The design of most medium sized cities in America requires people to drive. It is not always an issue of "lazy Americans". Mid sized towns don't always have a good public transportation infrastructure and the sprawl is usually too vast. For example, I just returned from Pensacola, FL and it would have been impossible to rely on public transportation, and everything was separated by miles, not blocks like I see in Europe. The nearest supermarket to our hotel was at least five miles away, and the closest bus stop was over a mile away.
I live in Harrogate, UK now and judging by the traffic, these people are just as, if not more, dependent on their cars (albeit tiny little cartoon cars) as Americans are.
I personally drive a V8 crew cab pickup truck and even got a comment from a guy I used to work with about ruining the environment.
As an American, I think you have the right to drive what you want (especially a legal vehicle, such as an SUV), and others have the right to be critical of what you drive (even though I don't care to hear what they think). That's the nature of the beast, isn't it? You are already being punished by having to buy more gas, right? Everyone has the right to be stupid in their own way, whether it be by driving an irresponisible vehicle, or by being beligerent towards other people's freedoms (of driving irresponsible vehicles, for example).
but when you mention the availability of running Windows in a dual boot setup on the Macbook, keep in mind you'll be shelling out even more money to buy the software.
I miss your point. You'd be shelling out the same money for a windows app if you owned a windows laptop. A pc software app costs the same, regardless if you install it on a PC or on an Intel Mac.
Because the Macbooks that compare pricewise and feature-wise to PC laptops are $1600 and up
The MacBook is sub $1000 bare-bones, education price. I'm not sure why you cite the need for a 15" screen. That seems like an arbitrary option you chose, to eliminate the entire line of MacBooks from the discussion. Even a bare bones MacBook Duo Core runs circles around the last generation iBooks and budget PC laptops. I'm not sure what features you need that would make my $1000 MacBook suddenly cost $1600, to be as good as an equivalent PC. I think my MacBook already as good as an equivalent pc, for about the same price. Mine just has the ability to run OS X and Windows, and isn't an ugly brick of plastic. I think you haven't been in the market for a MacBook to really know what you are talking about.
Apple's making a comeback in education, with double-digit growth rates in education sales in the last couple years, so I think we'll see the reverse result for the 18--25 demographic
Did PCs take over the education market based on the quality of the product? Hardly. Educational Technologist are more geek than educator, and rarely pick the right computer based on educational needs. Couple that with the pressures from the next higher up to save money (short sighted cost of ownership and return on investment studies pointing to $400 Dells), and the PC quickly dominates the Education realm. The business model (leasing, for example) and OS licensing have more to do with PC success in schools than any actual educational successes, which is a shame. I'm writing my masters thesis on this very subject!
ProE, Catia, AutoCAD, Solidworks are all you are going to find. Do those run on OSX?
Didn't you already answer that when you said gaming on Mac OS X is possible on intel Macs? I think I have a decent gaming machine (2.33 gig Core 2 Duo iMac with the higher end video card and 2gigs for ram). It most certainly smokes the living daylights out of my 2.5gig Celeron and my 1.5gig Athlon machines with equivalent video cards and amounts ram (albeit older, slower ram).
My friend manages the computer labs at Savannah College of Art and Design and he tells me the only reason they keep pcs around are for the 3d Architecture stuff. I'm sure they will all run very nicely on a MacPro, so those pc's better keep looking over their shoulders!
Speaking of games, even if they do port a Mac version a few months later, that will probably stop in the near future. Anyone serious enough about video games AND must have a Mac (like me) will just buy the pc version, boot up in microsoft mode, and play the game. My intel mac takes a whopping 14 seconds to reboot, so it isn't that much of a hassle to throw on a game now and then.
Except that most "PC's" are available without lots of extras that youngsters don't want.
Isn't this exactly backwards from reality? Most PC's I've seen come bundled with so much unusable nonesense that upgrading to a 250 GB harddrive is not only an option, but a requirement! I think my wife's PC came with at least three ISP offers (preinstalled) from companies that don't even exist anymore!
What does OS X come with, other than the iLife suite and a few corny freebie apps like Photobooth, that costs so much money?
My sentiments exactly. College students are at that phase where they like to geek-out and try everything. I was there, once, in about 1990. In 1996 my son was born and I had a real job and could no longer hang out on my self made PC box tweaking and overclocking everything I got my hands on. Instead I bought one of the worst Macs ever (Performa) and it was still good enough to switch me over to macs. I'm on my 8th Mac now, and my current oldest is G4 that is six years old.
How many sub $500 pc's would I have gone through during the (still going strong) lifespan of my $1200 G4? Three, four? How many hours would I have wasted fixing all the stupid malware and bugs?
Like someone else already said: once you have a real job and some money, the few extra hundred bucks are worth it. I get really tired of arguments from people who are just cheap.
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I live in Harrogate, UK now and judging by the traffic, these people are just as, if not more, dependent on their cars (albeit tiny little cartoon cars) as Americans are.
As an American, I think you have the right to drive what you want (especially a legal vehicle, such as an SUV), and others have the right to be critical of what you drive (even though I don't care to hear what they think). That's the nature of the beast, isn't it? You are already being punished by having to buy more gas, right? Everyone has the right to be stupid in their own way, whether it be by driving an irresponisible vehicle, or by being beligerent towards other people's freedoms (of driving irresponsible vehicles, for example).
I miss your point. You'd be shelling out the same money for a windows app if you owned a windows laptop. A pc software app costs the same, regardless if you install it on a PC or on an Intel Mac.
The MacBook is sub $1000 bare-bones, education price. I'm not sure why you cite the need for a 15" screen. That seems like an arbitrary option you chose, to eliminate the entire line of MacBooks from the discussion. Even a bare bones MacBook Duo Core runs circles around the last generation iBooks and budget PC laptops. I'm not sure what features you need that would make my $1000 MacBook suddenly cost $1600, to be as good as an equivalent PC. I think my MacBook already as good as an equivalent pc, for about the same price. Mine just has the ability to run OS X and Windows, and isn't an ugly brick of plastic. I think you haven't been in the market for a MacBook to really know what you are talking about.Did PCs take over the education market based on the quality of the product? Hardly. Educational Technologist are more geek than educator, and rarely pick the right computer based on educational needs. Couple that with the pressures from the next higher up to save money (short sighted cost of ownership and return on investment studies pointing to $400 Dells), and the PC quickly dominates the Education realm. The business model (leasing, for example) and OS licensing have more to do with PC success in schools than any actual educational successes, which is a shame. I'm writing my masters thesis on this very subject!
My friend manages the computer labs at Savannah College of Art and Design and he tells me the only reason they keep pcs around are for the 3d Architecture stuff. I'm sure they will all run very nicely on a MacPro, so those pc's better keep looking over their shoulders!
Speaking of games, even if they do port a Mac version a few months later, that will probably stop in the near future. Anyone serious enough about video games AND must have a Mac (like me) will just buy the pc version, boot up in microsoft mode, and play the game. My intel mac takes a whopping 14 seconds to reboot, so it isn't that much of a hassle to throw on a game now and then.
What does OS X come with, other than the iLife suite and a few corny freebie apps like Photobooth, that costs so much money?
My sentiments exactly. College students are at that phase where they like to geek-out and try everything. I was there, once, in about 1990. In 1996 my son was born and I had a real job and could no longer hang out on my self made PC box tweaking and overclocking everything I got my hands on. Instead I bought one of the worst Macs ever (Performa) and it was still good enough to switch me over to macs. I'm on my 8th Mac now, and my current oldest is G4 that is six years old. How many sub $500 pc's would I have gone through during the (still going strong) lifespan of my $1200 G4? Three, four? How many hours would I have wasted fixing all the stupid malware and bugs? Like someone else already said: once you have a real job and some money, the few extra hundred bucks are worth it. I get really tired of arguments from people who are just cheap.