MacBook Pro for College

[awca22]

I know this question has probably been asked a million times, but if you can plz help me out, i will appreciate it.
Next month im going to start college and I cant decide between the MBP 15 and MBP 13 I will be majoring in Electrical Industrial Engineering and I wiil be using intensive processor programs and a lot of photoshop. Im looking for a laptop that i can use 4-5 years.

 

[catfish743]

I know this question has probably been asked a million times, but if you can plz help me out, i will appreciate it.
Next month im going to start college and I cant decide between the MBP 15 and MBP 13 I will be majoring in Electrical Industrial Engineering and I wiil be using intensive processor programs and a lot of photoshop. Im looking for a laptop that i can use 4-5 years.

IMO, 15. You'll want the space and the faster specs.

 

[robotmonkey]

What do you mean by cpu intensive, because I wouldn't consider photoshop cpu intensive. If you really do need the i5, go for the 15, but I honestly doubt you'll notice the extra performance. But I like to look at it this way: People a year ago did just fine with the Core 2 Duo. I couldn't fit a 15 inch in my backpack, so unless you want a serious backpack I'd say go 13.

 

[Sefk]

What do you mean by cpu intensive, because I wouldn't consider photoshop cpu intensive. If you really do need the i5, go for the 15, but I honestly doubt you'll notice the extra performance. But I like to look at it this way: People a year ago did just fine with the Core 2 Duo. I couldn't fit a 15 inch in my backpack, so unless you want a serious backpack I'd say go 13.

+1

I am in math, and my MBP 13 is fine for any computation that I have to do. I have access to a lab equipped with 7 Mac Pro with 2xQuadCore, but the difference of performance between these beasts and my laptop is so marginal that I have stopped to never use them since I got my MBP

 

[djasterix]

I know this question has probably been asked a million times, but if you can plz help me out, i will appreciate it.
Next month im going to start college and I cant decide between the MBP 15 and MBP 13 I will be majoring in Electrical Industrial Engineering and I wiil be using intensive processor programs and a lot of photoshop. Im looking for a laptop that i can use 4-5 years.

Definetly get the 15"

 

[Farfooz]

I know this question has probably been asked a million times, but if you can plz help me out, i will appreciate it.
Next month im going to start college and I cant decide between the MBP 15 and MBP 13 I will be majoring in Electrical Industrial Engineering and I wiil be using intensive processor programs and a lot of photoshop. Im looking for a laptop that i can use 4-5 years.

if you want to carry it around and actually be mobile with the laptop with it fitting into bags and taking it to lectures and such, go with 2.66ghz 13inch, but if u dont care about that and want to endure the pain, then go with the 15 inch. i was in a similar dilemma a couple of weeks ago and decided for the 13 inch because it makes so much more sense

 

[kellen]

Go with the 13 for portability and if needed buy an external monitor.

 

[paintballswimgu]

a 13 in. will meet your needs perfectly fine. In my own opinion, the best feature that comes with the 15 in, is the larger screen with antiglare. If you don't need that, then i wouldn't spend the extra 800 bucks or so, vs. the microcenter $999 price for the new 13 in mbp

 

[hybridfx2]

ahhh. im in the same position as you. portability vs power?
I'd rathere have the 13" but i wouldn't want it becoming "obsolete" in the next year or two because if C2D...

would anyone say the 13" C2D could last up to five years without becoming "obsolete". Also would upgrading the ram and SSD make it "future proof"?

I dont need the power (costs a lot for a student as well), but if its a better investment I'd take it?

thanks

 

[alust2013]

ahhh. im in the same position as you. portability vs power?
I'd rathere have the 13" but i wouldn't want it becoming "obsolete" in the next year or two because if C2D...

would anyone say the 13" C2D could last up to five years without becoming "obsolete". Also would upgrading the ram and SSD make it "future proof"?

I dont need the power (costs a lot for a student as well), but if its a better investment I'd take it?

thanks

It won't be obsolete for quite some time. Yes, the C2D will be out of production, but at this point, the CPUs are far from being the bottleneck of computer speed, and there are no huge differences between C2D and iX like 32 to 64bit that would prevent future apps from running. I plan to keep my C2D MacBook for quite a while, and see no reason that it will be obsolete, it simply won't be the fastest thing out there, which I am ok with. Personally, I don't buy into the whole "futureproofing" thing, it seems like an excuse to buy the i5 or i7. There really is no such thing as futureproofing in the computer world. As soon as you buy something, there is already something better out there. It will be quite a long time until you would need more than 4GB of ram, even for a pretty good amount of multitasking. I can do several apps on my 2 gigs, although 4 would be nice. SSD is kinda a user preference thing, it just gives the system a faster feel, but I would wait until later when the technology has improved and the price goes down. For a student, if you don't need the extra power and prefer a 13", go for the 13"

 

[brianfast]

You don't need an i5/i7.