ATAR Notes: Forum
Uni Stuff => General University Discussion and Queries => Topic started by: Mr West on August 17, 2017, 08:53:34 pm
-
Hey all,
my brother is going to uni next year, followed by me in a couple of years,
So what are the best laptops for uni and why?
cheers :) :)
-
What type of price range? :)
-
What type of price range? :)
if possible say the best one (unlimited price range)
and also a good one but cheaper, like less than $1,200
thanks :) :)
-
Definitely not a macbook!! Mine crashes all the time ...Word doesn't even work on my laptop and generally the apple software isn't as good/efficient as my old HP or Asus! In terms of aesthetic, macbooks are beautiful but when it comes down to durability and practicality I would 100% recommend a HP or an ASUS ! Toshiba's are also ok.. although I found them to be quite bulky (Maybe it was just the model I had).
-
Macbooks are pretty popular at uni!
I personally have Lenovo Yoga 720 (I think lol) and I'm pretty happy with it :) Nice and light, good battery life, perfect sized screen for me (13 inches), works fast, etc. I find Lenovo really great because they make good quality laptops, but keep them at an affordable price.
Honestly, I'd say the best qualities in a laptop, if you're not tech savvy (which is me haha):
- Lightweight and not too big
- Works fast (like, doesn't have to be a supercomputer, as long as it serves your needs)
- Long battery life
- Good sized screen
-
Definitely not a macbook!! Mine crashes all the time ...Word doesn't even work on my laptop and generally the apple software isn't as good/efficient as my old HP or Asus! In terms of aesthetic, macbooks are beautiful but when it comes down to durability and practicality I would 100% recommend a HP or an ASUS ! Toshiba's are also ok.. although I found them to be quite bulky (Maybe it was just the model I had).
Really interesting you say that because I've had the total opposite experience. :P
I have a MacBook Air because something lightweight is important to me and I haven't had any issues with it. On the flip side, I've gone through more Windows laptops than I'm proud to admit and they've always crashed, or slowed to a point when you just can't use them. I've definitely owned a HP and an ASUS, and quite possibly a Toshiba too, and I wouldn't recommend.
Personally, if you can afford it, I'd go with a MacBook. Fast, light, and you don't need to worry about viruses. ;D
-
Macbooks are definitely popular, however I have a HP that runs on some AMD thing instead of Intel and does the job for me, however I wouldn't really recommend Acer :) (I had a bad run at school with Acer, they were always slower than what it takes to log in to a Monash library computer* ::) )
*Really bad comparison but conveys my point, I hope :)
-
if possible say the best one (unlimited price range)
and also a good one but cheaper, like less than $1,200
thanks :) :)
Unlimited price, honestly think you can't go wrong with one of the new Macbook Pros. They are vastly overpriced but incredibly quick, incredibly sturdy machines. Like, knock Apple as much as you like for their huge markups, but the MBP's are light so perfect for commutes, the macOS ecosystem is phenomenal and wayyy more reliable imo, and hey, best of both worlds - You can run Windows in a bootable partition or as a Virtual Machine if you need to. Doubt I'd ever go away from a Mac - Though keep in mind I'm typing this on a Macbook Pro while replying to a message on my iPhone that I first read on my Apple Watch. Self professed fanboy with bias ;)
My first year of uni I was on a budget, I picked up a used MacBook Air! Definitely way better bang for your buck than the new pros :)
For a PC on the budget end, I've probably heard the best things about Lenovo. If you are after something kind of different, very cheap, and don't need a whole lot of grunt (aka, you'll be using OneNote or Chrome all day) you might want to take a look at the still fairly new Lenovo Yoga Books. It's a laptop/tablet hybrid without any form of physical keyboard, rather a backlit surface that emulates a keyboard. Played with a friend of mines for a bit and it was nifty! I think typing on it would probably get annoying compared to an actual keyboard though :)
Laptop choice really depends on what you do with it, how you prioritise portability versus battery life for example. Whether you need lots of onboard storage or whether you'll have all your files in the cloud anyway. Mostly Word Docs, or running CAD programs? Etc, etc ;D
-
To be honest, if you want a laptop recommendation you might want to consider:
1. What exactly are you going to do with the laptop? Is it entirely for uni stuff, or are you gonna do personal stuff on it as well?
2. What degree are you studying? For things like what I'm studying right now, this impacts it a little.
3. What applications do you seek from an ideal laptop? (Different operating systems may run different apps better)
Definitely not a macbook!! Mine crashes all the time ...
Never had this problem
-
The Dell Inspiron 13/15 range are both really good for university purposes and is what I invested in at the start of the year. Functionally, it is perfect for everything you could need to do at uni, and it doubles as a tablet which is great for lecture slides/general use. Obviously not suitable for high-end processing or heavy gaming, but I'd totally recommend it for study purposes, especially if you prefer Windows to Mac.
-
I've got a HP Envy that works really well. On which OS, it probably doesn't matter too much unless there are specific programs that are windows only (they're fairly rare in academia, even the microsoft office suite are fairly global now). Even if you're doing any coding, there are really only minor differences between OS's.
I'd also really recommend thinking about storage, backup solutions, cloud storage etc. That can end up being more important than the specs of a laptop in the long run.
-
Am I the only unlucky person who has had a bad experience with my MacBook Air?! :( You guys are lucky then
-
Am I the only unlucky person who has had a bad experience with my MacBook Air?! :( You guys are lucky then
Depending on how old it is, it could just be that it isn't liking the increased demands of the newer updates to the OS. My first Apple laptop started slowing down and became considerably less reliable after one of the big software updates, which shouldn't happen, but it does :P