all the little details

Now that I have officially been accepted to law schools in both of our target cities, I am starting to think about the details: housing, transportation, buying a new laptop.

Because I'm a total geek, the laptop question is the one I'm really spending time thinking about. It's very exciting for me to contemplate getting a new computer. My current machine is about five years old and, while it runs fine, it's slow, a bit temperamental when I ask too much of it, the battery is shot, and it's damn heavy.

It's also a Mac.

I would like to stay with a Mac in law school. Mr. Angst is a PC person and I believe I'll always have access to his laptop for exams. But for class, the library, research, note-taking, and any other task that will benefit from utter familiarity with my computer, I'd prefer a Mac.

So I have a question for all of you current students. Do you use a machine that was not "recommended" by your school (a Mac)? Do you have problems using such a machine? If you use a machine recommended by your school (a PC, probably a Dell), do many of your classmates use Macs? What things do you use your computer for, daily, that would be difficult if you had chosen a Mac? (Note that I'm not particularly worried about not having tech support from the school. I can troubleshoot myself in getting connected a network or figuring out how to print over the network.)

I am fully aware that this question is so premature it's ridiculous. But if I'm going to have to switch to a PC, I want to start getting used to the idea now, and start building up my speed on a PC. (I'm capable on a PC, but not speedy. I'm a big keyboard-shortcut person, and my lack of practice with shortcuts on a PC definitely slows me down.)