im having a lot of trouble deciding wether to buy a sony vaio or a macbook pro....

ive used both macs and pcs, but mostly pcs. im not sure if its just the fact im not used to macs that i dont want to switch...

i want to use it for a media course. so im guessing a mac would be better. is this true?

also. what do i need so that a macbook pro will ask me wether i want to boot windows or wether i want to boot leopard.

thanks!

Get a macbook.

Best thing I've done. I don't use it much for media, anyway I prefer adobe applications and using the Vista partition of my macbook.

Bootcamp is part of leopard already and it's so easy to install windows it's unreal. Literally just put the CD tell it how much space you want it to have, then click go and go through the various install screens of windows. It's pretty damn easy to put on and take off.

I find that OS X runs a lot better than Vista does especially with applications involving Media, Photoshop runs smoother and faster as does the other Adobe applications.

Never used a mac before and used to hate them but I changed my mind, they're very good and work/run everything.

Take a look at VMware Fusion, it's what actually changed my mind about it

You want your laptop to be reliable right? If so, Get a Thinkpad.

Get a Mac, but wait to September. Why? You can use your student discount, and it is rumoured Apple will be dropping prices and releasing a new range of Macbooks .

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Originally posted by Dazzy
You want your laptop to be reliable right? If so, Get a Thinkpad.

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I'd say go for a mac, I'm using one and I love it . If you can afford it/ get a good deal on it ...

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Originally posted by Dazzy
You want your laptop to be reliable right? If so, Get a Thinkpad.

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Originally posted by Nathan

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Originally posted by Dazzy
You want your laptop to be reliable right? If so, Get a Thinkpad.

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Are you paid to advertise thinkpad?

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Originally posted by Dazzy

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Originally posted by Nathan

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Originally posted by Dazzy
You want your laptop to be reliable right? If so, Get a Thinkpad.

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Are you paid to advertise thinkpad?

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No. I just use my brain and only buy reliable stuff. Unlike the apple fanboys who will buy anything with a apple logo slapped on it.

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I have to admit the specialist stuff on mac far surpasses windows alternatives

and there are lots of beautiful working and looking applications for the mac.
I mean iStopMotion for example, it's brilliant, easy, advanced and manageable, there are many little wonderful tools for mac osx for oddities.

To be  fair, if you are really used to windows, you'll find certain aspects really irritating... especially the lack of a descent torrent client.

My complaint with OS X is that there are all these little apps you have to download, to get your system working fully. The ONE thing that really annoys me is that there is no unified uninstaller with the operating system.

As a final note, in general, because of the fact that steve jobs thinks that most users are idiots and over simplified the operating system, ever other developer seems to want to follow that trend and you end up with applications that are over simplified.

You can always install boot camp and use Windows with it. Where as installing hackintosh may not work on a normal PC .

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=54...avigationKey=50417 Sony Link

is the sort of pc i want. it looks great haha. im not quite sure what this means though: "In the case of 4GB, a portion of the system memory over 3GB might not be available to the operating system"

yeah, i was in the apple store in bluewater and the guy said if i bring in my acceptance letter ill get a 15% discount!

hm, i like the sound of installing windows on a mac, and setting how much space you want it to have etc. vista/xp both work right?

erm... the similar spec macs are a lot more expensive than the pcs. by around £500 in some cases! that is the most expensive vaio ive seen (link above) and thats because its got a built in blu-ray burner! hmmm, i think my budget is £2000, roughly, could spend some more. but IDEALLY i would like to get a radio/stereo ipod dock and some other things out of that budget too! (there's a point, can anyone recommend a good ipod dock radio thats not £199! thanks!)

edit: just added a sony website link to the same model, battery life 95 minute... WTF?! thats useless!?!?! whats the average batterylife of a macbook pro?

Like 3-4 hours

my macbook lasts very well, and even better depending on what energy profile I have it set to.

I've found that:
OSX lasts longer (I managed to have it going for about 6 hours once! just playing music, I had it on all day at uni during a workshop and just paused it every so often, but I also took some photos and video with it too) and I'd say my average is 2.5-3.5 hours

Windows vista ultimate Bootcamped tends to last about 2.5-3 hours on full charge (but will almost always get you through a film in fullscreen, because of power management kicking in) - Currently booted in Vista, 94% battery claiming to have 2.5 hours

The macbook charger and battery REALLY impress me, so easy and portable, the charger has exchangable heads (so can take abroad/plug directly into wall, rather than have the unit lying on the floor) and flick out arms to wrap extra cable around (and it's a very generous length of cable you get) as well as easy fuse changing should you need to, the battery also has 5 LED's on it that flash when charging and a simple button press will give you a rough idea of how much battery you have left (each LED being ~20%)

I hated the macs at my college, but love it on my laptop, at college they were slow and unresponsive, this thing (bearing in mind I only have a little macbook, not the macbook pro or anything) is snappy, light and responsive and premiere pro is on macs now too for your video editing

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Originally posted by Nathan
Like 3-4 hours

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Originally posted by aNILEator
my macbook lasts very well, and even better depending on what energy profile I have it set to.

I've found that:
OSX lasts longer (I managed to have it going for about 6 hours once! just playing music, I had it on all day at uni during a workshop and just paused it every so often, but I also took some photos and video with it too) and I'd say my average is 2.5-3.5 hours

Windows vista ultimate Bootcamped tends to last about 2.5-3 hours on full charge (but will almost always get you through a film in fullscreen, because of power management kicking in) - Currently booted in Vista, 94% battery claiming to have 2.5 hours

The macbook charger and battery REALLY impress me, so easy and portable, the charger has exchangable heads (so can take abroad/plug directly into wall, rather than have the unit lying on the floor) and flick out arms to wrap extra cable around (and it's a very generous length of cable you get) as well as easy fuse changing should you need to, the battery also has 5 LED's on it that flash when charging and a simple button press will give you a rough idea of how much battery you have left (each LED being ~20%)

I hated the macs at my college, but love it on my laptop, at college they were slow and unresponsive, this thing (bearing in mind I only have a little macbook, not the macbook pro or anything) is snappy, light and responsive and premiere pro is on macs now too for your video editing

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Originally posted by .Lou

I must say, sounds like you just go by Thinkpad. At least provide some proof. There's no need to be biased about it, as you're not really helping M73A make a choice if all you're saying is that it's more reliable. Evidence?

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Originally posted by aNILEator
Windows vista ultimate Bootcamped tends to last about 2.5-3 hours on full charge (but will almost always get you through a film in fullscreen, because of power management kicking in) - Currently booted in Vista, 94% battery claiming to have 2.5 hours

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3-4 hours is hardly suck

Mine lasts 1.5hours on a full charge with wireless off, and notepad just open

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Originally posted by Dazzy

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Originally posted by .Lou

I must say, sounds like you just go by Thinkpad. At least provide some proof. There's no need to be biased about it, as you're not really helping M73A make a choice if all you're saying is that it's more reliable. Evidence?

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Its not made of flimsy plastic, it has a roll cage, runs very cool (4C above room temp when idle, around 12C on full load), Is made to last. (I know people who still use their 8 year old thinkpad, and its in perfect condition), Can survive falls. I could go on forever with this.

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Originally posted by aNILEator
Windows vista ultimate Bootcamped tends to last about 2.5-3 hours on full charge (but will almost always get you through a film in fullscreen, because of power management kicking in) - Currently booted in Vista, 94% battery claiming to have 2.5 hours

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The battery must suck.

My thinkpad lasts for just under 5 hours on a full charge.

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If you want stuff like that - high specs and stuff check out alienware...

www.alienware.com

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Originally posted by Nathan
If you want stuff like that - high specs and stuff check out alienware...

www.alienware.com

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Originally posted by M73A
the hard drive don't go as high as i would like, and the video cards could do with a few more mb.

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Yeah, and a hefty price tag to go with it

still, those t series specs are lower than what im looking at now.

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Originally posted by Nathan
Yeah, and a hefty price tag to go with it

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Originally posted by M73A
still, those t series specs are lower than what im looking at now.

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Buy a Mac if you are going to run OS X.  By the way, OS X is very nice and, while it doesn't have 17 choices for every application like Windows, all the applications one should need are available.  People who whine about it are generally Windows users who have never taken the time to learn and get used to another OS; most of those who have (myself included) find OS X a joy to use.

If you still have no interest in OS X and are going to run Windows -- don't buy a Macbook for that.  I second the suggestion of Thinkpads as excellent quality laptops.  Dell laptops have improved recently as well and are very nice.

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Originally posted by Dazzy
    quoteriginally posted by M73A
    still, those t series specs are lower than what im looking at now.


That sony vaio you linked to has identical specs.

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Originally posted by Dazzy
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 (T400) / 3650 (T500)
256MB graphics cards

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Originally posted by Sony Site
NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT graphics processing unit with Total Available Graphics Memory of approx. 1790 MB and dedicated Video Memory of 512 MB

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Originally posted by Dazzy
Up to 320GB 5400rpm or 200GB 7200rpm hard drive

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Originally posted by Sony Site
640 GB Serial ATA 5400rpm hard disk drive (2 x 320 GB, RAID 0 and 1 supported)

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Originally posted by Sony Site

*Hybrid TV Tuner integrated
*Blu-ray Disc™ drive: plays and records Blu-ray Disc™ (BD-R/-RE/-ROM/ DVD±RW/±R DL/RAM)

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1: the 3650 is better than the 8600, and 256MB is enough unless you want an uber high resolution screen. Also, the nvidia cards are defective. See here.
2: If you need that much space, then get an external drive.
3: Pick up a USB TV tuner
4: There are blu-ray options.

Tbh up to you.

If you want a light, quick easy laptop that's brilliant for taking notes in lectures etc get the macbook, can still whack on windows should you need it (and I've yet to do this but) and also link in VMWare Fusion/Paralels to run from the bootcamp partition saving yet another installation.

If you're set on Windows grab a Thinkpad, Dell or HP

Dell have made such huge improvements I recommend them now to people, I can't believe their great specs and low prices.

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Originally posted by M73A
im not quite sure what this means though: "In the case of 4GB, a portion of the system memory over 3GB might not be available to the operating system"

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Originally posted by Sony site
Weight: 3.9 kg
Diagonal Size: 17 inch

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the only carrying around will be from uni to home..

why do i need a usb tuner, external hard drive etc when it has it built in?

the laptop is hd, so will need the 512....

Yeah you say dell bought alienware... the fact is alienware is still a separate company, it's just dell owns the rights and such.

If you don't care about bulk and size - and want pure performance, you need to look at alienware - you can customize it to what you need.

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Originally posted by M73A
why do i need...external hard drive etc when it has it built in?

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Originally posted by Anubis
If that happens your backup device becomes a holy grail. You could back stuff up online, but a lot of UK unis are quite strict with your bandwidth usage.

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how strict are unis with bandwidth? and what sort of limits are we talking here?

ill be using the blu ray and uni storage space to back things up

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Originally posted by M73A
how strict are unis with bandwidth? and what sort of limits are we talking here?

ill be using the blu ray and uni storage space to back things up

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Originally posted by absorbation

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Originally posted by M73A
how strict are unis with bandwidth? and what sort of limits are we talking here?

ill be using the blu ray and uni storage space to back things up

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They won't really care, there connections are fantastic. But under no circumstances go downloading torrents, they will kick you out! Save that for when you come home.

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Policies on bandwidth usage differ from institution to institution. However, one must remember that university internet connections are provided primarily for academic use. I've known a few people get in trouble for excessive YouTube viewing.

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Originally posted by M73A
oh good, i was just thinking that i will have hastle using the bbc iplayer and other such services!

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