The Best Laptop for College Students: Mac Book

Being the freelance writer that I am and the fact that my little sister is attending college abroad in Italy in a few weeks, I jumped on the quest to find the best laptops for her and myself. Traditionally I went to Compaq stores to seek the advice of their sales personal but quickly grew dissatisfied with their unwillingness to help and answer my tedious questions. Next, my search brought me to an enormous Best Buy store in Philadelphia and talked to their more patient and knowledgeable staff. Their selection consisted of HP laptops that used your fingerprint to access the features and Sony VAIO's that were sleek, stylish and were hip but they just didn't do anything for me. I soon grew agitated with the fact that I found the car I drive faster than I was able to find a laptop.

Then I walked into a Finish Line store that carried the new Nike + shoes that connects to your iPod nano and I thought of Apple. I drove to the nearest Apple store in the King of Prussia Mall and was instantly greeted by a heavyset fellow by the name of Dan. I informed him that I was looking for a laptop for my sister and myself and he brought me to the new Mac Book OS X. The Mac Book is a 13-inch glossy widescreen 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo processor with 1289 x 800 resolution. It has 512MB memory, 60GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive2 with a combo drive of DVD-Rom, CD-RW. The features on the Mac Book are endless; first, it comes with state of the art Apple technology that informs you of new upgrades as soon as they are available, free of charge as well as coming with Mac OS X Tiger and iLife '06. The laptop comes equipped with a number of programs such as Mac. Mail that is offered for 60 days as a trail period, an iTunes program, iCamera (that is compatible with almost all digital cameras), iMovie (to create your very own movies using the footage taken with your digital camera), iDVD, (to watch DVDs) iWeb (where you can create an upload your personal webpage), a photo booth and a garage band to create music.

So what makes the Mac Book stand out? A number of things. One, it is extremely lightweight for easy carrying when traveling short or long distances weighing in at only four lbs. Two, it come built with wireless Internet access with a range of 1000 feet, which is great because in Philadelphia the entire city and some parts of the suburbs are connected with wireless Internet. Three, at the very top of the Mac Book is a built-in iSight camera that can be used with the Photo booth program, but more importantly, and this was the selling point for me, you can use the camera for the iChat feature. The iChat feature and iSight camera allows up to three other Mac users to chat with each other simultaneously using real time video. Since my sister and I are very close and she will be across seas with would be great to be able to see her face when I speak to her and not have to wait until Christmas. This feature is ideal for college students who have high school friends who will be going to school in different parts of the country. Four, the Mac Book comes with not one but two USB ports on the left side, so you can download pictures to your Mac Book and upload songs to your iPod all at the same time.

The computer also comes with voice recognition and voice playback, which will speak what you wrote back to you as you write it or after you have completed what you wrote. It is also able to spell out every word as your type it (pretty cool at first but gets annoying after about ten words) As well as having Bluetooth technology and the normal features, input of headphones, a built in DVD player located on the right side and the power last up to five hours before having to be recharged. The Mac Book comes in either white or black, but be warned, the white is priced at $1099 and the black is priced at $1399. Now it is a necessity for writers and college students to use Microsoft word, Excel and PowerPoint. These programs are sold separately for the amount of $289. The Mac Book also comes with the standard 1-year warranty but an additional two-year service warranty can be purchased for the amount $199. All together to get the Mac Book (white), Microsoft Office program and the warranty you will be looking at about, after taxes, $1,700. That is the price of the Sony VIAO with nothing additional added. To throw icing on the cake, for a limited time Apple is giving a free iPod nano with the purchase of any new Mac Book to all college students. The free nano is actually free through a mail-in rebate that will bring your total up to $1,900. Most people, like my sister, and myself already have a nano. So we got it anyway, mailed in the rebate, got our money back and sold the two iPod's on eBay.

I've been using my Mac Book now for a month and it has been the best addition to my career as a freelance writer, and to my sister when it comes to doing homework. Did I mention that the Mac Book is also compatible with all types of flash drives? The Mac Book is super fast, and I am accessible to 24-hour tech support by phone or on the web. Last but not least here are a few accessories that can be added with the Mac Book. There is a wireless mouse, priced at $69. Enabled with Bluetooth it is perfect for those who are tired of using the Mac track pad and if you are working on the garage band or photo shop programs. Also available is the $150 speakerphone available on www.clearone.com, which connects via USB. This speakerphone is perfect for VoIP users and those looking to get a boost out of their audio devices since the built in speakers lack a real punch. Also for the extra-creative original Mac Book user who isn't satisfied with a black or white Mac Book can go to www.colorwarepc.com and get a custom paint job for $450 with the option of choosing 28 different colors, mine is royal blue and white which are my fraternity colors.

All and all the Mac Book is the perfect college and even high school necessity for every student. Homework, surfing the net, downloading music, even video chatting makes this the ultimate school supply that should be on every student and parents list. You will not regret your purchase.