Hey PC guys....

[Matra et Alpine]

Student copies of 2010 are heavily discounted over here and I'd expoect the same there.
You only have to show them school/college id or email
Better still, get yourself hooked up with a charity We buy Office 2010 for £8 a seat, thanks to Bill's benevolence. Win7 for £6
Office 2010 is worth it for two things ... they've improved the common look and feel but mosit of all finally the files are small !!!
But look out for the new cloud office offerings on Live. Not convinced but we'll see

EDIT: Ah, maybe only the PC versions come with Bill's charity discounts

[NSXType-R]

Student copies of 2010 are heavily discounted over here and I'd expoect the same there.
You only have to show them school/college id or email
Better still, get yourself hooked up with a charity We buy Office 2010 for £8 a seat, thanks to Bill's benevolence. Win7 for £6
Office 2010 is worth it for two things ... they've improved the common look and feel but mosit of all finally the files are small !!!
But look out for the new cloud office offerings on Live. Not convinced but we'll see

EDIT: Ah, maybe only the PC versions come with Bill's charity discounts

Yup, they give out Office for free, I'm just waiting for them to come out with 2010.

Small files? I still use the .doc extension just to ensure the damn thing opens on everything. I'm anal like that. Not sure what benefits if any are available when you use .docx other than it's annoying for compatibility. I would use .docx if all my professors were computer savvy, but it's not the case, so I stick with .doc just in case it doesn't open.

[Matra et Alpine]

^^^ the plugin to open docx in older versions of office is available from MS and SHOULD have come into your PC in one of the auto updates this last year.

If they complain about docx then send them it in pdf

[roosterjuicer]

Well boys and girls...the deed is done.

Disclaimer: I am a huge chickenshit and i wussed out at the last minute.

I bought a macbook pro 15inch core i7.

however, just to show the man, im running windows on it!

ultimately, the thing that got me was the build quality. I couldn't find a single windows laptop that didn't feel like it was going to break within a year. Say what you want about apple, but their build quality feel is unmatched.

I basically narrowed it down to the sony vaio and the macbook. The cost was about the same (my university doesn't carry sonys but they have macs so the macbook was about 100$ less than the sony at the end of the day). I really wanted to buy the sony but the build quality wasn't there, and although it has an HD screen, and a bigger screen, it seemed much less brilliant and intense as the mac screen. The colors seemed very washed out and un-vibrant. I tried adjusting the settings but i couldn't find anything to my liking. Additionally, the trackpad for the mouse was tiny and the battery life was much shorter.

But really, it was a close call between the two, because for basically the same price i would be getting a blu-ray player and a few other features on the sony that i wouldn't be getting on the mac. I went back and forth from best buy several times just trying to get myself to pull the trigger on the sony. ultimately, i realized that it was pretty much a tie for me on which computer i liked more.

I figured that a tie should probably go in favor of the computer that (1) can run both windows and mac os (here's the chickenshit part, i was too scared of not liking windows or windows screwing up on me like it had in the past) and (2) had better feeling build quality.

[Matra et Alpine]

hey, no apologies needed
The unibody machined Mac is a dream case.
( I'm old school HP when it used to be HP that did things like that -- and why we often were told HP stood for High Price )
Watch out for heat in that body though. Dont do serious stuff for >20-30 mins with it on a soft surface like your lap. Not jsut an Apple thing all the heavy clockers have some hot spots.
Which screen did you get ? I'd heard the HD one was less vibrant on the Mac, but not done comparisons myself.
Shame your unfounded fear was a decision point, but as I said understandable
Do you intende running dual or just have the option to roll back to OS X if desired ?

[Brix]

Good Choice .
But a bit sad that you chose windows (only?) on the machine

[roosterjuicer]

I have the hard drive split 60/40 in favor of windows. I just plan on only using windows!

[Wouter Melissen]

I just plan on only using windows!

Why??

[Matra et Alpine]

^^ tbf switching between the two is a real PIA.
Not the tech part but getting the brain to remember which OS uses which method for the task at hand
And clearly hasn't had the FULL apple-lobotomy to want to hemorrhage money to Steve Jobs

[Kitdy]

And clearly hasn't had the FULL apple-lobotomy to want to hemorrhage money to Steve Jobs

Wouter has...

[pimento]

Mr Juicer, have you considered using Parallels so you can use both OSes at once? That way you can be a hip, young Mac user while still retaining the comforts of good ol' Windows!

[Brix]

Mr Juicer, have you considered using Parallels so you can use both OSes at once? That way you can be a hip, young Mac user while still retaining the comforts of good ol' Windows!

But running parallels comes with a performance downgrade, as you need to power both systems at the same time.

[Matra et Alpine]

^^^ yeah, bootcamp is the way if you want to use one or other.
Parallels is really only useful when you can't install bootcamp and switch OSes ( many business installations for example ) and when you want to quickly switch between for apps. Games are better switched via bootcamp and the ONLY way to guarantee performance and features

[faksta]

My personal experience with MacBook Air 11'' and a certain number of Windows computers tells me that the Apple device is the only one which I was satisfied with - no problems with Internet, no viruses, much faster performance and nothing that could drive me crazy (as opposed to PC computers). I came to a conclusion that there's no difference in whether you have HP, Asus, Toshiba or whatever - it's Windows that is wrong. Do I live on the moon?

[Matra et Alpine]

yes, one not visited since XP SP2 and confined to a parallel universe since WIndows 7 !!

Check out analysis by independant computer service company RESCUECOM Computer Support Blog Rescuecom Computer Reliability Report - 2nd QT 2010
Couple of things *I* question about the numbers is do Apple owners ever call anyone except for Apple and if Apple say "broke" do they just go out and buy new Apple ( as Apple recommend ) So there numbers coudl be skewed and they coudl be lower. As raised in Report: Asus Has 'Off the Charts' Reliability Score
Was surprised HP was only 10% of calls for 25% market share .... with the bad press they get had expected more. Facts maybe disproving the opinion ?
Thought Toshiba had higher market share than that !!

But the thing to take from it is for a lot more money than ASUS you can have a less reliable Apple

:stirs the pot and sits down: .....