Apple MacBook questions

[scottmandue]

Mkay, home computer is getting pretty long in the tooth so I am looking at upgrading.

So I am thinking of going to a laptop... well, for obvious reasons, portability.

This will be my first apple so a few questions if you will.

First question: Any reason to buy anywhere but the apple online store? Prices seem to be fixed so why go anywhere but directly to the manufacture? I want to max the RAM from 2GB to 4GB and Apple want $200 for the additional 2GB, doesn't that seem a little steep? Superwarehouse sells 1GB Kingston memory as an accessory to the MacBook for $32.

Is WiFi universal?

Is Iwork really compatible with Microsoft word? I use word at work and with friends so I would really want this to be true

[allaircooled]

Buy it directly from apple and use the educational discount. I believe its like $100 bucks or so off the price. I just put a local school down and that was it. Don't buy your ram from apple cause like you said its expensive there. The WiFi will work anywhere a pc's would afaik if thats what your asking. I never had a problem with it. Don't know too much about the Microsoft word compatibility. I know I can open a word document with Pages on my Mac and I do believe I can save a document as a word document. Hope that helps.

[Ronbo]

You're best getting RAM from an outside vendor. They'll even tell you that at an Apple store.

I believe WiFi is pretty much universal, as long as it's using the 802.11 standard. Current is 802.11n. I use an Airport Base Station just to keep things simple, but you don't have to.

For compatibility with MS Office, I use OpenOffice. I exchange Word and Excel files with PCs without any problem. Get OpenOffice v. 3.0 and you won't need to use X11 to run it. It's free at openoffice.org.

[gassy]

I have Office for mac and it works fine.

[stomachmonkey]

nothing to add.

All of the above is solid advice.

[Groesbeck Hurricane]

We had the education discount and bought from an Apple store. Wife loves it, but still uses her old Compaq laptop at the same time. I-Works will work with reading office docs, but, IF i remember correctly, it does not create .DOC. Buy Office for Apple. It is MUCH cheaper than the same for PCs. we got the student/teacher edition with three licenses for what seemed like silly money to us. We have two other friends with Apples that needed the Office as well, so it all worked out well!!!

If you use the computer for long term, go with the MACBOOK Pro. Oh, and it is FASTER than my Toshiba with similar specs!!!

[island_dude]

I just inherited a new Mac book pro from my wife. She was thinking of switching but decided that she isn't quite ready to have Bill Gates out of her life. I took the machine over and it pretty well rocks. There is mac version of open office that has been ported using the native MAC interface called neo it works really well. I highly recommend it and the price is just right.

I am still figuring out a few issues: Should I stick with quicken or move to money dance? Money dance is cheaper, and doesn't have as many features, but it works across the MAC, windows and Linux. I am going to try the demo and see how it goes. Google earth really rocks on this machine. Its much faster than on any other I have.

iPhoto isn't great its slow and not very flexible. I am looking for alternatives.

[Seahawk]

Very timely thread for me. My son starts HS next year and, like his sister when she started HS two years ago, gets a laptop of his own.

He wants a Mac. I have two questions:

- Any recommendations for a reasonable laptop for Jack?
- How do you get the student discount?

Thanks and I hope you don't mind the hijack, Scott.

[allaircooled]

How do you get the student discount?

http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/routingpage.html


The link is to Apple's education store. I just picked a college in my area and got the discount. For a hs student I would just get a MacBook considering the MacBook Pro is like twice as much if I remember correctly.

[Noah930]

I recently purchased an iMac (desktop). First Apple I've had since the original Macintosh and Apple IIe. My wife and I are thrilled with it, so far. I haven't had any problems going back and forth from my work PC, so far. We purchased from an Apple store. We live within walking distance of one, though. The staff, there, have been fantastically helpful. I like having a local brick and mortar store to back up any problems I might run into. Much better than waiting on hold for an hour for some customer service rep from India each time I have a problem.

For a HS student, I think the base MacBook would be sufficient. My sister got a MacBook Pro for Christmas. She opted for the higher end (or, rather, her boyfriend who purchased it for her did), for the higher graphics abilities. They're both architects, so they run some work programs on their computers. But she admitted that for most (nonindustrial) uses, a regular MacBook would be sufficient.

[stomachmonkey]

For all you back to school College bounders.

If you want to get Office for Mac check the campus book store for the student edition.

Typically 20-30% of retail, that's of, not off.

[Joeaksa]

You know, Dell makes a very good computer!

Sorry, could not resist... !

[dd74]

Dell does make a very good computer. But a new Apple will run Windows as fast as a Dell if one needs to do so. Needless to say, the Apple OS is a much better operating system than Windows.

The 4 MB of RAM is a great addition as is a 7,200 RPM replacement hard drive. Both additions truly reduce start up time for software and the computer itself.

You can get Office for Mac teacher's edition for about $130 from the Apple Store, no questions asked.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Joeaksa

You know, Dell makes a very good computer!

Sorry, could not resist... !

You are a bad man

Jack is a great kid...the rest of the family is either on a Dell or HP with no issues at all.

But he has his thing...he even wants to fly for the f'ing Marines

I have failed as a father

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

You are a bad man

Jack is a great kid...the rest of the family is either on a Dell or HP with no issues at all.

But he has his thing...he even wants to fly for the f'ing Marines

I have failed as a father

Paul,

It could be worse... he could say that he wants to fly for the Army or Air Force!

[cantdrv55]

We just went through this.

I bought my college bound son the Macbook w/printer and 8gb iPod Touch for $999 (the printer and iPod were free on a rebate buy I had to pay tax on their full price). Also bought Office for Mac pretty cheap. Look at the price you can buy these things for on Apple.com, then go to your nearest Apple Store and tell them you want the same price. Ask for the education discount to get the deal above. My kid's pretty happy.