Every school year, students and staff are distributed laptops.

The majority of the laptops distributed are either MacBook Pros or MacBook Airs. The MacBook Pros were introduced on Jan. 10, 2006, before some of our students were born. The MacBook Airs were introduced on Jan. 15, 2008. Although barely different in age, the MacBook Airs seem to run much smoother.

This year, the seniors and some teachers get the older laptops while the rest of the building gets the newer laptops.

Generally, those with the most work are the seniors, and of course, the teachers. Although seniors usually get more electives, they still have plenty of work for college. Obviously, the teachers have the most work, sometimes having upwards of 150 students in a semester. Senior Copeland Whitfield said that the MacBook Pros make it harder to do assignments.

The slower running computers are the older ones, of course. They’ve been around for years. The longer they last, the longer it takes to open any simple application. Whitfield commented that most of his applications can take upwards of 10 minutes to start up, and proceed to crash soon after sometimes.

Some of the issues the MacBook Pros have are that they run slowly, sometimes don’t connect to the internet, they don’t hold enough charge and some applications never open.

The only possible advantage, Whitfield said, is that the Pros may not break as easily.

The newer laptops that everyone else has generally run better. There are some problems sometimes, as with any piece of technology, but not as frequent as the old laptops. These newer laptops run faster, are lighter, and overall work better for most students. Junior Kevin Kurtz reported that he’s never had any problems with his computer.

While the majority of the school is happy about their laptops, the senior class isn’t too pleased. Every day, at least one senior student has to wait around 5 minutes just to start their computer. “It’s never reliable enough to use,” stated Whitfield.

One standpoint could argue that it’s just easier to have the same laptop as the past year, but it could also be argued that if you have a broken laptop, it’s not necessarily fair to the owner. On the other hand, at least most of the school has a faster running, better functioning computer.

One thing that both Whitfield and Kurtz agreed upon is that they don’t trust the 7th grade students with the MacBook Air, and suggested that maybe they get the Pros to ease them into having a laptop.

It is important that younger students get a piece of equipment they will be encouraged to use, that they can trust to work. However, it’s frustrating for those who have work to do but can’t due to technological issues.

So, the next time you think about your laptop and want to complain about it, remember the upsides more than the downsides. A laptop is one key component for classes, but is not the only one. There will always be technological disadvantages, but at least we get laptops.