Which mac for a college freshman

My daughter is going into her first year of college and would like some help picking a Mac. This will be the first Mac for her and isn't sure what is available.

She is going into Physical Therapy so she shouldn't need a massively powerful one as if she were going to be gaming or using high powered software.

Should we just pick one off the shelf and go with it along with a good care plan?

2VE

Welcome to Mac forums.... Yep, the stock White Macbook will be fine. It already comes with 2.4GHz processor, 2GB RAM, and 250GB HD. Thiis is more than enough for most users, and is a good little machine.
The RAM and HD are user upgradeable, and if it a later date you need to upgrade it, it is quite simple, and cheaper than having Apple do it.

It seems like she won't need a super powerful computer so a 13" 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro should be good enough for her. I would choose the silver MacBook Pro over the white MacBook because you can upgrade the RAM to 8 gigs in the future whereas the white MacBook only goes to 4 gigs maximum. This is not important now but if she plans on keeping her computer for a long time then the max RAM maybe important later if she ever uses her computer more intensely or if she is a big multitasker.

The silver MBP also has Firewire 800 which is very useful for not only speed of data transfer but you can connect two Macs easily with Target Disk Mode. It also has a built in SD card reader if that's important to her. Other than that there isn't much difference between the two so the choice is yours.

If she is one of those people who will fill up her hard drive with music, movies, large school files, etc then you might want to get her a larger hard drive than the stock 250 gigs. If you or your daughter is good with computers then that can be easily upgraded later yourself. The only other issue is whether your daughter wants a matte screen which is only available on the 15" MBP.

Apart from deciding on which Mac to choose..you should also see if the school network supports Mac's and doesn't have some crazy thing that is Windows-centric..

Regards

Great feedback everyone. Thank you for the help.

Raz0rEdge said:

Apart from deciding on which Mac to choose..you should also see if the school network supports Mac's and doesn't have some crazy thing that is Windows-centric..

Regards

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Why would a network allow Windows and not Mac OSX? OSX supports the same protocols and security certificates that any Windows system does.

IF there would be severe issues connecting to the network with a non-Windows-OS, it's possible to install Win on any Intel-based Mac computer anyway.

Raz0rEdge said:

Apart from deciding on which Mac to choose..you should also see if the school network supports Mac's and doesn't have some crazy thing that is Windows-centric..

Regards

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It's been my experience that networks tend to be platform-agnostic; it's the IT staff who tend to be little dictators sometimes ...

Now that you have given me good help on what to purchase. Can you help me with where to purchase? For the best price and service, what are my options? Are there any stores/sites that give better deals than the rest? Any tips would be much appreciated.

2VE

With new Apple products, there is no real variation in price. Buy it from wherever gives you the biggest reward for buying it from them.

Thanks Chas. Can you give me some examples of rewards I should be looking for?

Here's one that you can look into.

Regards.

Go with the any of the 13" Macbook pro. Chicks dig them, and dudes dig chicks with macs

idrinorbarsaku said:

Go with the any of the 13" Macbook pro. Chicks dig them, and dudes dig chicks with macs

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Great, now she'll probably never be allowed to have a Mac. lol


Anyways, I believe that the 13" or 15" MacBook Pro would be just fine for her. My 13" MacBook Pro has been doing a great job and the only thing I regret is that I didn't get one sooner.

Some things to buy would be, the Microsoft Office Suite (or not, it is up to you guys), iWork, and Parallels. NeoOffice is a good Freeware alternative (to MS Office Suite), as it can save reports, charts, etc. in many different Windows files.

chas_m said:

It's been my experience that networks tend to be platform-agnostic; it's the IT staff who tend to be little dictators sometimes ...

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Now I have to tell a joke:

Did you hear about the dyslexic agnostic insomniac?

He staid up all night wondering if there really was a dog.

As for the topic at hand: I would also suggest taking advantage of the student store prices. If your daughter already has a student ID, you can enter it at the apple store for education and get a reasonable discount (on the order of $50-100)

I would suggest the lowest end either macbook or macbook pro. I haven't looked lately, but last I checked the only difference between the two cheapest models is the pro has a different screen, an aluminum body, and an sd card slot. They both had the same guts. (same processor, ram, and HDD size) (again, I haven't checked lately).

I personally would go with the low end pro model. I use SD cards so very often that not having a built in slot would be a nightmare.

I don't actually have a macbook (I bought a windows pc last november, but I really with I had waited to buy a macbook. Maybe someone will steal it, or it'll get soaked [both of those things happened to my last laptop] and I can buy a macbook.)

I have the 15 MBP and for our anniversary I got my wife the 13" MBP. I was going to get her the standard MB but after playing around in the Apple store I realized that the 13" MBP was only going to be about $100 more than the standard version. The MBP has the convenience of the built in SD slot and can be upgraded to 8 GB of RAM, as someone else said. It's well worth the extra $100 bucks.

One advantage to the Pro line. I teach in a semi-darkened lecture theatre and constantly see students either struggling with keyboards or adding USB lights. The Pro line all have backlit keyboards which are absolutely remarkable for lecture theatres and airplanes.

Just a thought.

thanxal said:

One advantage to the Pro line. I teach in a semi-darkened lecture theatre and constantly see students either struggling with keyboards or adding USB lights. The Pro line all have backlit keyboards which are absolutely remarkable for lecture theatres and airplanes.

Just a thought.

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+1!
I will never ever ever buy another laptop/notebook without a backlit keyboard...which isn't saying much because only others I would buy would be from the macbook lineup.

Reg MBP shoudl work....does she want a desktop?