MP/MBP for IST major?

I'll be majoring in information systems tech. in fall and will be needing a new laptop. Is it really necessary to get the MBP over the MB? I mean, i'll be mostly doing coding, databases, maybe some photoshop works and stuff. I wont need the high end video card will I?

Input please. I won't be buying til the new release, though. Is there for sure going to be a release before August? Anyone know?

 

there is no certain information about new line...and i ll advice you to get MBP from outlet if you dont want to spend mush on new one.

 

get the mbp

 

Sounds to me like you don't need the more superior GPU of the MBP. However, if you can afford it, you should just get a MBP.

 

I've had various friends that have gone through IST programs, and they've never needed a particularly potent computer. A Macbook should provide the processing power that you require, and for just simple photo editing even the integrated X3100 graphics system will be enough. While a Macbook Pro would almost certainly be nice, a lower weight and a lower cost make the Macbook a win for your situation.

 

I'd have to recommend the MBP also. You really don't want to spend a long amount of time coding on the 13 inch screen of the Macbook it's just way to small for that.

 

I also recommend the mbp. if you are spending a lot of time at the computer, the mbp is just... nicer. the macbook will definitely get the job done, though.

 

MBP unless you plan on using an external monitor as well with your macbook for coding. You will need a lot of screen estate for coding...

 

I am also doing a lot of coding and database development. I find MB screen to small to work for a long time. I used to connect MB to an external monitor. Recently I baught MBP 15.4", which has higher resolution and a little bit lower DPI, which makes text a little bit bigger. I got glossy MBP, since text looks better on glossy screen. With this screen I can work without an external monitor.

 

You will want a MBP. As others have said, the MB screen is just too small.

I did my last year of CS with my MBP. Though I used other computers to setup grid networks and replicated Oracle servers, I largely used my MBP for db work, software engineering (Java, Perl, PHP, PL/SQL, Ada, Prolog and a few others), photoshop work, and documentation. It was a great laptop to have, especially with the flexibility that VMWare and Parallels adds.

A big selling point is that I find development in Windows sucks, unless you are using Visual Studio for C# development. Otherwise, I would stick to Linux or OS X for any sort of development. The drawback to using Linux/Unix is that most media development tools are not available and the open source tools (such as GIMP) suck compared the Adobes stuff. And all that works very well in OS X.

If you jump into Java and really get into it, I suggest using Eclipse. It's a bit of a hog for doing small programs, but for larger stuff it's an amazing tool. Especially when paired with SVN tools. It's built in local history is also an amazing little addition.

One last note.. There are a lot of RDBMS tools out there that work for OS X. Unfortunately, Oracle has stopped development (so it seems) of their DB on a normal OS X platform. I believe they have releases for OS X Server, but that is a nightmare to get to work on normal OS X. But their free visual RDBMS management tools work fine in OSX... as do some others.

Oh... several people in my college had MB's that they used. Some liked them... but honestly... they are really small and not fun to use when working on large projects and thousands of lines of code...