Hello, my name is Peter, and I've been with James Madison College for 16 years as the IT/Systems Analyst. While I don't often work with students directly, I often get asked about the MSU laptop requirement. While you may be stressing about a laptop purchase, it's not as important as you think, just about any laptop will do these days. The following advice is my own personal opinion and may not reflect the opinion of Michigan State. This page was updated on December 21st, 2020 as several items have changed.
I grew up as a PC user but currently use a Mac, so I am well versed in both and both are good choices. If you're looking for an easy recommendation, I recommend the 2020 MacBook Air with M1 proccesor. Now with Apple's own processor, this computer is competitively priced, lasts 15 hours on battery, and is faster than most PCs. You can buy with an educational discount. You could get a 2020 MacBook Pro but the Air is more than sufficient for my needs as an IT Professional and you can avoid spending the extra money. On the PC side, I would recommend Dell, either a Latitude 5400 series, or an XPS13. Again, make sure to get an i5 quad core (stay away from dual core), and 256gb of solid state storage or more (SSD). I would lean towards the Mac though, we have fewer issues with them, and with the new Apple Silicon chips it's hard to recommend a PC at this point.
What to avoid: anything 'used' or renewed. ANY Intel Mac, and the 2016-2019 Macs all had a design flaw in the keyboard.
If you have an existing laptop, feel free to take that and use it. Just make sure you use your free cloud storage as a student. You don't NEED a new laptop to be a successful student. You do NEED to backup your files to be a successful student.
I don't recommend a tablet acting as a primary computing device, although several students I know do it and they seem to like it. A Chromebook, while inexpensive, would be too limiting.
I am required to run anti virus on departmental operated machines, but for student machines, MSU offers a discounted option at $19.99 a year. PC/Windows has anti virus built in and Mac machines are slightly less prone to infections. I don't use anti virus on my personal machines, as long as you are careful you should be fine. And, an anti virus will lull you into a false sense of security. They won't stop you from reusing passwords, or clicking links you shouldn't, or installing software that you shouldn't. If you're mindful of what you're clicking on, downloading, and installing, you should be ok.