What laptop?

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premedprincess26

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My school for next year doesn't allow Macbook laptops, so I have to get a new one. I will need it for exams. Do people suggest getting something like a surface tablet, or should I get a real laptop?
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No macbooks? That's crazy...

I'd suggest something small and compact 13-14" screen with an SSD. A surface tablet works too, especially if you plan on studying/taking notes with it
 
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I'd say the surface book is the best after macbook.
 
ThinkPad. Light and thin, durable, converts to a tablet.
 
Surface book 2 when it comes out next month. Lots of people are googli eyed over macs, but outside of a user friendly OS they suck for the money compared to a PC.
 
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bahdahboom said:
ThinkPad. Light and thin, durable, converts to a tablet.
Click to expand...

I am in full-time IT and the ThinkPads are almost impossible to beat.

I deploy them to 100+ sales people and I get 0 complaints.
 
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I have loved my Lenovo yoga 13. My wife has the yoga 13 pro and it's awesome. Relatively cheap, too.

Can flip around to be a tablet and is a great laptop. Very reliable.
 
I would recommend a surface because they're inexpensive but solid that you can take notes on and they can connect to monitors (if your school has them in study rooms) with no delay. I've seen them work well for people in medical school. Then when you're in 3rd year, it's very convienent to carry
 
The fact that the inferior cell phones, tablets, desktops, and laptops created by Apple, which are usually quite a bit behind the cutting edge curve...sell for higher prices and have much greater popularity......seriously boggles the mind. Marketing genius at work
 
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You should get a Dell Latitude laptop. (7000 series)

One of the only business class laptops with dedicated mouse buttons.
 
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Having a synced iPhone, MacBook Pro Retina was a game changer for my productivity. Gaming is near impossible so if you are looking for an overall laptop this is probably not it.

Probably will never go back to anything else
 
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Man if a school told me I couldn't use mac... I was looking for a tablet to annotate PDFs with -- and was sold on the iPad Pro 12.9" after using both Surface & iPad pros. If I had the $$$ I'd go with the ThinkPad and an iPad Pro 12.9," hint: get Notability, will actually change your life and make classes so much easier.

The Thinkpads are tanks and have great power for the price.

Best possible setup -- ThinkPad + iPad Pro for working/studying away from your room. It's awesome that you can use your iPad as a secondary display with Duet, works great. If you need more horsepower away from a desk you can mirror your laptop to control a desktop at home, but I digress... do a lot of data work & geeking out is a part of that game.
 
getfat said:
Having a synced iPhone, MacBook Pro Retina was a game changer for my productivity. Gaming is near impossible so if you are looking for an overall laptop this is probably not it.

Probably will never go back to anything else
Click to expand...

Ok so what benefit have you found from syncing? Do you ever think the functionality of a tablet (like surface) could be something useful ?


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Any thoughts on having an all in one at home and an iPad pro for note-taking, studying away from home, etc. ?

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TheaterOfTheme said:
Ok so what benefit have you found from syncing? Do you ever think the functionality of a tablet (like surface) could be something useful ?


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Click to expand...

Better utilize downtown time. Sitting at subway eating well I can either Check Facebook or pull up pdf, flashcards on computer from phone.

The cloud is where it is at
 
getfat said:
The cloud is where it is at
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It is indeed.

For those who aren't plugged into Mac land, the same can be accomplished with Office 365 and One Drive.
 
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I absolutely love how I can write on my surface pro 3 and during undergrad, instead of writing on paper I wrote on the slides on my computer. It was amazing since I am a highlighting and writing type of learner. I HATE the floppiness of the surface pro's keyboard however and I am contemplating getting the surface book even though the price tag makes me cringe. My surface pro 3 has NO battery life and has been slowing down quite a bit. Heard much better things about the surface books and the sturdy keyboard makes it much more appealing. Anyone have one and love it?
 
McRibs said:
It is indeed.

For those who aren't plugged into Mac land, the same can be accomplished with Office 365 and One Drive.
Click to expand...

Yeah but that doesn't help me feel superior to my peers at the local Starbucks
 
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So to those who own a Surface, can anyone help me out? In undergrad, I would type relevant notes under the notes section in the power point, and I keep on hearing that the plus of a Surface and pen is writing on the screen? But I don't know exactly if that is more efficient than my ability to type words which would be quicker. I guess I am still undecided on the pros and cons of a Surface relative to a normal laptop. Now the irony is that I am typing this on my father's surface 2 which he is letting me borrow to see if I like. After a few weeks, my impression is eh, its just a small laptop with touchscreen with at times a difficult stand. I have tried using the pen on pdfs, but it never feels too efficient...
 
Doctor_Strange said:
So to those who own a Surface, can anyone help me out? In undergrad, I would type relevant notes under the notes section in the power point, and I keep on hearing that the plus of a Surface and pen is writing on the screen? But I don't know exactly if that is more efficient than my ability to type words which would be quicker. I guess I am still undecided on the pros and cons of a Surface relative to a normal laptop. Now the irony is that I am typing this on my father's surface 2 which he is letting me borrow to see if I like. After a few weeks, my impression is eh, its just a small laptop with touchscreen with at times a difficult stand. I have tried using the pen on pdfs, but it never feels too efficient...
Click to expand...

Would love to hear responses as I am also deciding between surface and MacBook. Perhaps the newer models are more impressive/productive?


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Microsoft Surface book 256 gb. You can watch the reviews on YouTube and see for yourself why it is the best bet. You may also like surface pro 3 or , which is cheaper than the book.


"What comes easy, won't last,
what lasts, won't come easy."
 
In my experience, Surface Pros are average at best.

Out of 7 deployed, 6 were returned back to my department.

The handwriting to text technology is just not what users expect and the stand is the worst.

Also, for some extra fun and games, they are nearly impossible to dissemble so if one piece of hardware breaks, the whole thing is junked.

This is the kind of nonsense I expect from Apple.

Lenovo/Dell + Windows has never done me wrong.
 
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McRibs said:
I am in full-time IT and the ThinkPads are almost impossible to beat.

I deploy them to 100+ sales people and I get 0 complaints.
Click to expand...
I was gonna say I've noticed many employers using them for employees!

I love mine!
 
sab3156 said:
How does this match up against the Dell XPS 13?
Click to expand...

The Dell XPS is a weaker machine than the Think Pad but it will work fine.

I would stay away from the i3/128GB hard drive version.

That's just not enough space even with cloud utilization.

When buying a new laptop, I look for the following -

1. > or = 256GB Solid State Drive (Hard Drive)
2. > or = 8GB RAM
3. i5 or better processor
4. Operating system you feel comfortable with

It's hard to walk away with a bad laptop if you hit those requirements.

They can get pricey, though.
 
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Noxy said:
I absolutely love how I can write on my surface pro 3 and during undergrad, instead of writing on paper I wrote on the slides on my computer. It was amazing since I am a highlighting and writing type of learner. I HATE the floppiness of the surface pro's keyboard however and I am contemplating getting the surface book even though the price tag makes me cringe. My surface pro 3 has NO battery life and has been slowing down quite a bit. Heard much better things about the surface books and the sturdy keyboard makes it much more appealing. Anyone have one and love it?
Click to expand...
sorry for the reply 4 days later but I have the pro 3 and bought the keyboard for the pro 4 and its seriously a game changer. SO MUCH BETTER lol I had to buy a new keyboard after spilling coffee on my pro 3 keyboard and I saw the pro 4 keyboard was compatible.
 
Doctor_Strange said:
So to those who own a Surface, can anyone help me out? In undergrad, I would type relevant notes under the notes section in the power point, and I keep on hearing that the plus of a Surface and pen is writing on the screen? But I don't know exactly if that is more efficient than my ability to type words which would be quicker. I guess I am still undecided on the pros and cons of a Surface relative to a normal laptop. Now the irony is that I am typing this on my father's surface 2 which he is letting me borrow to see if I like. After a few weeks, my impression is eh, its just a small laptop with touchscreen with at times a difficult stand. I have tried using the pen on pdfs, but it never feels too efficient...
Click to expand...
The newer models are a lot better. I would not judge the Pro 4/5(not yet released)/Surface Book based on a model that is several years older. Every model is better and better. I have been using the Pro 3 and have no complaints at all. As for the pen thing, some people like to write and others type. I used a mixture of both depending on the class and found it highly beneficial.
 
I'd go with a surface book... make sure you get OneNote and then you can annotate directly on the slides and save your notes on the cloud. I have not gone back to handwritten notes ever since.
 
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What, that makes no sense.
You can always install Windows onto a MacBook through bootcamp and the computer will function like any other Windows PCs.
Don't understand why they won't let you use a Mac, unless they have some kind of feud with Apple.
 
Hi! I got the Surface Pro 3 a week ago and I see myself using this a TON when I start school. These didn't exist when I was in undergrad, but if they did it would have been a game changer! I currently use it at both work and home, both as a regular laptop and handwriting on it as a tablet.

My reason for going with the 3 vs. the 4, which is the current version (5 is coming out soon I hear) is because within the same budget (around $1000 with all accessories and 3 year protection plan) I could bump up to 256G and the i7 processor for the same price as a model step down in the Surface Pro 4. The only sacrifice I could see was losing the additional 0.3" of screen size (not a huge deal for me). I upgraded to both the Pro 4 keyboard and pen, based off of a recommendation in a review that I read. Both work flawlessly with the older model tablet.

So far I have zero complaints or regrets. Handwriting on it feels really natural and the pen is incredibly responsive. I can even write in cursive and it's just the same as on paper. I'm a colorful note taker so usually I'm swapping between pens, markers, highlighters, etc. and carrying around a bag full of writing utensils but with this I can do all of that with a tap on the screen. With the new pen (had to buy this separately- like $50ish?) the back end is an eraser so it feels like writing with a normal pencil. You can double click the eraser and it will automatically take a screenshot of whatever you're looking at and import it to OneNote so you can make notes on it. I'm sure I'll use this feature a ton for anatomy.

I'm an old school "paper book" person, but after using this for a week, I really am looking forward to having everything digital so I can access notes, powerpoints, and books from anywhere. I read the "so-so" comments and I completely disagree! Unless this thing poops out on me in the next few months, I'm all for it!
 
I have a surface pro 3 and it works great. It's really nice to be able to write on my notes. I use OneNote for all of my notes, and it works great for the most part.

Also, be aware that not all stylus's are the same. Some older computers/tablets only work by touch sensitivity, while others take in other information to get pressure data too. (I think difference is from measuring capacitance changes on the screen or getting data from a Bluetooth pressure sensor in the stylus tip vs just a touch sensor that doesn't sense pressure). It's a called a digitizer pen, and I'd recommend getting a laptop that has one for note taking. It really helps the digital note taking to be more usable imo.

Here's a list of some laptops that have them: http://www.umpcportal.com/tablets-with-digitizer-pen/

As long as you have a computer that's fast enough and has enough hard drive space (you may end up using a lot of space for digital resources), I think you can make anything work in the end.


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