- Low cost
- Maintenance free
- Useful for school work
- Would last all through college
At the time I actually considered all of the computer options. I looked at getting her a PC laptop running Windows as well as one running Linux. I quickly decided against Linux because of the ubiquity of Microsoft Office. While OpenOffice.org is a great alternative to MS Office, it is not perfect. My fear was that one of her teachers would send her a Word file that OpenOffice.org couldn't understand and that would be a contributing factor to bad grades.
I thought I could save some money by getting a PC Laptop running Windows instead of the Mac. So I pulled up one of the popular PC brand's website and did a feature-by-feature comparison with the lowest-priced MacBook. I was surprised that the costs were exactly the same. Aren't PC's supposed to cost less? When you compare processor speed, RAM, along with size and speed of the hard-disk, the low-end MacBook is the same price as a comperable PC.
When I saw that the pricing was the same, I went with the Mac. You see, my daughter has always had the talent of infecting the family computer with all sorts of malware. I knew that I would be getting countless calls from my daughter wondering why her computer was running so slow. While there are virus programs out there for the Mac, there are many more for Windows and that was a headache I didn't want to deal with.
When I ordered the MacBook I also ordered the latest student version of Microsoft Office. Since the computer was for a college student, Apple threw in a free iPod and knocked $50 off the price of the computer which helped pay for the Office software. Their only requirement was that I identified the school my daughter was attending. My daughter then gave the iPod to her little sister whose iPod she had run through the washing machine a month earlier.
One concern I did have with a Mac was that there are several websites that only work with Windows and Internet Explorer. While they do exist, they are few. My daughter has figured out which ones they are and uses the library or student computer center to access those sites and doesn't consider it to be a hassle.
One benefit with the Mac vs Windows is that there are not nearly as many games available for the Mac. My daughter doesn't really play a lot of computer games but I didn't want her being distracted by games when she should have been studying. This is something to keep in mind when either of my two boys head off to college as they love computer games.
Now as my oldest daughter is heading back for her third year of school and the MacBook is still running. It may not have the fastest processor or largest hard drive, but it is more than adequate for all her school needs.
I was helping my daughter pack this morning and asked her about all her friends that showed up at school with a Windows PC as freshmen. Most of the PC laptops had stopped working before the end of the first year. My concern about malware and virus software was well founded. The other problem was a lack of durability. My daughter's Mac has survived countless falls and other mishaps that have killed off many of her friends' computers. Those MacBooks just keep going and going.
After reading this you might think there have not been any problems with my daughter's computer. For the most part, that has been true. However in the middle of last year I had to replace her hard drive because it failed (probably because she dropped it one too many times). Overall I am more than satisfied with the durability of the machine and am happy with the purchase. The new hard drive was about $150 and week without a computer. That beats the $600 her friends were shelling out for new computers at the beginning of their Sophomore years.
Yep, when it comes time for my son to head off to school next year. It will be a Mac for him as well.
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