Hello, I will be attending law school in the Fall and I'm wondering if there are any law school students who have a MBA, and if they feel you need a different computer for whatever reason. Thanks
first question is this: Is the Mac compatible with the software that you need to run? If the school requires certain applications, make sure that Mac will run those.
Yes I checked the school's tech requirements and the Mac is compatible. If I really need to, I can install Windows, and I have a Windows laptop already. I'm more concerned about memory/ram, and if the 11" is too small for the work I will be doing.
I'm not an attorney, but I do a lot of reading of legal documents and writing, and after owning both the 11 and the 13, I'd lean toward the 13. I appreciate the extra screen real estate when I'm traveling. If you're just going to be typing notes in class and then hooking it up to an external monitor, either would work great.
Yes I checked the school's tech requirements and the Mac is compatible. If I really need to, I can install Windows, and I have a Windows laptop already. I'm more concerned about memory/ram, and if the 11" is too small for the work I will be doing.
I just finished my second year of law school and here's my two cents:
I have a time capsule in my apartment (1TB), and an 11" MBA with a 128 gb hd. This has proven to be more than enough to store my notes, my pdfs and my emails. Each year I have gotten into the habit of cleaning out all but the basic documents I need to keep with me (no reason to delete your notes full-stop, but you really won't need to bring them with you in subsequent years), and I have never run into problems with my hard drive space. I don't keep all my music on my MBA (I just stream from my time capsule), so if I want to listen on the go I just use my iPhone. Same goes with the bulk of my photos (though my wife insists that I keep our wedding album and some from our recent trips on the computer just so "we" can look at them no matter where we find ourselves). All in all, no problems.
The biggest thing I will say though: every ounce you save on your laptop (even between the 11 and 13 models) you will appreciate over time. Your text books will be cumbersome, and you cannot "shrink" them. Go small on the laptop if you can, and when you are a "lawyer" someday, invest in a nice iMac or something to play around on at home.
Best bet is honestly to take a look in the store. Take a look at the MacBook Pro 13" as well, if you have bad eyes like myself you'll prefer the display (and you may prefer its keyboard).
If you're going to be spending a lot of time in your room working, you might want to consider an external display and keyboard/mouse/trackpad. Only you can really decide what your workflow will be like, so it's really worth going to the store and taking a long hard look at everything.
The Time Capsule is basically an AirPort Extreme with an internal drive. It can be used as network storage as well as backup for your system. If you want a reliable all-in-one unit for this purpose, it's a great investment. The 3TB one isn't quite as good value as the 2TB (which is frankly incredible value).
Please, please, I beg, set up Time Machine to back up your system, but also use a service like Dropbox (in fact, I'll go as far to say Dropbox in particular) to keep your data backed up in the cloud. It's easy, it's always on the fly, and it works extremely well.
Alternatively, you could use a cheaper router (or even a wired connection through Thunderbolt if you go for a Thunderbolt display) and use an external USB drive (again through the Thunderbolt display). It really depends on your setup as to how cost effective each solution will be.
Having finished law school with the 13 white macbook & then the 11 air when the old macbook died, I would say get the 11 macbook air. It's small, light, does everything you need and won't break your back.
Also, get a monitor to plug it into when you get home. I have a 20 inch apple screen (was given to me), but go cheap. It is very helpful to have Westlaw/Lexis open on one side of the screen & your Law Review article you'll be writing on the same page.
I am a 1L (in Boston) that comes to this site to get away from exams :-/
I have the i7 13" MBA. I went with the i7 because with the student discount, it was only $60 more than the 256GB mode, and I decided that 128GB would not be enough. I figured for $60, why not. It might eventually get me more than $60 if I resell it in a few years.
Regarding screen size, I second everyone else's opinion that you should go to a store and see for yourself. What I would do, find an 11" and a 13" side by side, open up a common website in both and full-screen the site on both. And take note of how much more the 13" shows vertically. Scroll all the way to the top on both, note what is on the bottom of the screen on the 11", and compare that on the 13" the same thing is more like 3/4 of the way down. This is important for taking notes, as you don't want to scroll up and down often to find the note you need. On the flip side, when lugging this thing around often, every ounce counts.
Suggested Apps for Law School:
- Dropbox / Skydrive / Amazon Cloud
Store your documents, case PDFs, practice exams, etc. in the cloud and keep them well organized. You might have to access them from a friends computer, a classroom computer, or a library computer. This helps with that. Also, it's a great way to backup your files. Note that iCloud doesn't quite cut it in this department.
- Evernote
I explored with taking notes in Word with the notebook layout, and various other OS X note taking apps (Journal, Flow, Notebook, others I can't remember). Evernote took a few days to get used to, but it was well worth it. I took lots and lots of class notes, and never even came close to using 10% of the monthly 60mb allotment of the free account. Again, having your notes live in the cloud is very handy. The key though is tags and search. Having my notes searchable is awesome for studying and building outlines. Being able to organize the class notes by tagging the various topics is also great for staying organized and being able to find exactly what you're looking for.
I also own a desktop computer that I use at home (iMac). It's quite nice to use a large screen when sitting longer periods. I'd recomment either an iMac for home use, or getting an external monitor/keyboard/mouse to plug in. Typing long papers on an 11" isn't great, to be honest![]()
This. If you're getting the 11" it will pretty much become a necessity to have an external monitor or separate desktop to work on. I've got the 13" and it's great for going through notes for work.