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Unread 30-06-2009, 23:27
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VEX Robotics Engineer
AKA: Arthur Dutra IV; NERD #18
FRC #0148 (Robowranglers)
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Join Date: Mar 2005
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Re: Should I buy a Mac or a PC?

Some people will fight all day long saying their side is better, cheaper, faster, more efficient, etc, or just plainly, "best". They may also use snide comments about the other side, claiming they are buying overpriced gizmos or useless, virus-infested piles of sludge to name a few.

Yet as my favorite example, a Chevy Malibu and a BMW M3 will both get you from point A to point B, just as would a Toyota Camry and a Ford F250. Yet everyone buys different cars for different reasons. Some like really opening up the throttle on the curvy mountain roads when the cops aren't looking, while others just need to commute to work and back, while still others need to haul six cords of firewood every day. No one in their right mind will argue with someone all day long about how their car is superior to someone else's car. Different people have different needs and desires, so they buy different cars. Same goes for computers - there is no overall "best" computer or OS - just what is best for that particular person.

So my advice is that since the majority of people have experience using Windows, go to an Apple Store or Best Buy or borrow a friend's Mac and use it for at least 20-30 hours to really get a feel for the OS. (Why so many hours? Windows, OSX, and Linux are all structured differently. It can take 20-30 hours to really become familiar with how each operating system operates. Put a lifelong Mac user in front of Windows for one hour, and a lifelong Windows user in front of OSX or Linux for an hour, and I guarantee they'll both be equally frustrated and annoyed. Only after you get past the initial getting-familiar-with-the-OS-stage will you be able to fully experience the true OS user environment). Only after you've experienced the all the options, can you decide what is best for you.


One comment I will say though is that you do get what you pay for. On the Windows side, Lenovo Thinkpads and some of the Dell and HP workstation-class notebook and desktop computers are amazing, and of similar quality (and price) as Macs. And for any engineering college work, any computer cheaper than ~$1000 to ~$1200 will really be at a disadvantage. (Trust me, I went through the first two years of college with a $800 Dell Inspiron laptop...) As for engineering work, the Mac to Windows ratio I've seen at WPI seems to range from 1:3 to 1:4 (e.g. much higher than average), with about half of the Windows computers being Lenovo Thinkpads. So chum up the extra bucks and get a quality Thinkpad T400/T500/W500 or Macbook Pro (or a Dell or HP workstation class computer), because once you graduate into an engineering job, you should have no problems with the price.

Also, if you are going for ME, look for models with serious graphics cards, such as the NVIDIA Quadro or ATI FireGL. If you thought SolidWorks or Inventor or Pro|E worked great on your consumer class NVidia Geforce or similar ATI GPUs, prepare to be amazed when using a x64 OS, x64 software, and workstation GPU.
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Art Dutra IV
Robotics Engineer, VEX Robotics, Inc., a subsidiary of Innovation First International (IFI)
Robowranglers Team 148 | GUS Robotics Team 228 (Alumni) | Rho Beta Epsilon (Alumni) | @arthurdutra

世上无难事,只怕有心人.
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