The Student Room Group

What kind of laptop to get

I need to get a laptop for uni but was unsure what kind i would need for psych (mainly 'cos of the specialist software like SPSS), would XP or Vista both be equally acceptable, or is one better than the other to have? Also would it even be ok to have a mac?

Who in the dept would i email to find out?

Answers are particularly welcome from UCLers. :smile:
SPSS works perfectly fine on my XP laptop, and that's almost 5 years old!
SPSS has in all honesty been a pain in the arse on my vista, not sure if thats a universal thing, but It just doesnt install properly. My friends on Xp havent had a problem though.
Reply 3
spss is incompatible with vista so that's why you're having the problem louise. to be honest, you're probably best off with an XP laptop anyways (if you can still find a place that will sell you it) as it's a better OS than vista. (i have problems with my vista). as for specialist software, again if you'll be using eprime and the like,you're best off with xp as most of these programs are incompatible with vista and aren't made for the mac OS.
Reply 4
Thanks for the replies, seems like XP is the way to go - i was unconvinced about vista anyway.
La Trampa
spss is incompatible with vista so that's why you're having the problem louise. to be honest, you're probably best off with an XP laptop anyways (if you can still find a place that will sell you it) as it's a better OS than vista. (i have problems with my vista). as for specialist software, again if you'll be using eprime and the like,you're best off with xp as most of these programs are incompatible with vista and aren't made for the mac OS.


:eek: Damn those people at the technical support desk who basically told me I was an idiot and was just 'not doing it right' (refering to installation)
Reply 6
actually my bad i'm wrong, spss is compatible with vista (i use it stoopid!) but eprime isn't. depends what version on but i think they should all be compatible with vista. maybe it's a problem with the license key.
Reply 7
Academics love (Mac) OS X.

Virtually all the software you need will be available on OS X.
Reply 8
To be fair, that's not exactly the case. Out of all the labs I've done,only one ever needed MAC software/required us to use MACS and it was just because the rooms we used had the macs in them and I'm sure the software we used (it's for engineering students, MATLAB) is also available for use on Windows.
I know my supervisors (actual supervisor and project supervisor) use MACs and the IT guy in the department does as well. Don't know about the other ppl tho. I've never used a MAC for any of my stuff
Reply 10
tbh i am kind of drawn to getting a mac because the look cool/are nice and simple/they just work/fewer bugs. however i think for academic software purposes XP is really the only option, even though macs are actually better, until everyone is using them they're no good for this purpose, oh well. on the plus side xp machines are cheaper though.
Reply 11
Just want to add that I've had absolutely no problems whatsoever using SPSS on Vista. Actually, it ran beautifully.

Don't worry about Vista and SPSS. Obviously if you use an ancient version of SPSS then you will have problems, but the newer version(s) work fine.

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