On Wed, 2008-06-11 at 09:31 -0400, Gregory Seidman wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 08:58:53AM -0400, Thomas H. George wrote:
> > The college is offering packages starting at $1,399 (Dell Latitude D630)
> > and $1,499 (Lenoveo ThinkPad T61) all with 2GB memory, 10/100/1000
> > Ethernet, Wireless, 1394 Port, Bluetooth, Vista 32Bit Business OS,
> > SmartCare/4in1 Media Card Reader and Microsoft Office 2007 Professional
> > pre-installed by certified technicians located on campus. Three year
> > warranty and 1GB Flash Drive thrown in.
> >
> > Money is tight, of course. If I were the student and there is a
> > modest-priced laptop with Debian and OpenOffice I'd take it in a flash.
> > I'm not the student, I'm his 79 year old grandfather and I don't want
> > him to start off at a disadvantage. There are certainly many college
> > students and recent grads that subscribe to this list. I would value
> > your insights.
>
> I love Debian, but for a laptop I'd go Mac and MacOS X every time. I'd even
> lean Mac for a desktop.
I have reservations for Apple laptops in general because the input
devices built in have, historically, sucked. Until 1997 (and far later,
possibly not even today, in public schools with Apple hardware), you
couldn't find a keyboard made by Apple that had the key bumps on the
correct (F and J) keys, only the wrong keys that only Apple and Apple
alone seems to have put them on (D and K). Going to school where the
keyboards were predominantly Apple even if the hardware connected to
them was not, and having been taught by my folks to type the right way
on a PC keyboard in kindergarten ("these computer things are probably
going to take off, it's probably best if the boy knows how to type"),
this was especially annoying and bothersome for most of my childhood.
Continuing the tradition of inferior input, MacBooks today come
pre-crippled by lacking a proper mouse. It's 2008, and even Apple runs
NeXT now: Put 3 buttons and maybe a scroll rocker on the on-board mouse
already!
> At this point in time, unless money is *really* tight, I'd get a MacBook.
> $1199 gets you 2G memory, 1 year warranty, 802.11a/b/g/n,
Is n ready for prime-time? Last I heard it was still in the draft
stages and subject to change.
> That's without the student discount, by the way. The student discount
> brings it down to $1089, or $1272 with AppleCare. It also comes with a free
> iPod (8GB iPod Touch or 8GB iPod Nano or you can pay an extra $100 for the
> 16GB iPod Touch or $200 for the 32GB) when you buy it as a student. The
> free iPod is an online rebate thing. The student discount is available
> online, of course (look for the Education link at store.apple.com).
The low price with student discount is the only reason I'm not
eliminating it entirely from my consideration. What would be a
dealbreaker, though, is if I could only get it with OS X. How much
cheaper is it if it ships with no operating system? I'd rather keep my
familiar Debian.
--
Paul Johnson
baloo@ursine.ca
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