cliques) that it's seen as rebellious to have an Android phone or use Windows.

CU Boulder has as many clueless morAns as anywhere else. When people rip on you for something, it's a defense response to their own weakness. Weak people often feel the only way up is to drag others down beneath them. Just laugh at them for having spent twice as much as necessary for "keeping up with the Joneses," because the reality is that Windows/OSX/Mac/PC will all work great if properly maintained, and you don't have to buy the latest model every few months to be cool. You stop being cool when you care about being cool.
 
Benjy91 said:
I've had to put up with judgemental, arrogant people. Especially at College, who would laugh at my PC whenever I pulled it out. They kept asking me why I didn't buy a Mac. I tried explaining that I felt more at home in Windows, but eventually they convinced themselves that I didn't have a Mac because I was "poor". And couldn't afford one.

Eventually I bought a new laptop that cost more than all but the high-end 17 inch MBP's, just to prove a point. But they still kept mocking it every time it came out the bag with "Aww can't afford a Mac?".

Don't let those people change your decision, get what feels right for you.
Click to expand...
Aww can't afford a Mac?".
I can't believe that people had the nerve to tell you this. I hope you told they that you'll get mac, when they buy you one. That will make them leave you alone. I got really lucky. My aunt brought me MacBook Pro in 2009 , during school I was very protective of this laptop. At my job, no one knows I have this laptop, because it's just a messy working environment. In addition, they ask way too many noisy question. Because the other students could not afford one, they eying the mac. They would asked where did I stay and one girl just stood next to me and said that the laptop looked expensive. After, that I stopped bring my laptop to school.

In addition, I see Abundance of ipad on college campus and community campus.
 
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