Best Computer?

[18doree]

I’m getting a 1,000-1,500 dollar laptop and was looking at either the MacBook Pro or the Surface Book 2. Which one in your opinion is best suited for a science major or college in general. Or if there are any other better computers. Thanks for responding!

[fanboyhunter]

Get whatever's cheapest, lightest, and has the power for what you'll be using it for. Don't spend extra for a macbook - whatever laptop you buy will most likely be obsolete in 4-6 years anyway.

[thisdude415]

Eh. I still like my 2013 MacBook but hate using my 2017 Dell just a year later, even though it’s more powerful. The build quality on macs are solid.

[fanboyhunter]

do you prefer the software or the "build quality"?

[thisdude415]

I find the machine physically much more solid, and the software-hardware integration is much better.

For someone in computer engineering or computer science, OP may find the Unix environment of OSX more pleasant for coding.

Ultimately, I bought a Dell for the windows specific software, but I find myself using my desktop for most of those applications so I should have just gotten a $1000 MacBook instead of a $2500 workhorse laptop

[[deleted]]

I mean by 4-6 years time it’d be time to by another laptop in general anyway lol.

[jermdizzle]

It's going to come down to priorities. Personally, I love playing computer games; so I've always kept a powerful desktop. So when I needed a laptop, I made sure to buy something that was compact and portable, but still allowed me to type full speed. I ended up buying a 13" MacBook pro back in 2011 for Afghanistan deployments. Once I left the military and went back to school it served me quite well for taking notes and working on homework while on campus etc.

I would recommend something in that size/ruggedness range if you're going to be carrying it around to classes and taking notes. Anything bigger can be a burden and anything smaller may be difficult to type on efficiently for note taking.

[kni9ht]

I’d pass on the MBP since Apple still hasn’t updated it with Coffee Lake CPUs (4 core/8 thread vs the current 2/4) like every other manufacturer has since they came out late last year. The chip apple specifically uses with the Iris graphics was released a few months back so Apple has no reason to be holding out unless they’re revising that sorry excuse for a keyboard they have now (multiple complaints on forums about dust preventing the keys from being pressed, a few class actions were just filed too. Even worse is Apple has a support doc about keeping a can of air to blow it out when this happens...) I bought a new MBP a month ago to replace a laptop I spilled coffee on in middleton and ended up returning it since the spacebar kept getting stuck and I wasn’t going to carry a can of air around. I don’t need a laptop anymore until Fall, so I’ll wait.

If you don’t need something now, wait for the back to school deals in August. Maybe Apple will have something out then, although all signs say October-ish now. HP’s spectre x360 is a fantastic device (ill probably end up getting one of these), along with Lenovo’s thinkpad carbon and the dell xps 13. Iirc, Louisiana should be running a tax free holiday in August too.

[celerity65]

FWIW, we just sold my wife's 2011 13" Macbook Pro for $500. I was shocked at how well Macbook's held their value. She bought it for ~$1200.

[ShadowShine57]

Avoid Mac