- Joined
- Sep 14, 2011
- Messages
- 344
- Reaction score
- 19
- Points
- 18
- Location
- Romford, Essex, England, GB
- Your Mac's Specs
- Mac mini Server 4,1 (2.66GHz Core2Duo CPU, 16GB RAM, 120GB SSD, 500GB HD), iPhone SE 2nd gen (128GB)
...or should I just go with a good PC laptop for now & buy a Mac desktop once I've saved more cash?
I won't bore you with the details, but I had planned on buying a MBP for university when I was going to be doing an Astrophysics Master's degree including a year in the US (one of the things that appealed about buying a Mac was how much easier it would be to get it serviced in America if necessary). However, I've since changed disciplines to Aeronautical Engineering & am having trouble legitimising the extra up-front cost.
When I was going to be doing Astrophysics the MBP would've been quite sufficient for all that I would have needed, with all the Apps readily available & the specs more than sufficient. Now I've changed to Aeronautics I find myself in a situation where many of the Apps I'll require are either not available for Mac, or only in versions that are inferior in functionality (& yet more expensive) than the PC versions.
Basically, if I did have a Mac I'd need to dual boot Windows anyway & I'd need to get a top-of-the-line MBP in order for its specs to be up to the minimum requirements of some of the Apps I'll need... Lower build-quality as they may be, I can find PC laptops with the required specs for barely more than half as much of the education prices...
I do want to get a Mac at some point for personal & general use, but I'm gonna need a laptop of some type running Windows (currently got a desktop PC that does work, but has insufficient specs & obviously can't be taken into class!) straight off the bat for my degree (and would like to eventually have two computers for redundancy); so would you agree - given my student budget - that the best option for now is a PC laptop with either a Mac Mini or iMac once I've saved enough money, or would those of you with more experience using Macs in an academic and/or engineering capacity still advise that a MBP (+Windows install) is worth the extra cost?
Cheers for any replies
I won't bore you with the details, but I had planned on buying a MBP for university when I was going to be doing an Astrophysics Master's degree including a year in the US (one of the things that appealed about buying a Mac was how much easier it would be to get it serviced in America if necessary). However, I've since changed disciplines to Aeronautical Engineering & am having trouble legitimising the extra up-front cost.
When I was going to be doing Astrophysics the MBP would've been quite sufficient for all that I would have needed, with all the Apps readily available & the specs more than sufficient. Now I've changed to Aeronautics I find myself in a situation where many of the Apps I'll require are either not available for Mac, or only in versions that are inferior in functionality (& yet more expensive) than the PC versions.
Basically, if I did have a Mac I'd need to dual boot Windows anyway & I'd need to get a top-of-the-line MBP in order for its specs to be up to the minimum requirements of some of the Apps I'll need... Lower build-quality as they may be, I can find PC laptops with the required specs for barely more than half as much of the education prices...
I do want to get a Mac at some point for personal & general use, but I'm gonna need a laptop of some type running Windows (currently got a desktop PC that does work, but has insufficient specs & obviously can't be taken into class!) straight off the bat for my degree (and would like to eventually have two computers for redundancy); so would you agree - given my student budget - that the best option for now is a PC laptop with either a Mac Mini or iMac once I've saved enough money, or would those of you with more experience using Macs in an academic and/or engineering capacity still advise that a MBP (+Windows install) is worth the extra cost?
Cheers for any replies