Opinions on Computer

Started by ParamagicCCP
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ParamagicCCP

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Hi all,

I was wondering if I could get your opinions on a laptop/tablet for next year. I am matriculating to a school that is paperless and I am split between a fully loaded Surface Pro 4 (16g ram and 1TB harddrive) or a fully loaded 15" Macbook Pro (16gb ram and 1TB flash). My University does all computer based exams as well.


Thanks,

-ParamagicCCP
 
@rilte4 I agree. I am a mac person, but the price difference between the two systems is only 200 dollars, so pricing really isn't that large of a factor in this case.
 
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I've got a late-'14 MBP 15" 1TB SSD w/ 16GB RAM. Not fully loaded, though, since only 2.5 GHz CPU (doesn't it go up to 2.7?) EDIT: nope. I guess mine is fully loaded.

I installed Win7 on BootCamp.

Love it.
 
Are you going to be doing some hardcore gaming/modifications to your computer/coding a lot? If not, get a mac!
 
Don't get the SP4 unless you need the tablet functionality + n-trig digitizer.

I use a cheap i3 SP3 as my mobile computer, an iPad Mini 3 as my media consumption device and a desktop that I built for gaming. I also got a XPS 15 with infinity edge just because it was too tempting to not buy.

All of that costs less than a 15" rMBP still. Only get it if you need it. Even if you love OSX, you can go for the 13" rMBP and an external monitor for your desk.
 
GCS-15 said:
Are you going to be doing some hardcore gaming/modifications to your computer/coding a lot? If not, get a mac!
Click to expand...
Realistically, if you want to do any real gaming (which let's face it, many of us won't do to the same extent in med school), you're better off just getting a desktop. Even a $500 desktop will do games better than a gaming laptop. For everything else, there are real advantages to macs. Battery life is huge in comparison (at least in 2012, don't know if that changed since), screens are generally much better quality, and being able to hop over to the nearest Apple store for warranty replacements and the like is very convenient.

I'll probably cross shop some of the higher end windows laptops when I start shopping for school, but as of right now, I'm probably going to just get a new mac when they launch the Skylake models.
 
terra330 said:
Realistically, if you want to do any real gaming (which let's face it, many of us won't do to the same extent in med school), you're better off just getting a desktop. Even a $500 desktop will do games better than a gaming laptop. For everything else, there are real advantages to macs. Battery life is huge in comparison (at least in 2012, don't know if that changed since), screens are generally much better quality, and being able to hop over to the nearest Apple store for warranty replacements and the like is very convenient.

I'll probably cross shop some of the higher end windows laptops when I start shopping for school, but as of right now, I'm probably going to just get a new mac when they launch the Skylake models.
Click to expand...

Not true! There's a beautiful Aorux x5 with SLI GTX 970m which outperform a desktop 980.
 
I've used my mac book air for 4 years without any issues except running out of storage space. Happy with it. Don't like the surface computers. If you are going to get a Windows laptop and want to spend beaucoup dollars to get a good product I recommend the Surface Book. That thing is awesome but it costs 2700$ which is nearly 3x what I paid for the Mac book air which has been just fine to me.

In terms of Gaming, I built my desktop for 350$ and it can run most games on ultra and I get about 200 fps average on league.
 
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What makes you split between these two? Do you need a fully loaded computer for med school?

IMO I'd go with a cheaper PC laptop. I have a Lenovo right now and I have zero complaints. It isn't a high end gaming computer by any means (AMD Radeon graphics card) and I can run just about any game on Steam
 
Lost in Translation said:
I've got a late-'14 MBP 15" 1TB SSD w/ 16GB RAM. Not fully loaded, though, since only 2.5 GHz CPU (doesn't it go up to 2.7?) EDIT: nope. I guess mine is fully loaded.

I installed Win7 on BootCamp.

Love it.
Click to expand...

O_O That thing is more tricked out than my gaming desktop.

Edit: minus the CPU. I have an unlocked 4690k so I have mine clocking around 4.0ghz
 
Lucca said:
I've used my mac book air for 4 years without any issues except running out of storage space. Happy with it. Don't like the surface computers. If you are going to get a Windows laptop and want to spend beaucoup dollars to get a good product I recommend the Surface Book. That thing is awesome but it costs 2700$ which is nearly 3x what I paid for the Mac book air which has been just fine to me.

In terms of Gaming, I built my desktop for 350$ and it can run most games on ultra and I get about 200 fps average on league.
Click to expand...

I would love to see the parts list for a $350 dollar desktop that can run like that.
 
NotWayneBrady said:
I would love to see the parts list for a $350 dollar desktop that can run like that.
Click to expand...

I can get it to you. I got a lot of the parts super cheap though because I have an EE friend who graduated and has the hook up with some of the suppliers because of his job 😉.

Main components are i5 quad core 2400, MSI GeForce GTX 750 TI (it's a low profile computer and this is the most powerful low profile card on the market at the time of building, I think it still might be). 250 gb SSD (Samsung) and 250 gb WB HDD. 12GB DDR3 RAM. 80 gold power supply.
 
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Lucca said:
I can get it to you. I got a lot of the parts super cheap though because I have an EE friend who graduated and has the hook up with some of the suppliers because of his job 😉.

Main components are i5 quad core 2400, MSI GeForce GTX 750 TI (it's a low profile computer and this is the most powerful low profile card on the market at the time of building, I think it still might be). 250 gb SSD (Samsung) and 250 gb WB HDD. 12GB DDR3 RAM. 80 gold power supply.
Click to expand...

My god...I bet you would OC and run a dry ice set-up if you could...
 
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NotWayneBrady said:
O_O That thing is more tricked out than my gaming desktop.

Edit: minus the CPU. I have an unlocked 4690k so I have mine clocking around 4.0ghz
Click to expand...

Lucca said:
I can get it to you. I got a lot of the parts super cheap though because I have an EE friend who graduated and has the hook up with some of the suppliers because of his job 😉.

Main components are i5 quad core 2400, MSI GeForce GTX 750 TI (it's a low profile computer and this is the most powerful low profile card on the market at the time of building, I think it still might be). 250 gb SSD (Samsung) and 250 gb WB HDD. 12GB DDR3 RAM. 80 gold power supply.
Click to expand...

Lost in Translation said:
Yea, the CPU is definitely the weak link. And since the GPU is soldered on to the CPU, upgrades are not possible.
Click to expand...

Teioh said:
My god...I bet you would OC and run a dry ice set-up if you could...

Are you female?😍 lolololol
Click to expand...

Lucca said:
I am not a girl no haha XD I just like the Chrono trigger character. I do OC the card though but I haven't needed any fancy cooling other than a basic fan.
Click to expand...

I understood about 50% of the words in these posts
 
GCS-15 said:
Are you going to be doing some hardcore gaming/modifications to your computer/coding a lot? If not, get a mac!
Click to expand...

honestly even if you're coding alot a mac is just fine.

however, i would vote for the sp4, though I must say most med students would never need to supe up a computer to what OP is suggesting anyway. SP4 is nice because the pen is great for taking notes in class and what not. Both machines are pretty solid pieces of hardware so you really wont be going wrong.
 
I bought a SP4 in November and I really like it. Its still not 100% stable, I have to restart OneNote sometimes and whenever MS sends big upgrades the whole system is wonky for 2-3 days but being able to write by hand, search and store everything digitally is absolutely worth it to me. Keeping organised is a weak point for me so it's all worked out better than I imagined. My classmates are slowly converting but many bought macs in the summer so won't be changing anyway. The upper years are slowly converting as their's break too.
I have the i5 with 128GB. I keep my notebooks on my onedrive account and emails on my google account and do weekly backups to a 1TB external drive. We'll see what I do/don't have access to next year as it all gets bigger. The OneTastic add on lets me resize slides and pdfs and I can insert assignments directly into the page where I "print" the directions so its easy to find.
 
My 2007 MBP is still running fine - only problem was the hard drive (non-SS) tanking after 7 years which was a cheap and easy fix. Of my classmates with Surface Pros I'm aware of at least 4 who encountered major problems to the point of having to replace them during 1st year; they all had SP3s that they purchased at the beginning of med school.
 
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