MAC or PC Laptop?

Real estate peeps,

I heading to grad school in a few months and can't decide between a PC or a Mac. What do you guys think? I had a Macbook Air since after undergrad until now (been 4 years) but it was damaged so I need a new machine. Functionality wise, I don't think we'll doing any models that are too intense so I'm not giving up that much productivity on the shit Mac Excel.

But we might be doing some Argus in school so I'd have to get the Windows function on Mac and it'd be so annoying. I've been using a company HP laptop for the past 2 years and have been loving it.

Other than that, I'm planning on keeping this laptop for 3-4 years after school end for personal use, in that case the Mac would be a better choice.

Battery is also a big issue for me and it seems Mac batteries don't die as quickly as the PC ones.

The choices are HP Spectre x360, HP Spectre 13 (beautiful machine that is coming out in a few weeks), or MacBook Air 13'

Thanks,

PS; I know this topic is not soooo RE related but I want to get the inputs from you folks that are in the industry.

 

Not sure why anyone would ever pick a Mac or rather a $1500 facebook machine.

For finance purposes, excel, argus etc or just regular life a keyboard without a numberpad is a HUGE dealbreaker. I would shoot myself in the head if I had to use the numbers above the QWERTY.

Also excel shortcuts are different on Mac. I know i bought a new laptop when SC2 came out and way overspent on graphics card and RAM, but you can get a good i5 processor with 6GB of RAM for not that much money.

 
Best Response

PC all the way but forget all the models you listed. Stop trying to look cool and trendy with your sleek PC and get one that's durable with a number pad. Look at the Dell machines and, if you're going to be doing serious excel work, get an i7 processor with at least 8gb ram. If you want something sleek, get an XPS and a number pad, but know that you have to hit the Fn key every time you want to use the F keys - Fn + F4, for example - and it can get annoying. I have an XPS and it's a sick machine and awesome for office but you need a number pad and hitting Fn every time I want to lock a reference cell into a formula definitely slows me down.

There is no denying that macs are the most durable with the best UE (trackpad, keys etc), but they SUCK for office, unless you're bootcamping it and running windows, not sure how this effects mac shortcuts, though. If that is the case, go nuts, but you can get a PC with current gen quad core i7's, 256GB PCiE SSD, top shelf graphics cards (which benefit excel) and 8gb of RAM for cheap (under 1500). A Mac with those specs is going to be at least $2500, and like Shervin said, it's a glorified facebook machine.

 

Can I set this up based on which application is in use? Say, if excel is open and I'm using it, Fn keys are Fn keys, but if I minimize to find a song on soundcloud, Fn keys are back to default?

Side note, do you have to be a software engineer to work on the question I just asked? I would enjoy that type of job.

 

No idea why people are making such a big deal of this decision. Buy the one you want. I have a top of the line MB Pro and I run "real" Excel and Argus on it through Windows 10 when I'm in work mode and I run Mac Excel (which really isn't that bad these days...) and OS X when I'm not doing anything too intense. Boot camping or running parallels isn't "so annoying" - it's pretty effortless and probably free since you'll be a student.

Now all that said, if you're going the Mac route, buy a MacBook Pro, not the air. Just like if you're buying a PC get a solid Lenovo or Dell. What the computer does is far more important than how "cool" it looks.

Commercial Real Estate Developer
 

I am also having the same question on buying a laptop, literally the same debate between Mac Air and HP Specter. I almost decided to buy the Air 13' because of its light weight and long battery time, until I saw all the comments here. If Mac Air really can't do a good job on Excel and Argus, then forget about it. Specter also is the Lightest one I ever seem in windows Laptop. Since I need to carry it around for work, weight means a lot to me ( have to admit so does battery). Another issue I heard about Mac is once you install Windows on it, it might heat up... not sure if this is common.

Anyway, I am still not 100% decided which one to buy. But don't buy the Specter that is coming up soon with USB-C, that really just a burden for some one who also has several USB 2/3.0 to plugin for work.

 

I second the Surface. I'm not gaming on it or anything, and I don't run some of the crazy spreadsheets I've seen some of you weirdos come up with, but it does everything I need it to do. The bonus is that I have a dock at my desk with a keyboard, mouse, and 27" monitor. Drop it in and I'm ready to work, and I have a dock at my desk at home with a similar setup so if I really need to look at something or just don't feel like getting dressed until after lunch I can be productive at home, too. My wife does the same with hers also, she can use the same dock at home when I'm not using it. So nice to be able to carry all of my shit with me all the time without a 10lb laptop.

The portability really can't be overstated, it's really awesome if you use it to it's fullest extent. As a laptop it's..... well it's not the greatest, but I'm a large dude and I don't "fit" most normal laptops anyway. For the average person it's fine. Plus it's a tablet and you can draw cool pictures like the guy on tv. If you get the i7 you can probably play games with decent framerates even. I've got the SP3 i5 with 8Gb RAM and I can play Starcraft and Diablo without much issue. It's not rocking Crysis or whatever though.

 

How about get a Mac then install boot camp? All your windows shortcuts will work just the same on boot camp. You just need to get used to using them on a Mac keyboard (or get another keyboard).

"There's nothing you can do if you're too scared to try." - Nickel Creek
 

I used to full-time. my setup is perfect because I can't stand anything music related on windows whether it be DAWs, DJ software or itunes and on the Mac side i'm never going to use a Microsoft office suite. People complain about not having a num pad, you can buy a USB one easily.

 

Mac for sure. There really is no performance difference between the actual hardware, they all tend to perform the same, only if your working at Google or NASA would you need a very powerful specific computer. However the OS of the Mac is a little bit more user friendly and stable than a Windows OS.

If you gonna do any kind of Coding/Scripting, then Mac is a choice since I found it more stable to run my Java, JS and BASH code than Microsoft..

If price is a concern, then it is best to simply purchase good quality hardware from Dell. And then install Linux Mint or Debian. Personally I always pick Debian, but Mint is more for people getting into Linux.

 

This is from my personal experience in b-school.

If you foresee using a lot of keyboard shortcuts for speed: Excel on a Mac, even with Boot Camp, is more difficult than Excel on a Windows laptop. It is even more difficult with Parallels/another visualization system, even if you remap your keys. Some key mappings, as you'll find, just don't carry over. The Mac's extra Fn key on the left hand side gets in the way. If you will be using a lot of shortcuts in Excel, I strongly recommend getting a Windows laptop. This is coming from someone who was convinced he'd use his beloved MBP in grad school until about 3 months in, when he grudgingly switched to a PC. Switching was a huge boost to productivity in Excel.

What worked for me: Buy the lightest laptop you can get with a full keyboard (including number pad) and page up/down/home/end buttons that don't require an Fn key to activate. If you don't like the size and heft of the laptops that come with the full keyboard and prefer the smaller/lighter machines, I would recommend avoiding laptops with keyboards that have an Fn key on the left-hand side. With that said, test driving laptops in a store and seeing what works for you is probably your best bet.

I have seen numerous classmates struggle with the same issue, and most of them got PCs for Excel work and used their Macs for other things.

You can always use the beloved/reliable Mac for non-Excel/non-programming work.

 

If you want a Mac, get the Dell XPS 13. I've owned both the XPS and the MacBook Pro/MacBook air, and the Dell has awesome battery life, great screen, and allows you to do real work without running bootcamp.

 

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