I'll throw in my 2 cents.
This year for the first time, we here at Buffalo have no option but to get a mac book pro. We do however have the option at no charge to get vista ultimate (running through osx's bootcamp I presume). I don't think this only mac policy could have been possible if bootcamp did not exist.
Personally, I am disappointed at this choice, though I can understand why it may have been undertaken. We got a reasonable deal which includes the 4 yr service policy as well as 10 loaner computers for the class. According to the school, we saved money by picking one vendor.
We used to have an option of IBM/Lenovo T60 notebooks or the Macs. ~70/85 students chose the macs, I'm sure a reasonable number took them because of the free ipod and the "oh its a mac, no viruses, it has to be better than microsoft trash, etc". I wish this choice was still there, but its not so I will do my best with what we have.
Luckily, with these new intel processors and nvidia graphics cards, in theory my MBP is the same as any other 'PC' with the same specs. In practice it is not the case. I will be running windows and the different standard keyboards will take a bit of practice getting used to (ex. in order to forward delete, you must hit fn + mac's delete (backspace) key, etc). No two button mouse, if you are not using a separate usb mouse you have to tap twice instead. Apple key vs ctrl. These issues I will simply get used to.
There is a little bit more complex issues when it comes to say reformatting your drive and reinstalling windows when one has a lot of experience building PCs and using them since mac uses EFI instead of BIOS and even then you must go through OSX and boot camp. Additionally, the windows drivers for the hardware in the machine (that Mac refuses to tell us what it is or provide drivers online) are only accessible through the osx disc. I hope there is some way to rip those drivers off the disc to keep for future reinstallations where I don't need to hunt for the osx disc.
And a question of looks, I feel a bit self conscious (won't be with everyone else having the same laptop
) with the whole mac stereotype/type of people who are buying these machines.
I am lucky that there won't be tooo much for me to get used to, though if I had the option I wouldn't have picked the mac. I have a lot of experience with PCs and know that in general they are preferred type of computer out there in the 'real' world (though by simply using windows on a mac eliminates 90% of those differences). Perhaps they can let you choose a laptop of minimum specs from Buffalo's UBMicro store and sure if they want the loaners can be macs or whatever. But, I do understand their rationale behind the choice and will enjoy learning about my new little white machine though I wish we could have had a choice.
And on a side note, the way Macs do things are not necessarily better than PCs. They are simply DIFFERENT. You just have to get used to the differences. The same is true vice versa.
so true
