Mac 2017 vs Surface Pro 5 vs Asus Zenbook Pro

[martimrgp]

Before anything, I live in UK

 

I've made recently a topic asking what laptop should I get

 

I'm entering medical school, I don't care about price, only about portability, battery life and programs compatible with the os.

 

I'm not sure if I buy:

 

MacBook Pro 15" 2017 with Touchbar

Microsoft Surface Pro 5

Asus ZenBook Pro

 

I really need an opinion

P.s. I'm going to Oxford University (UK) if that helps

[Zando_]

MacBook Pro if you want Mac and are fine with running Windows in Bootcamp. 

 

Surface Pro if you want a touchscreen and are fine with no keyboard/paying a lot for the keyboard add on. 

 

ASUS  Zenbook if you don't want Mac, but still want an awesome looking all metal chassis and great performance. 

[martimrgp]

1 minute ago, Zando Bob said:

MacBook Pro if you want Mac and are fine with running Windows in Bootcamp. 

 

Surface Pro if you want a touchscreen and are fine with no keyboard/paying a lot for the keyboard add on. 

 

ASUS  Zenbook if you don't want Mac, but still want an awesome looking all metal chassis and great performance. 

Idk about bootcamp

I don't mind paying a fortune on add-ons (and yes, I'm working, no daddy money)

ZenBook - I like it but I've had issues with asus before, maybe my bad luck

 

Confused  

[Guest lilbman]

Bootcamp on the Macbook Pro requires using the dGPU which means a much shorter battery life.

 

Surface Pro 5 and Zenbook Pro I do believe net good battery life and will work much better with Windows than the Macbook Pro will.

 

EDIT-I'd get the Zenbook Pro for its battery life, screen, decent dGPU, and upgrade-ability.

[martimrgp]

2 minutes ago, lilbman said:

Bootcamp on the Macbook Pro requires using the dGPU which means a much shorter battery life.

 

Surface Pro 5 and Zenbook Pro I do believe net good battery life and will work much better with Windows than the Macbook Pro will.

 

EDIT-I'd get the Zenbook Pro for its battery life, screen, decent dGPU, and upgrade-ability.

How bad will be battery in mb pro?

Is ZenBook reliable?

[The Sloth]

how about an XPS 15 

[martimrgp]

Just now, nerdslayer1 said:

how about an XPS 15 

From experience of research and my friends, dell, lenovo bad heating issues

A no for me :v

[Zando_]

Just now, martimrgp said:

From experience of research and my friends, dell, lenovo bad heating issues

A no for me :v

XPS 15 won't be any worse heat wise than a MacBook Pro. Though it helps to know what you want, so you don't get overwhelmed with options. I'd personally get the Mac, but then I'm an Apple fanboy and don't mind tinkering with settings and such. And I doubt the battery life can be that bad in bootcamp. 

[DrMacintosh]

11 minutes ago, lilbman said:

will work much better with Windows than the Macbook Pro will.

The MacBook runs Windows natively. Nothing doesnt work 

[Daley]

Personally, I would opt to get the Zenbook unless you really prefer OSX. You may have programmes as part of your degree that are designed to only run on windows and whilst you could use the university computers for them, it's always nice to be able to use them natively on your own laptop so you don't limit yourself. Obviously you can use bootcamp and if your uni is anything like mine they will probably offer you a free windows license that you could use, but really I wouldn't recommend a mac as your only computer unless you were doing content creation etc. I have a MacBook as my only laptop as I do photography as a hobby and at the time there wasn't really any cost benefit to getting another ultrabook over a MacBook and I really like OSX for day to day, plus I had a desktop as backup for anything else I needed windows for.

[DrMacintosh]

8 minutes ago, martimrgp said:

How bad will be battery in mb pro?

If you get the 13" model battery life wont be affected much at all inside Windows. 

[The Sloth]

5 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

I'd personally get the Mac, but then I'm an Apple fanboy and don't mind tinkering with settings and such.

older Macs yes, newer Macs have quality issues, giving opinion while saying "i am a apple fanboy" seems ironic 

5 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

I doubt the battery life can be that bad in bootcamp. 

wrong, horrible battery life

 

7 minutes ago, martimrgp said:

From experience of research and my friends, dell, lenovo bad heating issues

A no for me :v

OP XPS 15 will be better than the MacBook in terms of Thermal performance.  

[martimrgp]

1 minute ago, Daley said:

Personally, I would opt to get the Zenbook unless you really prefer OSX. You may have programmes as part of your degree that are designed to only run on windows and whilst you could use the university computers for them, it's always nice to be able to use them natively on your own laptop so you don't limit yourself. Obviously you can use bootcamp and if your uni is anything like mine they will probably offer you a free windows license that you could use, but really I wouldn't recommend a mac as your only computer unless you were doing content creation etc. I have a MacBook as my only laptop as I do photography as a hobby and at the time there wasn't really any cost benefit to getting another ultrabook over a MacBook and I really like OSX for day to day, plus I had a desktop as backup for anything else I needed windows for.

Oh thanks! Is there any other laptop you would recommend?

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, nerdslayer1 said:

older Macs yes, newer Macs have quality issues, giving opinion while saying "i am a apple fanboy" seems ironic 

I say that so they know I'm always going to be biased towards a mac if it's an option and the use case warrants it (this case does, if he wanted to game a lot, then it wouldn't).

[DrMacintosh]

2 minutes ago, nerdslayer1 said:

OP XPS 15 will be better than the MacBook in terms of Thermal performance.  

Depends on the model 

 

13" MacBook Pros dont exceed 50C doing anything not using the GPU

[The Sloth]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

13" MacBook Pros dont exceed 50C doing anything not using the GPU

...yes the 13-inch model, we were talking about the 15 inch model with a Dgpu. 

[Zando_]

4 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

The MacBook runs Windows natively. Nothing doesnt work 

I explained that in the other thread. Bootcamp is just to let Windows boot, provides drivers for Apple's hardware, and keeps the Mac from being confused by having an NTFS partition. 

[glitchmaster0001]

id say get the macbook pro. In my opinion, apple laptops have been the gold standard of laptops for school. Go to a university and you will see a majority of students running macbooks. Go to the library and you will see most of the computer to be iMacs. As stupid as this seems, If lots of people buy it, then it has to be good right? if not then Apple should've gone under ages ago. Plus macOS is a very good operating system and everything just feels much smoother. If you can afford it, then I would suggest the Macbook Pro. 

[DrMacintosh]

6 minutes ago, glitchmaster0001 said:

Plus macOS is a very good operating system and everything just feels much smoother. If you can afford it, then I would suggest the Macbook Pro. 

Also the MacBook Pro comes with useful software like 

 

iMovie

Garageband

Pages

Keynote

Numbers (where as you get no free office suite with Windows 10 unless its under a crap 1 year promo or something)

 

And MacOS is just more stable and reliable overall. Plus no forced updates 

 

etc.

[DrMacintosh]

49 minutes ago, martimrgp said:

I'm entering medical school

For med school most everything is probably going to work for MacOS. Not sure what kind of programs you need but they should all work and if not Bootcamp is there for whatever isnt on MacOS (outside of games the list of Windows only software is surprisingly small) 

 

I recommend the MacBook Pro simply because of the OS and the software you get with it. There certainly are more powerful machines that cost less but you have to use Windows which is falling out of favor with some. 

 

• Touch Bar and Touch ID
• 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz
• 16GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory
• 512GB SSD storage
• Radeon Pro 555 with 2GB memory
• Four Thunderbolt 3 ports
• $2,599 USD

Those are the specs I recommend, nothing special expect a storage bump. You could forgo that and just use external drives if you want. Oh and it stay pretty cool apparently. 

 

 

 

[glitchmaster0001]

2 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

For med school most everything is probably going to work for MacOS. Not sure what kind of programs you need but they should all work and if not Bootcamp is there for whatever isnt on MacOS (outside of games the list of Windows only software is surprisingly small) 

 

I recommend the MacBook Pro simply because of the OS and the software you get with it. There certainly are more powerful machines that cost less but you have to use Windows which is falling out of favor with some. 

 

• Touch Bar and Touch ID
• 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz
• 16GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory
• 512GB SSD storage
• Radeon Pro 555 with 2GB memory
• Four Thunderbolt 3 ports
• $2,599 USD

Those are the specs I recommend, nothing special expect a storage bump. You could forgo that and just use external drives if you want. Oh and it stay pretty cool apparently

 

Hey I am looking for a MacBook Pro 13 inch and I was wondering should I get the 8GB ram or the 16GB ram? I'm looking at the touchbar model and I need 13 inch since it's going to be my school computer for programming, web browsing, media consemption, etc when I can't use my desktop. 

[DrMacintosh]

8 minutes ago, glitchmaster0001 said:

Hey I am looking for a MacBook Pro 13 inch and I was wondering should I get the 8GB ram or the 16GB ram? I'm looking at the touchbar model and I need 13 inch since it's going to be my school computer for programming, web browsing, media consemption, etc when I can't use my desktop. 

The programing this is the only thing that gives me any kind of worry. Depending on what you are doing you might need 16GB

 

I currently have the base 2016 MacBook Pro 13" with 8GB of RAM and am running these programs rn

• Safari with YouTube, FaceBook, Google Drive, Canvas, Reddit, and the LTT Forums pinned plus a free tab
• Mail 
• Photos 
• iTunes 
• Twitter from the MacApp store
• various background tasks like Duet Display, Creative Cloud, and iStats

And together these are all using ~5.90GB of RAM and that is without any MacOS compression kicking in. 

 

So 8GB should be plenty and if you need more maybe close a few programs? 

[glitchmaster0001]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

The programing this is the only thing that gives me any kind of worry. Depending on what you are doing you might need 16GB

 

I currently have the base 2016 MacBook Pro 13" with 8GB of RAM and am running these programs rn

• Safari with YouTube, FaceBook, Google Drive, Canvas, Reddit, and the LTT Forums pinned plus a free tab
• Mail 
• Photos 
• iTunes 
• Twitter from the MacApp store
• various background tasks like Duet Display, Creative Cloud, and iStats

And together these are all using ~5.90GB of RAM 

 

So 8GB should be plenty and if you need more maybe close a few programs? 

the thing is that I want to have the MacBook last at least 5 years before I end up selling it off and buying a new computer. Thats why I am concerned about 8GB RAM, also the 2 ports kinda concern me as well, so thats why I though maybe 4 ports would be better? what are your thoughts on the baseline model?  

[martimrgp]

2 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

For med school most everything is probably going to work for MacOS. Not sure what kind of programs you need but they should all work and if not Bootcamp is there for whatever isnt on MacOS (outside of games the list of Windows only software is surprisingly small) 

 

I recommend the MacBook Pro simply because of the OS and the software you get with it. There certainly are more powerful machines that cost less but you have to use Windows which is falling out of favor with some. 

 

• Touch Bar and Touch ID
• 2.8GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 3.8GHz
• 16GB 2133MHz LPDDR3 memory
• 512GB SSD storage
• Radeon Pro 555 with 2GB memory
• Four Thunderbolt 3 ports
• $2,599 USD

Those are the specs I recommend, nothing special expect a storage bump. You could forgo that and just use external drives if you want. Oh and it stay pretty cool apparently. 

 

 

 

Thanks for your advice, but as some people said before, won't I get problems with programms of school?

Battery life would be decreased by what people said so...  

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, glitchmaster0001 said:

8GB RAM

MacOS will easily make it past 5 years with 8GB of RAM. 

 

1 minute ago, glitchmaster0001 said:

what are your thoughts on the baseline model? 

I love mine. No performance complaints at all. The CPU is powerful, it stays reasonably cool. (currently at 43C on the charger while doing the things I listed on my lap).

 

Af far as ports go if you are concerned get something like this: https://www.amazon.com/HooToo-Adapter-Charging-MacBook-Chromebook/dp/B019R9ILTG/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1498079651&sr=8-3&keywords=USB+C+dock

 

and you won't need anymore I/O

 

The nice thing about having 4 ports though is that you can charge from the right or the left side. Also the USB-C charging cable is designed to get pulled out if you trip on it, so don't worry about not having MagSafe.