Of course you pay a premium for this mobility. Dollar for dollar a Desktops are more powerful and are generally more expandable than Laptops. Moreover, although Brown is a safe campus, extra caution must be taken to protect Laptops against theft. Security locks and alarms can be purchased to protect Laptops. Given today's operating systems, in ease of use and simplicity, both Apples and PCs are excellent.
Apple products offer good value, processing power, and elegance.
PCs do offer a larger quantity of software and hardware, and operating systems with different qualities. Practically any program available for PC is also available for Mac, or can be used via software emulation. Brown's internal sytems are platform-independent and CIS supports both flavors of hardware and software. Familiarity and departmental preferences should decide your choice. We only sell quality computers backed by warranties so you need not worry about quality or reliability.