Thinking of buying a powerbook

[WilliamC]

Hi,

I am thinking of buying a powerbook G4 the 15inch screen one, but i have a couple of questions that i hope can be answered.
Would i be able to use MS Office on the mac (I have the windows version)?
I have heard about a piece of software called Virtual PC would this allow me to run any windows app and do i have to install windows on my mac?
I am a Biology major so i will mainly be using it for school purposes, if there are any bio majors or students here what have your experienced been with these notebooks?


Thanks for the help,
William C.

 

[MickMAC]

You can get the MS office version made to run on the Mac or you can use Virtual PC and install windows and then use your current version of your PC software.

 

[Orion119]

The amount you'd spend on VPC and MS Office for OSX is about the same. (assuming you already have an install disk for windows) It'd be better to get it for OSX as it would run better. It's only $149.00 for the student teacher edition for which you appear to apply. That's a smittance compared to the price of a powerbook

 

[firsteggprez]

I wouldn't use virtual pc. I have heard that it’s really slow. Just get Microsoft office 2004 for Mac. Some people say that its better than the pc version and i'm one of them.

 

[IanCT]

Go for it

Would i be able to use MS Office on the mac (I have the windows version)?
I have heard about a piece of software called Virtual PC would this allow me to run any windows app and do i have to install windows on my mac?

I'm a PC -> Mac convert, (yay?) and I love my PowerBook. I opted for the 12" model, I have no need for the 15"+ models. (Wanted a little longer battery life too, 1024x768 is good enough for me)

You can get Office 2004, and it's totally compatible with the Windows version. I would stay away from loading Virtual PC in order to run Office. It will be slow, however with 768MB ram in my 1.33GHz PB, I've run Windows 2000 quite nicely (giving it 512MB RAM in the VPC prefs) and I've also run The Curse of Monkey Island by LucasArts in WindowsXP under VPC 6.0 and it ran pretty well. But I wouldn't do any of my primary work using Virtual PC.

Make the switch, use Office 2004 for OS X, you'll be pleasantly surprised/impressed. Especially Windows/Mac networking with Panther 10.3.x. Much improved over Jaguar 10.2.x

 

[WilliamC]

Thanks for all the help! Off to buy my mac