Help Me! Laptop Edition

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Asher

Erm, you qualify for MS academic pricing regardless of platform.

The UofC offers most MS software legally for PC absolutely free. Including Visual Studio Enterprise, which usually costs thousands of dollars

You mean they're giving away the software to anyone who asks?

And also, I might be mistaken, but Office 2004 for Mac has a special student discount, on top of that of PC users. My uni computer store is selling it for $94.

EDIT: I'm wrong. First the price is $89, second it applies both to Mac and PC versions. At this price, I'm almost tempted not to get it from Emule...

[Verto]

I've been watching the rest of the Macworld Keynote - very impressive OS. I'd really like to get a PowerBook (although the iBook is more within my budget )

[Fake Boris]

The 12' PowerBook is not that expensive, though.

BTW, what's the symbol for inch, ' or " ?

[Agathon]

I've been watching the rest of the Macworld Keynote - very impressive OS. I'd really like to get a PowerBook (although the iBook is more within my budget/

The ibooks are fine computers. My advice has to do with the fact that the 12" powerbook will have better resale value when you finally decide to get rid of it.

For regular use the ibook will be fine, although it's not as cool looking.

Enjoy your new computer, whatever you choose.

[Verto]

''

The 12 '' PowerBook is ~1500.

Edit: Price corrected.

[Verto]

Originally posted by Agathon


For regular use the ibook will be fine, although it's not as cool looking.

Well that won't do at all!

[Jon Miller]

the powerbook has a better supply

JM

[Jon Miller]

that should be display

JM

[Verto]

EDIT: NVm

[Agathon]

Well that won't do at all!

Especially if you are trying to pick up girls in the quad.

On a more serious note. If you are going to buy any of the ibooks, upgrade the RAM to 512MB. 256 is "sufficient" but you'll really notice the difference.

The sweet spot for the ibook seems to be the 14.1" 1.33 Ghz for $1299. The $999 one is pretty good, but the only downside I can see is that it only has a 30GB hard drive. If you are like me, you won't find that hard to fill up in no time.

What is nice is that all of theme come with high speed wireless built in, so if your campus is like U of T you can lounge around and surf Poly in the sun.

IMHO it's worth spending a few hundred bucks to get the extra space, but you obviously have a better idea of your needs than me.

Not wanting to sound like I think you're an idiot, but you do realize that if you buy one now, it won't come with the Tiger OS they demoed at the keynote, don't you? That will not be released for 3-4 months and will probably cost $129 (worth every penny in my book as some of the features are must haves). It will come with a new mac you buy after then of course.

The current version of OS X is pretty cool though, and you will get the latest verson of iLife (05) with any mac you buy now.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Agathon
On a more serious note. If you are going to buy any of the ibooks, upgrade the RAM to 512MB. 256 is "sufficient" but you'll really notice the difference.

May I suggest something else? If you get a 256MB iBook, don't buy the the upgrade directly from Apple, but rather get a 512MB SODIMM from a computer shop. That should cost you the same amount of money, for 768MB RAM instead of 512.

[Agathon]

May I suggest something else? If you get a 256MB iBook, don't buy the the upgrade directly from Apple, but rather get a 512MB SODIMM from a computer shop. That should cost you the same amount of money, for 768MB RAM instead of 512

Exactly right. I forgot to mention that.

Oncle Boris

Apple's RAM prices are widely regarded as a ripoff. Just make sure you get RAM that is mac specific.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
can the X-series run linux?

Yeah, it can.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
You mean they're giving away the software to anyone who asks?

Yes, absolutely free -- provided you're in CompSci.

You either pick up the "loaner" CDs from the CompSci office and you get to keep them for 3 days, and you can make CDs or whatever...or you can download the .ISOs for free from their high-bandwidth server.

They then give you legal volume-license keys for the University.

It's called the MSDN Academic Alliance: http://msdn.microsoft.com/academic/p...w/default.aspx

Unfortunately, it's only for participating schools, and only for computer science departments.

[Verto]

Not wanting to sound like I think you're an idiot, but you do realize that if you buy one now, it won't come with the Tiger OS they demoed at the keynote, don't you? That will not be released for 3-4 months and will probably cost $129 (worth every penny in my book as some of the features are must haves). It will come with a new mac you buy after then of course.

The current version of OS X is pretty cool though, and you will get the latest verson of iLife (05) with any mac you buy now

I probably wouldn't buy it until after I get back from Germany, which gives me 5 months to think about a laptop, and how much I want one. I do this every time I'm thinking of buying something - endless talk and debate.