Then get free copies from them.
If you care what "the business world" uses, then your retort here should have been, "Don't overcomplicate things. Buy a PC!"
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Can M2 Air 8/10/16/512 get my daughter through College?
- Thread starter Ay-Yo-Its-Edge
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In med school and residency, it was mostly scrolling through PDFs, browsing the internet for journal articles, and creating powerpoint presentation. I don't recall ever needing anything too powerful. Viewing medical charts and looking at MRIs were mostly done in the hospital computers (10 year old HP elite mini things) and crappy monitors. I think 16gb and 512 is fine, but if your daughter is the creative type, maybe 24gb 1tb if you can splurge.
I would consider prioritizing an ergonomic set up though. Long hours of studying and squinting at laptop can be bad for posture. Consider plugging the 13" MacBook into an external monitor to straighten the neck out. Get a nice chair. external mouse/keyboard. etc. Or if she's the type to study in a library/cafe, then maybe the 15" MacBook Air and a roost stand. I have that combo and love it for my weekend charting sessions.
I would consider prioritizing an ergonomic set up though. Long hours of studying and squinting at laptop can be bad for posture. Consider plugging the 13" MacBook into an external monitor to straighten the neck out. Get a nice chair. external mouse/keyboard. etc. Or if she's the type to study in a library/cafe, then maybe the 15" MacBook Air and a roost stand. I have that combo and love it for my weekend charting sessions.
As for Office, it's kind of a non-issue at most schools--a 365 license is available for students at almost every college and university. The student can simply avail him/herself of that. What the student chooses to do at a later point in life isn't the issue at hand here.
I am in the same boat needing to get one for my Freshman (law) - thinking the base m2 air is fine? Just worry as I have heard the 256 causes it to slow down? BUT Best Buy has a really good deal this weekend on these at $990
Will your freshman really need the extra speed, though? Note that even the "slow" 256GB drive is still as fast as or faster than most MacBook models (including Pro) from the Intel era.
I feel like the extra speed of the Pro devices is really spoiling and clouding people's judgment these days. I still use a Windows laptop issued from work so I still know to stand up, go take a shower, make coffee, make breakfast... and then come back to see that IntelliJ IDEA has just "barely" finished indexing another project branch at work. That same task is within 60 seconds on an M MacBook thanks to the CPU and SSD speed, but I can't use M MacBook to build x86 Windows apps.
It’s not noticeable in any day to day use, just when transferring large size files. Very overblown issue. Should be more than enough for his needs.
Thanks good points. I think he settled for. Lenovo Slim pro as Best Buy had them for 899
Slim pro x? Not a bad laptop but I bought that and my m2 air at the same time and returned the LenovoThanks good points. I think he settled for. Lenovo Slim pro as Best Buy had them for 899
its this one, seemed like a good enough deal for a college student! Even has speakers on the side! LOL!
Lenovo - Slim Pro 7 14" 90Hz 2.5K Touch-Screen Laptop -AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 with 16GB Memory - 512GB SSD - Storm Grey
Ha yes, newer version than the one I had. Screen is a slight downgrade but processor is roughly the same and they gave the 3050 a boost to 6gb of ram so it actually can game half decent.
Mine used the 6800hs and the 3050 4gb.
My kid is going through 3rd year of a demanding medical program with a base 2019 MBA and a 3rd gen iPad Air with 1st gen Apple Pencil. Has had that setup since high school. With daily heavy use of both devices, writing essays, taking tests, hosting online study groups, doing spreadsheets, reviewing and marking up PDFs, etc. No complaints whatsoever. Surprisingly, even the battery life on that MBA is still decent.
Nobody needs a fully specked out MBP for college, unless you're going to do some heavy coding or use highly specialized, resource heavy software. But then, need to check with college and see if Macs are even an option.
Nobody needs a fully specked out MBP for college, unless you're going to do some heavy coding or use highly specialized, resource heavy software. But then, need to check with college and see if Macs are even an option.
Yes. I do not know what 'stalled out' means?
Apple has been putting SSDs in laptops since 2011, and, depending upon how close to a metro area you are, you can pick them up from recyclers for as little as ten bucks a pop. SATA-SSDs are $25 at Microcenter for 500gb, and go inside MBs as old as 2009 easy-peasy (you won't even need a pentalobe screwdriver). --All a student really needs from a backpack-Mac is a "modern" wed-browser to replace Safari, and, possibly, the ability to run Office 2015/16 (Microsoft has not changed Office's data file structure since then). When a student (or his parents) blow a thousand dollars on a new laptop to do homework, it's basically a tax for not knowing these and other things shared in the forums here.
Sorry but anyone thinking about uni 2024 in terms of "blow a thousand dollars on a new laptop to do homework" IMO has very wrong-headed thinking. A uni education costs tens pf thousands of dollars per year. Obviously each family's finances are critical, but a uni student's laptop is also a critical tool (at the uni level it may be much more than simply a laptop to do homework) that should be optimized such that the tool is not limiting to the process of learning.
Not to say that every student needs a Cadillac computer, but if at all financially possible every student should have a computer that just works: modern OS, adequate mass storage, ports and RAM. Certainly no hippity-hopping around making used SSDs work or not work on outdated hardware/OS. The computer is a tool.
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You don't need a pro an M2 air works fine. My buddy is a surgeon and he does all that and edit's 4k surgery video on his.
Penny wise and pound foolish, kid is spending tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands on education. The kid better make those thousands worth rather than running around the town with sub optimal computer To save few bucks. Unless the kid is an electrical or computer engineering student, they can tinker to learn, but then those guys need much more beefier machines than running safari.
Sure. Many docs use less than the best tools. E.g. one can use a cheap stethoscope or a really good one; or one can use an adequate computer display or a really good computer display. Personally I hope my docs go for the higher grade tools of their trade.
I can't see how the MBP display gives a doctor any additional capability over that of a MBA. The source images/video that my wife has to view (and occasionally edit) are trivial for any computer manufactured in the last decade. She was perfectly happy with her 8GB 2018 i5 Macbook Air until I finally got tired of watching her use it and bought her a 16GB M2 replacement.
Well he uses a state of the art surgery robot so I hope that eases your mind. As for the computer I had an M2 Air and I did the following on it just fine:
Lots of simulations in Houdini.
Editing 4k video in Final Cut.
Lots of music in Logic with many tracks.
Lots of video game development in both Unity and Godot.
Tons of software development in Xcode.
Texture creation with Substance Designer.
Plenty of motion graphics effects in Motion.
Lots of image creation in Affinity Suite.
The list goes on and on.
The M series Air is significantly more capable than people realize it is. It'll be plenty fine for a school student for 5 years, and the portability alone is worth going the Air route.
I am not a doc but have professionally dealt with imagery for decades, living through the constantly-improving evolution of display tech. Original image capture quality and display competence both do matter. At any given point in the evolution of capture/display tech we perceived it as "good enough," but then either capture tech or display tech would improve [not necessarily concurrently] and we could literally see more.I can't see how the MBP display gives a doctor any additional capability over that of a MBA. The source images/video that my wife has to view (and occasionally edit) are trivial for any computer manufactured in the last decade. She was perfectly happy with her 8GB 2018 i5 Macbook Air until I finally got tired of watching her use it and bought her a 16GB M2 replacement.
My point is not that everyone necessarily needs to be on the bleeding edge of display tech evolution, but rather that better displays are better. Editing some video, etc. may not tax display competence but other usages may (high rez image capture and viewing, for instance).
Of course the MBA is competent within its limits of display, speakers, ports, RAM and bandwidth. Your choice to save a few bucks and save a few ounces.
And for what OP is using it for they're not going to see any difference. It's also not "a few ounces". It's very different traveling with a Pro vs an Air.
My opinion of penury-promoting modern higher education isn't any better than for manufactured-obsolescence computing, but that's a topic for another thread (or site).
You can do all that on a 2014 Macbook Pro running a non-castrated operating system. (The only thing it'll be noticeably slower at is video-rendering, as opposed to video-editing.)
Except when they're not.
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