Need new laptop. Mac v PC

roundone

Hi all, I'm starting a postgrad course soon, it'll all be done online. I've zero experience of this type of learning but I'm going to need a new laptop. Any recommendations?

Thank you!

light and portable quality-build all-rounders with decent screens - Acer Swift 3, Huawei Matebook 15 -> the 11th gen Intel cpu models

both available for a good bit less than a macbook air

macs are good but unless you have a specific reason or preference you can save some money

roundone

Thank you. I'm so clueless at this! So what should I look out for so it'll last me a few years? I'm guessing 16gb +ram

Windows 11?

(im not an apple user, just thought they looked good!)

the acer swift 3 is available in 16gb yes

matebook d15 is hard to find with 16gb

both laptops are well-built metal-chassis devices and will last for years of service

matebook d15 has a bottom-placed webcam which some don't like

8gb is actually fine for all general uses and will be for years

With superfast nvme ssd's nowadays if the odd pagefile occurs it's not a big deal as they are 20 times faster than old HDD's

MacronvFrugals

Personally if you could afford it should go Macbook Air.

With Windows 11 you'll be the product!

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-is-testing-ads-in-the-windows-11-file-explorer/

roundone

I'm going to check them out now, thanks!

MacronvFrugals

Bought mine brand new off the grey market on Adverts.ie, decent discount and 4 years later works perfectly! best of luck :)

It depends on budget imo. MacBooks expensive things. With the way the colony is going I’d be saving a bit. You can go totally budget and things can work perfectly if you are using it as a basic general laptop to do work on etc. You have choices in operating systems, to use full Office Pro on Windows you will pay more. Windows are really pushing 11 atm. All depends on what your course demands. You can use a Linux based OS like Ubuntu, you pay for nothing and have the free Libre Office instead of Microsoft Office. Personally I like the richly featured Office Pro, simply because that is always what I have used for my job, and if I look at alternatives I find myself searching for features that aren’t there. If you are used to using something and want to just concentrate on college work maybe go for what you are used to, you might have enough on your plate.

Haven’t looked at laptops on the market recently so can’t advise what’s available for what price etc. For ordinary writing-up stuff your specs need not be very high, but as we all know the more the better when it comes to speed & storage, so it’s always nice to have some resources to spare. Of course you can and should back up externally (cloud/external drive). I don’t even know if laptops still come new with old type hard drives, which are cheaper but slower, prone to data destruction if placed close to magnetic sources, unlike the faster, more reliable SSD (solid state, no moving parts) drives which are commonplace now.