Apple Mac Laptop purchase advice please

[GrinningGSer]

I know a fair bit about PC's and know literally nothing whatsoever about Apple Macs and this site I regard as the font of all wisdom.

My son, at university needs a new laptop to replace his failing Vaio laptop and suddenly wishes an Apple Mac, cos they seem, in his words, to boot up very fast ( PC's I agree are now a pain in this issue) and he says are more stable ?????

He needs long battery life as a big priority, at least 4 hrs +
He needs Office compatibility ?? Open Office ?????
He needs ability to easily back up his hard drive
He needs wireless internet access
Full sized , good feel, keyboard

Which model, how much and where from?? Advice gratefully received

 

[Decster]

I know a fair bit about PC's and know literally nothing whatsoever about Apple Macs and this site I regard as the font of all wisdom.

My son, at university needs a new laptop to replace his failing Vaio laptop and suddenly wishes an Apple Mac, cos they seem, in his words, to boot up very fast ( PC's I agree are now a pain in this issue) and he says are more stable ?????

He needs long battery life as a big priority, at least 4 hrs +
He needs Office compatibility ?? Open Office ?????
He needs ability to easily back up his hard drive
He needs wireless internet access
Full sized , good feel, keyboard

Which model, how much and where from?? Advice gratefully received

Call into one of their apple centres and ask all the questions you can think of.

London and Birmingham have 1

I'll try and find a link for you;
Edit try the list on the right for a store(genius bar) near you.

http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/geniusbar/

check out their discount for students

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/education_routing?mco=MTE3Mzg

 

[Slowdown]

Apples cost more.

You'll get ~15% off if you take student son with you when you purchase it if he can prove he's a student.

If you're *sure* all the software son No1 needs is available on the Mac platform (no reason it shouldn't, but the Uni may have specific requirements ???) then go to an Apple store and quizz them. Book a 'One to one' sales session - you'll get a dedicated sales person for at least an hour to go through all your questions and they'll demo everything.

http://www.apple.com/uk/retail/storelist/


[Edit - Damn your fast fingers, Decster!!]

 

[Noiseboy]

Hi there a standard mac book sounds like the job. about £800 - £850.

They have a thing which is called time machine which will auto back up to an external drive once set up.

I find that Microsoft Office for Mac works really well.

Onboard airport extreem for Wi-fi

Up to 6hrs out of battery

Keyboard feels great and will withstand plenty of abuse

All in all as far as laptops go they are bulletproof

Just my 2pennethworth

Hope this helps Tom

 

[ianf]

>to boot up very fast
This is not really the case, macs sleep better than PCs because they are less likely to have device drivers written by muppets that refuse to sleep or cause kernel crashes on waking. Because Apple have a bit of a monopoly on the HW that needs kernel mode drivers.

>are more stable ?????
See above

>He needs long battery life as a big priority, at least 4 hrs +
Bollocks, I think most students can be less than 4 hours from a mains socket. you might get 4 from any laptop doing bugger all, but in practice 2-3 is tops if busy. Batteries are good for meetings/UPS only.

>He needs Office compatibility ?? Open Office ?????
Not if anyone else wants to be able to read it, spend £99 on the student edition of MS office 2008.

>He needs ability to easily back up his hard drive
Yep, time-machine will do.

>He needs wireless internet access
All computers can do this, Mac just a little less contrived than windows. Does he need HSPDA access via a 3G dongle in digs or just plain old 'wifi' in the Uni buildings? Both fairly easy.

Full sized , good feel, keyboard
Eliminates Netbooks... All laptops otherwise will do.

Suggest macbook + office 2008 student edition will do the job. Dell Inspiron could also for a few less pennies but be a shade more tedious to use.

Get 4GB of ram from Crucial whatever you choose, can never really have too much.

 

[GrinningGSer]

Thanks guys, Ill forward your advice to his failing PC !!!

 

[steve16]

My thoughts

I have been using window based machines for years......First was a 133hz processor and a 20 GB hard drive.
I recently changed to a 13" aluminium Macbook with a bit of help from my wifes teacher discount. I must say I really enjoy using it, for word doc's I use I Work although there are also a couple of free word processor prog's out there.
It feels bullet proof and it boots up quicker and has a great screen. My only two regrets are I didn't go for the next model up and I didn't switch earlier.

Steve

 

[GrinningGSer]

I am comfortable with PC's and manage to sort most of the MANY issues that I have experienced in the last 17 years of use. I started with Windows 3.1. Can any of you remember how many floppy disks were needed to load Windows and Office in those days?

I am really really p***ed off with the current start up times and have done all sorts of cleaning and searching for all sorts of stuff and I suspect that re formatting and re installation may be the only 'temporary' cure

People tell me that Mac's do not suffer this sort of cr*p and my son's uni mates all seem to be migrating to Macs

 

[judge]

Microsoft Office 4.3 was 36 floppies

What a relief when Office 95 appeared on CD

 

[jer]

I would recommend Mac over PC everytime in terms of reliabilty and support. There is a vast range of software so I can see no issue with Macs over windows for Uni usage.

 

[DaveGSCymro]

I use a MacBook and think it's bloody great.

As for backup I use www.mozy.com, online backup facility that is automatically set to run every night costs me $4.95 per month so far I have 13Gb uploaded and when I add something new it does it automatically.

I also recommend this to my students as you can get 2Gb free, so all his Uni work would fit on there.