Hello,
I’m wondering if anyone would have an informed opinion on whether it is better to have a Mac or PC platform computer for pre-med and then on to med school. I am purchasing a laptop soon to return to a post-bacc with, and although I would rather get a Mac I know from experience that many study guides and school affiliated softwares are strictly PC. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.
Certainly for pre-med, it’s PC, and although this is not based on any experience, I would be completely blown away if for med school the preference would be for anything but PC. Some schools give their students laptops now, and I’m not sure what kinds of notebooks those are, but again it would totally surprise me if it were anything but PC. There’s not enough general software for Mac’s as you mentioned, and 99.9% of the business world, outside some graphic arts, uses PC.
Sam
Quote:
Hello,
I’m wondering if anyone would have an informed opinion on whether it is better to have a Mac or PC platform computer for pre-med and then on to med school. I am purchasing a laptop soon to return to a post-bacc with, and although I would rather get a Mac I know from experience that many study guides and school affiliated softwares are strictly PC. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.
Hi there,
Most of my classmates had Macs before medical school and we were given PCs (Dell) during orientation. With today’s software, it really does not make much of a difference and most medical software runs on either PC or Mac. You can actually get more computer power with a Mac but buy whatever you like.
If you are still at the pre-med stage now, whatever you buy will be obsolete by the time you get to medical school and your school may give you a laptop anyway so it won’t make much of a difference. It’s just that now I have two laptops instead and a desktop.
Natalie
Having used primarily pc’s but being currently forced to use a mac, I can say that I hate macs. No right click button, none of my shortcuts and hotkeys that I use on pc work on the mac. The menus of the same programs are a little different. If you are a graphics professional or something, a mac might suit you a little better but otherwise I don’t think it matters much. On my laptop I have a 2.6 ghz processor and 512 mb DDR ram. Never had a problem with things slowing down.
If you were going to buy a laptop for less than or equal to $2k, what would you go for?
The screen on mine keeps flickering, and I just know (with my luck) it will go before long. And, it’s 1.5 years old.
Megaboo,
If you check Yahoo ads, periodically Dell offers really, really good deals for about 24 hours. I THINK they usually show up on Tuesdays, but it might be Thursdays. This is how I got mine. (A pediatrician I was working with happened to know I was thinking about a laptop, and he clued me into this-- even kept watch and told me when the deal popped up). With these deals you should be able to pay less than $1000 (I paid less than $800). I upgraded the processor, got an external floppy drive (since I still had so many files on floppies that I wanted to be able to ascess, and some other things and still paid less than $800 for an Inspiron 2200. There were even less expensive versions. You might want to try watching for these. Look on the Yahoo home page ads.
Epidoc
Thanks! I’ll check it out! My first computer (a 486!) was a Dell. I kept it until completely obsolete per OS (Windows 3.1 
)
I have to echo what Epidoc said. I had a Dell laptop that I bought off of eBay and used it for 4 years! It was great!! I sold it and bought the “deal of the day Gateway” and what a piece of SH*T!! I will NEVER buy another Gateway again. I’ve never had a problem with a Dell. If you decide to go that route let me know. I get a discount on Dell computers through work and I might be able to pass it on to you. 
Thanks for the advice, guys! After talking with my husband, I’m going to keep using this computer until a) August/September or b) it dies. We will be able to afford it at the end of summer, unless the worst happens! I’ll check back with y’all to see what you are using then - the technology will probably have changed by then!
The best rated, best designed, most elegant laptops are made by Apple. The best deals in desktops are Windows-compatible PCs.
As others have said, you’ll probably end up with a Windows laptop for your medical school studies but an Apple will serve just as well unless they use some proprietary virtual private networking software or proprietary infranet management system that requires a Windows front end.
Anyway, I’d buy a Mac laptop if I were to get one today (med school 1.5 years away minimum)
Cheers,
Quote:
I have to echo what Epidoc said. I had a Dell laptop that I bought off of eBay and used it for 4 years! It was great!! I sold it and bought the “deal of the day Gateway” and what a piece of SH*T!! I will NEVER buy another Gateway again. I’ve never had a problem with a Dell. If you decide to go that route let me know. I get a discount on Dell computers through work and I might be able to pass it on to you.
Oddly enough, I am now on my 2nd Gateway desktop & 2nd Gateway laptop & could not be happier! Either way you go, in my opinion - Gateway or Dell - you can’t go wrong…unless, of course, you are Geoff. The overwhelming majority of my med school classmates had either Gateway or Dell & few had issues. We had a few stalwort Aplle-heads - equally happy & reliable. Those who had HP, Compaq & others were generally disappointed - they got what they paid for. My wife has an HP laptop & it leaves a good bit to be desired.
One bargain route available for both Dell & Gateway - I’ve known several people to take this route & end up very pleased - are their re-sales. Essentially, businesses lease a laptop for a year or so & return them for a newer, faster, bigger, badder version. Then, Gateway or Dell cleans, erases & what-not & re-sells at a deep discount.
I have a Gateway laptop that I bought at decent price through their remanufactured program. It’s okay, but I haven’t been exceptionally happy with it.
Our school “provided” us with IBM Thinkpads. I have been very pleased with it so far. My brother-in-law works for a software company and they are provided with Thinkpads as well. Downside - Thinkpads are one of the most expensive laptops.
A recent consumer report ranked PC based laptops in this order:
Sony Vaio or IBM Thinkpad (not sure which was one and two)
and then Dell and Gateway. HP was farther down on the list. They made their rankings based on number of service issues with laptops and things like that. Obviously, some people have been very happy with their Gateway and Dells, others not so much. I have classmates with Sony Vaio’s and Apple ibooks and they totally love their.
My big advice would be to buy the best quality laptop you can afford.
I grew up with PCs and my earliest computers were PC clones. Then, intrigued by the experiences of others, I bought a used Powerbook and am quite happy with it. For my desktop, I still have a PC. My advice is to try them both (perhaps through friends or school and library computer labs) and then choose the one you like, or, if you can afford it, get both. Mine were both used when I bought them, yet both are relatively trouble free – their aging architecture is the only downside.
Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for the advice. Much appreciated.
I’m a Mac person - tried a Windows laptop for 3 years and never liked it, switched back again.
No problems with a Mac in med school; a few textbooks have CD-ROMs that only run on Windows, but that’s the only problem I’ve encountered, and I usually don’t have time to use those CD-ROMs anyway.
Some med schools require you to buy a Windows machine that is specifically compatible with their requirements. Since you don’t know where you’re going to go to school yet, I’d get the machine that you will be happiest using. Later on you can deal with meeting those requirements.
that was too funny 