To be fair, anything more than the bottom end CPU is overkill for 95% of students.

Let’s face it, Facebook, YouTube and MS Office don’t require that much computing power…

But people are technology snobs, and feel they need Word to open 0.03s faster.

iPad. I’ve ditched my laptop completely now.

No-one’s saying buy anything crappy. £500 is NOT a crappy laptop.

A £500 laptop will not be crappy on the inside, it will do everything, but it will be crappy as an actaul portable computer*. Students are one of the few dermographics who actually take their computers with them most of the time.

And an MBA on the student deal is not a grand.

* A big plastic shell is crappy for carrying around
A big heavy screen and battery is crappy for carrying around
A spinning hard drive won’t like being carried around
A laptop with an SSD will be as much as a MBA
Low battery life is crappy carrying around.
A big bulkly transformer is crappy for carrying around
£500 laptops are basically home PCs for people who don’t have a desk in a room for a tower.

If my daughter came back from uni at Christmas begging me for a grand’s worth of kit she didn’t need I’d tell her to save up.

If I was going to buy a computer for my daughter I’d rather her have something she wants and is the right tool in the first place rather than waste money on something she didn’t want. If I didn’t have the money then a laptop is better than no computer but the OP said he could afford either.

iPad. I’ve ditched my laptop completely now.

That’ll be a fun task typing up a dissertation 😉

Friend just going to uni next month – apparently it’s still wired LAN in all the halls, so he’s gonna be ripping the p155 out of all the fondleslab users unable to connect to the free network 😉

jfletch – Member

A £500 laptop will not be crappy on the inside, it will do everything, but it will be crappy as an actaul portable computer*. Students are one of the few dermographics who actually take their computers with them most of the time.

And an MBA on the student deal is not a grand.

* A big plastic shell is crappy for carrying around
A big heavy screen and battery is crappy for carrying around
A spinning hard drive won’t like being carried around
A laptop with an SSD will be as much as a MBA
Low battery life is crappy carrying around.
A big bulkly transformer is crappy for carrying around
£500 laptops are basically home PCs for people who don’t have a desk in a room for a tower.

If I was going to buy a computer for my daughter I’d rather her have something she wants and is the right tool in the first place rather than waste money on something she didn’t want. If I didn’t the money then a laptop is better than no computer but the OP said he could afford either.

Your arguments for getting a Macbook Air are valid, but equally so for a (much cheaper) netbook/ultra book – e.g.:

http://www.ebuyer.com/288876-toshiba-portege-z830-10n-ultrabook-pt224e-00h00len

Are people suggesting 13″ screens assuming that the op will also be forking out for a monitor (?) because I wouldn’t want to be doing hours of uni work on a teeny screen.

All this stuff about laptops not being durable enough etc for student life…everywhere I have worked there have been people who have travelled weekly either nationally or internationally. All of them have had normal laptops & didn’t seem to have any bother. a lot of them didn’t seem to take good care of the equipment either as it was ‘works equipment’ and ‘backed up on the server’.

Spinning hard disks have been carried around for years….. only numbskulls who drop laptops need SSDs…. 😉

apparently it’s still wired LAN in all the halls, so he’s gonna be ripping the p155 out of all the fondleslab users unable to connect to the free network

Well thats definitely going to get him laid…

That’ll be a fun task typing up a dissertation

Getting the hang of pages now and it’s not too bad….

everywhere I have worked there have been people who have travelled weekly either nationally or internationally. All of them have had normal laptops & didn’t seem to have any bother.

Every work laptop I have ever had has been considerably less crappy on the outside than my home laptops, (but a lot more crappy on the inside). IT purchasing people tend to favour cheap but robust models but de-spec things like screens etc to get a cheap machine that they don’t have to fix all of the time.

Consumer models have shiney plastics and high headline specs to attract buyers at the expense of durability.

Your arguments for getting a Macbook Air are valid, but equally so for a (much cheaper) netbook/ultra book

Kind of true, isn’t the MBA just the worlds best Netbook?

But netbooks are crappy for anything but very casual use and ultra books are just crap MBA copies but that still cost the same.

I still say if you can afford it get the MBA as on the student package it actually represents the best deal.

but it will be crappy as an actaul portable computer*

I don’t agree. I’m a mobile consultant, I carry spinning hard drives around all the time. As do a lot of people in all sorts of lines of work.

64GB is minute, that’ll fill up in no time. No way would I sacrifice 90% of my disk space for a few ounces.

I’d rather her have something she wants and is the right tool in the first place

A £500 laptop IS most definitely the right tool. No question.

SSDs exist for performance reasons, not light weight afaik.

Consumer models have shiney plastics

OMG! Not plastic! However will I show my face in public?

Get her an air from the educational store which comes with 3 years warranty and £70 itunes card

Job done

She will be a happy girl

All this stuff about laptops not being durable enough etc for student life…everywhere I have worked there have been people who have travelled weekly either nationally or internationally. All of them have had normal laptops & didn’t seem to have any bother

Both me and Mrs PP have HP work laptops. The “crappy inside, robust outside”
The power cable is fraying on mine and the keyboard has packed up. Mrs PP went through about 3 keyboards, a hard drive and a couple of other bits before they scrapped it and got her a new one.

Both of these only get taken in/out of their bags a couple of times a week.

So now you have heard of someone, OK? 😛

molgrips – Member

64GB is minute, that’ll fill up in no time. No way would I sacrifice 90% of my disk space for a few ounces.

We’re not talking about you. A 64GB HDD is fine for a student, they’ll just need a portable hard drive to sit on their desk in halls. They don’t need all their files with them all the time. Anyway, if we’re talking about the 13inch model the basic HDD is 128GB.

Specs and edu prices:

I think people need to get over this Mac = awesome, PC = crappy stuff. As mentioned, Macs are nice enough bits of kit, but they don’t do anything PCs don’t do. With Windows 7 I think differences in OSs are largely moot, unless of course you like to define yourself by the OS you use.
Unless money is no object, just get a Windows laptop. Assuming the stuff about feeling left out was serious (is this University or secondary school we’re talking about?) I can’t say I notice there’s a Mac majority when all the students have their laptops out in the Starbucks here.

If she’s starting Uni, her laptop keyboard won’t be the only thing getting tapped…. 😉

A £500 laptop IS most definitely the right tool. No question

who died and made you king! Oh wait I forgot this was STW and we can only deal in absolutes!

If I could choose my work laptop I’d have a MBA in a second due to the portability, size to capability ratio etc. As it is I’m stuck with a humongous dell that performs like a snail.

Why a £500 laptop and not one for £300? Your average student only needs the web and some office apps not too taxing for even the cheapest brick.

I think people need to get over this Mac = awesome, PC = crappy stuff. As mentioned, Macs are nice enough bits of kit, but they don’t do anything PCs don’t do. With Windows 7 I think differences in OSs are largely moot, unless of course you like to define yourself by the OS you use.

The MBA is awesome because of the hardware, not the software. I’d probably prefer one with windows!

MBAs are nice hardware, no question. I don’t think there’s much that is that light and that powerful.

However most people don’t need them that light. You can get something less powerful and still light enough not to be a problem, for loads less.

FWIW my work laptop looks plasticy and crap, but inside it’s a quad core i7 beast 🙂

Your average student…

No such thing. Given that, perhaps the OP could give a bit more detail about the course his daughter is doing.

Both me and Mrs PP have HP work laptops. The “crappy inside, robust outside”
The power cable is fraying on mine and the keyboard has packed up. Mrs PP went through about 3 keyboards, a hard drive and a couple of other bits before they scrapped it and got her a new one.

Both of these only get taken in/out of their bags a couple of times a week.

So now you have heard of someone, OK?

So that’s 2 people out of at least one hundred or so?? Maybe you are both a bit heavy handed? 😉

I wonder what the OP is making of all this PC/Mac nonsense…..light the blue touch paper & bugger off……

Jesus! Just seen that Mac spec image up there….

They are well pricey!

My laptop for comparison is:
17.3″ screen
i5 2.3GHz with turbo boost up to 2.9GHz (whatever that means)
6Gb RAM
750Gb HDD
USB 3.0
Card reader
Battery lasts for hours…..

and it was almost £200 less than the cheapest one there (with an 11″ screen!! 11″!!). Maybe I’m a tight ass, but I can’t see me getting a Mac any time soon….probably explains why I ride a Specialized, rather than a Santa Cruz or something….

Stumpy, have you seen a macbook air? They are so expensive because they are about as thick as a slice of bread. Medium sliced.

However regular Macs are also expensive.

Yeah but stumpy, how much could you sell a PC laptop for when it’s 4 yrs old?

17.3″ screen

How big is your lap?! Do you carry it about in one of these?

I have an 18.4″ laptop at home!

It’s quite simple really, can’t afford it? Can’t justify the expense? Don’t buy it get something cheaper.

You can apply that to a lot of other things too not just computers 🙄

Even the basic Macbook Air would be more than enough in terms of performance and storage.

I’ve had many different Macs and we’ve had a Macbook 2.4 Core Duo Macbook for 4 years. it’s 160gb contains all our photos for the past 10 year (backed up to the cloud also), half my music collection, a fair amount of work (I’m a graphic and web designer), 3 independent users all running their own software etc. etc. blah blah, still runs fine.

Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that I have found Mac to be great pieces of kit. However they don’t offer anything of an advantage over any other laptop, especially if it’s for Office based software, that any student will benefit from, and they do carry that premium. I use them purely because I use them with my profession.

Repairs are really expensive too, Applecare doesn’t cover spilt Coke cola on the keyboard. 😉

Personally, I’d send her off with a simple notebook and bank the change for when she rings up wanting some ‘food’ money.

m_f – dunno. Don’t really buy things with an eye to resale value. Tend to keep things until they don’t work anymore…How much would you get for that cheapest macbook up there after 4 yrs?

jfletch – true it is quite big, but I specifically wanted a big screen for watching iplayer, editing pics, Solidworks etc. Solidworks on a 13″ screen would be, erm, interesting.

Yeah, exactly MrSmith…I could afford it, and it’s not that I would have to justify it to myself. It’s more that I wouldn’t want to spend that much money on a laptop, when as far as I can tell you can get the same thing for a lot less. I can’t see where the extra money goes, so it’s obviously not the product for me.
We’ve kinda gone off track – but for me, I don’t see that the extra expense of a Mac can be justified for a students laptop. You could probably get a decent laptop, back-up drive, keyboard, mouse & printer/scanner for for the cost of a mac…fair enough if you think that a mac would be a better purchase.

Even if you can afford a macbook, you can afford a windows laptop and something else, coke and hookers if you like. Which is the OP’s conundrum isn’t it?

This might already be mentioned above but apple to 15% off their hardware for students.

But that being said I like the look of the new HP ultra books . Not that tat helps the OP.

Oh and I think dell and Lenovo do pink cases for their laptops. Essential for a girl no?

So many Windows Fanbois on here…

m_f – dunno. Don’t really buy things with an eye to resale value. Tend to keep things until they don’t work anymore…How much would you get for that cheapest macbook up there after 4 yrs?

Probably about £250 or so. Our nine yr old Power PC G5s (that i bought when i set my business up) still sell for £100 on EBay.

I’ve told her to spend the money on a bike but no she is going to get a laptop and have the ability to afford some food.

My 13 months old Mack Book Pro’s Keyboard packed in last week, £160 fix at apple store, its was £1850 13 months ago FFS, apple products are very nice, VFM they are not, unless your kids begging for one, Save the cash…

lol not a windows Fanboi but impressed by 7, if it wasn’t for work I’d be running Ubuntu.

On a 2nd most basic Dell Inspiron i-3 2.4 with 4gb and the nvidia card I am running complex 3-d and statistical simulations just fine (for work not study). When the office apple Fanboi asked the software makers if they would do a Mac version the laughed as politely as they could and asked why bother?
As nice as a badge that said faster with the i-7 was it’s not worth the extra. Getting the extra screen makes life so much better I find it hard to go back. Find the smallest lightest laptop you can, set up Google Drive or Dropbox to hold everything and create the running backup on day 1 then you can rebuild when it goes wrong easily.

I imagine even a 256gb sd will get fairly full when the average teenager starts sharing music at uni.

Have a look at Dell student deals.

Still PMSL laughing at the prospect of all these kids trying to do a dissertation on an i-pad with no WiFi 🙂

The only thing I have to add is this…

I have a macbook, I run time machine – a free program integrated into my OS.

My hard disk died – popped along to PCWorld picked up a new HD swapped it over, re-installed the original system, upgraded to the latest OS for a whole £13.99(!) restored all my photos/music/apps from time machine.

Such an easy process it was frightening…

My question for the windows users is – What’s the inbuilt windows version of time machine called?

Err windows backup And shadow copies?

My question for the windows users is – What’s the inbuilt windows version of time machine called?

Yep called BACKUP, it’s not magic it doesnt need a fancy name – anyway I though macs never broke

retro83 – Member
Simply untrue.

Well that’s been my experience. Our Macs are all going strong after upto 5yrs (we’ve had to replace 1 battery which cost £100 for a genuine replacement a fraction of the price we’ve experienced with Windows laptops).

My experience with Windows laptops is that it didn’t matter whether you spent £500 or £1500 (top of the range Sony Viao) the quality wasn’t nearly as good and the durability was much worse.

I haven’t seen a £1000 laptop with a screen as good as a Mac (the basic one not even the outstanding Retina) – even if the screen was as good it still isn’t a MAC with its superior operating system, software and interface.

anyway I though macs never broke

…and I thought windows PCs are only used by accountants.

Can we move on from this yawn inducing PC vs Mac shite now?

OP just buy what you can afford. It’ll all work fine.

/typed on a MBA.

@timc – I’m very very surprised your keyboard wasn’t replaced free of charge, did you ask (I assume you bought the MacBook in the UK and hadn’t damaged the keyboard)