Laptop for College

[AndyGamming]

Hi!

For a few days now I looked for a laptop for college. There are so many options, with their ups and downs, and I can't really decide over a model.

The laptop it's going to be used at office work, browsing and movies. The main advantage of the laptop should be the screen.

The models which got my attention are the MacBook Air 2020 and the Asus Zenbook.

What do you think and what would you recommend?

[George.]

which Zenbook?

Since office work (general light-to-medium computing) isn't very heavy of a workload, you can aim for sth with 4-6 cores, as much ram as possible (chase the value, won't need more than 16gb in reality) (if you like to multitask and open a lot of browser tabs) and integrated gpu (if you're not gonna be playing games). 

From there it's about battery life (which is subjective, since it's about how you use the machine), I/O interfaces (if you want more versatility in terms of what you can plug in and not) and personal taste kind of stuff (design, keyboard build, trackpad, speaker sound, screen res and color accuracy, etc.)

 

And in the case of Macbook vs Zenbook, which OS floats your boat?

[AndyGamming]

1 minute ago, George. said:

which Zenbook?

https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ASUS-ZenBook-14-UX434FAC/

[George.]

14 minutes ago, AndyGamming said:

https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ASUS-ZenBook-14-UX434FAC/

both are pretty solid, I'd probably buy the Zenbook, since I'm more of a Windows kind-a-guy. And if it's a cheaper deal I'd spend the rest of the difference money on an external HDD +/- some extra dongles (but that's a techie's preference).

 

What do you want from a laptop?

The macbook has a better screen (since you care about that), maybe that's your selling point? 

It also has stronger native encryption if you worry that someone might try to hijack stuff from you in public places (since we're talking about college)

[marmour]

Huawei Matebook 13 is quite a nice windows alternative to MacBook. Good screen, decent performance and competitive price (if it's available in your region)

[AndyGamming]

7 minutes ago, George. said:

both are pretty solid, I'd probably buy the Zenbook, since I'm more of a Windows kind-a-guy. And if it's a cheaper deal I'd spend the rest of the difference money on an external HDD +/- some extra dongles (but that's a techie's preference).

 

What do you want from a laptop?

The macbook has a better screen (since you care about that), maybe that's your selling point? 

It also has stronger native encryption if you worry that someone might try to hijack stuff from you in public places (since we're talking about college)

I want it to be portable and get the best screen experience in terms of movies. It will be used just for the basics, like browsing, office work. So yes, that's why I looked over the Macbook. I won't gaming on it because I have the desktop for this job.

The Macbook seems perfect in this budget, but I don't know if the thermal problem it's a big issue as it's talked about.

[Darkseth]

10 hours ago, AndyGamming said:

The laptop it's going to be used at office work, browsing and movies. The main advantage of the laptop should be the screen.

For THIS, the Macbook Air does not have a thermal problem. Maybe, the Fans will start at their minimum very silent 2700 rpm~, below 70°C, but that's it.

Basic office, browsing like normal people (maybe <10 normal Tabs?), streaming, no issues. Typing Documents/notes, also no problem.
Performance of the Dual core is also perfectly fine for these Tasks.

The only issue will be, if you need some more performance headroom. Even the i5 Quad Core won't be magically better, since it will throttle even faster (4 Cores heat up mo re than 2). It also is always a few °C hotter. However, 

If you don't mind opening it up, this will increase the thermal headroom greatly: 

 

Or this: 

You can take that black thing away on the bottom part, so the thermal pad has direct contact with the Aluminum of the Bottom Case.
I personally did NOT do this Mod on my 2018 Model, and i had absolutely no thermal issues ( = it never hit 100°C) during normal, everyday Tasks.

 

If you do this Mod, even the i5 Quad Core will be decent, and have a bit more headroom for the future (Even if it throttles, Multicore performance is still above the Dual Core).

But the i3 will be fine if it's much cheaper (US/UK the price difference is 100 bucks, here in germany it's only 50€)

Aaand the Results: 

Still, keep in Mind... You only get the Macbook Air here, if MacOS is what you need/want. Otherwise... there are many <1000 bucks Notebooks, that are very good. Thinkpad lineup for example, HP Elitebook, etc.
Every Notebook has it's own Pros and Cons.

 

Display: I had the 2018 Air, the 2019 and 2020 have the same Display, but with Truetone. I liked the Display alot. 400 nits brightness is perfectly fine, it's sharp, the calibration is great. I enjoyed videos with it.
The 16:10 Format (instead 16:9) is absolutely great. Every Notebook should have that. You will love that for Office/browsing.

[AndyGamming]

2 hours ago, Darkseth said:

For THIS, the Macbook Air does not have a thermal problem. Maybe, the Fans will start at their minimum very silent 2700 rpm~, below 70°C, but that's it.

Basic office, browsing like normal people (maybe <10 normal Tabs?), streaming, no issues. Typing Documents/notes, also no problem.
Performance of the Dual core is also perfectly fine for these Tasks.

The only issue will be, if you need some more performance headroom. Even the i5 Quad Core won't be magically better, since it will throttle even faster (4 Cores heat up mo re than 2). It also is always a few °C hotter. However, 

If you don't mind opening it up, this will increase the thermal headroom greatly: 

 

Or this: 

You can take that black thing away on the bottom part, so the thermal pad has direct contact with the Aluminum of the Bottom Case.
I personally did NOT do this Mod on my 2018 Model, and i had absolutely no thermal issues ( = it never hit 100°C) during normal, everyday Tasks.

 

If you do this Mod, even the i5 Quad Core will be decent, and have a bit more headroom for the future (Even if it throttles, Multicore performance is still above the Dual Core).

But the i3 will be fine if it's much cheaper (US/UK the price difference is 100 bucks, here in germany it's only 50€)

Aaand the Results: 

Still, keep in Mind... You only get the Macbook Air here, if MacOS is what you need/want. Otherwise... there are many <1000 bucks Notebooks, that are very good. Thinkpad lineup for example, HP Elitebook, etc.
Every Notebook has it's own Pros and Cons.

 

Display: I had the 2018 Air, the 2019 and 2020 have the same Display, but with Truetone. I liked the Display alot. 400 nits brightness is perfectly fine, it's sharp, the calibration is great. I enjoyed videos with it.
The 16:10 Format (instead 16:9) is absolutely great. Every Notebook should have that. You will love that for Office/browsing.

Thank you for the detailed comment. I'm just looking for good office performance and a nice screen for movies.

I'm from Romania and the difference of price for the i5 version is 50$.

I checked for windows ultrabooks, but I didn't really found something interesting.

The only models which seems interesting are the Lenovo Yoga S740 and the Asus Zenbook, but I think that there are some models I didn't checked.

[Darkseth]

How much more expensive would the Macbook Pro 13" base model (2 Thunderbolt, 256/8gb) be?
If it's not too much, you could think about.
Otherwise, the Air should be just fine for office.
But that also depends what kind of Office... Extremely Large excel files with calculations etc might become a bit more taxing.

Also, Browser Games do let the CPU hit 100°C (i tried a random clicker Game, Doge Clicker 2).

Edit: How about Dell XPS 13 models?
Or Thinkpad T490/T495~? Their Screen is "okay", in my Opinion the Macbook Air display is better. And  Speakers are MUCH better on the Macbook Air.

[AndyGamming]

3 minutes ago, Darkseth said:

How much more expensive would the Macbook Pro 13" base model (2 Thunderbolt, 256/8gb) be?
If it's not too much, you could think about.
Otherwise, the Air should be just fine for office.
But that also depends what kind of Office... Extremely Large excel files with calculations etc might become a bit more taxing.

Also, Browser Games do let the CPU hit 100°C (i tried a random clicker Game, Doge Clicker 2).

Edit: How about Dell XPS 13 models?
Or Thinkpad T490/T495~? Their Screen is "okay", in my Opinion the Macbook Air display is better. And  Speakers are MUCH better on the Macbook Air.

The difference of the price between the Air and the 13 inch Pro 2020 would be like 400€. Same for the XPS 13 models.

It’s normal activity, not something that would blow up a laptop.

[George.]

22 hours ago, AndyGamming said:

I want it to be portable and get the best screen experience in terms of movies. It will be used just for the basics, like browsing, office work. So yes, that's why I looked over the Macbook. I won't gaming on it because I have the desktop for this job.

The Macbook seems perfect in this budget, but I don't know if the thermal problem it's a big issue as it's talked about.

thermals won't be an issue for basic computing needs.