For a college student, which is better, Mac or PC?

Question

I'm going to be graduating high school in a couple of years, and I want to get into University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for pre-med, pharmacy, genetics or North Carolina State University for bioengineering, biomedical engineering, or biochemistry with maybe a minor in visual art.

Misc info:
I have an ipod (might need a second one), not much of a gamer, loves music
I need a long battery life (as long as possible), speed is a plus, but not necessary.
I usually use google chrome for a browser, but anything other than IE is okay.
As I am a college student, PLEASE INCLUDE HOW MUCH IT WILL COST! I'm not on a budget, but I don't want to be surprised.
How long will it last?
Pros/cons
No Dell please; I'm using a dell insipron 1525 right now, and so does my sister, and we're both having a miserable time with it. Windows vista is an awful OS.

PS- I know that PC stands for personalized computer, that technically macs are PCs as well, but in this case, it refers to anything non-mac.

Answer 1

PROS:

• Macbooks have a long battery life and are easy to use.



• it is very hard to get viruses on macs. Macbooks last a long time.



• Some extended warranties for macs come with a guarantee that if it breaks more than 3 times they will replace it with the newest macbook.



CONS

• Still uses a Core 2 Duo processor

• No new ports added

• Expensive compared with Core i3 laptops



A macbook pro costs $1199 for a 13" in the US.



TESTS

multitasking test(in seconds):

(The smaller the number the better)



•Apple MacBook Pro 15.4-inch 2010:

259 (BEST)

•Apple MacBook Pro 13.3-inch 2010:

437

•Apple MacBook 13.3-inch 2009:

547

•Sony Vaio VPC-Z116GX/S:

675

•Asus U30Jc:

786

•HP Envy 13:

1378



Video playback battery drain test (in minutes)

(the bigger the number the better)



•Apple MacBook Pro 13.3-inch 2010

360 (BEST)

•Apple MacBook Pro 15.4-inch 2010

356

•Apple MacBook 13.3-inch 2009

314

•Asus U30Jc

240

•HP Envy 13

239

•Sony Vaio VPC-Z116GX/S

210

Answer 2

Hello ,



as I recommended to a previous participant in this Yahoo! Forum, nowadays there are some many brands and models to choose from, from ASUS to MSI to DELL, not to mention MAC, etc. They all good, and many of them exceeds the requirements you are looking for. But you are the one to choose which is the appropriate. We might recomend but the final falls decision upon you. To help you get a better decision we suggest you to check the different brands and models at Notebook Review, which list plenty of them along with its respective benchmark. Here is the link:



http://www.notebookreview.com/



Hope you can make a sound purchase decision. And forget about which one is better, if PC or MAC. Technically there is not much distinctin. Take care.

Answer 3

Depends what you are going to use it for. Macs are fab but a bit pricey. The new L/Tops have better batteries these days. Have you tried replacing the battery in Toshiba Satellite? It might just be a dud? Good luck.