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Laptop for a collage student.

limegorilla
By limegorilla
in Laptops and Pre-Built Systems
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Ok. So I have just started collage and I am doing quite a bit more coding than I thought. Which is good.

But, my current laptop (Razer Blade Stealth) isn't cut out for it. The battery barely lasts first period (I mean it's a three hour period, and I am hammering it a bit, but still - not good enough) it also chugs a bit when compiling simple programs.

 

So I'm parting with it. I'm planning on selling it either here or eBay for ~ £1000

 

Now I am currently set on a Mac. Feel free to lynch me for that, and I am interested in other avenues. Especially due to the fact that I can use the Mac Keyboard, and It's fine, but that is it. It's just fine.

What I am looking for in a nutshell

  • I'm doing increasingly complex C, C#, WebDev work, as well as light photoshop (video & gamedev I can do on my desktop) - I'm going to need hardware that still won't choke in about two years, and that will have a decent(ish) resell value.
  • USB-C charging. Don't care about thunderbolt, just want the charging
  • A big battery. As long as I can get
  • I prefer a smaller laptop. 13"
  • Nice media features (screen, speakers)
  • I don't want to spend more than £1,700. I will go refurbished, and at a very big push, used, but it must come with a years warranty.

Thanks!

Bow down to me humans.

I can't help if you don't quote me. How am I supposed to know if you need my premium support? Now starting at £399.99 a year.

Also, be a sport and mark the correct answer as the correct answer. It will help pour souls in the future when they are stuck and need guidance.

"If it works, proceed to take it apart and 'make it work better.' Then cry for help when it breaks." - Me, about five minutes ago when my train of thought wandered.

Remember kids, A janky solution is still a solution.

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Mac is a good choice for the battery life, but even at £1700 you might find the Adobe suite of products choking from day one on them.

 

At least that is what I found when I was forced to use the E-waste product InDesign for a publishing class; and that was on 4K and 5K iMacs.

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1 minute ago, Andrew 1337 said:

Mac is a good choice for the battery life, but even at £1700 you might find the Adobe suite of products choking from day one on them.

 

At least that is what I found when I was forced to use the E-waste product InDesign for a publishing class; and that was on 4K and 5K iMacs.

At most I'll be using Dreamweaver (tho I might switch to Brackets), (light) Photoshop and apparently Audition according to my syllabus

Bow down to me humans.

I can't help if you don't quote me. How am I supposed to know if you need my premium support? Now starting at £399.99 a year.

Also, be a sport and mark the correct answer as the correct answer. It will help pour souls in the future when they are stuck and need guidance.

"If it works, proceed to take it apart and 'make it work better.' Then cry for help when it breaks." - Me, about five minutes ago when my train of thought wandered.

Remember kids, A janky solution is still a solution.

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2019 13" base mode w/ the Quad Core i5, get the 16GB RAM option, and get as much storage as you feel you need. 

967935135_ScreenShot2019-09-28at11_17_27AM.thumb.png.41639df988ac347de7e9000d0c879b0d.png

(That's US retail). Your country should have its own Apple Education Store. 

 

Professors will laugh at you for buying a Mac, but once you fire up Bootcamp (Which you'll need depending on what program you're coding C in) you'll be the one laughing at them ?

 

You can get a student discount on Apple's website too. 

Laptop: 2019 16" MacBook Pro i7, 512GB, 5300M 4GB, 16GB DDR4 | Phone: iPhone 13 Pro Max 128GB | Wearables: Apple Watch SE | Car: 2007 Ford Taurus SE | CPU: R7 5700X | Mobo: ASRock B450M Pro4 | RAM: 32GB 3200 | GPU: ASRock RX 5700 8GB | Case: Apple PowerMac G5 | OS: Win 11 | Storage: 1TB Crucial P3 NVME SSD, 1TB PNY CS900, & 4TB WD Blue HDD | PSU: Be Quiet! Pure Power 11 600W | Display: LG 27GL83A-B 1440p @ 144Hz, Dell S2719DGF 1440p @144Hz | Cooling: Wraith Prism | Keyboard: G610 Orion Cherry MX Brown | Mouse: G305 | Audio: Audio Technica ATH-M50X & Blue Snowball | Server: 2018 Core i3 Mac mini, 128GB SSD, Intel UHD 630, 16GB DDR4 | Storage: OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad (6TB WD Blue HDD, 12TB Seagate Barracuda, 1TB Crucial SSD, 2TB Seagate Barracuda HDD)
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1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

You can get a student discount on Apple's website too. 

Does that apply to refurbished models (if I wanted to go the route?)

Bow down to me humans.

I can't help if you don't quote me. How am I supposed to know if you need my premium support? Now starting at £399.99 a year.

Also, be a sport and mark the correct answer as the correct answer. It will help pour souls in the future when they are stuck and need guidance.

"If it works, proceed to take it apart and 'make it work better.' Then cry for help when it breaks." - Me, about five minutes ago when my train of thought wandered.

Remember kids, A janky solution is still a solution.

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Just now, limegorilla said:

Does that apply to refurbished models (if I wanted to go the route?)

I don't believe so. The Refurbs are already discounted pretty well. Usually more than buying new with the student discount. If you're going for a refurb, see if you can afford one with 4 TB3 ports. It really gives you flexibility and limitless IO options. 

Laptop: 2019 16" MacBook Pro i7, 512GB, 5300M 4GB, 16GB DDR4 | Phone: iPhone 13 Pro Max 128GB | Wearables: Apple Watch SE | Car: 2007 Ford Taurus SE | CPU: R7 5700X | Mobo: ASRock B450M Pro4 | RAM: 32GB 3200 | GPU: ASRock RX 5700 8GB | Case: Apple PowerMac G5 | OS: Win 11 | Storage: 1TB Crucial P3 NVME SSD, 1TB PNY CS900, & 4TB WD Blue HDD | PSU: Be Quiet! Pure Power 11 600W | Display: LG 27GL83A-B 1440p @ 144Hz, Dell S2719DGF 1440p @144Hz | Cooling: Wraith Prism | Keyboard: G610 Orion Cherry MX Brown | Mouse: G305 | Audio: Audio Technica ATH-M50X & Blue Snowball | Server: 2018 Core i3 Mac mini, 128GB SSD, Intel UHD 630, 16GB DDR4 | Storage: OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad (6TB WD Blue HDD, 12TB Seagate Barracuda, 1TB Crucial SSD, 2TB Seagate Barracuda HDD)
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4 minutes ago, limegorilla said:

At most I'll be using Dreamweaver (tho I might switch to Brackets), (light) Photoshop and apparently Audition according to my syllabus

You should be fine, as long as you don't need to work with ultra large image files; or render out any video.

 

I would follow DrMac's advice.

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Just now, Andrew 1337 said:

You should be fine, as long as you don't need to work with ultra large image files; or render out any video.

 

I would follow DrMac's advice.

I've decided all video work I will do I will just do on my desktop. Most of that is month long projects anyway

Bow down to me humans.

I can't help if you don't quote me. How am I supposed to know if you need my premium support? Now starting at £399.99 a year.

Also, be a sport and mark the correct answer as the correct answer. It will help pour souls in the future when they are stuck and need guidance.

"If it works, proceed to take it apart and 'make it work better.' Then cry for help when it breaks." - Me, about five minutes ago when my train of thought wandered.

Remember kids, A janky solution is still a solution.

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6 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

I don't believe so. The Refurbs are already discounted pretty well. Usually more than buying new with the student discount. If you're going for a refurb, see if you can afford one with 4 TB3 ports. It really gives you flexibility and limitless IO options. 

Is it worth bumping it up to the 2.4 GHz model over the 1.4 one? They turbo pretty close

Bow down to me humans.

I can't help if you don't quote me. How am I supposed to know if you need my premium support? Now starting at £399.99 a year.

Also, be a sport and mark the correct answer as the correct answer. It will help pour souls in the future when they are stuck and need guidance.

"If it works, proceed to take it apart and 'make it work better.' Then cry for help when it breaks." - Me, about five minutes ago when my train of thought wandered.

Remember kids, A janky solution is still a solution.

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2 minutes ago, limegorilla said:

Is it worth bumping it up to the 2.4 GHz model over the 1.4 one? They turbo pretty close

I don’t really think so. And it’s especially because of that turbo speed. The TDPs are rated different, but that just means the 2.4GHz model consumes way more power. They perform roughly the same. 
 

The benefits the 2.4GHz brings is better cooling and 2 more Thunderbolt 3 ports. If you want those things, the 2.4GHz would be a good option. However if you have a limited budget, I would pick RAM and Storage over all else. 

Laptop: 2019 16" MacBook Pro i7, 512GB, 5300M 4GB, 16GB DDR4 | Phone: iPhone 13 Pro Max 128GB | Wearables: Apple Watch SE | Car: 2007 Ford Taurus SE | CPU: R7 5700X | Mobo: ASRock B450M Pro4 | RAM: 32GB 3200 | GPU: ASRock RX 5700 8GB | Case: Apple PowerMac G5 | OS: Win 11 | Storage: 1TB Crucial P3 NVME SSD, 1TB PNY CS900, & 4TB WD Blue HDD | PSU: Be Quiet! Pure Power 11 600W | Display: LG 27GL83A-B 1440p @ 144Hz, Dell S2719DGF 1440p @144Hz | Cooling: Wraith Prism | Keyboard: G610 Orion Cherry MX Brown | Mouse: G305 | Audio: Audio Technica ATH-M50X & Blue Snowball | Server: 2018 Core i3 Mac mini, 128GB SSD, Intel UHD 630, 16GB DDR4 | Storage: OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad (6TB WD Blue HDD, 12TB Seagate Barracuda, 1TB Crucial SSD, 2TB Seagate Barracuda HDD)
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Either XPS13 or MBP13.

NEW PC build: Blank Heaven   minimalist white and black PC     Old S340 build log "White Heaven"        The "LIGHTCANON" flashlight build log        Project AntiRoll (prototype)        Custom speaker project

Spoiler

Ryzen 3950X | AMD Vega Frontier Edition | ASUS X570 Pro WS | Corsair Vengeance LPX 64GB | NZXT H500 | Seasonic Prime Fanless TX-700 | Custom loop | Coolermaster SK630 White | Logitech MX Master 2S | Samsung 980 Pro 1TB + 970 Pro 512GB | Samsung 58" 4k TV | Scarlett 2i4 | 2x AT2020

 

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30 minutes ago, limegorilla said:

Ok. So I have just started collage and I am doing quite a bit more coding than I thought. Which is good.

But, my current laptop (Razer Blade Stealth) isn't cut out for it. The battery barely lasts first period (I mean it's a three hour period, and I am hammering it a bit, but still - not good enough) it also chugs a bit when compiling simple programs.

 

So I'm parting with it. I'm planning on selling it either here or eBay for ~ £1000

 

Now I am currently set on a Mac. Feel free to lynch me for that, and I am interested in other avenues. Especially due to the fact that I can use the Mac Keyboard, and It's fine, but that is it. It's just fine.

What I am looking for in a nutshell

  • I'm doing increasingly complex C, C#, WebDev work, as well as light photoshop (video & gamedev I can do on my desktop) - I'm going to need hardware that still won't choke in about two years, and that will have a decent(ish) resell value.
  • USB-C charging. Don't care about thunderbolt, just want the charging
  • A big battery. As long as I can get
  • I prefer a smaller laptop. 13"
  • Nice media features (screen, speakers)
  • I don't want to spend more than £1,700. I will go refurbished, and at a very big push, used, but it must come with a years warranty.

Thanks!

Id say go with either the LG Gram or the XPS 13 for windows and a MacBook Pro 13 inch. But if u can wait I'd get the redesigned Macbooks in 2021

If u want a response then YOU'D best Quote me so I can see it.

Shouldn't have to say this but the few ruin it for them all......

 

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