Confused on which MBP to get for Engineering (on Budget)

[SMC1991]

I think you'll be just fine with the base model of the MBP 13". Having a desktop and a laptop is just overkill and not really convenient. It's good to have all your files on one device (though don't forget backups ).

Though if you are just about to start engineering, I seriously doubt the use of purchasing a 1k+ laptop right now... Seriously, you don't need it yet, you first gotta prove yourself in the first year and most of the stuff is still pretty general, atleast that's the situation over here... For my first year I had enough with a 10" netbook running OSX (costed me 400), did everything perfectly and I sold it again with only 100 loss and now I bought the brand new model, so happy I didn't buy my Macbook (Pro) last year... I would have so regretted it.

But hey, if you have too much money, go wild I guess . Otherwise I'd say stick with the Dell for one more year and if your studies go well, spend your money on a mac next year.

Good suggestions. The base model doesn't make sense because of the 2GB RAM. I will probably elect for the higher end model 13".

I also have a 160GB USB External HDD that I will most certainly perform frequent backups on.

I also think you're right, I get the feeling CAD software and such will not be used that much while the first year is mostly academia with Calc, english, and such. I may consider getting the Mac next year, but I really am becoming frustrated with this dell, right now, my lap is sweating from the temperature.

 

[m85476585]

It's cheapest to upgrade the RAM to 4gb yourself and you likely won't notice much difference in processor speed.

The 13" MBP tends to run hot. The CPU can easily reach 90 C or higher, and the whole case acts as a heatsink, so it will transfer heat to your lap very well.

They say "most of the software has mac versions", but in my experience they never work as well. In my intro to C programming class we used Microsoft Visual C++ Express. There was one TA who was a mac user, and he was able to get stuff to work in Xcode. But sometimes there were slight issues that caused my homework not to compile when my TA was grading it, and the makefiles were different, but we were expected to know the VC++ makefiles, and we were tested on them. I already mentioned Matlab being slower and Quartus being Windows-only. I need to install Mathematica for my math class, so I'll be able to compare that on Windows and Mac.

 

[SMC1991]

It's cheapest to upgrade the RAM to 4gb yourself and you likely won't notice much difference in processor speed.

The 13" MBP tends to run hot. The CPU can easily reach 90 C or higher, and the whole case acts as a heatsink, so it will transfer heat to your lap very well.

If the MBP runs hot, and CPU speed doesn't matter, do you think I'd be better off with a regular Macbook polycarb? When I had a 13" MBP for two weeks, it didn't seem to run that hot, cooler than my Dell Studio XPS which reaches 115 F on the bottom.

They say "most of the software has mac versions", but in my experience they never work as well. In my intro to C programming class we used Microsoft Visual C++ Express. There was one TA who was a mac user, and he was able to get stuff to work in Xcode. But sometimes there were slight issues that caused my homework not to compile when my TA was grading it, and the makefiles were different, but we were expected to know the VC++ makefiles, and we were tested on them. I already mentioned Matlab being slower and Quartus being Windows-only. I need to install Mathematica for my math class, so I'll be able to compare that on Windows and Mac.

Yea, but for stuff like Visual Studio, I'd have no problems running that in A VM. Mathematica is known to run well on OS X. I guess I'll do some inquiry to the school to find out for sure.

 

[m85476585]

I don't know if the Macbook is any better. The bottom of my 15" MBP is somewhere between 110-120F depending on where I measure it after sitting on my desk for several hours with an average CPU load of 10%, and it has 2 fan whereas the 13" has just one fan.

VC++ does run well in a VM, but VMs in general are kind of slow.

 

[SMC1991]

I don't know if the Macbook is any better. The bottom of my 15" MBP is somewhere between 110-120F depending on where I measure it after sitting on my desk for several hours with an average CPU load of 10%, and it has 2 fan whereas the 13" has just one fan.

VC++ does run well in a VM, but VMs in general are kind of slow.

That's weird. My Studio XPS feels way hotter than any Mac I've ever used, and that's only at 115 F.

As far as VC++, is that really involved in computer engineering? I thought that was more comp. sci.

I appreciate your help, btw.

 

[m85476585]

It's a prereq for CompE and EE here. A lot of hardware devices (microcontrollers, simple processors, etc) are programmed in C, so it is important for CompE/EE. We only learned C even though we used VC++ since C++ is backwards compatible with C.

 

[DeusInvictus7]

I'm on my first year as a CE student too, and what I decided to do has worked out perfectly. I went with the Unibody MacBook last October, and then got pretty large external monitor (Dell 2709W). The 13" screen can sometimes seem crowded when working with a lot of windows and terminal shells, but you kinda get used to it, and Expose really helps in that.

At school, at least in your programming classes/labs, you will always be given a computer, although for me, I asked my professor if I could use my own computer. The reason I was comfortable asking him was because in our class we all run Ubuntu, and run terminal through that (my professor is a Linux fanboy and he absolutely hates Windows lol) Since OS X and Linux both share the same Unix foundation/coding, I am able to just use terminal on my own MacBook instead of using the school computers and booting into Ubuntu. At least from what I've learned so far, programming in C/Python is perfectly fine in OS X without any extra software, you can do it all through terminal/emacs. Maybe later on when you start doing C++ and Java and stuff like that, but that's what Xcode is for.

Hope that helps.

 

[SMC1991]

Yea, that sounds about right, from what I understand, most CS/CE places tend to favor the "standards" of Unix/Linux, which OS X is more compliant with. Most languages aren't terribly platform independent (I think C++ is the worst, and of course Microsoft's Visual C).

Drexel is also very centric, so I think they'd support Macs in their CE dept. But my main thing definitely is, getting a portable laptop since this 16" has proved to be too big, with good battery, keep all my data on just a laptop (get rid of my desktop), and keep the 1080p monitor for situations where the screen may get crowded.

Thanks for your input, Deus.

 

[phixiuz]

Good suggestions. The base model doesn't make sense because of the 2GB RAM. I will probably elect for the higher end model 13".

I also have a 160GB USB External HDD that I will most certainly perform frequent backups on.

I also think you're right, I get the feeling CAD software and such will not be used that much while the first year is mostly academia with Calc, english, and such. I may consider getting the Mac next year, but I really am becoming frustrated with this dell, right now, my lap is sweating from the temperature.

Oh, yeh, I forgot to mention I am planning of upgrading my RAM to 4GB (definately worth it if you are using VMWare/Fusion with Windows XP or something else). I think the best is to do this by yourself, because the second model is way too overpriced. What is it again, 185 euro/dollar? 2GB + 0.2x Ghz increase isn't worth it for that price. I can get the RAM for 60 (and still have the 2GB kit aswell) and the processor increase you won't notice, a SSD for example you will for sure dramatically, I bought myself an Intel X-25M SSD, though these aren't cheap...

At school, at least in your programming classes/labs, you will always be given a computer, although for me, I asked my professor if I could use my own computer. The reason I was comfortable asking him was because in our class we all run Ubuntu, and run terminal through that (my professor is a Linux fanboy and he absolutely hates Windows lol) Since OS X and Linux both share the same Unix foundation/coding, I am able to just use terminal on my own MacBook instead of using the school computers and booting into Ubuntu. At least from what I've learned so far, programming in C/Python is perfectly fine in OS X without any extra software, you can do it all through terminal/emacs. Maybe later on when you start doing C++ and Java and stuff like that, but that's what Xcode is for.

Hope that helps.

Same experience here. Most of the things work on a mac aswell without much hassle and if there are problems you can quite easily use Boot Camp or VMWare/Fusion/VirtualBox.

 

[SMC1991]

What does everyone think about the white MacBook? I can max out the specs for a lot cheaper than the 13" MBP, and it has the same GPU, only a slightly slower CPU, and the negligible difference in DDR2 v DDR3.