I was in exactly your position about 6 months ago, and I settled on an Acer Aspire, 2GHz, 2GB RAM, 15 inch screen, NVIDIA 8600, 220GB hard drive.
I'm probably not a good person to ask because i HATE anything mac with a passion, BUT in all honesty I would be cautious of getting a mac for uni because of compatibility. It might not be a problem for a CS degree, but I'm doing engineering and a mate at uni has had terrible problems with not being able to do a lot of the homework because the CAD software we use doesn't work on his mac. That said, you can always just use wine or dual boot, as long as that's something you're prepared to do.
The number one piece of advice I can give you is to shop around like crazy. You can save yourself hundreds just by being patient and not buying the first thing that looks shiny- sounds stupid but a lot of people do it. Check websites for prices as well as local stores. I ended up buying from a local Hi-Fi store, and got mine for AU$1500, plus $100 for the 3-year extended warranty. I got lucky because it was the last one in the store so she took $200 off the price. If you're diligent enough you might find something just as good.
Oh and don't be afraid to ask "Is that the best price you can offer me?" Don't be a prick about it, but don't be intimidated either.
Hope that helps a little.

cheers,
metal

It just occurred to me that I got tons of information about this here at gd.net when I was looking at getting my laptop.
Check out this thread for all the info you should need.

cheers,
metal

You can install Windows on your Intel base Macbook. But just like Oluseyi said. For programming, you only need editor and the compiler unless you want do programming on specific thing ie. directx programming etc.

Also, can run Windows on Vmware or Parallels so you can run almost any Windows software on it.

Quote: Original post by metalmidget
I was in exactly your position about 6 months ago, and I settled on an Acer Aspire, 2GHz, 2GB RAM, 15 inch screen, NVIDIA 8600, 220GB hard drive.
I'm probably not a good person to ask because i HATE anything mac with a passion, BUT in all honesty I would be cautious of getting a mac for uni because of compatibility. It might not be a problem for a CS degree, but I'm doing engineering and a mate at uni has had terrible problems with not being able to do a lot of the homework because the CAD software we use doesn't work on his mac. That said, you can always just use wine or dual boot, as long as that's something you're prepared to do.
The number one piece of advice I can give you is to shop around like crazy. You can save yourself hundreds just by being patient and not buying the first thing that looks shiny- sounds stupid but a lot of people do it. Check websites for prices as well as local stores. I ended up buying from a local Hi-Fi store, and got mine for AU$1500, plus $100 for the 3-year extended warranty. I got lucky because it was the last one in the store so she took $200 off the price. If you're diligent enough you might find something just as good.
Oh and don't be afraid to ask "Is that the best price you can offer me?" Don't be a prick about it, but don't be intimidated either.
Hope that helps a little.

cheers,
metal

Uh there is no longer any problems with compatiblity getting a mac these days since they come with Intel chips now and bootcamp!
You actually get the best of both worlds getting a mac and that's what I'd recommend if you can afford it. The graphics chipset is probably crap for games but the majority of notebooks suck if your main purpose is gaming. My friend just got one of the new macbook pro laptops and he can run HalfLife and Vista on it so it can't be as bad as the Inte graphics.
I'm stuck with my powerpc mac -LOL!
Has compatibililty problems due to older macs using different cpu but it's still running after like 7 years!

[Edited by - daviangel on June 10, 2008 3:43:52 PM]

Quote: Original post by nilkn

Quote: Original post by daviangel
The graphics chipset is probably crap for games but the majority of notebooks suck if your main purpose is gaming.

">It

">seems

">to

">do

">well.

I just mean to say that laptop mobile chipsets never keep up with their desktop equivalents so it's not like you are gonna find a laptop with an Nvidia 9800 or whatever they are up to now videocard power.
Oh and if you do get a Mac make sure you upgrade to the 7200rpm hardrive option you won't regret it since it will improve the performance more than anything else!