I forgot to include in my list of problems that it won’t respond to the close down and restart command on the menu - usually have to force it to close and then restart by holding the power button down.
Anyway - can i ask why the new chips are going to cause problems? I have literally no understanding of why that would be so!
Mac and PC user here - and a computer scientist, if that’s worth anything. Personally, I use Mac’s all the time - they require less incantations, and run a strong stable OS underneath. Not perfect, but less hassle, so staying in the Mac ecosystem makes sense. Can also run Windows on it if you need to.
Depends on the course they are doing, but pretty much any recent (2016-) Mac will take most of whatever you throw at it.
Yes, the butterfly keyboards are not as good - but I’ve been using this one for 2 years and whilst it’s been replaced once, it’s ok. More critical is a decent amount of RAM - really, the most you can have.
And yes, the Apple silicon is likely to be better, faster, smaller, better on battery. Bit so is anything released in the next year or so, and the year after that - I would not spend a fortune of my money on a new Mac because of it, but there I’m talking £3k and above - below that and it’s of minor consequence. Macrumours site has a good buying guide which tells you good and bad times to buy particular machines based on update cycle - e.g. MacBook Pros have just been updated so are a good buy, the iMac 24 has had only a minor bump and will be superseded very soon.
Also remember that they will be eligible for a UniDays account which gives them access to Education pricing (5-10% off iirc) plus free AirPods etc so I’d be tempted to go low end new with max RAM and free AirPods.
If the course is graphic design or art or similar and they will be doing loads of stuff in Adobe Creative Cloud, then you ideally want the best fastest highest multi-core machine you can get, but that costs a lot. And first year is likely to be less intensive on processing and more on skill building, at a guess - so a better bet would be a large screen that can be plugged in too to give much more screen estate for creative expression - and maybe a drawing tablet too…
We use MacBook Pro’s and would echo all the comments above. Not perfect, certainly not the keyboard and now the inability to update as the years progress. My late 2012 remains my favourite although it is by comparison, heavy. When my daughter needed a laptop for school we reverted back to a Mac as the inability to control MS updates meant that after several days of non use you could be stuck for some time with automatic updates before you could use the thing. Dreadful. At least with a Mac you can put it off until later something you couldn’t do with MS. Simple thing but made all the difference.
If you have the Pro version of Windows 10 you can defer updates.
You can defer them but not everyone remembers to set it that way. A year or two back I was in a presentation being given by a senior academic to some important visitors. He had lots of nice looking slides in a PowerPoint. After about 5 mins his laptop suddenly shut down and then restarted itself. Then it got to the memorable screen projected so everyone in the room saw “Installing Windows updates. Do not turn off your computer. Installing update 1 of 43…”
Best
David
Thanks for the input everyone, very much appreciated indeed.
@Martinzero - that video was very informative. I had no idea there were so many associated issues with the later MacBooks. Funnily enough, as I always use Apple desktops for work (tend to keep my eye on that market) I’ve never really kept up to date with Apple’s laptop range, but even I was aware of the problems with the butterfly keyboard.
@xcentric - very helpful info. Funnily enough, this morning we received that very Apple email with the back to school free AirPods & student discount offer. Something to consider.
I had a quick look on ebay late last night and was quite surprised how well retina MacBooks seem to hold their value given their age, so it may take a little while to find a good one, but we have a few weeks yet. I’ll set up the specific search over the weekend when I have more time, but just wanted a few pointers before I tumble headlong down the rabbit hole.
Thanks again folks.
one other thing to consider is that if you did buy new, then in a year or two when a more powerful machine might be really useful, and Apple silicon has or has not proved its worth, you’ll be selling something with still a decent residual, esp if you got it as a discount in the first place…
Yes, that is a very good point.
Just to flag up the smaller option and a note about batteries. . . . I have been using macs professionally for many years and have owned 17, 15, 13" MacBookPro models since 2007. Currently I am using a 13.3-inch (2560 x 1600) Retina, Mid 2014. It has a 2.8 GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 500 GB of SSD storage. (MacBookPro11,1) With a replacement battery at about a year ago. Apple replace the whole top case for that and you get a new keyboard with the deal.
In my studio I have a pair of 27-inch displays, wich it will happily run. It is the last model with a digital audio port via a simple 3.5mm jack - Optical Audio Digital SPDIF adapter
Very useful if you want digital audio. I have plugged this into all kinds of kit for lectures, shows, demos, and straight into Naim preamps, sounds great. As you are probably aware, from all the lovely information posted by others here: about a year ago Apple killed off support for 32bit software with the Catalina OS. So, to deal with this, I have partitioned my drive and now have one start up for 32bit and one for 64bit. Very easy to do. . . . So this machine gives me the best of both worlds. It is very light, fits in a small bag. As Alley_Cat rightly pointed out earlier. Apple have a cut-off point for servicing. So if you can not find a 2014 model that has a recent replacement battery installed, go for a 2015 model and get a new battery whilst you can. The very best of luck.
Cheers Yetizone he’s been repairing the things for ages, i use a 2013 Air.
I bought my daughter a secondhand high spec and mint condition Macbook pro 15" 2015 model for around £1200 on ebay and it’s very good (before Apple decided to remove all the useful ports like headphone sockets and USB from their machines!) She needed to run Logic Pro so it had to be Apple.
It’s a nice machine but frankly my brand new Alienware M15R2 (£1520 from the Dell outlet - list £2380) eats it from breakfast in every respect! Better made, immensely faster and more powerful, more flexible, far more standard ports, much much better keyboard, lightning fast on everything including Lightroom, video editing, gaming including running simulators like DCS in VR. It’s like comparing an F22 raptor to a Tornado! Oh and it also looks a lot cooler too! Even a good friend who is a total Apple nut has had to grudgingly admit it’s one hell of a machine (after he spent 3 hours on DCS in VR and I couldn’t tear him away!)
Apple dis make some nice machines and their eco-system is wonderfully simple but to be honest even the user interface which was once class leading is now less intuitive than Windows 10 and the lack of ports and difficulty/impossibility of servicing/upgrading is unforgivable. Strikes me that since 2015 they have somewhat lost their way.
Jonathan
Have read accounts of computers in ICU doing that .
I switched to Mac about seven years ago, other than an occasional regret that I cannot play the latest computer game, I have found them far more stable .
Update: I have found a rather nicely specced pre loved 15” 2014 MacBook Pro. A one owner unit, which according to the vendor, has only had occasional use and spent most of its life sat on a desktop plugged into a monitor and used with a full size keyboard, so little wear and tear. Comes with all original packaging etc so hoping will perform as described. Quite a nice unit for a first Mac! Should be here mid week…
Intel Core i7 4th Gen. 2.50 GHz.
512 GB SSD
16 GB RAM
Now looking at appropriate cases to protect from college life - any suggestions?
Tech21, the best. I think you may have to write to them to see if they still have a case for your laptop.
See if Thule do anything for that year’s Macbook - have a Thule case for my daughter’s Macbook from 2019 which is excellent.
any backpack with a padded compartment of appropriate size will do. Better for carrying around, especially with other books (single strap bags put strain on shoulders/necks, etc.) and the less it looks like a laptop bag, the better…
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