How much do you use your personal laptop during M3/M4?

[Lannister]

I'm in an unfortunate situation where both my iMac and Macbook Pro are starting to die at the same time. Right now, I use my iMac for most of my studying, but it's seven years old and is starting to have some seriously annoying problems, so I'd like to buy a new one. But the problem is that my Macbook Pro is also five years old and while it works fine for now, it probably won't last me all the way through M3/M4. So I'm afraid that I'm going to spend $1300 on an iMac, only to have my laptop break a few months later and then have to spend another $2000 on a new laptop.

So my question is, how much do you use your laptop during M3/M4? If I bought an iMac now and then my laptop broke before M3, would I be able to survive the last two years without a laptop? I do have an iPad pro so I can use the apple pencil (which I use for annotating lecture PowerPoints), but it's hard to type on the iPad.

I'm also not going to buy a PC, so no use trying to convince me that Apple is overpriced or whatever.

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[CytoMEGA-Lo]

I was just in your situation prior to starting clerkship. My MacBook Pro 2011 battery died and was debating just buying a new MacBook but I really didn't want to spend $1200+. Ended up buying a new battery online for around $60 which also came with the screw drivers and I replaced it myself and it's working like new again.
As for your question, you will absolutely be using your laptop during M3/M4. I didn't think I'd use mine that much but I bring my laptop everyday to clinic or the hospital. You'll be needing to access the EMRs and computers are always being used by the residents/attendings so when there's no desktop to use you can resort to your laptop. Also great to have your laptop so you can study throughout the day or look things up when you have downtime. You'll also likely have to make presentations so access to things like PowerPoint and word are important as well. Overall, you'll definitely be using your laptop


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[FindMeOnTheLinks]

on most clerkships at my school, you use your laptop every day because all the desktop computers in the work rooms are taken by the residents.

 

[ZX10R]

Everyday. Write-up learning issues, use up-to-date, question banks. At the hospital I can look up PTs on EPIC without worrying about fighting for real estate from residents.

 

[FantasticDoctorFox]

For me it depended on the rotation, but overall I'd say that on at least half of my rotations I used my laptop every day. Like others have mentioned, workrooms are always short on computers and it will make things much more convenient and productive if you have your access to your own.

 

[Lannister]

Awesome, thanks everyone! At the primary care office I've been working at the med students always have access to laptops, I just assumed that would always be the case but it doesn't sound like it!

 

[bananafish94]

What kinds of problems? I've had my Macbook since junior year high school and it's an annual tradition that it breaks every spring, but I've always been able to get it repaired for $60-100. So I'm planning on just maintaining that status quo until it somehow gets irreparably damaged.

 

[Psai]

You need a laptop during M4 to play all those games when you're home at 10 am

 

[Lannister]

What kinds of problems? I've had my Macbook since junior year high school and it's an annual tradition that it breaks every spring, but I've always been able to get it repaired for $60-100. So I'm planning on just maintaining that status quo until it somehow gets irreparably damaged.

So as for the iMac, this is going to sound dumb but it makes this horrible buzzing noise that is slowly driving me absolutely insane. Apple said they can't fix it since it's so old, but I'm going to take it to a certified repair center and hope they can fix it for under $100. I just don't want to dump too much money into fixing an old computer.

The MacBook has minor problems like certain programs randomly quitting, pretty bad battery life, etc. Nothing serious, mostly just things that are typical of an aging computer.

 

[bananafish94]

So as for the iMac, this is going to sound dumb but it makes this horrible buzzing noise that is slowly driving me absolutely insane. Apple said they can't fix it since it's so old, but I'm going to take it to a certified repair center and hope they can fix it for under $100. I just don't want to dump too much money into fixing an old computer.

I might try a PRAM reset. That's helped weird problems including odd noises on my computer in the past.

The MacBook has minor problems like certain programs randomly quitting, pretty bad battery life, etc. Nothing serious, mostly just things that are typical of an aging computer.

A battery shouldn't be too bad to replace, although Apple does love to charge a lot for that sort of thing. Programs randomly quitting sounds like a software problem...that happened to my iPhone a few years back and went away when I updated the software, so maybe getting a newer version of OSX could help?

That's pretty much the extent of my computer knowledge, haha

 

[Mad Jack]

Used mine daily for UW and such.

 

[Lannister]

I might try a PRAM reset. That's helped weird problems including odd noises on my computer in the past.

Yeah, tried that =/ I'm thinking it might be the fans or something.

A battery shouldn't be too bad to replace, although Apple does love to charge a lot for that sort of thing. Programs randomly quitting sounds like a software problem...that happened to my iPhone a few years back and went away when I updated the software, so maybe getting a newer version of OSX could help?

Actually now that you mention it, PowerPoint is one of the programs that frequently quits and I just updated to Office 2016 so we'll see what happens. But Chrome always quits at least once during the first hour of use and I haven't been able to fix that.

 

[NickNaylor]

I couldn't get without a laptop during MS3/4. There are too many applications - mostly clinical applications - which just don't run well on mobile systems to make, e.g., a tablet your sole piece of hardware, except for perhaps a Microsoft Surface.

You could take your current machine to an Apple Store to have them do some diagnostics and see if they can determine what's wrong with it, but depending on how old your machine is it may be worthwhile to just upgrade. I bought a new top-of-the-line MacBook Pro at the beginning of M3, and it's still my daily machine and serving me quite well (and I have no intention to replace it anytime soon). Just make sure to invest in the hardware and don't get the cheapest model, otherwise it'll quickly become painful to use.