Which Mac for Mechanical Engineering student

[Queen6]

None, a PC will serve you better. A Mac will likely only add more cost & complication, save your $$$$ and buy the Mac you want once you graduate. If it has to be a Mac use your fathers 2010 for the first year, hold on to your money and see how it goes.

For spec the university can advise, 13" or 15", 11" is too small for prolonged use, for my liking.

 

[srsub3]

I am a Phd student in mech engineering.... if you want a mac then buy a 15... so you can run windows in bootcamp for the few times you need ansys or abaqus, which need some cpu power... for the other things mac osx is good... Matlab and office run smooth... these are the things you will use most.

 

[xkmxkmxlmx]

well in that case the choice is clear for OP then huh.

im sure he had thought of that, and yet he still asks the question *mac or windows*.

I don't see where OP asked about Windows.

You're the one who suggested he go windows off the bat without even offering boot camp as an option. I don't understand why.

 

[Hephaestus]

As somebody who has just finished an engineering degree, I would recommend against a MacBook Air. Although I studied Electronic Engineering, a lot of the modelling and schematic software required Windows and a significant chunk of HDD space. You can of course put Windows on a MBA, but with so little space it could become troublesome as you progress through your degree. Also, I spent a lot of time in the Mechanical Engineering Department of my University, and saw a lot of 3D modelling and design, which I suspect is quite graphically intensive.

Don't quote me on that since I haven't used those applications, but it's entirely intuitive to make that assumption. I'm not sure if Mechanical Engineers use Matlab programming and other compilers like Electronic Engineers do, but those almost entirely work better on Windows too. I'd definitely suggest you go for MBP.

 

[TechZeke]

Now now, no need for name calling.

The point I was simply making is that once you are used to the rMBP 15, you can't go back to lugging around the cMBP 15.

The DVD drive doesn't justify the additional weight / size etc.

Yes, I was totally name calling.

Well there other things that justify it's additional weight and size, other than just the optical drive. But thats for another thread.

 

[G4er?]

None, a PC will serve you better. A Mac will likely only add more cost & complication, save your $$$$ and buy the Mac you want once you graduate. If it has to be a Mac use your fathers 2010 for the first year, hold on to your money and see how it goes.

For spec the university can advise, 13" or 15", 11" is too small for prolonged use, for my liking.

Wait for your internship to buy a Mac. That's what my daughter did three weeks ago. Environmental Engineering. She bought a 13" MBP with the DVD. Her college provides Parallel and Windows free to students. Some of her engineering software is Windows only and some of her textbooks only provide tutorials on the disc in the book, not online.
For her, right now, it was the best choice for her.
That may change when she graduates with a Masters.
But I bet she will be able to afford it. She is making over 5K a month as a summer intern.

 

[Space Penguin]

Mac Mechanical Engineering Softwares

There are plenty of softwares, both 2d & 3d out there for Mac so don't be put off by people saying you HAVE to get a PC... Sure you may be taught on a PC while you're a student but if you are Mac literate or even just interested then check out MacDraft Pro or AutoCAD for Mac... I don't know exactly what you're looking for because there are a lot of comments on this thread (lol) but hopefully this will help a bit :/

 

[zaneliu94]

Hey, I'm an incoming ME student as well.

I spent a very long time researching and deciding what laptop I wanted to use for college. The obvious answer is, do you really need a Mac? For me, it came down to the fact that I owned enough Apple devices that the ecosystem just worked better for me to get a Mac. Plus, being an avid Apple fan doesn't help haha.

But onto the technical aspects. For ME these days, most schools actually offer the software for Macs. Yup, AutoCAD and Matlab are all OSX operable softwares. The ones that are windows specific usually are far too large to be placed on a personal device anyways so you'll probably be using a school desktop.

But let's say you needed to place one or two windows software on your computer but you have a Mac. Well, any device with 8 GB ram and 256 GB drive or more will work fine. There's been discussions on how an Air just isn't faster than a Pro but I think that shouldn't be a problem for anyone using Parallels.

Finally, what computer? I think an Air or a rMBP will work perfectly fine for any college student as long as it has the specs listed above. I have a 2012 13" rMBP and it's doing wonders. I'd highly recommend buying from a place such as MacMall or B&H for you laptop (MacMall is currently cheaper with the AppleInsider code) because they offer you Parallels for free. That's $50 off right there. For me, I installed Parallels on a 1TB ext. harddrive that I purchased for $60 on Amazon. It saves space on my SSD and I only bring out Windows when I need it.

As for the actual software, I installed Windows 7 and 8 into my Parallels machine and they both run super smoothly. I honestly think my Mac runs Windows better than a PC. I'm not sure what software you school offers to you for free but my school gave me Windows 7 and 8 for free. Plus, I got Office for Mac for free, too

If you have any other questions, just ask!

 

[nitromac]

Larger screen real estate is going to be crucial to fit in all the diagrams and everything. I have a friend who is an ME student and he says that the OSX version of AutoCAD is god awful. It's buggy and very different from the Windows version..

You might be better off getting something like a Lenovo Thinkpad (can get a 1080p screen on some of the 15-inchers). If money is no object then you can go for the Retina MBP, run it in 1920x1200 and virtualize Windows when you need it.