Help me buy a computer

[owl]

Suppose elerrina_amanya and I were buying a laptop or whatever they're called these days.

[Poll #1047204]


Apparently it is possible to get student discount on a Mac. I was going to say I needed more info on Macs, but I suppose a new Windows machine would have Vista, of which I have heard little and none good. When Microsoft came up with an OS that mostly works, why can't they just stick with it?

Comments

[jadeywoman.livejournal.com]

You might still be able to find a laptop with XP on it, but you'll probably end up with a XP "pro" rather than "home". I ended up doing that when I replaced my old laptop back in March and for what I do, there's really no difference between pro and home.

If I hadn't had the XP option, I would have seriously looked at a Mac because as Vista is really nothing more than a service pack for XP and a resource hog to boot.

So, totally unhelpful, I'm sure, but really you've got to decide what you want out of a new machine. And, of course, don't forget to take into consideration what kind of things you do with the computer and whether you want or will have to invest time and money on and new programs if some of what you've got for Windows isn't open source and/or written for Mac.

[owl]

I'm not planning on getting Vista if there's any way to avoid it. I suppose it will get used for writing assignments, surfing the net, making icons and maybe a bit of programming. What image editing programs would it come with?

[jadeywoman.livejournal.com]

I imagine Vista has some sort of basic Microsoft image editor on board, but I don't know for sure. As for what comes standard with a Mac, I have no idea.