College laptop advice

[Eoghan mulligan]

Brief background....

I am currently in college, where i am studying engineering. After working for the summer, i have decided to purchase a laptop for the up coming year. i do have a bias towards apple as i have an iPhone and have always been more then happy with there products and service after purchase. 

 

Perceived options....

so far i am looking at he following: 

• 2015 MacBook Retina (Baseline Model) 
• 2015 MacBook Pro 13'' (Baseline Model) 
• Dell XPS 13 (8gb ram with non touch, 1080p screen) 

 

What I need it for....

• MS Word processing (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) 
• Potentially some CAD (Solidworks, AutoCAD)
• General web browsing (Youtube, Gmail, Websites)  

 

Current thoughts.....

As of today, i am leading towards the MacBook. I am well aware of the common knocks against the product. I have used the keyboard and im perfectly happy with it. the usb type c is also a non issue as i have not used a usb for a long time as i keep everything in the cloud. the main concern for me the is the processing power and weather it could run as id need it. i am a huge fan of the design, its size and the space grey color option. I have also heard from multiply sources that macs age well compared to windows alternatives. 

 

Anyway any comments and advice is welcome. 

[Burusutazu]

Truthfully, just get what you feel would be the best option. All of those laptops can handle everything you mentioned well.

[Eoghan mulligan]

sorry, i dont understand what your question is ?????

[Nineshadow]

If you need an ultrabook with dedicated GPU then Asus uX303LN/LB.

[shirokado]

Just grab a macbook, they generally last longer than and have a much higher resale value. Not to mention Apple's support is great, other brands have cancerous RMA processes.

[Sam Z Man]

Get a mobile workstation, that would kick a macbooks ass in cad.

[Sam Z Man]

I have also heard from multiply sources that macs age well compared to windows alternatives.

Not True! They have identical components and cost more and they thermal throttle to hell when you push them to the limit, so no they do not age well, whoever says this I assume is also the type of person who say's "macs are better for video editing" (also a massive load of Bullshit).

[Eoghan mulligan]

Not True! They have identical components and cost more and they thermal throttle to hell when you push them to the limit, so no they do not age well, whoever says this I assume is also the type of person who say's "macs are better for video editing" (also a massive load of Bullshit).

 

i thought they aged better due to the fact that the probability of the mac getting a virus is much lower. also ive heard that the mac os deals with downloads/ installs in a better way where it does it in one complete act. im not to sure about it. 

[Ertman]

Will you actually use laptop for CAD? Are you just working with 2D drawings or will be doing modelling as well?

I wouldn't really recommend the MacBook (core m) unless all you are doing is word processing, correspondence etc. I am unsure how well or poorly the CoreM can handle AutoCad.

The other two will probably be fine for 2D CAD work except the screen size, 13 is a bit small.

Modelling (if any is being done) can be done with the Dell and the Pro, but should be left to something with more processing power.

[Ertman]

i thought they aged better due to the fact that the probability of the mac getting a virus is much lower. also ive heard that the mac os deals with downloads/ installs in a better way where it does it in one complete act. im not to sure about it.

Nah, this is rubbish. I own and use a Mac and a windows PC

[don_svetlio]

i thought they aged better due to the fact that the probability of the mac getting a virus is much lower. also ive heard that the mac os deals with downloads/ installs in a better way where it does it in one complete act. im not to sure about it. 

The virus thing is bullshit for the most part. OS has little to do with it. As for installing, I'm not entirely sure that also is so.

[Eoghan mulligan]

I was suggesting a mobile i5 or i7 workstation like in these links.  Also, I'm not sure if a macbook can use MS Office's current version.  Maybe with WINE?  If not your word docs will have to be converted or a lot of teachers won't take your hw.  Just saying.  It's not difficult to do, but I've seen that happen.  People have lost points for not converting the file.  If you know how to conver the file/an easy thing to do then you should be fine.  However, these can help with some other tasks like the CAD work.  Actually, never mind about that MS Office part not being available for Mac!   https://products.office.com/en-us/mac/microsoft-office-for-mac

 

However, with the CAD work those 2 mobile workstations have like i7s and firepros or quadros which can help with the CAD work.  I dunno what that mac has in it other than the intel processor.

 

I will be using CAD to a lesser extent. The bulk of my work will be using MS office applications for completing work. Converting the documents isn't a problem, as for all assignments they ask for pdf's. Also my current desktop PC can run Solidworks pretty decently, and it has a geekbench results of 2334 (multicore) which is very slow i know its a complete pain to live with. 

[Sam Z Man]

i thought they aged better due to the fact that the probability of the mac getting a virus is much lower. also ive heard that the mac os deals with downloads/ installs in a better way where it does it in one complete act. im not to sure about it.

This is all overused Apple sheep Bullshit.

You can get something that's cheaper and had double the performance, for the same price you could get something that would run solid works for when you need it and are away from your desktop.

[Sam Z Man]

It's up to you. I dunno what the Iris GPU can do, but personally for even entry level CAD I'd still prefer a Firepro, gaming GPU, or Quadro. That's why I'd still go with a mobile workstation. The choice is yours.

Do the base model macbooks even have iris graphics? I thought they standard HD graphics?

[Eoghan mulligan]

This is all overused Apple sheep Bullshit.

You can get something that's cheaper and had double the performance, for the same price you could get something that would run solid works for when you need it and are away from your desktop.

 

Any recommendations ? 

[Sam Z Man]

Any recommendations ?

http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=34-152-879

4 cores 8 threads, broadwell with a base of 2.7ghz and turbo of 3.5ghz, with a 950m.

[Eoghan mulligan]

Do the base model macbooks even have iris graphics? I thought they standard HD graphics?

HD 5300 GPU i think 

[Sam Z Man]

HD 5300 GPU i think

That is pitiful compared to a 950m.

Here is a massacre of a comparison.

http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GeForce-GTX-950M-vs-Intel-Core-M-HD-5300/m27713vsm16575

[Sam Z Man]

That's terrible for CAD work. Honestly, get one of the two I showed you.

http://www.amazon.com/HP-ZBook-Mobile-Business-Workstation/dp/B00UYI8RQC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437088574&sr=8-1&keywords=mobile+workstation&pebp=1437088572616&perid=1XRPZKDQHB2T4080E6FC

or

http://www.amazon.com/ThinkPad-Workstation-i7-4700MQ-Professional-Performance/dp/B00N3K1ZJ4/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1437088707&sr=1-5&keywords=mobile+workstation

I would recommend a broadwell CPU for laptops as it benifit power consumption and performance substantially.

[Sam Z Man]

Which ones are broadwell?

5xxx

But they switched it up some i7's are dual cores with HT, so watch out on witch i7 it is.

[Sam Z Man]

I didn't see any workstations with those honestly. All the workstations with quadros and firepros are 4xxx.

I don't look up laptops by category, its easier if you look then up by CPU.