Should I switch to a Mac?

Gall1987

Gall1987

Gall1987

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441
Hi guys,

I'm just after some advice really. I'm a first year undergraduate on a Computing course, and I'm looking at the possibility of getting a mac, as I need a new laptop.

I've always been a Windows user and I'm currently running Win7 Ultimate. However a number of my friends have Macs and love them, but obviously their views are biased. I'm after some advice on whether or not I'd be better with a Windows laptop or whether I should make the switch to Mac. I've always been under the impression that Macs are just good for design work.

On my course we have done .net and Ruby programming at the moment, and I'm not sure how good Macs are for this, or even if you can do .net programming on a mac.

Also I have heard that there are a lot of compatibility issues when users have a Mac, even with simple tasks like opening MS Office documents.

Any advice will be appreciated :)
 
Well office comes in mac form and its about the same as the windows version so there's no cross compatibility (and it can be had at the same student price which I didnt realise annoyingly from the ms student deal site thing)

Id assume you need windows for .net (though im not into this my self its just an educated guess) which isnt a problem as you can install windows along side osx on a mac and dual boot.

To be honest you need to ask your self what do you want from the laptop and what sort of money you are willing to spend? Mac's are expensive in terms of the hardware inside them compared to windows equivalent laptops, but you pay more for the build quality, the apple care service (3 years fix anything even water damage guarantee) and to be able to use osx which has matured into a very very nice operating system (not intending to start the windows vs osx debate as w7 is also very good).

For the design work front, there's limited difference as most applications have windows equivalents (but it is a good line to get employers to by them). Its more a nicer machine to do work at than say a standard dell offering.

Hope it helps or gives you a few ideas :)
 
You have posted in a Mac forum hoping to gain an unbiased opinion, lol.

That aside I love my macbook, battery is great, build quality is great and os is stable.

If your writing in ghetto asp then maybe better buying a windows laptop?
 
You can program in .NET on a Mac using Mono but it can be a little limited in some very specific area's. Failing that you can just dual boot windows with bootcamp or use some kind of virtual machine like VM Fusion or Parallels to run specific windows programs like visual studio within OSX itself, but you will need a higher quantity of RAM for that option.

I program on windows and OSX machines and both have their pro's and con's (the reason i dont dual boot is cuz i have a white macbook with a tiny hard drive and low ram, but this will be sorted soon with the new pro's coming out :D). It all comes down to your personal preference and how much money you are willing to spend.
 
I'm not a mac fanboy by any means and use a combination of Windows 7, Ubuntu and OSX. I also used to do professional software development. So I'll try to give an unbiased opinion.

Last year when I needed to replace my Windows laptop I found a good price on a used, but immaculate, MBP 13. My wife has used a Powermac and now an iMac for a long time but I never could get on with OSX. However I absolutely love my Macbook Pro and I now really like OSX. For me it's the hardware rather than the software. The Macbook Pro is a wonderful machine to use and the 'killer app' is the very large multi touch trackpad. I would find it difficult to go back to a normal trackpad now. However it is indeed expensive for what it is. Compared to other laptops it is under powered.

Although it is more expensive they hold their money better than other laptops so you will get some of that back when you sell it. I don't think I could replace my main desktop as it is far more powerful. But I'm considering using my MBP 13 in docked mode for software development. It's lovely to sit in silence.

Advantages
Almost silent
Starts up and shuts down amazingly fast
Not prone to viruses
Looks great
Backlit keyboard on the pro model
Good quality screen
Amazing trackpad
The 13" is very light and very portable
It can drive a 30" TFT at 2560x1200 - not many laptops can do that
It is based on a Unix like system (so you have the powerful shell)

Disadvantages
Expensive
Underpowered (for the price)
The screen is good but too reflective and too low resolution
Not as much free software is available
Apple have dropped future Java support
Flash media doesn't play as smoothly as on Windows
 
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How can a mac have less "free software"?

You can boot it into windows, if you have a windows OS disk, so you have the best of both worlds.
 
Tilluss said:
<snip>

I program on windows and OSX machines and both have their pro's and con's (the reason i dont dual boot is cuz i have a white macbook with a tiny hard drive and low ram, but this will be sorted soon with the new pro's coming out :D). It all comes down to your personal preference and how much money you are willing to spend.
Click to expand...

My white macbook has a 640Gb hard drive and 4Gb of RAM - works fine with Parallels and Fusion for virtual Windows machines.
 
I would say just stick with a windows laptop. You will get more bang for the buck being a student and you haven't put forward an argument as to why you actually NEED a mac (such as for specific software, etc). You seem to just want one because your friends have one and they look nice which is why I almost bought a Macbook Air until I sat back and persuaded myself that there's absoluetly nothing wrong with the windows laptop I have but I liked the look of the air!

I would say that for simplicity sake just stick with a windows laptop for .net programming as it saves going into boot camp or running VMs.
 
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