Buying a new Mac Book Air or Pro

stevek93

Hi all,

Looking to buy a mac book pro or air for collage use, have a budget of 900 to 1000 no more, when I went to search online I was shocked to see them starting at 1300 for the 13" knew they were expensive but not that expensive! Anyone have any idea on how I could get one at that price or maybe use my student card to get money off?

SuprSi

Any particular reason why you want an Mac? For that money you'd get a brilliant Windows laptop

U_Fig

SuprSi wrote: »

Any particular reason why you want an Mac? For that money you'd get a brilliant Windows laptop

Apple do a student discount on their products look into that

gaybeer

For college use it has to be the Pro. I have had both. The Air is essentially a netbook and you will find it can be quite slow/overheat when you do anything more than surfing the net. While the Mac are expensive I have found them much better value for money that a similiarly priced Dell I got from UCD, which was useless 12 months down the line.

gaybeer

Ps the student discount from experience is crap. Usually something like 40 off an iPod.

iora_rua

Why not look at Apple's 'end of line' or 'refurbished' items?

gaybeer

My Pro is actually refurbished but was as new when I got it.

stevek93

Might just stick with windows so, what about this http://www.theverge.com/products/vivobook-s400/6263 pc world have the i7 for 900e?

stevek93

Any ideas?

marco_polo

Its hard to give recommendations as that you haven't really said what sort of college work you need it for, or what you ideal budget would be? Thesort of features that are most important for you, processing power, battery life, portability etc would be helpful too. .

I'm not having a go but vague threads tend to get very few replies.

stevek93

marco_polo wrote: »

Its hard to give recommendations as that you haven't really said what sort of college work you need it for, or what you ideal budget would be? Thesort of features that are most important for you, processing power, battery life, portability etc would be helpful too. .

I'm not having a go but vague threads tend to get very few replies.

No worries, general internet usage nothing to much on the processor likes of youtube email and general browsing but I need it to be ultra portable and a large enough screen preferably a 14".

U_Fig

Something like the 13' inch ultra book fron asus.. I personally like the ux31a but they are **** hard to come across and over 1100 quid but they're other models like it cheaper and more available

marco_polo

stevek93 wrote: »

No worries, general internet usage nothing to much on the processor likes of youtube email and general browsing but I need it to be ultra portable and a large enough screen preferably a 14".

The U410 is a decent mid range ultra book option in the €750 ish bracket

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Lenovo_U410_1265225.html

stevek93

marco_polo wrote: »

The U410 is a decent mid range ultra book option in the €750 ish bracket

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Lenovo_U410_1265225.html

Going to pick up the Asus Vivobook S400E, light and thin http://www.pcworld.ie/Product/ASUS-Vivobook-S400ECA039H-14andquot-Touchscreen-Laptop-Dark-Grey/312630/301

Overheal

it honestly depends on your collegework, speaking as someone with many options handy:

For most classes, any ultrabook will suit your needs just fine. Even something with only 128GB SSD will be able to tackle all the files and settings and programs you're going to encounter. To boot, they are spiffy, fast, and very light.

For sciences, I'd actually point you in the unusual yet equally expensive direction of a Samsung PC Tablet. I came across one by almost dumb luck, but it's basically the Galaxy Note with an Ultrabook's specsheet and now I have it running Windows 8 (XE700T1A - which was the prototype for the later models, and lacks the 1920x1080 resolution. Bah). The little bastard is more or less a giant digital notepad that I use to take physics and integral calculus notes on - the sort of things that are diagram and formula intensive, and a pain in the ass to carry around notebooks and paper for, and that dont type into a PC very well using a keyboard.

Both options, now running Windows 8, will be able to sync files to your Skydrive and will sync settings with a home computer. Essentially, I do all my essays and stuff on my desktop, my math on the tablet and the out of house stuff on the tablet and the laptop. I have no practical requirement for owning a flash drive, and I don't have a problem with that.

The only time you're honestly going to need anything more powerful is if you're doing data-heavy stuff or processor heavy stuff, and Im thinking things like Programming, Video Production and Photography, or you're just a sick junkie that likes video gaming. Frankly I have a desktop that is capable of all of that; my portables are for nothing else but school and occasionally watching video on the couch.

I suppose a convertible laptop would do the job of both a laptop and a tablet, but it will work best if it has a digital stylus. If it doesn't have one, question what the point of it is. The best Capacitive touch stylus I've seen is called a Jot Pen (link) and having seen it in person, it's as close as you'll get to a digitizer without simply buying something with the digitizer hardware in it already; right now Samsung is putting out more of that stuff than anybody.