Student needs, wanna get a mac

Shaye87

Shaye87

Shaye87

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29 Apr 2006
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Hey there.
So my friend keeps telling me how good mac is and how cool leopard is, fine.
I was thinking about getting a laptop soon anyway, the question now is, as a soon to be student, which mostly what i am going to be doing is office+emails+normal surf the internet. do you think i should be getting a macbook (not macbook pro or anything, too pricey and not needed hardware wise), or just a regular dell laptop?
As nice and cool a macbook can be, i don't wanna start having a headaches from the campboot, switching everytime over and over to windows in order to use Office applications etc...

I guess Office apps won't run on leopard (Well that's obvious isn't it? :p).
Are there any GOOD enough office applications alike for mac?

More information and advise from you guys would be appreciated!
Cheerz.
 
Office 2008 for Mac is a very good office package, you also have the iWork suite which can be had for £35 from the Apple HE store.

Free offerings such as OpenOffice are also pretty reasonable.

The built in Mail and iCal applications are also pretty decent and I have recently started using them over Entourage. iPhoto is also a nice little program if you want a basic photo library and there is also the rest of the iLife suite that you may find useful or not.

Unless you really need a Windows specific application why install it at all? I have it to run some proprietary software but that is about it.
 
wij said:
Office 2008 for Mac is a very good office package, you also have the iWork suite which can be had for £35 from the Apple HE store.

Unless you really need a Windows specific application why install it at all? I have it to run some proprietary software but that is about it.
Click to expand...

iLife '08 is great as is iWork '08. I prefer Pages, Numbers and Keynote over the Office apps.
 
get over to an apple store and play about with them and see. Ask loads of questions - its the best way to find out of they'll suit you.

If cost is an issue, you can get something like an ibook G4 for about £300 on ebay
 
Just remember you can get a good discount once you become a student and at the moment Office 2007 (the full version, not student) can be had legally for about £35, again if you are a student, although you'll have to check if the Mac version comes under the same deal.
 
a lot of university communication / collaboration software runs on PC's and may not run on a Mac. I would wait until your course starts and see if there are benefits of having a pc for your course and whether there is any course specific software that may only run on a pc.

I have just delved into the Mac world and I love my imac which i just bought. Just be certain what you will need it for first.
 
MacBook all the way matey. Theres all the essential apps like Mac 2004/8 avaliable as well as iWork. If you need to run Windows apps you can install Crossover, VMware or Parallels and run Windows right on your desktop with no need for Campboot - I mean Bootcamp.
 
As a student, you get discounts on Macs (about 14% if you're at Uni), so that's worth bearing in mind. Brings the baseline MacBook from £700 to a more realistic £600, although if it'll be your only machine, you should be aware that the base spec one doesn't have a DVD writer. You'd also be wise to pay another £25 after getting it to up it to 2GB of RAM, if you'll be several programs at once, and it usually speeds things up anyway.

If you're going to be using Office a lot, there's MS Office 2008 for Mac which just came out. Has most of the same features as Office 2007 on Windows. I've had a little bit of time to play around with Word 2008 and personally, given how much time I use Office (usually as a result of my course), I find 2007 is much better to use and far more straightforward. It's all down to personal experience obviously, and it may well just be because I'm used to 2007, but 2008 makes it very difficult to find things. Worth keeping in mind if you'll be using Office regularly though. Try and play with both and see how you get on.
 
You can if you're an American student.

But there's no point when they are just as cheap as the UK student discounts without any discount in US.
 
Mac's are great. I converted when I started University, as did my good friend/flat mate. He has his Macbook linked to a 24in monitor, I however sold my Macbook as I needed money, and I thought it as a good investment (made nearly £200) and got a PC and installed OSX onto it.

At the start you think you need Windows, but there are Mac applications for pretty much all PC apps.

Office 2008 will be cheap enough and I think its brilliant. iLife comes free with all Macs and iWork isn't expensive, and they include nice applications which make your day-to-day life easier.
 
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