- #1
Alta
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I am going to buy a laptop very soon. I think that I have narrowed it down to two laptops:
Apple MacBook 13.3" 4.5lb.
Processor:Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile 2.4GHz
RAM:4GB DDR3
Hard Drive: 250GB 5400rpm
Sony VAIO 13.1" 3.4lb.
Processor:Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile 2.4GHz
RAM:4GB DDR3
Hard Drive: 320GB 7200rpm
I have chosen these two because they are both right at my price range (they cost about the same) and because they both have a reputation of running cooly (which is very important to me) and fast for the amount of money being paid. Everyone I talk to that have used both mac and pc say to go for a mac. But none of them are not really physics people. I am a current physics undergrad and will be a physics grad next year. The programs that I use most often are Matlab, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Cygwin, and a free SSH/FTP program.
So my question is which is better for me? I do not know too much about computers and I have never used a mac before. Is there anything like Cygwin for a mac or at least free C++ compilers? Does anyone know how well Matlab runs on the macbook?
It is somewhat likely that I will be going into some type of computational physics in grad school and definitely a chance of me doing more computational physics this summer. Which one of these machines could better handle a calculation in Matlab or C++ that could last ten minutes to a couple of hours without overheating?
Apple MacBook 13.3" 4.5lb.
Processor:Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile 2.4GHz
RAM:4GB DDR3
Hard Drive: 250GB 5400rpm
Sony VAIO 13.1" 3.4lb.
Processor:Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile 2.4GHz
RAM:4GB DDR3
Hard Drive: 320GB 7200rpm
I have chosen these two because they are both right at my price range (they cost about the same) and because they both have a reputation of running cooly (which is very important to me) and fast for the amount of money being paid. Everyone I talk to that have used both mac and pc say to go for a mac. But none of them are not really physics people. I am a current physics undergrad and will be a physics grad next year. The programs that I use most often are Matlab, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Cygwin, and a free SSH/FTP program.
So my question is which is better for me? I do not know too much about computers and I have never used a mac before. Is there anything like Cygwin for a mac or at least free C++ compilers? Does anyone know how well Matlab runs on the macbook?
It is somewhat likely that I will be going into some type of computational physics in grad school and definitely a chance of me doing more computational physics this summer. Which one of these machines could better handle a calculation in Matlab or C++ that could last ten minutes to a couple of hours without overheating?