ITS Computer Buying Guide

Table of Contents

• Step 1: Types of Use
• Step 2: Laptop vs. Desktop, PC vs. Mac
• Step 3: Individual Platforms
  • Laptop - PC
  • Laptop - Mac
  • Desktop - PC
  • Desktop - Mac
• Step 4: After your computer arrives
  • PC
  • Mac

Step 3: Desktop - Mac

Please note: It is not necessary to read this entire section. The only thing you really have to decide is the family of desktop you want to buy. The three different families (Mac mini, iMac, and Mac Pro) are described below in the Family section. It is also recommended that you visit your closest Apple Store and compare all the desktops there. Watch out, Apple Stores can be dangerous to your bank account balance...

*Academic and Other Discounts: Apple offers Academic discounts to Pomona students. This includes incoming students. If you're going to order off the Apple Store website, then go the education section to get student discounts. If you want to order from a physical Apple Store, you should take something to prove you're enrolled at Pomona with you to the store (annoying, but at least you know before you get to the store...). You can also get a discount by ordering a refurbished computer. You can find the link to their refurbished computers under "Special Deals" on Apple's online store.

Most of the information on this page exists for those who want to know exactly what it is we're recommending that they buy. Read our recommendations.

Remember that there's no rush - you have all summer to decide. So do your homework and some soul-searching (or contact the ITS Helpdesk and ask us for advice) and make sure you're happy with what you're buying.

Once you've finally ordered your machine, go on to Step 4.

Step 4: After your computer arrives >>>>

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#MacFamilies

Which type of Mac should I choose?

Normal:

Mac mini or iMac

Extended:

iMac or Mac Pro

Power User:

Mac Pro

There are a few families of Macs. They are all different and each has its advantages and disadvantages. The description of each computer has links to the Apple website so you can see what the computers look like for yourself.

The cheapest desktop computer sold by Apple is the Mac mini. Its main benefits are its size and price tag. However, it does not come with a keyboard, mouse, or monitor. If you happen to have a spare keyboard, mouse, and monitor lying around (or you know where you can pick some up) then this isn't a problem! Okay, who am I kidding? I want one of these things because it's so tiny!

The next family of computers is the iMac. This is an all-in-one computer meaning that the monitor as well as internals of the computer are all packaged into one case. It also comes with a keyboard and mouse. (Pictures of the iMac) The main advantages of the iMac are that it offers good performance for a fairly reasonable price while also looking quite nice (just look at those pictures!). It's also thin, so it won't take up too much of the space on your desk. These are recommended for those users who might need more power than is provided by the Mac mini, but will not be doing hardcore video editing or gaming.

The family of top-end Macs is the Mac Pro series. These are the cream of the Apple crop. They typically have the lastest generation of hard drives, RAM, CPUs, and even peripherals. If you qualify as a Power user, you want one of these. Physically, they look more like PCs, so they have a seperate case (filled with your DVD drive as well as the internals of the computer and your hard drives) and monitor. Note Mac Pros do not come with monitors. Buying a monitor for your new computer will add another $300 to $1000 to the cost of the computer.

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#SystemProcessor

Processor ( CPU)

Normal:

Intel Core Duo (Mac mini)
*Intel Core 2 Duo (iMac)*

Extended:

Intel Core 2 Duo (iMac)
*Xeon (Mac Pro)*

Power User:

Xeon (Mac Pro)

With the possible exception of RAM, your processor (a.k.a. your CPU) is the most important part of your computer with respect to performance. For the most part, the faster your processor, the faster everything will happen in your machine.

So what do I want?

The Mac Mini and iMac lines feature the Core Duo and Core 2 Duo processors, which are very similar. The Core 2 Duo is faster, and has support for new features such as 64-bit processing. In the future, more applications will be written to take advantage of 64-bit processors, which will run faster on chips such as the Core 2 Duo.

The Mac Pro comes with two of Intel's Xeon processors, which are similar in design to the Core 2 Duo, but will be faster and perform intensive tasks faster. Since there are two processors for a total of four cores, the Mac Pro is able to handle multitasking very efficiently.

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#SystemMemory

System Memory (RAM)

Normal:

512 MB to 768 MB

Extended:

1024 MB (1GB)

Power User:

1.5+ GB

Memory comes in megabytes (MB), and, typically, the more the better. If you want to know more about RAM, see a discussion of what RAM actually does for your computer.

IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOUR DESKTOP HAS AT LEAST 512 MB OF RAM.

All Apple desktops currently sell with at least 512 MB of RAM. However if you buy a used one, make sure it has at least 512 MB of RAM.

Apple states that Mac OS X 10.3 and above officially requires 256 MB of RAM, but in order to run multiple programs at the same time without experiencing any cuts in performance, 512 MB is absolutely essential. If you order from Apple's website, they will charge a premium to customize your computer with extra RAM. If you feel up to it, you can order RAM sticks separately from another vendor and install them yourself. We recommend Crucial.com for reasonably priced, high quality RAM.

For Normal and Extended users, you should buy a computer with at least 512 MB of RAM. For students who frequently make movies or work heavily with graphics, more RAM is required. If you're such a user, you should probably decide everything else about your computer and then try to spend as much money as you can on extra RAM.

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Operating System

Normal:

Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger"

Extended:

Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger"

Power User:

Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger"

There's only one option for Operating System. Apple's desktops currently ship with Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger".

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#HardDrive

Hard Drives

Normal:

60 GB to 80 GB

Extended:

80 GB to 160 GB

Power User:

250 GB to 500 GB, or more

Hard drives are permanent storage for all of your data. This is where all of your papers, presentations, music, and digital photos will be stored.

Hard drives have varying capacities, measured in gigabytes (GB). This number typically varies between 60 and 500. Keep in mind that the Mac OS will by itself takes up about 4 GB. Add in other commonly forgotten things like your browser cache and other random "stuff" that tends to accumulate over time and this number grows to about 10 GB.

Things like Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations take up very little space. The largest files tend to be digital photos, music, games, and movies. Raw digital photos (fresh off your camera) tend to be extremely high quality and run between 700KB - 1.5MB each, meaning you can fit about 20,000 pictures on a 30 GB drive. Music .mp3s tend to run between 3MB and 5MB, so a typical music collection (~2,000 songs) will take up around 10GB. A modern game tends to consume between 2GB and 5GB after install. Movie sizes can vary wildly depending on their resolution quality, but a decently compressed full-length movie tends to run around 1.5GB (an uncompressed full movie can vary between 4 and 8 GB).

Normal and Extended users should be fine with hard drives ranging from 60 to 160 GB. A Power user should think about how much video/image editing he or she is going to be doing. If it's a lot, then he or she may wish to get a very large hard drive.

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#OpticalDrive

Optical Drive(s)

Normal:

DVD/CD-RW "Combo Drive" or DVD-R/RW burner "Superdrive"

Extended:

DVD-R/RW burner "Superdrive"

Power User:

DVD-R/RW burner "Superdrive"

Optical drives read (and sometimes write to) optical media, which means CDs and DVDs. The bare minimum drive you can buy in an Apple desktop computer will support reading DVDs and CDs and writing to CDs.

• DVD/CD-RW combo - This drive is standard on the lower end Mac mini. It can read and burn CDs and can read DVDs.
• DVD-R/RW burner "Superdrive" (double-layer) - This is the drive standard on all the other machines. It can read and burn both CDs and DVDs.

Typically, the main reasons you will want a DVD burner are if you're frequently making movies or need to back up large amounts of data. In those cases, you may find that burning a lot of CDs (CDs hold about 700 MB of data) is not as easy and quick as burning a few DVDs (DVDs hold about 4.7 GB of data).

Optical drives also tend to have a great deal of technical jargon associated with them. However, Apple simplifies all this for you. You simply have the choice between the Combo drive and the Superdrive. However, the following might be good to know anyway:

Speed: The speed of a drive reflects both its read and write speed. Almost all optical drives now read CDs at 52x. CD burners typically top out at 24x write speed. DVD drives/burners use the same "x" notation, but on a different scale: most DVD drives burn at 4x, 8x, and 16x. Note that even though these numbers look "smaller," than their CD counterparts, they burn CDs just as fast as the fastest CD burner.

-R vs. -RW: CD- and DVD-Rs can be written to ("burned") only once, while CD- and DVD-RWs can be written to many times (this number varies but approaches 1000 for high-quality media).

+/- compatibility (DVD-R/RW only): DVD-R/RWs come in two flavors: + and - (e.g. DVD+RW vs. DVD-RW). Most DVD burners are +/- compatible, meaning that they can burn both types. The - format is more compatible with more home entertainment (set-top) DVD players than its + cousin.

Double-layer (DVD-R/RW only): A typical DVD can hold about 4.7GB of data. Double-layer (a.k.a. "dual-layer") DVDs can hold almost twice this: about 8.5GB. Many commercial movie DVDs are double-layer. If a DVD-burner is dual-layer compatible then it can burn dual-layer DVD-Rs. Unfortunately, a single DL DVD-R costs about $10, and you will rarely (if ever) find need to burn such a large amount of data onto a single DVD (i.e. it can usually be split up amongst multiple DVDs). In other words, there's no reason to pay premium for this ability.

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#GraphicsCard

Graphics (card)

Normal:

Intel GMA950 (Mac mini or iMac)

Extended:

ATI Radeon x1600 (iMac)
*NVidia GeForce 7300 (iMac, Mac Pro)*

Power User:

NVidia GeForce 7300
*ATI Radeon x1900 XT*
*NVidia Quadro FX 4500*

For a Normal or Extended user, the basic (i.e. cheapest) option will be fine. It should be able to play some games. For the Power user, you'll want to pick one of the more powerful graphics cards (pick one on the sliding scale based on how intensively you use graphics-intensive programs such as games, video-editing, etc.) For the Mac Pro, the ATI x1900 is a high performance gaming card, although it will also handle rendering and editing. The NVidia Quadro FX is a professional card designed for very intensive programs. The cost is likely unjustified for students, and it will also lack performance in other tasks such as gaming.

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#NetworkCard

Network Card (Ethernet)

Normal:

The built-in (10/100/1000 Mbit Ethernet)

Extended:

The built-in (10/100/1000 Mbit Ethernet)

Power User:

The built-in (10/100/1000 Mbit Ethernet)

In order to connect to the Pomona network, you need an Ethernet connection of some kind. All Apple desktops include a built-in 10/100/1000 (gigabit) network port. So, what do these numbers mean? They're a measure of supported transfer speeds in Mb/s (mega bits per second). Used to hearing mega bytes instead? So are most people, but since there are 8 bits in a byte, network vendors get to "inflate" their numbers.

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#BlueTooth

Bluetooth

Normal:

See below

Extended:

See below

Power User:

See below

Bluetooth is a technology designed to allow wireless connectivity between portable devices over relatively short distances. It is built in to all Mac minis and iMacs. It's optional on all Power Macs. If you plan on having a Bluetooth-enabled device (read on for examples), then you should opt to add it. Otherwise, you don't need it.

For example, some cell phones come with Bluetooth headsets so that you can put your phone in your pocket, the headset in your ear, and not have to have an annoying wire running between the two. Lots of devices are starting to use Bluetooth connections, the most popular being cell phones, PDAs, PCs, laptops, and digital cameras. It is primarily designed to compete with USB and other short range connection standards, NOT 802.11 wireless networking.

( More information on Bluetooth)

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#SuggestedSoftware

Software

Normal

None: free from Pomona

Extended

None: free from Pomona

Power User

None: free from Pomona

The major piece of software that you would typically have to buy with a computer is Microsoft Office, which is quite expensive. Luckily for you, Pomona will give you Microsoft Office (as well as the previously mentioned major upgrades to the operating system) for free! Just note that you won't be able to install these programs until you get to campus. Luckily, all Apple desktops come with a "test" version of Microsoft Office 2004 that should last you until fall. If this won't last you, then you will have to buy a copy of Office from an Apple Store or other computer store.

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#ComputerMonitor

Monitor

Normal:

LCD of some sort

Extended:

None (iMac has one by default)

Power User:

Apple Display or another LCD

CRT vs. LCD

At the moment, there are two "families" of monitors available to the general public: CRTs (Cathode Ray Tube) and LCDs (Liquid Crystal Display). CRTs look and operate like traditional televisions, while LCDs, also known as "flat panel" monitors, are just that: very thin.

So what's the difference? First of all, CRTs are cheaper than LCDs. On the other hand, LCDs take up a lot less desk space, which may be a concern for a cramped first-year dorm. Also, LCDs are much easier on the eyes (long-term use of CRTs usually causes eye-strain), and tend to have more vibrant colors and better picture quality. However, if you get a cheapo LCD, there's a good chance the image quality will actually be worse than an CRT, as LCDs of this type exhibit color "banding," where lines (i.e. text) will change thickness as one moves across the screen.

Note: All laptop screens are LCDs. If you've never seen a desktop LCD monitor before, try borrowing a friend's laptop and trying it out for size.

While, in the end, your choice of monitor is up to you, we highly suggest that you invest in an LCD.

Size

The iMac comes with a built-in monitor. It has either a 17", 20", or 24" LCD. The Mac mini and Mac Pro need their own separate monitor. Monitors usually come in 15", 17", 19", and 20" varieties (this number is measured diagonally from one corner to another). Apple's own line of monitors come in 20", 23", and a whopping 30" in size. Again, it's really up to you how large you want to make it. People who use computers a lot tend to appreciate large screens (usually 17" or 19" monitors).

If you're into video editing, web development, programming, or anything else that requires that you have a lot of windows on the screen at one time, you may want to consider a 19" or 20" screen, or even a dual-monitor setup (although these are very expensive). The Power Mac is the only Apple computer than can support dual monitors for now.

Note: When you are comparing sizes between LCDs and CRTs, you generally need to add about 1" to the size of an LCD to get the equivalent size CRT. This is because CRT monitor sizes include the overscan area which isn't actually viewable. LCD monitor sizes exactly match the viewable area.

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<<<< Step 2: Laptop vs. Desktop, PC vs. Mac

Step 4: After your computer arrives >>>>