Mac Forum / General / Portable Macs / August 2004

I'm using a 17" everyday in lectures and am very happy with it.
Any of the current portables will do. Most likely you'll have WLAN, so
be sure to include that. And you'll get them at good prices through your
university - just ask the IT department.
The rest depends on your budget.

HTH

Marc

Without meaning to dissuade you from purchasing from Apple, you need to
check with your department to see what software packages you will be
using as a student. If there are packages for materials science that are
not available for the Mac, you might not want to buy one.

Of course, one of the nice things about OS X is that you have direct
access to BSD, so if your studies require UNIX packages, there's a very
good chance that you can load them on your PowerBook.

On a more personal level, I purchased my very first PowerBook (used Macs
for years before that, though) when I entered the graduate program here
at Indiana University. I loved that machine, and have jusr replaced it
with a 15" PB. The widescreen is great for me because I'm often working
with two documents (either comparing texts, writing a paper while
referring to an article, or viewing my source and output) at the same
time. The extra width of the screen allows me to have two full-width
pages side-by-side. My old Pismo couldn't do that.

I'm happy with my purchase. Depending upon your processing requirements,
budget, and preferences, the G4 iBooks represent very good value.
They're not quite as capable as the PowerBooks, but the differences are
irrelevant for many users so it's worth looking at them as well.

HTH