peternewman89 Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 What sort of computer do you guys have and use? I'm looking to pick up a new system at some point in the next few months before I start my program. I have a 3 year old Macbook Pro that would be my workhorse, but I've also put it through quite a bit of use and abuse over the years and, if I can, I'd rather keep that guy at home for the most part, doing heavy writing and work on it but I'd like a convertible tablet to carry with me on a day-to-day basis. I've been looking at the new Windows tablets floating around and trying to figure out what level of power I need for the work I'll be doing, as I've never done any real statistical work in the past (as a theorist). Would a machine with an Atom processor and 2 gigs of Ram be able to run Stata and R and do statistical work? Or should I step up to an i5 level processor to avoid wanting to tear my hair out? If feasible I'd prefer the lower-power machine as it would be easier to carry around and have longer battery life, but I'm not going to sweat a difference of a few hundred dollars if it makes a big difference in my actual use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThisGuyRiteHere Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 Can you even run STATA on a Mac?I know you cant use excel plugins on a mac Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peternewman89 Posted April 15, 2013 Author Share Posted April 15, 2013 Can you even run STATA on a Mac? I know you cant use excel plugins on a mac I've got Windows on the Mac as well for any issues of that sort, and my school furnishes a free copy of Parallels and a copy of Windows to virtualize if need be, so that's not an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThisGuyRiteHere Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 I would definitely take the statistician's word for it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mnemonics2 Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 STATA for Mac definitely exists. I've been using it for the past three years. Works like a dream. Feels smoother. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shavasana Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 Something also to think about: most universities have central computing that you can get into from you personal computer, so you don't have to have a lot of power with you as long as you're on campus or can hook up a VPN. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catchermiscount Posted April 16, 2013 Share Posted April 16, 2013 It's nice if you can parallelize, but certainly not required. R takes your computer's specs into accounts for some of what it does. This generally comes into play only if you're doing something non-standard, but hey, maybe you'll be doing something non-standard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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