Best laptop for a college student...

[aster]

Is macbook is good as fujitsu or toshiba?

You cannot compare the Macbook to the rest because you'll be running an entirely different operating system. You'll basically be saying goodbye to Windows.

Personally I made the switch to Apple less than a year ago and am very glad I made that decision. Do you have any friends who have a Macbook or other Apple computer?

[Plavt]

Apple Macs are good machines but are built with particular people in mind (e.g. designer, authors, publishers, media-editors). The fall down is they are expensive should they go wrong out of warranty and most additional software one might require is tailored to Windows. Don't believe Apple's claim that you can run Windows on a Mac, only Windows XP does properly (and that's only on iMac's) unless they have updated their operating system.

[aster]

I think casual users are also moving to Macs more often, it's amazing how when you walk into a Starbucks there is almost always someone there with a Mac. I agree that they seem to dominate in DTP/graphics, and have done for ages.

They are more expensive than basic Windows-based laptops, though I actually felt as if I was saving money because my last laptop was a Vaio (with XP) that cost $3 or $3,5k if I recall correctly. Then came Vista and there was only one reasonable option left...

When you switch you actually start to hate Macs for the first week or two because you have to get used to the new system. But after a month it's plain sailing.

[sundaymorningstaple]

The reason you see so many Macs among the young today is that they've been brought up to be brand conscious and not value for money conscious. If it's expensive an has a cachet then that's what they buy. It's not for what it can do but does my neighbour have one. Much like" keeping up with the Jones's" in the West. Here it's "staying one better than the Lee's"! The kids here have their parents to thank as the parents grew up during the boom years here! Reminds me of the Baby Boomers and their sprog during the 70's & 80's in the US.

Good example of that was a number of years ago during the boomtimes, one year Mercedes Benz was actually the largest selling car of the year, beating out Toyota & Honda both.

[aster]

Yeah, I can see how people go for a Mac for all the wrong reasons, but once they have one and see the difference it's easy to see why they won't switch back.

As for prices, $1588 (Apple seems to have set one price for the entire country) for a Macbook ain't that bad. I would call it cheap even, but then I'm comparing that to the Vaio range that I used to look at prior to ditching Windows.

Mercedes Benz outselling both Toyota and Honda combined? Wow, not that is a waste of money...

Singaporeans seem to have a thing about German cars, which spills over into this infatuation about everything German in general. I'll pick up some Muschner Weisswurst (Made in Singapore) at the Pan Pacific deli, and that's as far as I go in the German direction.

[nakatago]

before this devolves into a mac vs. pc, i think OP should first find out what he will do specifically with a laptop. will he be writing reports? doing some graphics? surfing the internet? playing games? etc., etc. saying it's for college isn't enough as different courses have different requirements.

next is his restrictions. how much is his budget, is weight a factor, battery life, etc, etc.

[luqman]

Thank guys 4 the advice. Now i can make up my mind about laptop... Any last advice guys? Hahaha...

[sierra2469alpha]

Luqman - FWIW - our goddaughter (17) needed a new machine and I specked a Compaq Presario CQ60 - got out of it with a few mods for $1500. Admittedly, she is in Australia and I guess the syllabus may be different, but she has the Education Version of Office 2003 and everything seems fine. She has her webcam to bitch about her godparents and never Skype us; enough memory to run Win7, and enough for her to run some PS stuff also. That kit seems to work for her. HTH

[Plavt]

Luqman - FWIW - our goddaughter (17) needed a new machine and I specked a Compaq Presario CQ60 - got out of it with a few mods for $1500. Admittedly, she is in Australia and I guess the syllabus may be different, but she has the Education Version of Office 2003 and everything seems fine. She has her webcam to bitch about her godparents and never Skype us; enough memory to run Win7, and enough for her to run some PS stuff also. That kit seems to work for her. HTH

Beg to differ: Compaq are now owned by Hewlett Packard whom I hate with a passion have received the worst technical support, customer service not to mention a machine akin to a worthless piece of tin! Office 2007 is more appropriate now as most offices have upgraded and Office 2010 is in beta version (if you mean Microsoft Office that is).

[sierra2469alpha]

Beg to differ: Compaq are now owned by Hewlett Packard whom I hate with a passion have received the worst technical support, customer service not to mention a machine akin to a worthless piece of tin! Office 2007 is more appropriate now as most offices have upgraded and Office 2010 is in beta version (if you mean Microsoft Office that is).

Well, that's a personal opinion which is what the OP asked for. However, I'd like to see some facts behind the statement that "...Office 2007 is more appropriate now as most offices have upgraded..."

Most of my CIO peers have steered well clear of 2007, and none of my Clients have "upgraded".

For a student, an Educational license for 2003 would be just fine, IMPO.

[sundaymorningstaple]

I think a lot of company's are still using Office 2003 around here in Singapore. I know my company is and currently no plans afoot to upgrade. Matter of fact we are still using Server 2003 as well with no plans to upgrade at least until we are forced to by MS lack of support.

[Plavt]

I'd like to see some facts behind the statement that "...Office 2007 is more appropriate now as most offices have upgraded..."
.

That's the case most UK offices (only a matter of time before other countries are the same for the reasons sms mentions), what the rest of the world might be doing I don't know. Although it is true smaller companies and not least those organizations on low budgets such as charities are using earlier versions including MS Office 2000.

[sierra2469alpha]

Plavt - howdy again champ...a backgrounder with reference to a Forrester report I had a hand in

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/23 ... 07_uptake/

It's a little old, but pretty much same-same. Office 2007's main problems for most of us were in backwards compatibility, a totally crappy upgrade pricing structure, unstable platform, and for most a fairly significant education upgrade. HTH

[sundaymorningstaple]

I'm still using Office XP pro at home on an XP OS. Will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, at least till I upgrade to a new PC (which will probably have Win7 on board so I'll have to see how.