Macbook for economics?

[treblekicker]

Originally Posted by notacolour

I'm going to go ahead and say this: you should take advantage of the fact that you can get absurdly cheap (and legal) licenses now, instead of going with a pirated copy.

I agree with you, and I'll be avoiding pirated copies. However, they are obscenely easy to find via torrents if anyone is really that strapped for cash.

[ounlopez]

For those of you who like your macbooks, what would you recommend in terms of the RAM? I am debating
15-inch : 2.66GHz or


15-inch : 2.53GHz

Is it worth the extra $250 to go with the later. There is also the 2.8GHz for $200 more.

I am not a game player, but I do run MAPLE, STATA, and surf the web at the same time.

Thanks,
Steve

[SlowLearner38]

Let's turn this into a lesson in consumer theory. Consider a world of only 2 goods, Macbooks and PC Laptops.

MUx = Marginal Utility of a Macbook
MUy = Marginal Utility of a PC Laptop
Px = Price Macbook
Py = Price PC Laptop

Am I the only one that thinks the following situation is substantially true:

MUy/Py > MUx/Px

PC's are like half the cost. Are you really getting double the utility out of a Macbook? I find that impossible to believe.

[postgradecon]

Cheap PCs are half the cost. Good ones are often almost as expensive.

[notacolour]

Everything is simpler if I just assume everyone has my utility function.

Anyway, though, if you're going to be running Stata with decently large datasets, definitely go for more RAM. But it may be expensive through apple--check crucial.com first.

[flipecon]

i have a mac. its alright. airport sucks. and make sure you get a keyboard cover for your laptop. especially if it's a white one. the keypad gets dark and dirty. or probably just mine. and i don't like the mouse. iv never tried using stata or matlab in my macbook.
i think thinkpad or sony vaio would be a better choice. cheers.