PC or MAC laptop?

[kingsley]

My advice would be to ask the guy who will be fixing the laptops which OS he prefers.

[nfs2]

Also think about the fact that these are school kids, and the laptops will probably be bumped around and mishandled quite a bit.

If you want a good amout of laptops left working by years end, get the iBook or at least a thinkpad.

[Groovetube]

My advice would be to ask the guy who will be fixing the laptops which OS he prefers.

if it were me, and wanted a little job security, I'd say windows in a heart beat.

[matkun]

My preference is for PC's because of my comfort level, however many of the teachers are more comfortable with mac because they are mainly used in our school district. I'm more curious as to what will get better performance both long term and short term and which might be more easily upgradeable in the future. Thanks again.

Neither will be upgradeable really, laptops aren't designed to be. At best you might be able to add a bit of ram, or add an external drive, which won't be good for laptop type stuff and will get easily lost, since these are kids.

I'd say go for the Macs. Kids are less likely to try and load their own software on it, it will get less bogged down with spyware since people just don't really bother to code viruses/spyware for Macs because of the piddly market share.

Will have to call the IT person in less often since Macs are built to be idiot (and in this case, kid) proof, more or less. And any IT guy worth his salt should be able to troubleshoot more then one OS.

[milhaus]

If you're interested in allowing kids to do their own photobooks, DVDs, movie editing etc. then the Mac hands down. Basically, if you want a laptop that you can do the "cool" stuff with easily, then get the iBooks. There is *nothing* on the PC side as easy to use and well integrated as iLife, especially the 06 version. Even Michael Scott from The Office uses iMovie for his best presentations. They're a little underpowered right now, but my 1.33 Ghz Powerbook is still fine for all that.

Also, I don't think the "not enough software for the mac" argument is applicable in this case; hopefully, they won't be used for gaming, bittorrent, or specific business applications. In many cases, the software argument boils down to this: you can have one application which does a certain task in OSX, or fifteen to choose from in Windows that do the same task. But if you've got one app that works well, why the hell do you need 15 ones you'll never use? Choice isn't always an advantage.

If you're only interested in Word, Excel, and other basic applications, then go the Windows route.

[Sonbuster]

stay away from celeron.

and it also has horrible resale value.

[bfurtado]

If you're interested in allowing kids to do their own photobooks, DVDs, movie editing etc. then the Mac hands down. Basically, if you want a laptop that you can do the "cool" stuff with easily, then get the iBooks. There is *nothing* on the PC side as easy to use and well integrated as iLife, especially the 06 version. Even Michael Scott from The Office uses iMovie for his best presentations. They're a little underpowered right now, but my 1.33 Ghz Powerbook is still fine for all that.

Also, I don't think the "not enough software for the mac" argument is applicable in this case; hopefully, they won't be used for gaming, bittorrent, or specific business applications. In many cases, the software argument boils down to this: you can have one application which does a certain task in OSX, or fifteen to choose from in Windows that do the same task. But if you've got one app that works well, why the hell do you need 15 ones you'll never use? Choice isn't always an advantage.

If you're only interested in Word, Excel, and other basic applications, then go the Windows route.

While I agree with milhaus's argument, you can get word, excel and the office quite for Mac. Just so there's no confusion

Brian

[john widow]

Yes, you are right, kids these days "KNOW"how to use the PC.
But if you bring a PC, into the SCHOOL. You'll have to follow the ways of the SCHOOL.

So you can't just tune your PC @ home, get nod32, antivirus, get zone alarm firewall......and have everything secure and stable as a bomb.

@ school, you need to have paid to use software, like net nanny, a firewall, norton antivirus, programs to restart back to default settings...etc....
This kind of stuff, you wont really know how to use, and at schools, kids mess with things.

Maybe the mac could be better.

[phuviano]

Going from those specs. The mac would win performance wise.

It does make sense to get the Hp for a school because most kids these days already know how to use a laptop with a windows environment. Let's ask this question though??? is school not for learning?? Everyone knows OSX beats windows hands down as an OS. I think getting the mac would at least give the kids an opportunity to experience what OSX can do. Its not hard to learn OSX. Its very easy to learn the OS. At least this option would give the kids an opportunity to see what else is out there.

Anyways, everyone's got their own opinion. Everyone's free to express their own opinions.

[john widow]

i'VE NEVER USED A MAC let them.....let those kids not suffer.

[Deal]

The students will use computers for basics such as websurfing, word processing, etc, but also for video/photo editing as we have bought new equipment for that.

My preference is for PC's because of my comfort level, however many of the teachers are more comfortable with mac because they are mainly used in our school district. I'm more curious as to what will get better performance both long term and short term and which might be more easily upgradeable in the future. Thanks again.

As mentioned by a previous post, laptops aren't very upgradeable. Just get a platform that serves your purposes now and perhaps couple of years down the road.

As such my vote is for the Mac, especially when you consider Apple's excellent suite of applications, which are best of class.

Common productivity tasks like word proc, email, browsing is easily covered on both platforms either by open source or MS products.

But the difference is clear when it comes to creating richer content.

That means recording music, editing videos, creating blogs and podcasts, and web pages.

Apple's suite of apps in all those categories simply have no comparison when it comes to ease of use and feature set.

Apple owns the video, photo and music editing field, while its latest version of Garageband and iWeb makes creating podcasts and web pages incredibly simple and intuitive.

I mention the importance of rich content because these are going to be everyday skillsets expected, if not required, for the next gen of computer users.
Communications are only going to get richer. To be able to craft your own multimedia message would simply be an advantage.

[bfurtado]

Think about future cost too.

Updating anti virus software, and video/audio editing software that is not included. You may not be chosing these systems to do that but the ibooks have hundreds of dollars worth of multimedia software included that windows machines don't. Thus if you chose to explore these options down the road, their inclusion saves lots of money. Also, Apple's developer tools are also included, thus if you were in the market to teach basic programming you would, again, have all that is necessary. I mention these points because it further solidifies the ibook as the most complete out of the box solution. A high school in my town chose 30 ibooks over windows machines mainly because of its included developer tools for its computer science students. Now, they are using them for video/audio editing and creating a school podcast.
More ibooks may be on the way. You simply don't get that out of box creativity with windows

Brian

[bfurtado]

Apple just announced a media event scheduled for Feb 28th. Could be rumoured new iBooks. May not be true but wait until then - could be surprising.

Brian

[baileyr]

but also for video/photo editing

Since this is part of the requirements - that makes the answer is easy. Mac.