MacBook Air or Surface Pro

[Ted]

Need a new laptop for college;
Which would be a better option? Any links you guys got for decent but not too expensive?

 

[Energy]

Honestly I would say if you are already in the Apple ecosystem then getting the macbook just is so much better.

 

[Android18]

Apple

 

[hgbf]

I'd go surface, but neither option is bad.

 

[Leeiuum]

Surface for definite

 

[manhattan]

macbook air, surface is retarded

 

[Finners]

In fact just bought the Surface pro 7, i5 Model. Works great, fast and amazing battery life. Entering first year of college in September, so I definitely recommend getting a surface.

 

[Cal]

I've talked about this a lot. The Surface Pro is really good as a school computer. It's got a lot of really useful features, especially for school. Specifically, it's super nice for doing math/science homework. I've grown to really appreciate OneNote, it's overall a great utility for school.

That said it's not very fast. Even with top spec it's only just OK. If you want to use it for things other than school IE; games, video editing, even photoshop, it struggles. However, when you have the option to use another, higher performance device (like Gaming Desktop or Macbook Pro), it's quite unlikely you'll ever run into something you can't do. I would highly recommend the Surface.

The Macbook Air is an Apple laptop. Not much more to say about it. Not particularly good at anything but it's also not super bad at anything. It's also not very fast but it makes do. Personally, I use my Surface for school way more often than basically any Apple product.

 

[markd]

I use a surface for my go to. I’m a college student so it’s really handy to bring around. It works well for what I do daily (support tickets, coding, photoshop, some more cpu intensive things)

Battery is also pretty solid.

 

[inferno]

Need a new laptop for college;
Which would be a better option? Any links you guys got for decent but not too expensive?

Macbook is so shit to go around, its only good for working. Surface if you're going to mess around more in files rather than online/websites.

 

[Ted]

I use a surface for my go to. I’m a college student so it’s really handy to bring around. It works well for what I do daily (support tickets, coding, photoshop, some more cpu intensive things)

Battery is also pretty solid.

I've talked about this a lot. The Surface Pro is really good as a school computer. It's got a lot of really useful features, especially for school. Specifically, it's super nice for doing math/science homework. I've grown to really appreciate OneNote, it's overall a great utility for school.

That said it's not very fast. Even with top spec it's only just OK. If you want to use it for things other than school IE; games, video editing, even photoshop, it struggles. However, when you have the option to use another, higher performance device (like Gaming Desktop or Macbook Pro), it's quite unlikely you'll ever run into something you can't do. I would highly recommend the Surface.

The Macbook Air is an Apple laptop. Not much more to say about it. Not particularly good at anything but it's also not super bad at anything. It's also not very fast but it makes do. Personally, I use my Surface for school way more often than basically any Apple product.

In fact just bought the Surface pro 7, i5 Model. Works great, fast and amazing battery life. Entering first year of college in September, so I definitely recommend getting a surface.

Surface for definite

Sorry for not replying I got caught up with a bunch of other stuff.

Okay so I was looking at laptops and one of the laptops that has definitely been standing out to me was the HP ENVY x360 Laptop - 15z-ee000 touch. Here.
It's customized it with the following specifications;

• AMD Ryzen™ 5 4500U (2.375 GHz, up to 4.0 GHz, 3 MB L2 cache, 6 cores) + AMD Radeon™ Graphics.
  
• 16 GB DDR4-3200 SDRAM (2 x 8 G
  
• 15.6" diagonal FHD, IPS, micro-edge, WLED-backlit, multitouch-enabled, edge-to-edge glass, 250 nits (1920 x 1080)
  
• 256 GB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD
  
• Windows 10 Home 64

- Price (including Student Discounts) $671.50
I feel that for the price and the specs, this would be really good for me since I'm pushing towards choosing one of these majors; Computer Science, Integrated Media, Communications/Web Development. The laptop has a x360 degree rotation that would allow me to re-create illustrations in a quicker manner. Thin and Slick so I can carry it around without a problem. Enough computing power and RAM to allow intermediate video renders/etc. Also RAM for baseline coding etc.

I was considering about getting a Surface Pro but I don't exactly have a whole lot of money saved up. So a lot of my supplies would come directly from loans. I have a 17" MacBook 2011, and the specs on it are amazing just I don't really like that Macbooks have that "lift" on them as it hurts my wrists for them to lay up onto the laptop.

If you guys have any recommendations for laptops that have touch-screen functionality and are lower than $1300~ then please let me know. Also I don't really care for intel because it's garbage, but I'd like something that'll last too.

 

[markd]

that HP laptop doesnt look to bad

 

[Sky.]

^ what dis guy said was right.

 

[Cal]

The HP laptop seems good on paper, what I worry about is the "Master of None" problem. You notice it a lot in modern cars right now, you'll have Mercedes trying to make an SUV that looks stylish, super powerful engine, quick acceleration, great fuel economy and room for a bunch of stuff plus 7 seats, and comfortable plus sporty suspension. The manufacturer is trying to do everything at once, when really you may be better off having two different vehicles that accomplish one part better.

The Surface Pro is already grazing up against that line. I worry this 15 inch HP Laptop, it's trying to be a big 15' traditional laptop and a tablet while also being thin and light. At some point, you have trade off something, be it performance, weight, battery. You can't have it all and do it all well.

I encourage you to look into a setup that uses multiple devices to accomplish your needs. Personally, I run a workstation at home that handles all the performance demanding tasks (Photo/video editing, gaming, etc.), a Surface/iPad Pro to handle school work and a Macbook Pro mostly for travel when I need high performance and cannot use my home desktop.

I've found this setup avoids the problem where you end up using the optimal device for the task at hand rather than trying to use one device that can't accomplish any task perfectly.

 

[Ted]

The HP laptop seems good on paper, what I worry about is the "Master of None" problem. You notice it a lot in modern cars right now, you'll have Mercedes trying to make an SUV that looks stylish, super powerful engine, quick acceleration, great fuel economy and room for a bunch of stuff plus 7 seats, and comfortable plus sporty suspension. The manufacturer is trying to do everything at once, when really you may be better off having two different vehicles that accomplish one part better.

The Surface Pro is already grazing up against that line. I worry this 15 inch HP Laptop, it's trying to be a big 15' traditional laptop and a tablet while also being thin and light. At some point, you have trade off something, be it performance, weight, battery. You can't have it all and do it all well.

I encourage you to look into a setup that uses multiple devices to accomplish your needs. Personally, I run a workstation at home that handles all the performance demanding tasks (Photo/video editing, gaming, etc.), a Surface/iPad Pro to handle school work and a Macbook Pro mostly for travel when I need high performance and cannot use my home desktop.

I've found this setup avoids the problem where you end up using the optimal device for the task at hand rather than trying to use one device that can't accomplish any task perfectly.

Yeah I get exactly what you're talking about. So I ended up going through and purchasing this laptop.
The following specs are;

• AMD Ryzen 5-4500U 2.3GHz, Boost to 4.0GHz, 8MB Cache, 6 Cores, 6 Threads, Integrated AMD Radeon
  
• RAM is upgraded to 16GB memory for better multitasking.
• Hard Drive is upgraded to 256GB SSD.
  
• 15.6" Full HD multitouch screen. The 1920 x 1080 resolution. Touch, tap, glide and make the most of Windows 10. IPS technology for wide viewing angles. Energy-efficient WLED backlight.
• WIFI, Bluetooth, Windows 10 Home
• 1 x HDMI Port, 2 x USB 3.0 Type A, 2 x USB 3.1 Type A, 1 x USB 3.1 Type C, 1 x Headphone/microphone Combo (HDMI is good for if I need to hook anything up to a TV in college)

I went for higher RAM so that in the long run it would benefit me in multitasking and I wouldn't have to manually upgrade 1-2 years from now. The current specs of my desktop that I have are;

• Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-6100 CPU @ 3.70GHz
• 32GB RAM 3000MHz
• GTX 1080 Founders Edition
• MSI Z170A Gaming M5 (MS-7977)

So there is some bottle-necking there and I plan to either sell half of my RAM and invest into a better MOBO/CPU to help better my workstation. I do have a MacBook Pro 2011 edition though that I plan on selling because I don't believe I'll use it for college and I'll definitely need the money for college.

 

[PradyXT]

Sorry for not replying I got caught up with a bunch of other stuff.

Okay so I was looking at laptops and one of the laptops that has definitely been standing out to me was the HP ENVY x360 Laptop - 15z-ee000 touch. Here.
It's customized it with the following specifications;

• AMD Ryzen™ 5 4500U (2.375 GHz, up to 4.0 GHz, 3 MB L2 cache, 6 cores) + AMD Radeon™ Graphics.
  
• 16 GB DDR4-3200 SDRAM (2 x 8 G
  
• 15.6" diagonal FHD, IPS, micro-edge, WLED-backlit, multitouch-enabled, edge-to-edge glass, 250 nits (1920 x 1080)
  
• 256 GB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD
  
• Windows 10 Home 64

- Price (including Student Discounts) $671.50
I feel that for the price and the specs, this would be really good for me since I'm pushing towards choosing one of these majors; Computer Science, Integrated Media, Communications/Web Development. The laptop has a x360 degree rotation that would allow me to re-create illustrations in a quicker manner. Thin and Slick so I can carry it around without a problem. Enough computing power and RAM to allow intermediate video renders/etc. Also RAM for baseline coding etc.

I was considering about getting a Surface Pro but I don't exactly have a whole lot of money saved up. So a lot of my supplies would come directly from loans. I have a 17" MacBook 2011, and the specs on it are amazing just I don't really like that Macbooks have that "lift" on them as it hurts my wrists for them to lay up onto the laptop.

If you guys have any recommendations for laptops that have touch-screen functionality and are lower than $1300~ then please let me know. Also I don't really care for intel because it's garbage, but I'd like something that'll last too.

If I were you, I would cop that Laptop, really good deal and I have a bit of a similar laptop (but with a graphics card).

 

[markd]

If I were you, I would cop that Laptop, really good deal and I have a bit of a similar laptop (but with a graphics card).

External graphics card is an amazing move ))

 

[minerslot]

Mac was a life-saver for school. If you're already pro-apple it's a great idea. It allowed me to connect with all my messaging apps on my phone while also doing school work.

 

[Disconsented]

Been a big fan of the Surface Pro's since I had a Gen1, you can live without the keyboard but the stylus with onenote is amazing.

Even managed to pick up on my _horrific_ handwriting and convert it to text.

 

[PradyXT]

External graphics card is an amazing move ))

It's actually an internal graphics card.