Off the bat, I usually recommend the 11" MacBook Air and undoubtedly the first thing I get back is "but they are so expensive". I figured I would look at the numbers and see how it would pan out. The comparison is against an HP machine which is the cheapest I found in OfficeMax.
There's also the question of iPad (w/ bluetooth keyboard) vs full laptop. I believe students still benefit from a full laptop (I'm thinking about writing those 40 page papers and gamers). I'm willing to be proven wrong, though.
Here's what I came up with:
| Feature | MacBook Air 11" | PC |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $899 (typically there's a 10% discount for students) | $399 |
| Weight | 2.38 pounds | 5.5 pounds |
| Screen Size | 11.6" | 15.6" |
| Office Productivity Suite (1) |
$59.97 | $149.95 |
| Anti-Virus (2) | Not needed | $159.96 (you have to renew virus license every year) |
| Memory | 2GB | 4GB |
| Processor | 1.6 GHz Dual Core | 1.6 GHz Dual Core |
| Storage | 64 GB (flash drive; up to 2x-4x faster) | 500 GB |
| Backup | $0 (Time Machine included) | $80 (typically $20 / year) |
| OS Upgrade (3) | $29 (at least the last 2) | $119 (at least that's what it was for Win 7 Home Premium) |
| Battery Life | Up to 5 hours (30 day standby) | Up to 5 hours |
| Screen Resolution | 1366 x 768 (up to 2560 x 1600 w/external monitor) | 1366 x 768 |
| Total | $987.97 | $907.91 |
(1) You could save by using the free versions of Office like Symphony or OpenOffice . I'm assuming students will need a word processor ($19.99 for Pages), spreadsheets ($19.99 for Numbers), and presentations ($19.99 for Keynote). If students only need a word processor, Pages is enough and it's ~ 1/8 the price of MS Office)
(2) Some colleges have a site license for anti-virus. Used Symantec Anti-Virus at $39.99 / yr. Update 3/Aug/2011: Apparently, Microsoft has a free solution for anti-virus. Not sure how good it is or how it compares to the paid ones.
So the Mac is costing you about $80 more over a 4 year period. Yet, it's about 2 pounds lighter and it's up to 2x faster. Personally, I would recommend the 13" MacBook Air which would come up to about $1258 over 4 years (vs $907.91 for a PC). The 13" MacBook Air gives you 7 hours of battery, it's still under 3 pounds, a 128GB SSD of storage, and has a faster processor at 1.7 GHz.
(3) I'm assuming that in 4 years Apple will release another update to their OS and Microsoft will release one as well.
Of course, cost is not the only consideration. Some tools will only run on a Windows environment so it might be good to ask current students in the prospective major what they are using.
There you have it. Hope this helps.