Mac book pro vs HP Envy17t-j100

[cwillhawk]

I'm a student preparing for college next year. I wont use for graphic design, but rather general school work, and some media (maybe a few games not much). Is there really any reason why I would need the apple, because from looking at the specs it seems to be more overpriced than the hp. I guess my real question is whether or not it really matters having a mac in college, because fromwhat I've seen they seem to be a lot more prevalent.

link for hp: http/www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/E4S81AV?HP-ENVY-17t-j100-Leap-Motion-QE-Notebook-PC-ENERGY-STAR-

 

[Deus Gladiorum]

Macs are prevalent for 2 reasons:
1.) Apple consists of great engineers and great con artists
2.) People are idiots

And secondly, I don't exactly trust HP either. The only laptop manufacturers I like to look at are Sony, ASUS, and Lenovo. Speaking of which, either go for the Lenovo Y410p which is 14":
http/shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/y410p/

Or the Lenovo Y510p which is 15.6":
http/shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/y510p/

They're the same as the HP you were looking at but much cheaper.

UPDATE: For the Y410p, the one on the left for $729.00 at the time of writing is far better than one 2nd from the left for $740.22. This is due to the Cyber Monday discount they've applied, and apparently which they applied poorly because they actually made one of their higher end models cheaper than one of their lower end models. If you want a 14" in the form of a Y410p, it would not be wise to consider the one 2nd from the left.