macbook

eurotrotter

hi guys
just wondering i wanna buy a laptop
used a mmac over the summer on mac os x and found it fantastic
im wondering if its advisable to buy a macbook over a regular laptop
i do a bit of programming, java mainly(i use netbeans) , and some sql, if u call it a language! and need to use the ms office package as well
is there mac compatible version of software for all these

how does teh battery life on a 13 inch 1.83 ghz macook compare to the equivalent laptop?

thanks for reading this and would love to get a reply as i am really looking forward to some advise!
thanks
ed

BuffyBot

You can get Office for Mac without a problem - as for the others, I don't know - someone else might. Even if not, Macbooks can run Windows alongside OS X.

xebec

eurotrotter wrote:

how does teh battery life on a 13 inch 1.83 ghz macook compare to the equivalent laptop?

I'm easily getting about 4 hours battery on my month old 2Ghz macbook.

The office suite is available for macs.

Not sure about programming in Java, SQL shouldn't be an issue as that can be done through the command line anyway. There's usually a mac alternative to everything you can do on a Windows machine.

The changeover has worked well for me, although I do have to hang on to my windows laptop for a few months for a particular project

Thumper Long

i have used eclipse for mac java programming and it is fantastic if you like ide's http://developer.apple.com/tools/eclipse.html or you dould always use a text editor and command line compiling :rolleyes:

scsa

There's NeoOffice available for Macs too, a Mac-enhanced version of OpenOffice. Works fine for me, and it's free.

I have a 2GHz macbook for 2 or 3 months now, and it's great. The battery life is rated at 6 hours, but realistically it's about 4.

rainbow kirby

I'm another Eclipse user for programming, and having used NetBeans in the past I have to say I prefer Eclipse. Also, when you get the Macbook, there should be the Developer Tools on one of the discs, this has Xcode 2 on it if you want to try another IDE. I've also used MySQL on my iBook - not as clean to install as it is on Windows, but again haven't had any problems in using it.

Urban Weigl

I'd also recommend NeoOffice if you need Office compatibility. Not because there is no Microsoft Office for Mac (there is), but because it's free and does a perfect job replacing Office 99% of the time.

scrapland

Urban Weigl wrote:

I'd also recommend NeoOffice if you need Office compatibility. Not because there is no Microsoft Office for Mac (there is), but because it's free and does a perfect job replacing Office 99% of the time.

completely agree. NeoOffice is the perfect office starter programme and bares more a resemblence to windows office than office 2004 does on the mac for a osX newbie.

besides it's free so give it a go. If it does what you want it to do you have saved yourself a lot of yo-yo's..