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My sons off to uni soon and needs a laptop. He has a mac at home, which he saved up for and bought himself, and has an iPhone. So his preference is a MacBook. We've said we'll chip in as a prsenet for achieving the results he needed, he'll pay the rest.
So which MacBook to get. will be used for uni work, emails, web browsing.
Yeh I know he can get a windows laptop for a third of the money.
word processing and web?
The cheapest one?
Don't get 128 gb as that will fill up quickly. I've got the 256gb MacBook Pro 2015. It does me fine.
Retina display worth getting? Or do they all have that now?
and Son & Uni? Do they do a wipe clean one?
As above, use the education discount. I think if you buy online you get extended Apple Care for free too. [url= http://www.apple.com/uk/shop/mac/education ]Apple Education[/url]
I would probably say a Macbook Pro, though if he'd be travelling a lot an air might be the way to go, although you sacrifice a little on processing grunt.
I'd just say spec the best you/he can budget as it will last longer.
Also get a decent portable drive, 1TB should suffice and get him to back up his stuff routinely!
The weight difference in the 13"Pro isnt worth sacrificing the extra power and battery for.
8gb and 256SSD with all files stored off the device on a drive works amazingly well here.
Whats the discount like via Apple Education, I can get 6% discount directly with Apple through my employer or 7% discount on currys/pc world
I would still go for the MacBook Pro without Retina (I don't think it's worth it) and a 500Gb standard (not SSD) hard drive at £899. If you want to splash out then a 1Tb drive and 8Gb RAM is £120 extra. That's the spec I currently have.
Put the standard and the Retina next to each other and think again!
The difference is massive.
In a home/desktop maybe but a portable I wouldn't get a standard drive - one knock and its goosed.
Also how much use? for what? Technical, Typing or both? Any specific software, screen use? What course?
Is it going to double as a TV?
Big cheap monitor and proper keyboard for a desk setup might be worth considering.
In a home/desktop maybe but a portable I wouldn't get a standard drive - one knock and its goosed.
If that is the case then every laptop in the world is dead... posted from a 4 year old standard drive laptop that has covered more miles, flights and bad packing than most.
Whats the discount like via Apple Education, I can get 6% discount directly with Apple through my employer or 7% discount on currys/pc world
Varies on the product - on some things it's quite stingy, but on a macbook pro it's about 15% (i bought one last month)
[i]Big cheap monitor and proper keyboard for a desk setup might be worth considering.[/i]
He's got a mac at home, this would be for uni work whilst in uni. 15% discount sounds good.
Missed that bit, thought the mac was at your home.
If that is the case then every laptop in the world is dead... posted from a 4 year old standard drive laptop that has covered more miles, flights and bad packing than most.
Having seen first hand what happens when one gets dropped whilst its running - get the SSD.
The only one I would get again with a standard drive would be the Vaio as it runs a shock protection system suspending the drive in milliseconds if it detects any variation in g-force.
yeah I've dropped loads in bags and in the house, the real thing is backup. The most I can lose is 1 day and the rebuild time is an hour really. How often do you drop a running laptop? What are you doing with them? An SSD is still a bit of a fancy nice to have for most things, I reckon on good wifi in a uni you would lose about 5mins if you dropped it and it died using a good cloud service.
The laptop I'm typing this from has chips out the corners and tape in a couple of places. You saw one time what happened to one HDD.
[i]Missed that bit, thought the mac was at your home.[/i]
it is, we live in the same house.
sorry thought that he was going away to uni
Does he need one if he has the Mac at home?
Apple HE contract price will be %13 off and 3 year AppleCare, if he can access that thru the institution.
If it's for carrying about all day then an Air 11", for working all day out the house then a 13 air for the extra battery.
Would avoid the retina MacBook as a PITA for usb sticks etc for uni file transfers etc (also costlier, which I assume is an issue).
No - I've seen many times whats happened to them.
A clumsy ex wife, 2 kids and idiot employees - do the maths.
An SSD isnt fancy now - Ebuyer have them from £50> so theres no excuse not to run one as a primary drive.
Certainly on anything new as the power savings, battery life and performance are far better than an trad hard drive.
The OP's son IS off to Uni hence needing the Macbook - amazing how many read what they "think is says" rather than what it actually says!
IA - why do you assume its a PITA for USB file transfers? No issues here on a 13"Retina Pro with 3 USB ports.
i presume he's talking about the new Macbook (not pro) which doesn't have any regular USB ports - only a USB-C port which is also where the charger plugs into
seems an odd move but whatevs. Apple were right when they discontinued the cd drives...
Budget? Surely that would dictate which Macbook he'll get?
I bought my wife a MBA 13" (late 2013) for her Uni work - 99% used for typing only, feather weight and the battery life is insane.
Meanwhile I'm typing this on a MBPr 13" (2014), with 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD. We have multiple monitors in the 'study' to hook up to if necessary. Best of both worlds!
I faced this decision just last week for my daughter
went for a MacBook Air 13" inch 128Gb by the student deal, £730
along with a flush fitting 128gb SDXC card for all music and photos etc
We looked at the new MacBook, but IMO the shorter battery life and lack of USB ports with USB-C, plus the loss of MagSafe charging lead, and the much higher price, didn't make up for the retina screen and larger SSD.
I thought the air keyboard was nicer for typing with too by the way.
[i]Budget? Surely that would dictate which Macbook he'll get?[/i]
Not really, I'd rather get him the right tool for the job.
MacBook Air 13" looks like the preferred option though.
Not really, I'd rather get him the right tool for the job.
Tools required 1st yr:
Well if he's off to uni a couple slabs of beer a monster pack of bog roll and location of nearest take away. Bank of mum and dad on speed dial. Oh and a handful of condoms 😉
Get an Air, maybe 2nd hand (ebay) though student deals may be a better option in your case. I did this (ebay) 18 mo ago and it's been perfect. Easy to carry, great battery life, easily powerful enough for all normal purposes, which is mostly fun and a bit of work in my case.
Previous Airs (I've had several) have sometimes broken at the hinge, but that was several years down the line and it will probably get dropped or stolen before that!
If I was a student again, 11" Air (nicer to carry around and use in confined spaces) then a cheap 24" monitor at the desk for more productive work, watching films, etc. Proper keyboard, mouse, big hard disk, all plugged into a USB hub.
Possibly go 13" if planning to do a lot of work elsewhere away from a bigger screen.
will be used for uni work, emails, web browsing.
...
Not really, I'd rather get him the right tool for the job.
What is the job, 1st year in what?
Graphic design?
Bashing out 100's of pages of englinsh lit?
Engineering?
Sciences?
Is it just for taking notes in lectures or for more heavy duty stuff?
Use a 15" MBP at work, great machines. The retina display is night and day over last, non-retina, but slightly higher resolution version I had previously
Would seriously consider the new 12" MacBook over an air because of the retina screen. Keyboard, mouse and monitor in the room and a much more portable machine for lectures (ha!) and library (ha ha!) time.
8gb, 256 SSD and a dropbox subscription should see him right. Internet access on campus will likley be blazing fast, so the biggest external drive on the market for all those torrents would be a good investment
[i]Is it just for taking notes in lectures or for more heavy duty stuff? [/i]
Notes, essays, presentations in terms of work so nothing too heavy. I'm torn between the 13" MacBook air with 256gig storage or the 13" MacBook pro with 128gig.
Weight wise there's only 230g between the two and battery life is similar.
Make it the 13" MBPr with 256 and you won't look back. 128 might leave him wanting. The screen makes the price difference worth it and as you point out, the weight is negligible.
I'm pretty sure 128gb will be enough storage. He uses spotify so won't be storing music on it. He has an external drive on his mac so could back up to that anyway.
Okay. Mine is just over a year old and I've used 125 out of the 256. Nothing out of the ordinary on it. 7gb of audio.
The new regular MacBooks are very nice, but I agree with Slowoldman 100%
My eyes aren't retina compatible ymmv
As mentioned, the air has an SDXC card slot that will allow for expansion a lot cheaper than the 128-256 upgrade off the shelf.
Slowoldmans suggestion seems good though.
Would avoid the retina MacBook as a PITA for usb sticks etc for uni file transfers etc
So how would he do it on another computer?
I've got the previous generation 13" MacBook Air and love it. Mine was a bit of an impulse buy as i'd wish i'd have gone for the bigger drive rather than the 128g but I have got a 64g sdxc card thats sits flush with the mac and usb drive cost nothing nowadays, I also don't miss the dvd drive.
The 11" does look nice but for me I much prefer the size of the 13" screen.
So how would he do it on another computer?
He'd plug in a USB stick, or take a mate's stick and plug it in his.
On a Macbook (not a pro, not an air. A 12" Macbook) there's no regular USB slot. He'd need an adapter or a type-c USB key, or a double-ender.
Look on the referb pages on the apple site. Lots of laptops there and a reasonable saving plus they come with the same warranty as a new one. The only difference is that they come in a plain box, Ive bought all mine that way.
I would also recommend buying from their website rather than instore as you get a better EU warranty than the UK one. My imac had a HD failure when it was 4 years old that according to the apple shop I took it to was only warrantied because I bought it off their website and not in store
[i]Look on the referb pages on the apple site. Lots of laptops there and a reasonable saving plus they come with the same warranty as a new one.[/i]
I had a quick look but the savings aren't great when you factor in the education discount.
Get the 12" Macbook with 256gb storage. It's cheap, light, pretty and he won't be able to do any gaming on it.
As for those who say retina isn't worth it. Don't believe a word, retina is stunning and for word processing and reading, it's invaluable, so much easier on the eye.
Also, wait until he gets to uni to buy microsoft office products, they'll most likely have a deal through the Uni for free/very cheap.
[i]It's cheap, light, pretty and he won't be able to do any gaming on it.[/i]
It's more expensive than the air or pro, it is lighter and whats wrong with gaming?
11" air and a separate screen left on my desk here. Great combo. Fits in my camelback where the bladder would normally go. Battery lasts most of a day for me.
You get used to the small screen, run all the apps full screen and use the four finger swipe to flick between them like an iPad. I like the portability more than the bigger screen. 128gb is plenty if you use Spotify and have somewhere else like an external drive for photos IMO.
I've been boringly evangelistic about the 11" Air since I first got one the moment the second generation one came out, and replaced that a couple of years ago. It's small, fast, and reliable, and still works brilliantly. The additional screen resolution on the 13" is pretty marginal, and I really don't think justifies the additional size and weight; the only real reason I can see to get the 13" is the better battery life.
However, I was finding the relatively low screen resolution increasingly frustrating for simple but tedious tasks like comparing diary dates with a doodle poll or combining documents - things that require switching from one window to another. As a result I just bought a 13" retina MacBook Pro which I run at the maximum resolution - it has the same pixel count as my 30" cinema display. I still hugely prefer the size and weight of the 11" Air, but the retina display has won me over and for me, with the work I do now (I'm an academic), is worth the weight penalty (and the huge cost!).
But horses for courses, and for the vast majority of things the 11" Air would be fine, so that would still be my top recommendation for your son.
Plus, with a MBP you can plugin 3x monitors... in addition to your laptop screen.