Maybe consider an external monitor and keyboard/mouse for use in her room with whatever laptop you get? Especially if using a 13” screen, would make long days at the computer more comfortable
Lecturer on a Scottish biological sciences program here...
Don't assume there won't be much IT involvement since it is biology. We include bioinformatics and statistics in our syllabus from level 1, including the use of R for data analysis and presentation, and learning python.
Either Windows or Mac should be fine. A Chromebook is definitely not and considerably disadvantaged the students who turned up with them...
Comments above about battery life are key... Expect to have some long days when the timetabling Gods are cruel and if it is being used for note taking in lectures you don't want to be worried about whether it will last the session or not.
I used to be a bit of a laptop snob - not any more.
Currently a teacher in a Google orientated school. I do have a machine to do a bit of Adobe create cloud (Photoshop and premiere pro) and CAD (Fusion 360) but every other thing I do is best done on a chromebook. It's gobsmackingly awesome for a stupid amount of money. It's also a flipy foldy number with a touch screen which does a passable job as a tablet. I sketch on it, write hand written notes on it. Great in a meeting, great to carry around. And the battery lasts a frankly silly number of hours.
And......here's the best bit......leaves you bags of cash left over for a monitor and keyboard. I consider prolonged use of a laptop for proper work as almost an inhumane act. Why do it to yourself. My wee Chromebook drives a 27inch monitor just fine with the Chromebook screen acting as a second screen. Perfect for a student with an almost disposable (exaggerating for effect, but certainly cheap) machine to walk around with and a proper, not knacker yourself with a tiny little screen setup when pulling an all nighter.
If the uni is a Google ecosystem and the course requires no specific installed apps that are windows/Mac only I'd seriously consider one.
If the university does everything using Microsoft 365, stick with Windows
The global IT consultancy of 300,000 employees I work for does everything using Microsoft 365.
We have 100,000 Macs deployed. They all work fine.
In the end I went for refurb MacBook Air 13in M1 with 256GB. £775 for excellent condition model from Hoxton. Should be plenty of laptop for her and it is her 18th birthday before she goes to Uni so this will be her present. I'm happy with that choice.
For those who have set up Uni students, do you keep the kid on the iCloud family plan? Seems to make sense for accessing paid for iCloud storage and helping her with remote support. I guess we keep the plan as it is and just load up her profile on the MacBook. Is this correct?
