Best Brand of Laptop for MBA : Business School Life

guy22102

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

29 Mar 2012, 07:32

PC ultrabooks and Windows7 have really come a long way, making user experience as pleasant as using a mac. The new ultrabooks coming out this summer will catch up in terms of battery life, power use, portability.

If you're buying a mac, you're paying for the customer service and fit/finish/built of a mac. Which is outstanding compared to PC IMO.

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

29 Mar 2012, 10:03

I have to agree with Guy. I use windows 7 and office 2011 at work now, and it's much closer (and not coincidentally, much similar) to my Mac.

I would say at this point, a lot of the benefit from the mac relates to the "technosphere" Macs create when you also have an iphone, ipad, etc. I think this, along with the ease of use, are the reasons I'll wind up with a Mac.

If I had an Android phone and a kindle fire, I'd probably just grab a mid-level Toshiba or Lenovo.

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

29 Mar 2012, 11:50

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I am an avid Mac user but think I will be getting a moderately priced PC for my MBA needs. I currently work in finance and use a PC at work and a Mac at home. I've tried to use my Mac's Excel at home and get frustrated when I try using it since I'm used to my PC shortcuts.

As for PC brands, my coworker pointed out this SquareTrade research piece out to me. Seems like a reliable source since they need to determine how much to charge when insuring these different brands.

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

29 Mar 2012, 14:15

I will be getting a new mac and use plan to bootcamp for heavy excel. I've actually never owned a PC and can't stand my work laptop...

MBAPrepSchoolChris

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

29 Mar 2012, 22:19

Expert Reply

Have used Excel for financial modeling extensively in my career and can assure you that the Excel version included in Office 2011 for Mac is NOT remotely similar for advanced uses to the Windows/PC version. The keyboard shortcuts are completely different and although it supports Visual Basic for Excel, many of the code modules that you can download online and/or will be provided by the school will only work on the PC version of Excel. That said, I use a MacBook Pro for almost everything else and believe that dual boot into Windows with the WIndows version of Excel should work fine.

Hope that helps!

Cheers, Chris

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

31 Mar 2012, 14:18

MrTunes wrote:

Has anyone worked extensively with the 2011 version of office for macs? My boss uses it at work and it seems to have closed the gap on the windows version considerably, at least at first glance.

If anyone's used the software for higher end excel use, I think it'd be beneficial for many of us to hear your thoughts!

Posted from my mobile device

I too am an avid apple fan. I use a Mac at home, and a PC at work. I do quite a bit of financial modeling (VC for the past 2 years).
Unfortunately, Office for Mac 2011 simply isn't the same as Office for Windows.
However, I plan to keep using a Mac during my MBA and switching to Windows (dual boot) whenever some serious Excel work is needed.

clouds2012

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

01 Apr 2012, 14:36

My mac is from Jan 2010... so it'll be close to 2.5 years old... anyone planning to use a mac that is this old? I'm wondering if it it will hold up if I add the extra programs. It already lags from time to time.

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

01 Apr 2012, 14:58

clouds2012 wrote:

My mac is from Jan 2010... so it'll be close to 2.5 years old... anyone planning to use a mac that is this old? I'm wondering if it it will hold up if I add the extra programs. It already lags from time to time.

Mine is from October 2008, and it holds up ok since I added ram in it, I'm planning to start with it until apple updates its line (except if they do it soon)

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

01 Apr 2012, 16:42

I'm of the opinion that if I'm already taking out 100-150k of debt for my MBA, I might as well treat myself to a nice MacBook laptop.

Just my 2 cents

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

01 Apr 2012, 19:00

MrTunes wrote:

I'm of the opinion that if I'm already taking out 100-150k of debt for my MBA, I might as well treat myself to a nice MacBook laptop.

Just my 2 cents

+1

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

01 Apr 2012, 19:32

Current Kellogg student here.

If you're in finance, you need to get a windows laptop.

If you aren't, you need to have some type of windows on your mac(dual boot). Its not the fact that office works well on a mac or not, we have a lot of third party excel addons (off the top of my head i've used palisade suite and factset) for classes that do not work.

I have a lot of professors that use macs, however they all have dual boot or VM options just because of this.

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

02 Apr 2012, 07:17

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+1 to all saying Windows is required. If you are a Excel power users, you will be extremely frustrated at the poor support of shortcut keys in the Mac version of Office.

Just a tip on dual booting and VM.. you can use virtualbox for free to run a virtual environment, might be a better option than boot camp if you are only gonna use Office in Windows.

I used it on both Linux and Mac and it works great.

shorttheworld

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

02 Apr 2012, 12:55

guy22102 wrote:

PC ultrabooks and Windows7 have really come a long way, making user experience as pleasant as using a mac. The new ultrabooks coming out this summer will catch up in terms of battery life, power use, portability.

If you're buying a mac, you're paying for the customer service and fit/finish/built of a mac. Which is outstanding compared to PC IMO.

mmm mac premium fapfapfapfap fap thousand sof dollars fapfap mmm

Rommeliv

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

02 Apr 2012, 13:13

shorttheworld wrote:

guy22102 wrote:

PC ultrabooks and Windows7 have really come a long way, making user experience as pleasant as using a mac. The new ultrabooks coming out this summer will catch up in terms of battery life, power use, portability.

If you're buying a mac, you're paying for the customer service and fit/finish/built of a mac. Which is outstanding compared to PC IMO.

mmm mac premium fapfapfapfap fap thousand sof dollars fapfap mmm

All bow down to the cult of Steve Jobs

eplusk

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

10 Apr 2012, 14:12

In a similar vein - what websites / methods are you guys going to use to get a cheap laptop? Stack coupons? Amazon.com? Newegg? Costco?

I don't want to spend a penny more on a PC than I have to because I'm solely using it for school. My regular computer is going to be an Apple.

I want to get a reliable PC with the minimum recommended specifications. How are you guys going to do it?

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

23 Apr 2012, 23:23

MDF wrote:

I don't like the feel of Windows, so I'll be using a Macbook Air.

As for spreadsheet/Excel...Office for Mac is sufficient for my current, albeit somewhat limited, needs. But if a course requires Windows-only software, I'll just setup a dual boot.

A little curious here. I myself love the MBA and would love to buy it for my MBA (couldn't resist! lol!) but the Air doesn't have a CD drive. That worries me. I know for a fact that sometimes you are required to run a software off a CD (could be anything - minitab, spss, some other training, anything). How are you going to work around that.

Also, doesn't the Air heat up a little more than regular laptops?

Feels like I'll be sacrificing functionality for form. Not a good deal for me.

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Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

24 Apr 2012, 00:32

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budablasta wrote:

MDF wrote:

I don't like the feel of Windows, so I'll be using a Macbook Air.

As for spreadsheet/Excel...Office for Mac is sufficient for my current, albeit somewhat limited, needs. But if a course requires Windows-only software, I'll just setup a dual boot.

A little curious here. I myself love the MBA and would love to buy it for my MBA (couldn't resist! lol!) but the Air doesn't have a CD drive. That worries me. I know for a fact that sometimes you are required to run a software off a CD (could be anything - minitab, spss, some other training, anything). How are you going to work around that.

Also, doesn't the Air heat up a little more than regular laptops?

Feels like I'll be sacrificing functionality for form. Not a good deal for me.

I have the MBA - it's awesome. Doesn't heat more than a usual laptop. It's very fast!

And for the CD there is a simple option of using the SuperDrive:

https://store.apple.com/us/product/MC684ZM/A

You can even run CDs/DVDs that are mounted in other Macs (iMac, Macbook Pro etc.) - via Wifi

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT1777?viewlocale=en_US

gmatclubot

Re: Best Brand of Laptop for MBA [#permalink]

24 Apr 2012, 00:32