i need a new laptop for university

[ScRaT_the_destroyer]

Hi folks,

i'm looking to purchase a new laptop for university,
i wont be bringing my beasty desktop(i love it dearly) to halls next year it is too heavy and takes up too much space in my digs.

i'll be buying it on credit over 36months so budget = <£1700

i need 14-15" laptop with decent(5+ hours) battery life
quad-core would be a bonus
as would decent discrete graphics(amd 6630m +, nvidia gt435m +)

i have a couple in mind but would like to hear your opinions

1: Apple Macbook Pro 15" intel core i7-2720qm, 4gb ddr3 RAM, an amd 6750m gpu and with a anti-glare screen £1674 (via education pricing)
2: Lenovo Thinkpad w520 intel core i7-2720qm, 6gb ddr3 ram, nvidia quadro 1000m also with an anti glare screen, spare battery £1800

any comment helpful PLEASE DON'T TURN THIS INTO A PC VS MAC THREAD PLEASE

 

[Zantos]

What course will you be doing? The types of program you'll need to use could favour one over the other.

 

[ScRaT_the_destroyer]

true that, i'm doing Computer Science, which should make me lean towards the thinkpad. but the macbook is cheaper (now thats a shocker) has a stronger gpu but has less ram hard drive capacity and spindle speeds are the same on both. and i'm not sure of how long the battery will last with the Lenovo.

as for the software i use on my course i get a lot of microsoft and autodesk software free (thank god)

 

[Zantos]

From the computer scientists I know, I'd say Lenovo if you're going to be doing a lot of programming and stuff, and Mac if you're looking at design stuff. Plus I don't think macbooks support a linux dual boot, at least not without a fight. I think it must be the law that if you do comp sci you have to be using linux by the end of the first year.

 

[dmase]

I'd choose the one whose software your most comfortable with. I've always used windows so the interface of a mac bothers me, of course that isn't a problem for a lot of people. Have you looked through HP's laptop's?

I know the lenovo computer you've chosen is better for programming and they usually have very long battery lifes or at least the x series does.

 

[ScRaT_the_destroyer]

Plus I don't think macbooks support a linux dual boot, at least not without a fight. I think it must be the law that if you do comp sci you have to be using linux by the end of the first year.

from what little ive researched its possible just requires a more specific process than for most pc, failing that theres always VMs. the battery life and the graphical grunt are what attracted me to that system in the first place as battlefield 3 will be getting a whirl on it.

I'd choose the one whose software your most comfortable with. I've always used windows so the interface of a mac bothers me, of course that isn't a problem for a lot of people. Have you looked through HP's laptop's?

both hp's envy and pavilion are on sale at the moment making me think they're getting a sandy-bridge refresh in the coming weeks, and their replacements arent on the uk hp site yet

i should have specified earlier that i won't be making this purchase until september i'm just seeing what is available for when i can afford to buy it

 

[Zantos]

Plus I don't think macbooks support a linux dual boot, at least not without a fight. I think it must be the law that if you do comp sci you have to be using linux by the end of the first year.

from what little ive researched its possible just requires a more specific process than for most pc, failing that theres always VMs. the battery life and the graphical grunt are what attracted me to that system in the first place as battlefield 3 will be getting a whirl on it.

Things university has taught me, if it's harder it's not worth the hassle.

Seriously though, firstly most of the world still uses windows, which means any code you write has to be primarily windows compatible (only law of quantum mechanics that you can't joke about). Secondly, no matter how nice your VM may seem, it will always crash at the least convenient time.

 

[Erana]

Plus I don't think macbooks support a linux dual boot, at least not without a fight. I think it must be the law that if you do comp sci you have to be using linux by the end of the first year.

from what little ive researched its possible just requires a more specific process than for most pc, failing that theres always VMs. the battery life and the graphical grunt are what attracted me to that system in the first place as battlefield 3 will be getting a whirl on it.

Hrm... Is the battery life a hardware thing? I never thought about that aspect before...

If you're particularly attracted to the Mac OS, there are legal ways of making a hackintosh- you could dual-boot or even triple-boot on a non-Apple laptop if you'd like. (As long as it matches the HCL [http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/HCL_10.5.2/Portables]
From what I've seen, putting Linux on an intel mac is a bit of a long, but easy enough process. Tell us about your past computer experience, and what you're most comfortable wiht.

 

[Megadonphan]

Ok, when choosing a laptop, there are a few thing to be taken into consideration, hardrive space, RAM size, speed of processor and probably the most important, the battery life

my recommendation for a laptop depends on what you want to use it for, if it is for purely documentations, a simple Mac will do just fine, it has great battery life, they no longer have the death seed virus, and they run pretty dang fast.

For gamimg, it depends, for on the go gaming, anything with shared graphics, like most Toshiba's will do perfectly, as they can last for up to 5 HOURS on a single charge, if the battery is good enough.
Web gaming/ Gaming at home, it is highly recommended you have a stand alone graphics laptop, basically meaning that all of the graphics will go into a game if you are playing one.

There are a lot more, but, I recommend the mac for you because you are looking for something for uni, and the macs are great for that.

Good luck in Uni

 

[ScRaT_the_destroyer]

From what I've seen, putting Linux on an intel mac is a bit of a long, but easy enough process. Tell us about your past computer experience, and what you're most comfortable wiht.

i've been building and maintaining my desktop for the past 5 years (overclocked i5 760 @3.3ghz, 8gb ddr3 1333, with a gtx460, 3 hard drives and an ssd) and am running a windows 7, ubuntu 11.4 dual boot using grub, though i don't have much experience with linux though.

i have no problems with going the long winded way with the mac, and have contemplated using os x on my desktop in the past but i wasn't sure that it supported ide dvd drives so i never bothered.

i do suspect the battery life is a result of apple's tinkering with os x though and it will be lower on win7