Help deciding on MBP for college

First off let me start by saying I have never owned a Mac and have only used one a few times. I plan on converting due to the reliability and quality of the MBP line and because I need something that will last me through the next 4 years of college. I am an electrical/computer engineering major and will need something that will be able to handle programs such as AutoCAD, MatLab, etc. Besides doing school work, it will be used for word processing, surfing the internet, itunes, photoshop, and possibly fooling around with video editing. I know that I will have to install windows and I'm looking at installing it through Parallels or VMware. I have read that ram will greatly increase performance using a virtual machine so I may possibly spend 100$ and upgrade the RAM to 8 gigs. The part that I can't decide is whether or not I should go for the 13" or the 15" 2011 MBP. I like the portability of the 13" but I think I would need the dedicated graphics card for running programs like AutoCAD and the quad-core CPU couldn't hurt either. (When talking about the 15" MBP I am meaning the lower-end one with the 256mb graphics card. The 1gb is just a little bit out of what I'm willing to spend)

Any thoughts or experiences? I'm leaning towards the 15" but the only drawbacks are the price and its not as portable as the 13". I know that if price is an issue I should just go for the cheapest one but if I'm going to shell out $1100 for the 13", I would rather spend a little more and get something better if the 13" will hinder my productivity considering I'm going to be using this thing daily for the next 4 years.

Any insight is appreciated, thanks.

You will be fine using autocad on a 13inch pro.

Autocad might work on a 13" MBP but will it be as "productive"?
That is will it be as fast or will you have more wait time?
Will you be able to see enough of the screen or will you constantly be zooming re the samller size?

You are going to using the computer constantly throughout your 4 years and it will be your essential "tool".
I would lean to the 15" its potential to be more productive and efficient especially with the kind of courses that you will be taking.

Just my opinion

DavidH

I have the 15" and I upgraded from the 13".
Although the 15" is a little bit bigger, it is not that much of a difference. The 15" is still amazingly portable and I do not feel a major difference moving it around.

What do you need autocad for anyway - except for perhaps 1 semester? I would go for the additional horsepower and screen real estate of the 15" - just for general purposes and since you're planning to run some virtualization sw - but you can get by with the 13".

I would definitely upgrade the RAM - no question.

So with the 2.0 i7 and 8gb of ram I should be able to run parallels just fine? Also what do you guys prefer, iwork or msword?

Yes, Parallels will run just fine on that Mac.

Personally, I like MSword, and I used it every day. A lot of folks like iWork, but its personal preference, both can get the job done.

LEMike09 said:

So with the 2.0 i7 and 8gb of ram I should be able to run parallels just fine? Also what do you guys prefer, iwork or msword?

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I prefer MS Office - Word and Excel - but that's largely a byproduct because it's what I know. I have recently downloaded keynote as a supplement to PowerPoint though - although haven't had time to experiment much yet. I know many folks who feel Keynote is superior. I do think you'll probably need Office - depending on what kind of courses you end up taking.

I think I'm going to get the low-end 15" although I still may get the 13" and just use my 23" monitor from my desktop while I'm at my apartment

LEMike09 said:

I think I'm going to get the low-end 15" although I still may get the 13" and just use my 23" monitor from my desktop while I'm at my apartment

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I'd really have to recommend you stay with the 15". You're going to spend a lot of your time - at a table, coffee shop, lab, etc... with friends - studying or working on projects - you're going to appreciate the extra screen real estate of the 15" over the 13".