Need advice to choose the right Mac for a student (Neo vs. M5 Air)

[Rastignac]

Hey everyone!

I am a uni student and through the last year I have been more and more convinced that I need a MacBook. Right now I have an ipad m2 13" and an Asus "gaming" laptop.

I really tried to make iPad work for my studies but I just can't find any use to it other than content consumption. iPadOS is incredibly frustrating: the iPad seemingly has a pretty powerful chip but I just can't use it for any meaningful workflows. It's limited to App Store applications, doesn't have a functional file manager, no terminal execution, and sandboxing kills the potential for any meaningful tasks.

I don't draw and I find note taking on iPad in no way superior or more convenient than just a notebook and a pen. On the contrary, I find the experience inferior to physical writing.

This year I've been using my Windows laptop for studying. Specs: i5-12500H, laptop RTX 3050, 16GB RAM. The hardware is not impressive, but performed decently for my uses. What I don't like about it is mostly that I can’t take it anywhere. The laptop and the charger are massive and heavy, 100% of its battery lasts for only about 3 hours of work. Just the home screen already consumes almost half of my RAM, and its fans are turned on practically all the time.

When I finally realized that iPad will never work out for me and that I outgrew my laptop the first option that I thought of was a MacBook Neo. It seems like a perfect option for me, however I am concerned about it having only 8GB of unified RAM, whether that being sufficient for me long term. Also I wanted to learn editing and running local LLMs which obviously won't really work on the Neo. Well if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

With education pricing I can get the
256GB version for about $527 and
512GB version for about $628.

If I will manage to sell my current laptop for $400-$500 I might be able to get it.

The market of used MacBooks is kinda insane in the country I'm in and even M1 MacBooks cost like 50% more than the Neo.

Now the MacBook Air M5 looks like a dream machine, but its base version with education pricing costs about $1080.
Today I found out that if I trade in my iPad, I can refund $408, which will bring the price of the MacBook down to $672, which is a little more realistic for me. The problem is that, as I understand it, I will still need to pay all $1080 dollars, and only after that will I get refunded.

So, if, for example, I sell my laptop for $450, I will need to find:

$77 for MacBook Neo 256GB
$178 for MacBook Neo 512GB
$222 for MacBook Air M5 with trade-in

I would really appreciate it if anyone could tell me what option would be optimal for me and my use case long term. Thank you in advance.

 

[Alameda]

I think it would be best to describe all of the things you wish to do with your computer.

This forum is filled with enthusiasts like myself. I used my student loan money to buy my first Mac when I was in college in 1987 and the Mac I bought this year has 48 GB of RAM.

There are some things that use a LOT of storage and memory: 3D gaming, video editing and storage, running AI LLMs locally, and running several instances of different operating systems. And opening dozens of web browser tabs at once.

If you don’t do those things and you expect to use the computer for taking notes and completing assignments with word processor/spreadsheet, listening to music as you work, etc., then any M-series Mac will do. Really.

Before the 48 GB MacBook, I had the MacBook Pro M1 with 16 GB RAM and 512 GB storage, and it was plenty. And I am an enthusiast. My college age children have MacBook Air laptops with 8GB RAM and they are perfectly happy. It helps to quit unused applications, that’s about it.

 

[Rastignac]

I think it would be best to describe all of the things you wish to do with your computer.

This forum is filled with enthusiasts like myself. I used my student loan money to buy my first Mac when I was in college in 1987 and the Mac I bought this year has 48 GB of RAM.

There are some things that use a LOT of storage and memory: 3D gaming, video editing and storage, running AI LLMs locally, and running several instances of different operating systems. And opening dozens of web browser tabs at once.

If you don’t do those things and you expect to use the computer for taking notes and completing assignments with word processor/spreadsheet, listening to music as you work, etc., then any M-series Mac will do. Really.

Before the 48 GB MacBook, I had the MacBook Pro M1 with 16 GB RAM and 512 GB storage, and it was plenty. And I am an enthusiast. My college age children have MacBook Air laptops with 8GB RAM and they are perfectly happy. It helps to quit unused applications, that’s about it.

Hey, sorry for the late response. Well, apart from studying and leisure, I was looking into video editing and animation in DaVinci. I use it on my laptop, but it runs very slowly and freezes a lot. I also wanted to try running LLMs like Topaz Video AI or LM Studio or something like that. I don’t know, I’m not super familiar with AI. I don’t play video games.
Also, if you don’t mind me asking, why do you need 48 GB of RAM?

 

[Alameda]

Hey, sorry for the late response. Well, apart from studying and leisure, I was looking into video editing and animation in DaVinci. I use it on my laptop, but it runs very slowly and freezes a lot. I also wanted to try running LLMs like Topaz Video AI or LM Studio or something like that. I don’t know, I’m not super familiar with AI. I don’t play video games.
Also, if you don’t mind me asking, why do you need 48 GB of RAM?

Well… if you want to edit video and run LLM’s, then buy as much memory as you can afford and rely on external storage.

If you can buy a 48 GB MBP, great. But… I didn’t buy a BMW when I was in college. And the Mac I did buy had two floppy drives, no hard disk. That came after I graduated.

So my advice is if you think the video editing and LLM use will contribute to your career and your financial future, then figure out how to stretch your finances to get that hardware. But if your focus is school and video/LLMs are more like curiosities, then get a basic machine, study your tail off, and then you can buy a 48 GB machine just for fun, without even justifying it. ;-)

Remember, computers will get cheaper and faster every year. It’s fine to get what you need now and buy the toy when you graduate.

 

[Rastignac]

Well… if you want to edit video and run LLM’s, then buy as much memory as you can afford and rely on external storage.

If you can buy a 48 GB MBP, great. But… I didn’t buy a BMW when I was in college. And the Mac I did buy had two floppy drives, no hard disk. That came after I graduated.

So my advice is if you think the video editing and LLM use will contribute to your career and your financial future, then figure out how to stretch your finances to get that hardware. But if your focus is school and video/LLMs are more like curiosities, then get a basic machine, study your tail off, and then you can buy a 48 GB machine just for fun, without even justifying it. ;-)

Remember, computers will get cheaper and faster every year. It’s fine to get what you need now and buy the toy when you graduate.

Yeah that sounds the most rational. Thanks for the advice!