TL;DR: Not worth it, especially for students. Buy a PC, and then blow the money you saved on accessories like an extra monitor or nice peripherals.

If you can hold out till november, I'd wait for some of the new windows tablets. There are some really great convertible tablets coming out with the windows 8 launch.

A few years ago, I bought a Macbook pro off of craigslist for around $800. I wanted to write an iPhone app and that requires Objective-C which can only run on a Mac (according to my research anyways).

Pros:
-The OS is pretty sleek, but its hard to get used to if you've only used windows.
-The laptop is light weight and fast
-The power cord is very efficiently designed for portability
-You can run unix/linux commands from the console

Cons:
-The laptop will get very hot if the CPU is running hard for a while
-My battery is dead, so I have to buy a new one. I didn't use the laptop for a long time.
-I don't like how the file system is hidden from me in the GUI
-I don't like the mac equivalent of "Ctrl" on the keyboard. It's a minor gripe, but its positioning is weird and takes some getting used to.

One thing to note though: in 2012, Macs are not a "must have" for artists. If I was an artist, I'd go with a PC since there are many more tools available (3D modelers) and there isn't a distinction between photoshop on the platforms.

In your case, you probably don't need a mac. Just buy a spiral notebook for note taking in class. When it comes to taking notes, keyboards are actually a subtle limitation because you can't draw diagrams or place text in margins. All your game dev needs can be done on your PC.

Macs are PCs, though the question is which OS you want to run - which then influences hardware choice. But I'm a bit confused where this question comes from - I mean you ask "whether or not buying a MacBook Pro would be necessary or not", well, the simple answer is that clearly it isn't necessary.

Did you mean that you had already decided you wanted one (for whatever reasons) and were asking if it was still okay for game development? Or you were interested in trying a different OS, and were asking which is better? Or you've been mislead to believe that only Apple make portable laptops (certainly not true!)? Or something else?

My personal view is, whilst I'm sure that OS X is perfectly okay, I also see nothing overall better about it either. I like Windows, which also has the advantaging of being the most popular platform. I also run Ubuntu which is fine (overall I prefer Windows, but they each have their positives and negatives). Several times when I've used an Apple product/UI, it's tended to annoy me, so I prefer to stick with things that just work. I also have the advantage of buying whatever hardware I want, rather than locking myself into only what choices Apple offer, which tends to miss entire product categories (e.g., I currently have a high end Clevo, and a 10" Samsung netbook for portability, and Apple has absolutely nothing in either of those categories - there's nothing wrong with that as a PC maker, but it is a problem if you're reliant on them as the only way to run the OS that you chose). Even if I was buying something in the categories that they have products, I'd still want as much choice as possible, rather than only having a choice of one company - e.g., if I wanted an 11" high end portable, I'd rather pick one that has page up/down keys, and doesn't have a tacky light up corporate logo. These may be little things, but why restrict yourself to one make of PC, when I can just move onto the next one on offer?

(Plus even if I was tempted, I'd not want to give money now to a patent troll, and I also worry about the whole locked-down future of computing they want to push with their i-things...)

If you can hold out till november, I'd wait for some of the new windows tablets. There are some really great convertible tablets coming out with the windows 8 launch.

I agree, for portable computing it looks like there'll be a lot more choice in the coming months. Just to add, these will also all have the ability to work with graphics pens as well as finger touch (and keyboard), so useful to draw diagrams/etc (as slayemin points out).

[quote name='way2lazy2care' timestamp='1347162322' post='4978164']
If you can hold out till november, I'd wait for some of the new windows tablets. There are some really great convertible tablets coming out with the windows 8 launch.

I agree, for portable computing it looks like there'll be a lot more choice in the coming months. Just to add, these will also all have the ability to work with graphics pens as well as finger touch (and keyboard), so useful to draw diagrams/etc (as slayemin points out).
[/quote]

WinRT versions are cheap and come with OneNote too.

I WILL SAY THIS THOUGH. When you get your laptop for school you think, "Man this is going to be great for taking notes, and they'll all be there to review, and I can work on stuff wherever!" but the reality is very often more, "Oh no, what did the teacher just say? I was on reddit/facebook/failblog/whatever and wasn't paying any attention."

If you really want to be productive in class, it's probably best to keep a computer as far away from you as possible.

If you really want to be productive in class, it's probably best to keep a computer as far away from you as possible.

QFT.

(Plus even if I was tempted, I'd not want to give money now to a patent troll

You know, I so rarely apply morality to corporate purchases, although I understand why people do. I mean, I have sneakers made in an Indonesian sweat shop, a smartphone made in a Chinese sweatshop, and I like my coffee cheap ( so none of this fair trade BS! explotation ftw! ).

That said, Apple's recent behaviour have really put me off ever buying another Apple product, and this extends beyond their patent trolling. Their recent moves of making decisions for me ( removing Java, trying to kill Flash, the removal of X11 ), their arbitrary removal of apps on vaguely defined moral grounds are anathema to how I view computing.

That they have replaced innovation with litigation, with some of the biggest bullshit patents in a so thoroughly broken patent system, that might just be the straw that broke the camels back.

I am not fanboy, I own plenty of Apple products, and own plenty of Android and Microsoft products. I am a pragmatist and use what works best for me at the time.

However, I think Apple on their current course is bad for the industry and every time they lose, I am happy, so I guess I want to see Apple fail now. A world where the big guys can patent stuff like rounded rectangles, and are awarded multiple billion dollars on patents that shouldn't exist in the first place is creating a horrifically hostile environment for small time developers and people who can't afford millions on patent lawyers.

Simply put, I want Apple to fail and the entire US patent system to fail with them. Luckily, just that might happen. Expect the Samsung ruling to be over turned in a higher court ( as has historically happened... the last similar case, the judge threw it out saying "the patent system is a mess" ). and hopefully this will bring more focus on the lunacy of software and design patents. The other ray of sunshine is HTC just had a big win, with a judge saying their patent case has a ton of merit, and a possible import ban on iOS products, which would be sweet karmic justice.



TL;DR... I don't generally apply morality to corporations, but modern day Apple sucks really bad and are bad for all of us.

Ok, sorry, somewhat off topic.

I would tend to suggest that you may be better off with a MacBook Air or other Ultrabook of preference, plus a desktop machine (which you already have). It will give you vastly more powerful tools when you need it, and it will give you productive mobility. The Macbook Pro is very much a jack of all trades, master of none machine. It's not really powerful enough for media work. Lightroom/Aperture already sort of drag, let alone the big boys like Premiere/FCP. It's also not light enough to be really very much fun to carry around, though it's not awful with a backpack. The MBA is also much more in line price-wise with its Windows based competitors than the MBP.

The MacBook Air is certainly at a much more sane price point than the MBP, and more importantly ( for me anyways ), the price premium is easily justified in the purpose it serves. In being ultraportable, that light alloy case and thin design and added durability justifies the price premium over "cheap" ultra portables.