Most students looking for a new MacBook should pick up the MacBook Air. It's less expensive than other MacBooks, more powerful, and has a bigger display than the 12-inch MacBook while remaining lightweight. And though it might not be as powerful as the MacBook Pro, it should provide enough power for the average student to get through their day.
Our pickMacBook Air (2018)
Hits the sweet spot of power, portability, and price.
More powerful than the 12-inch MacBook and more mobile than the MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air sits in the Goldilocks zone of Apple's portable Mac lineup, offering enough power for most everything you'll want it to do without the bulk of a MacBook Pro. Features Touch ID for easy, yet secure, authentication.
Who should buy this computer?
College students who want a Mac for writing papers, doing research, surfing the web, light photo editing and just entertaining themselves should get the MacBook Air. It should also be a great computer for you when your academic career is over and you're headed out into the world.
Jul 16, 2015 Mac or PC: Which is Better for College Students? In the present day and age, education is heavily dependent on technology. There are online schools with coursework and assignments being given and submitted via e-mail or on a given school webpage. This means that it is no longer a luxury for a student to own a computer, but a necessity.
Is it a good time to buy this computer?
The current MacBook Air came out in October 2018, so now is a great time to buy this Mac. Some solid discounts are popping up at retailers like Amazon, and we're likely many months away from a potential refresh. It's been a while since Apple refreshed any of its Macs in less than a year.
Reasons to buy
If unsure as to which platform to buy, Mac or PC, students should consult with the appropriate academic department. The Park School of Communications strongly recommends a Mac laptop and the School of Business requires that all incoming first-year students purchase or bring a laptop equipped with Microsoft Office. All student computers must have anti-virus software installed and updated on a regular basis before being able to connect to the campus network or Apogee's ResNet. I gave a Macbook a fair shot, and I really didn't like it! In this video I'm comparing Mac vs PC and giving you the rundown of why I SWITCHED and ditched my. Macs are good for multimedia and creative programs, PCs are better for work work. Really it is a personal preference, though if you got a MAC you could use BootCamp to use PC programs on it. Because so many students already are using Macs, more and more incoming college students will choose to buy a Mac, because everyone is using a Mac, rather than PC. This information cascade shows how one’s personal belief is not considered in making a choice.
Reasons not to buy![]()
The MacBook Air is a great Mac for students, successfully riding the line between power and portability
For students, portability is a chief concern when it comes to buying a computer. Whether you're walking through your high school's hallways to your history class or sprinting across a college campus to make it your next lecture on time, you don't want to be lugging around a heavy computer. You want something fairly light. At the same time, you don't want a computer that's underpowered. The MacBook Air occupies the happy medium of that ideal. It's more powerful than the MacBook and thinner and lighter than the MacBook Pro.
For the longest time, the MacBook Air was Apple's thin-and-light computer. Many credit MacBook Air with paving the way for the 'ultrabook' genre of computers that gained prominence in the early part of this decade. But Apple has since introduced the 12-inch MacBook, which debuted with a Retina display and was even thinner and lighter than the Air. Surely, if portability is your main concern, you should get the MacBook, right?
The MacBook Air sits in the happy medium between the portability of the MacBook and the power of the MacBook Pro.
Well, let's take a look at the modern MacBook Air. It now also (some would say 'finally') has a Retina display, without adding any bulk. And no, it's not as small as the MacBook, but it's almost as light. The MacBook Air comes in at 2.75 lbs, less than a pound heavier than the MacBook's 2.03. You're not making much of a sacrifice on weight. If the footprint of the computer is a concern, check out the MacBook, but you're gaining only about half-an-inch each on width and depth, so maybe the larger Air won't present much of a size problem.
The other consideration the MacBook versus the MacBook Air is power. While the MacBook Air's eighth-generation Intel processor won't really keep up with those found in the current generation of MacBook Pro, it's more than a match for the 7th-generation processors found in the MacBook. For everything from web browsing to photo editing, the MacBook will find itself outmatched by the Air, all while the MacBook Air is priced at least $100 under the current MacBook.
Speaking of power, the MacBook Pro is probably overkill for most students. Sure, some will be able to take advantage of its more powerful processors available to it, but if most of what you're doing is writing papers, putting together presentations, or doing research on the web, you probably don't need the level of power a MacBook Pro offers. And again, you'll be saving a bit of money if you get the MacBook Air, which is always something to consider.
Ultimately, when looking at the current MacBook lineup through the lens of a student, the MacBook Air successfully rides the line between the thin-and-light MacBook and the powerful MacBook Pro. It will meet the needs of most students, and should still be a great Mac to have when you're ready to leave academics behind and head off into the world.
Alternatives to the MacBook Air
The MacBook Air might be the best MacBook for most students, but different people have different needs. If you're looking for more power, then check out the MacBook Pro. It'll be a more capable machine for almost everything you want to do, with more expensive models offering an ever-increasing amount of power for tasks like photo and video editing, app development, scientific programs, illustration, and music production. It will last longer than the MacBook Air and perform at higher levels the entire time.
If you're looking for more of a budget option, unfortunately, you're going to have to settle for something older from Apple. It's still a MacBook Air, but it lacks the Retina display of the newer model, and its processors are older. But, it still has all-solid-state storage, which means a lot when it comes to boot times. If budget is your chief concern and you still want a Mac, the older MacBook Air that Apple still sells should work just fine, if not quite as well as the new model.
More powerMacBook Pro
More power for whatever you need to do.
More powerful and versatile than the MacBook Air, the Pro lineup offers more customization options so you get the exact machine you need for photo and video work, scientific programs, music production, or other intensive tasks.
The MacBook Pro offers a lot of customization options that allow you to create the computer you need. Offers everything from a seventh-generation dual-core Intel processor to an ninth-generation, eight-core i9 beast, configurable up to 32GB of memory with AMD Radeon graphics for the most intensive tasks. If power is what you want, that's what you'll get with the MacBook Pro.
Value pickMacBook Air (2017)
A capable computer for the money.
While it hasn't seen anything other than a spec bump in the last couple of years, the 2017 revision of the MacBook Air is still a capable machine. It may lack Thunderbolt and a Retina display, but it'll still get you through most of your tasks without hassle.
Apple quietly bumped the specs on the MacBook Air in 2017, introducing a couple of new processors to choose from. Despite its lack of Thunderbolt 3 ports or a Retina display, the older MacBook Air should still be able to meet most of your needs. It even still has an SD card reader, something many Mac owners thought was lost to the ages (or at least the Mac).
Bottom line
If you want an excellent 'medium' Mac laptop, get the MacBook Air. Offering enough power to meet most of the needs of student life while being almost as portable as a MacBook, the Air strikes a great balance between the other offerings in Apple's laptop lineup.
It's also among the most affordable of the portable Macs, especially when you start getting into the upper echelons of what that MacBook Pro has to offer and even compared to the 12-inch MacBook.
Our pickMacBook Air (2018)
Hits the sweet spot of power, portability, and price.
More powerful than the 12-inch MacBook and more mobile than the MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air sits in the Goldilocks zone of Apple's portable Mac lineup, offering enough power for most everything you'll want it to do without the bulk of a MacBook Pro. Features Touch ID for easy, yet secure, authentication.
Credits — The team that worked on this guide
Joseph Keller is a senior writer at iMore. An Apple user for more than a decade and a half, he spends his time learning the ins and outs of iOS and macOS, always finding ways of getting the most out of his iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Commands for mac. Rene Ritchie has been covering the personal technology industry for a decade. Avg free for mac. An outspoken analyst and critic, he writes at iMore.com/vector, podcasts at applepodcasts.com/vector, and you can find his show at youtube.com/vector. Follow him @reneritchie on Twitter and Instagram
We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.
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This article is intended for incoming students into the College of Engineering and Purdue Polytechnic Institute. Other Colleges, groups or units at Purdue may have different recommendations and suggestions.
Original article: http://eng.purdue.edu/jump/87a287
Basically any modern desktop or laptop computer costing over $400, Mac or PC, is appropriate. Tablet style computers or Google Chromebooks (e.g., iPad/iOS, Galaxy/Android or ChromeOS) may be useful for some applications such as note-taking, but software for technical applications is largely not yet available. Minimum recommended specifications are listed below.
The overarching well-intentioned advice we can give anyone is to make sure that the data is backed up CONSISTENTLY using either a cheap third party zero knowledge service (lots of those exist any more), or an external hard drive (or both).*
Frequently asked questions include whether we have strong recommendations on the Make/model, whether you can do what you need to with Apple laptops, whether we suggest desktops or laptops..
The most common answer you'll receive is 'It depends'.
For instance, almost any make or model that has the minimums listed above would work. If you spend a small amount of money (say <$400), it may not be worth it to get an extended warranty- rather, treat it as disposable. If you're spending a lot of money, you may want to consider an accidental damage warranty coverage.
If you are a note taker that writes (as opposed to types), your options need to include a stylus. the iPad with a Pencil and an app called Nebo have been recommended to us. Nebo is also available for 2-in-1s like the Dell XPSes, or Microsoft Surface devices.
Consider software that you might want to use for your classes -- sometimes, the software has student versions that you can use -- other times, even student copies of certain titles are prohibitively expensive, and we suggest you use the provided computer labs for those purposes. If you choose a MacOS laptop, you may need to become familiar with virtual machines or dual-booting.
Another thing to consider is whether you wish mail-in service (that can take a week or two depending on the manufacturer); or whether you wish next-business day on-site service. Not all makers provide the latter, so it's well worth your time to figure this out.
If you have specific questions, feel free to drop us a note and ask: www.purdue.edu/ecn/contactus
*: For a thorough comparison of backup companies and software, please visit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_online_backup_servicesSome examples of software companies that we've heard people have had decent experiences with include: Backblaze, mozy, spideroak, carbonite
Last modified: 2019/08/05 09:35:0.507423 GMT-4 by sundeep.rao.1
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