Best student Macbook?

[macdonald]

Can anyone offer advice on the most appropriate Macbook to buy for a 16 year old now starting her GCSES..

[Sew109]

Originally Posted by macdonald

Can anyone offer advice on the most appropriate Macbook to buy for a 16 year old now starting her GCSES..

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One with windows on it. macs are better made I don’t deny that but pc’s are cheaper and more likely to be the standard for when you 16 year old works and uses computers at educational facilities.

Macs are pretty and trendy and as I said better built but they are not as versatile as a Pc.

Oh and I do know as I have both and have been in senior it roles for 22 years

[macdonald]

Originally Posted by Sew109

One with windows on it. macs are better made I don’t deny that but pc’s are cheaper and more likely to be the standard for when you 16 year old works and uses computers at educational facilities.

Macs are pretty and trendy and as I said better built but they are not as versatile as a Pc.

Oh and I do know as I have both and have been in senior it roles for 22 years

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... oh ok, thank you very much for your advice

[Sew109]

Originally Posted by macdonald

... oh ok, thank you very much for your advice

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You are very welcome I am not anti apple I have Ipad, Iphne and my wife and I share a mac book but for work we both use PC's.

Even in my industry (when i was working there) the design side only the designers had Mac's everyone else in that company had PC's. There used to be a time when Macs had better hard disks etc and you could only get some software on that platform those days have gone PC far better cheaper choice.

[YorkshireT]

I simply don’t agree get one with Windows on, something you see regularly on here.
Macs are vastly superior to Windows laptops in my experience, my daughter and most of her friends have MacBooks for school. Go into any University and Macs are incredibly popular as well. MacBooks will last a lot longer than a Windows based laptop in my experience. I’ve just passed my 8 year old iMac to my son and it’s still doing the basics perfectly and looks like brand new.
The new M1 Macbooks are epic, the performance is amazing. Get her the base MacBook Air M1 chip £999 without discount. There’s not a Windows laptop in the price range that comes close as an all round package. I’ve just got the MacBook Pro M1 which isn’t actually much faster than the M1 Air and it will, for example, edit 8k video and export it as quickly as a £4000 Mac (not MacBook) Pro. The new M1 chip is amazing and Intel simply cannot compete.

[novocastrian]

pay 1/2 the price and get a laptop ? its GCSE work not high intensive video work
£999 for a mac or @£500 for a decent laptop

seriously there is nothing a mac does that a pc cant... they 'last' just as long im typing this on a 6/7 year old lenovo running win10 & its fine

ask school if they run mac or pc's ?

* you cant put a USB drive in a macbook though ;-)

[YorkshireT]

I am not sure if you are joking on the last paragraph... I think so

Try your 7 year Lenovo up against a 7 year MacBook. The MacBook will feel still like a brand new computer with even Big Sur, the latest operating system running totally smoothly on it. Try editing a photo in the latest Photoshop, with increasingly big photo files, and compare it to the MacBook.

I have high end PCs at work- a new HP Elitebook and a Surface Pro. Neither come anywhere near the M1 MacBook, and the HP Elitebook is more expensive. It’s laughably bad in comparison to the MacBook.

The new MacBooks are amazing and it’s not about running high end apps now, but in 5 years still being able to run smoothly increasingly sophisticated software. OPs daughter may have an iPhone shooting 4K 60fps video, the M1 Mac can eat that for breakfast.

Of course, if OP is on a budget then go for Windows but OP asked about Mac and it’s immediately stated get a PC as the Mac isn’t good for school, when real world experience, 2 kids in state school doing GCSE with Mac doesn’t indicate this to me in any way. Of course, if the kids are using some sort of specialist software, Windows only and are advised to get that, then that’s a different matter, but I haven’t encountered that scenario at all.

Just look at the reviews of M1 Macs, just out, everyone is blown away. Few teething problems with older software but just out and the bug fixes will sort over the next few weeks.

But I am an Apple Fanboy now seeing what they have done with their processors the last few years, I’ll admit.

[novocastrian]

Originally Posted by YorkshireT

I am not sure if you are joking on the last paragraph... I think so

Try your 7 year Lenovo up against a 7 year MacBook. The MacBook will feel still like a brand new computer with even Big Sur, the latest operating system running totally smoothly on it. Try editing a photo in the latest Photoshop, with increasingly big photo files, and compare it to the MacBook.

I have high end PCs at work- a new HP Elitebook and a Surface Pro. Neither come anywhere near the M1 MacBook, and the HP Elitebook is more expensive. It’s laughably bad in comparison to the MacBook.

The new MacBooks are amazing and it’s not about running high end apps now, but in 5 years still being able to run smoothly increasingly sophisticated software. OPs daughter may have an iPhone shooting 4K 60fps video, the M1 Mac can eat that for breakfast.

Of course, if OP is on a budget then go for Windows but OP asked about Mac and it’s immediately stated get a PC as the Mac isn’t good for school, when real world experience, 2 kids in state school doing GCSE with Mac doesn’t indicate this to me in any way. Of course, if the kids are using some sort of specialist software, Windows only and are advised to get that, then that’s a different matter, but I haven’t encountered that scenario at all.

Just look at the reviews of M1 Macs, just out, everyone is blown away. Few teething problems with older software but just out and the bug fixes will sort over the next few weeks.

But I am an Apple Fanboy now seeing what they have done with their processors the last few years, I’ll admit.

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well you can with a dongle...

as i say for GCSE work a laptop is perfectly fine im not saying a macbook isnt suitable just over priced for what you need

OP can choose based on budget but as you say did specifically ask for macbook recommends

[YorkshireT]

Originally Posted by novocastrian

well you can with a dongle...

as i say for GCSE work a laptop is perfectly fine im not saying a macbook isnt suitable just over priced for what you need

OP can choose based on budget but as you say did specifically ask for macbook recommends

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Or a USBC one like they all will be soon...

Yes having got two kids doing GCSEs (well my oldest has now finished and on A levels) there’s often more to buying it as a utilitarian tool. My daughter is never off hers- for example FaceTime, message etc, and of course the software between that an iPhone is becoming increasingly blurred.
I totally agree a £500 Windows laptop will get the job done so to speak, but maybe it’s an Xmas present etc and OP can well afford it.

One thing I’ve also found having had many PCs and laptops (I used to build PCs as a hobby)- no one wants a 5 year old Windows laptop and it will be on its last legs. Look after the Mac and as I say it’s still going strong at least in the basics and operating system, and it’s still actually worth something second hand.

I am blown away by the M1s though- the biggest single jump in performance to wattage we have seen in a long, long time. Then again my new iPad Air is pretty amazing too processor wise. Apple are knocking it out of the park on these processors, it’s magical.

[400ixl]

I would challenge the statement that Macbooks are vastly superior to Windows laptops. That is just not true in so many ways. And a Windows laptop is not vastly superior to a Macbook either. Both have their merits. I would even throw Chromebooks into the mix as suitable laptops for students.

My first question is budget. How much do you want to spend, a Mac will cost you twice as much as a Windows laptop for what could be pretty much exactly the same experience. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't spend that money.

My second question is always what software will you want to use on the device. Validate that all of what you may want to use now or in the future.

First check is whether it can be used on the device. There is still an amount of software which does not run on a Mac unless you run a virtual instance of Windows on it.

Second check is then is that software experience better on the Mac or Windows. Some software is more feature rich on a Mac, some on Windows. If you can use the Mac Office native applications then you should get as comparable an experience as using Office on Windows. If you have to use Microsoft Office on a Mac, then it is not as feature rich.

Third check is can someone actually support this device. Mac's are not free of complexity to configure, support, they are not malware / virus free etc. Its no harder than any other when familiar, but is different and less people know it.

As we are talking a younger user here, think about non education as well. Many play games on laptops which will be quite constrained on a Macbook compared to a Windows Laptop (again can be worked around to a degree with running windows virtualised on a Mac).

Many schools / universities are actually using cloud services such as Google these days and this is where a Chromebook can come into its own as a cheaper option.

If cost is not an limitation and you are fully into the Apple ecosystem the Macbook can make complete sense. It can limit what you can do, but those limits may not apply to you and actually what you need the macbook it is better at than a PC, but do your homework first.

If you stay away from really cheap Microsoft based laptops, then with Windows 10 now providing a much more stable platform, the view that Macbooks last longer is no longer the case really. You will get just as long out of a Windows Laptop as an Apple Macbook these days.

I always advise, don't make the decision based on a badge. Understand what you need and see what can provide it for the right price. That could be a Macbook, that could be a Windows Laptop.