I agree in a way, I think the more interesting topic wouldn't be Macbook vs a laptop at the same price, but merely whether a student needs to spend that kind of money on a laptop/macbook at all, and whether getting a cheaper laptop would do the job just as well, and give them some more spending money as a bonus
To be perfectly honest. Mac or win8 Lenovo T series is mostly the same except the windows Laptop uses windows. For all apple products: They work well to the point where you want to install something Jobs doesnt like. Its really the one argument against Apple that turns me away. They can and have retro actively removed apps from peoples phone because they decided its not what they want. They removed Gmail because and I quote its confusing to have more then one (read our own) email app. I find it quite nice to use but I do not agree that a company should be able to decide what software I run on their Hardware. Therefore I vote with my wallet and buy other Laptops. I would personally not use windows if my games ran under Linux but we are not quite there yet.
Could use that argument for a Linux laptop Oh and you would have a larger choice of software. Only the store support is missing though you do have to pay extra for that when you buy your Macbook. (most people forget that) Ubuntu has a online support feature you can buy as well.
For most students its the easist and cheapest to come by due to student discounts offered by Apple. There Macbook Air range (13inch 128gb 8gb is sub £900) with student discount has no real competition at that price point.
If we go down that route, then most tasks a student needs a notebook for can be done on a €300 11" Thinkpad x121e with an AMD E350 and Ubuntu OS. Even a €300 Android-tablet is sufficient enough for most tasks like webbrowsing (research), office and communication. Software isn't an issue, as all the software the usual student needs is available for MacOSX, and it's mostly freeware aswell. The productivity-software can be bought with your student-license dirt-cheap. Adobe CS6 Educational costs €400 compared to the normal €1600 for example and you can even further cut the costs by setting it off the taxes, just like the hardware itself. We need to clear our minds of all the technical knowledge to make an objective argument, and only look at it from a pure John Doe POV. 90% of the time there's simply no argument to be found why we shouldn't simply buy a 13" MacBookAir, if we're looking for a notebook to be used for the next three to five years on the campus. There's cheaper notebooks for sure, but you'll allways loose the possibility to go to the Apple-Store and get your notebook fixed within a few hours, and that's imho the best argument for buying a MacBook with the extended warranty.
I've never noticed the cooling, but you could just put Windows or Linux on it. Although most people don't really care about OSX vs Windows. Its just that Apple products look great and usually last for longer due to the build quality.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but this is not an argument pro-MacBook. LibreOffice is free, for all major platforms, and does the job perfectly. That Adobe Educational promotion is also not Apple-exclusive I presume? I agree with you though that we should look from a John Doe POV. Technical specifications etc. don't matter to the average student, it just needs to do its job (and looking good at the same time is a nice bonus), price does matter though.
You probably don't have one of the noisier ones (Early 2011 Macbook Pro 13") or you don't put a high load on it. For me it is was enough to start up Eclipse with few Java projects and once it started doing it initial work (recalculate various indexes, rebuild changes) the fan ramped up to the maximum (5000-6000RPM i think)... It is like a vacuum cleaner in person - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwHr_6ktLjw. Sure, the later models seems to be less noisy, but no one can guarantee you that the next one won't be noisy again. In comparison, the quad core 2012 Mac Mini needs hours of same load for the fan to become noticeable at all, compared to few seconds in case of 2011 Macbook Pro 13". 15 and 17" 2011 Macbook Pros had instead problems with SATA3 SSD's.... Oh, did i mentoin that there is no TRIM support for any non-Apple SSD (unless you use the TRIM enabler "hack") ? Still, it has the issues of the OS being different (i will repeat myself again - no maximize button, fullscreen apps used only one display in case of multi-display configuration, Home/End works different to any other OS on the market.
Faug, just as an addendum, multi-monitor behaviour has been totally redone in OS X Mavericks (10.9), so no more of the single screen nonsense.
Not really certain how a student at uni would have the space for multi monitor setup anyway. Uk uni housing is pretty small space wise.
I don't really see the problem. All these things are past problems not current ones. I believe TRIM support is going to be in 10.9 but it won't matter as user replaceable SSDs on apple products won't be there for much longer I imagine.
when macs go wrong it's often more expensive to repair them, than windows pc's/ laptops. for: locked down hardware, so better support from all software. less likely to crash due to hardware being virtually the same through the range. very well built, should last more than the average 3yrs of the average windows based pc. against: cost - for a similar specced windows based pc you would pay half the price. cost of ownership- software tends to be more expensive, support costs- requires someone who knows macs to support, mac technicians cost more. if you can find one. cost of repairs is higher. games- there was an issue finding games- this is getting better though. fallacy about macs not getting malware- they do- and apple support deny all knowledge until told otherwise by higher ups. peripheral support isn't as wide as windows pc's -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- whether they work better than windows based pc's, maybe for some things. to me they are a tool, like a windows based pc, if someone wants one, fine, support wise, i'm no expert, but I can find my way around one.
Support wise iFixit has some fantastic guides for fixing iDevices. They might be difficult to do but at least the documentation is there if you think you can manage it.
Repairs cost nothing, if you go for the 3-year care-plan and if not repairable you get an exchange-device. The best of all of this... you can go to a store and usually repairs are done within a few hours. For enterprises/companies you can even get a 5-year care-plan. And before anyone starts talking costs again... be reminded that you can offset these costs from your tax to some extend. Most people tend to miss this opportunity for all their work-related hardware, software or whatever. As a student you can write off all kinds of stuff like books, notebooks, software, paper, toner, etc, etc, etc and as a company you can write off all this stuff to even higher percentages.
Marvellous. But only really useful if you live or work close-by one. Realistically, for most customers a few hours isn't going to be a possibility.
This article is going to get you hated from one side or the other, for some reason a "normal" debate isn't possible. Unless you keep it so bland noone takes offense. Most arguements have been had: Compared to similar specced hardware, mac's are okay and may have a better reselling value. They work well without a hassle, build quality is good.. Do you need to spend this amount of money for a typewriter that reads PDF'S and the net? Well that's up to personal taste. For me, the cheapest netbook will do, others need a macbook-air as an accesoire. Then again, I have a habit to drop and break things, fashionistas maybe don't. It really depends on your needs and wants. People that do DTP and/or Music swear by macs...People that do CAD, well Laptops are just too puny in general. People that don't care about hardware may still buy a top-notch mac and be happy with it. Some things are...easier on a mac (or iProduct) and that's worth it for a lot of people. I don't know about the US, but here, what student pays taxes?
If Apple offered mechanical keyboards with their IMacs and MacPros. I would've actually considered a package deal. Small niggles aside, I actually really like Apple packaged computers. They're sleek, they're generally pretty well built and lets be honest. OSX is actually rather nice to use. There are a few niggles, but Windows also has its issues. If it wasn't for the absurd pandering to mediocre things, the lack of matte screens (which to be fair, with some of the awful IPS AG coatings of recent isn't that big of a problem), an appeal to aesthetics over function in their monitors and the Apple markup I would've kitted myself out with one. Lets be honest, the driver unification for supported devices is quite literally the most fantastic thing ever. That said, the fact that they can wholesale slaughter on prices and the upgradability reduction ability on graphics cards really makes me second guess a reason to buy them. Especially because I like upgrading for lols.
