13inch MacBook Air for general university work.

Hi, I am going to uni from September and I already have a desktop replacement laptop (17inch weights a lot, not something that I wanna carry around the campus every day) and I was looking for a light weight laptop to use for general uni work, I study microbiology so will probably involve collecting data and attending lectures. Apart form that will use it for net surfing and listening to music. I am very much interested in the 13inch as it seem to be the right size. Can anyone give me any pro or cons that they come across using it and any feed back from uni/college student? Thanks!!

 

If this is not your main laptop (which it sounds like the 17-inch will be), I would not recommend it. It is pricey for what you get, when you can get a cheaper alternative for your requirements.

However, Mac OS X is a great operating system. If you havent dealt directly with it I would suggest you play on a friend's or your university's Macs.

But for general school stuff,, note taking, music, etc, a cheaper Windows ultrabook is better suited for you. You still have the bigger laptop for more CPU intensive, advanced work, however you won't be seeing much as a microbiology major

If money is not an issue, then the air is still only a decent fit. It's size is nice, but doesn't pack as much power for my tastes. Lots of college kids these days have Macs and they are generally more trouble-free (ie fewer malware, viruses, etc) than their Windows based counterparts. You do pay a little extra but if you don't mind, then yes it is a good laptop for school!

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2

 

Depends if you are going to run specific software, usually those are found in windows, I would grab another ultrabook one with windows.

If not, or you dont need to use windows that much (you can install windows on the mac), its a good buy, until user feedback is out for x1 carbon, the mba is the best ultrabook out there. The weight is great and the battery life awesome. And sincerely its competitive priced against windows ultrabooks that are note worthy (ignore the toshiba, acer and the first gen asus zenbook)

 

after hearing from the normal naysayers... you really need to look at the specific software you are going to run.. not just the type of software. If the exact software you need to run will run on OSX, and you like using OSX, then its a fantastic machine better than any ultrabook out there. Some ultrabooks will be cheaper, but thats because they are much lower end machines. You can dual boot Windows, or run it in a virtual machine, or maybe using something Wine based to not need Windows at all... if there is a program or two you need that is Windows-only. If you want to go Windows primary, its still a good machine, but its not really designed for that.

 

Firstly thank you very much guys for the feed back it's very helpful, I have played around with my friends MacBook air before hand I like the feel of it, I know it's a little more on the expensive side but I have this feeling of the ultra book being a little unreliable, they haven't been out for that long yet right. As opposed to the air already being in the third gen but hey just might just be me!. All so the student discount with the £70 to spend in tunes is pretty tempting too! In terms of software I don't know yet but for microbiology I recon the hardest thing will probably be hooking it up to a monitoring system which shouldn't be too taxing.
I am also planning to take medicine afterwards and I hear that the medics tend to use macs rather than windows, which may or may not be true. If this is the case then it will also give me time to get use to the OS X system.
If any others got opinions please let me know!

 

I am not sure over there but in Canada about 90% of medical software is windows only. and many DCOM imaging viewers and imaging equipment is too. Ask around.

but for extra help why not post your needs and such over in the WNSIB forum

 

bah you just want to infract him dont you?

 

nah, I could do it here but I rarely infract .... sofar

 

She needs to flex her mod muscles some times, or they'll atrophy.

 

Just buy a cheap 13" Ultrabook and save some money. Buying a MBA for just Uni work is complete overkill.

 

Technically, if you don't need any special software and you already have another computer with more guts, couldn't you get away with a $250 Acer netbook if all you're going to do is type in Word and use it as an MP3 player?