In the fall I'm going to start teaching at my university, and I've decided that there's really no way I'll be able to survive without a laptop. I have never owned one before; I've had my desktop Dell PC since October of 2002. I've never really had any problems with this computer. I got a virus on it my freshman year of college (which was 5 years ago..boy do I feel old), and it still runs well except the programs I use now totally eat up the RAM. I'm probably going to make my next purchase when I get a summer job, which will hopefully be in the next two weeks.

So I've decided to explore all of my options, which includes switching over to a Mac. I'm in no way a PC-hater, and as I stated above I've never really had a problem with my Windows PC. However, I believe there are some pros to switching over to a Mac. So, I'd like any advice anyone on here can give me; I'd also be grateful if you could answer the questions I have below and clear up any misconceptions I put forth.

So, first of all, I'll go over what I plan on using my new laptop for. It will mostly be my connection to this magical thing people call the internets. Almost the entire campus is wireless, but right now I've got to trudge all the way over to the computer lab to type stuff up, and I carry all of my important files on a 1GB flash drive. Wireless connectivity is extremely important to me, as I'll be watching for e-mails from the kiddies all the time, whether I'm in the library, my office, or a random classroom. One thing I've learned recently is that our network doesn't support the Vista that comes with most PC's; you have to have either the business or the enterprise edition, I think. With a Mac, apparently, it will work right out of the box. The programs I will be running are mostly word-processing stuff, for correcting my students' papers and writing my own. If I buy a Mac through my school, I get Microsoft Office 2008 for free (more on the school purchasing thing later). My first question: is MS Office on Mac really 100% compatible with all versions of MS Office on PC's? I'm dreading getting a paper from a student right on the deadline that I can't open. And about connectivity/transport: do either PC's or Macs have a reputation for wireless trouble? And are either generally lighter than the other? I'm no weakling, but I'm no strong-man either, and I'll be lugging this puppy into school with me every day (about an hour and a half train wide each way).

I will probably not be playing games of any kind on my new laptop; I really only play an occassional game of High Heat Baseball 2002 (Milwaukee Brewers 5 time champs baby!) on my PC, and there's nothing on the horizon I'm interested in. I do torrent a lot, but I actually plan to keep my PC torrenting at the house when I'm not there, so I don't think my laptop will be doing such work. The only programs I'll probably install are iTunes to listen to music and some media players to watch some videos. Hard drive size isn't very important, as I won't be transferring my music collection over to it.

But that leads me to another question. I have an iPod right now that I've had for about a year (a 5.5 Video, 80GB), and I was wondering if it'd be swappable between a Mac and my PC. I noticed that in my "About" section it says that my iPod is formatted to Windows. Will I be stuck with only adding songs/listening/charging through my PC, or is there a way it will work on both? I've also got an external hard drive, a 500GB Western Digital that I got for Christmas. I've done some searching on these forums and it looks like there's some technical stuff I've got to do to make that swappable to a Mac, but I was wondering if I'd be able to do that stuff (fooling with the FAT32 or whatever, I'm not too familiar with it) when there's a ton of files already on there? Around 250GB of files, to be exact. Then again, I don't think I'd be swapping very often, as I'd need to keep that connected to my desktop most of the time to torrent.

I think that covers software and hardware issues. Then there's the whole price thing. I'm not made o' money; if I were, I'd just buy both a PC and a Mac. I'm considering ordering through my school, since they give us a nice discount on either type of laptop. The two models I'm looking at are around the same price: the PC is $1233.50, the Mac $1267.25. They've got similar specs, except the Mac has a better optical drive and the PC (it's a Dell, btw) has twice the RAM (4GB vs. 2GB). The hard drives are the same, processor speeds are similar, wireless stuff looks similar. The Mac comes with a 3-year Apple Care at no additional charge and the PC has a 4-year warranty (although, I think both might have on-campus only repair, and I'm only going to be at this school for one more year). The Mac would be almost a $300 savings compared with buying the same system off apple.com; I'm not sure about the PC, but I figure it'll be about the same. Like I stated above, I can get Office '08 for the Mac for free and Office '07 for the PC for nothing, although it doesn't specify what version of Office '07 it is (I could always get another from my torrent friends, of course).

So, what do ya'll think? Any feedback would be appreciated. I think I'm leading towards the Mac...I'm not sure why. I think I just like new things, and would love to try a Mac for a while. But I'm weary of spending $1200 on an experiment.

Thanks!

I'd say make the switch. I switched about a year and a half ago and I swear it was the best computer decision I have made. The MacBook Pro I bought runs just as well as it did the day I took it out of the box. Never had an issue with wireless. I had an ipod formatted for windows before this but have had no problem going back and forth between the two. I also use microsoft office software on my mac and have never had an issue with compatibility.

The only thing for me was I still need to use Adobe Audition for work and school and they don't make a mac version of it. I partitioned a small portion of my hard drive and used BaseCamp to install windows too which works extremely well. I bought the MacBook with no experience on the Mac and anytime I needed to try and do something for the first time it's always been real simple and intuitive.

I say go for it if you can afford it.

Don't worry about the difference in RAM. You can upgrade to 4 gigs for about 70 bucks.

There would no additional cost (relative to PCs) incured in pairing the same brand used by Apple?

I'm not sure what you're asking

I got this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231135

and it works great

I have an imac and upgraded the RAM from newegg for $95 to 4 gb. Damn easy. I have a western digital external hard drive and i switch between my mac and my wifes PC with no problems at all. I didnt have to do anything to it.

If you're interested in getting the best value for your money, get a PC. If you're more interested in having a hip-looking outer casing, get a Mac.

ZING!