Solved Best student laptop that doesn't cost £2,000

Hazel123 said:

And the zen book flip is a nice computer.

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Yeah, you get quite a lot for the price. Also MIL-spec tested. Very good.

Yep and they have good reviews - it's a nice computer but ............I think I will meet with resistance.

It's becoming an issue lol. A battle of wills and I may have to give in.

The Pool Man said:

I owned Macs ONLY for 29 years. Because of how TERRIBLE Windows was in comparison. I even sold Macs in the first West Coast American store for years. I was more Mac than 98% of peeps who ask your question.

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Okay great. It's always better discussing pros and cons with somebody else who has used the product. I appreciate that.

The Pool Man said:

The iPhone 6S was garbage. But because I was clueless I accepted it was my fault. Until I bought a OnePlus 3 and got twice the phone for half the price. What an iOpener that was.

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I've never been able to get along with the iPhone. My wife and daughter both have an iPhone and my son has a Google Pixel and I have had Samsung phones for years. My wife has gone back and forth between Android and Apple, and end of the day she prefers the Apple and has an Apple watch. But she doesn't like my Mac's, at all. She only uses PC's.

The Pool Man said:

Now I would call 75% of Apple users fools. Yes, they do some things very well, but if you're not a flimmaker or audio person -- you're being taken for the previously explained ride. Apple under Tim Cook has been pretty bad, M1 aside.

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Yeah, I volunteer at a huge church and run Digico sound consoles for the IEM mixes of the live band. Everything there in the audio and video world is Mac, and part of the reason I got a mac and tried to become a bit experienced with the product.

The Pool Man said:

You're seeing me taking a tone here because as proud as I was to stand preach 'Mac' during the Windows 7 era -- I'm now just as proud to tell people to go Windows/Android. Windows 11 is not perfect by any means and with Co Pilot may be heading in the wrong direction, but for most users Windows is the smarter choice. And you get to have several PCs instead of one Mac.

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I'm on anti PC in any way. If I had to choose, 1 and only 1 computer for myself, it would be a PC.

As far as Co-Pilot, AI is the next rage. If Microsoft didn't get onboard with it and get going, they would be left behind and very late to the party. They have done this numerous times in history, (internet explorer, MIcrosoft Zune music player, Microsoft phone), and AI (love it or hate it), is going to be the next big thing for the foreseeable future.

Not sure how many non enthusiasts want multiple computers and devices to manage.

The Pool Man said:

Oh, and the myth of keeping a Mac for 5 years is wildly bad advice. (I'm not saying you said that, but I just read it somewhere in this thread.) Once any Mac (or PC) is out of warranty it is worthless once something goes wrong. And if nothing goes wrong the battery will be toast in 5 years.

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My MacBook Pro purchased in March of 2014 is still working, and holding a charge remarkable well for 2 months shy of 10 years old. I realize that I'm the exception rather than the norm, but it's not entirely impossible either. I didn't buy Apple Care, nor have I ever had to have it worked on.

The reason I ended up buying the Mac Mini, was because my late 2013 model macbook pro is running the Intel processor (core i5), and the newest stuff isn't supported any longer. I couldn't justify spending $1500+ on a laptop for myself, as I work in IT and I have a laptop that I have to carry anyway for work....so my portability needs are taken care of. But I wanted a new M based Apple device, so the mac mini worked perfect for me. I just have a standard 27" monitor on it, and I have a logitech keyboard (with the apple keys, the logitech K380 bluetooth keyboard that I use on a few different systems as it syncs to 3 devices... One of the best $30 keyboards I have ever bought). My mouse is the Logitech M650L.

And I think people who buy into Apple are the types that want to keep their stuff up to date. I'm always astounded by how many people replace their cell phones as soon as they can. I'm the opposite, I try to stay on my paid off device as long as i possible can. I usually get about 4 years out of my cell phones.

The Pool Man said:

Apple limits you to three years because even they know their laptops aren't reliable after that. (For if they were, AppleCare would be for 5 years, wouldn't it?)

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I'm pretty sure back around 2020 or 2021, Apple started offering AppleCare to devices past the 36th month coverage. Apparently you can purchase it monthly or annually

A yearly recurring plan shows up too when buying a new product as well.


I work in corporate IT, and honestly with most equipment you only want to do warranty on something for a limited period of time. Otherwise, you are paying more money on covering an old product when you could otherwise just be saving that money for a purchase of a newer product instead that will be better, faster, longer battery life, etc.

Hazel123 said:

I’ll update when I see where this goes. It’s a slight dilemma. He clearly wants a MacBook Air (without ever having seen or used one but I think has decided they are the best). I struggle with the idea as would never buy one myself for various reasons. And the zen book flip is a nice computer.

Don’t want to end up with it being an issue though.

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Does your son have a job or a source of money that could be used towards the purchase of his computer? My PC gamer son who also has a very healthy guitar habit (lots of $$ here), has been mowing lawns in our neighborhood since he was about 13 and is now 16 and pays for the vast majority of his equipment on his own.

Unfortunately not - partly because he's in the middle of GCSE's. He was earning in the summer and spent it on an upgraded graphics card for his pc. I think if he had the money he'd just go out and buy it whatever we thought.

Unless there is a good reason to need windows for any future science, maths or engineering based subject, I think I have to give in. Which I'm finding tough as it is the last laptop I would ever buy personally! Just a personal thing.

I think there is a lot of pressure on parents re macbook airs.

Hazel123 said:

Unfortunately not - partly because he's in the middle of GCSE's. He was earning in the summer and spent it on an upgraded graphics card for his pc. I think if he had the money he'd just go out and buy it whatever we thought.

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That's why my kid started mowing lawns. He wanted a video card for his PC, he went with an Nvidia 2080 super at the time.

Hazel123 said:

Unless there is a good reason to need windows for any future science, maths or engineering based subject, I think I have to give in. Which I'm finding tough as it is the last laptop I would ever buy personally! Just a personal thing.

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For a desktop, I would vote Windows all day long. If I had to buy a personal laptop for myself, i could almost guarantee I would get a Mac. I work in IT and have had a work laptop for 20+ years...so I have only ever bought 1 personal laptop for myself...and that was my MacBook Pro that I bought back in 2014. it served me well, and i have no showstopper complaints.

I work for a fintech company and we do tons of development and data science analytics, and we get a choice of being on PC or a Mac. For the type of work I do, I'm more comfortable with a PC in the office, but I'm kinda the minority. Many of our developers, senior level engineers, and data analytics nerds are all using Mac's.

Hazel123 said:

I think there is a lot of pressure on parents re macbook airs.

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But rarely do you have somebody who bought one and truly regretted it and thought that it was awful. That says something right there, because many don't want to spend the money...but once they do, it seems like they continue to buy more and more products. So, they are doing something right. The potential for regret is huge with a higher pricetag, but honestly I don't see that much regret after the fact.

Hazel123 said:

I’ll update when I see where this goes. It’s a slight dilemma. He clearly wants a MacBook Air (without ever having seen or used one but I think has decided they are the best). I struggle with the idea as would never buy one myself for various reasons. And the zen book flip is a nice computer.

Don’t want to end up with it being an issue though.

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Sometimes we have to overrule our children when either finances or knowledge (or both) interfere.

Macs are totally different than Windows and from my experience, the learning curve is humongous. Quite frankly, if he'd started out with a Mac, then the learning curve for Windows would be just as huge.

Bottom line is that what with such a large learning curve, he might just fall behind, no matter how intelligent he is.

Wynona said:

Macs are totally different than Windows and from my experience, the learning curve is humongous. Quite frankly, if he'd started out with a Mac, then the learning curve for Windows would be just as huge.

Bottom line is that what with such a large learning curve, he might just fall behind, no matter how intelligent he is.

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Different yes, but non enthusiasts seem to find them pretty intuitive. I've never really heard many macbook users complaining that they cannot for the life of them figure out how to use their computer.

Hazel123 said:

It's becoming an issue lol. A battle of wills and I may have to give in.

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It is impossible for Mac fanboyism to become an issue. It has always been, and will always remain, an issue.

About the potential for regret. As an extreme example to get my point across, a lot of victims who joined a cult don't regret the decision, but it doesn't take too many brain cells for the average person who didn't join a cult to still be able to see the simple fact that the absence of regret says very little about who did or who didn't fall victim to getting theirself brainwashed. So, let's for a moment assume that most Macbook Air users have recently spent a reasonable effort to compare a decent Windows laptop with what they currently are using. It still doesn't take long to figure out why a lot of them are biased like no tomorrow.

It's the way that they talk about the products from Apple and the part of the brand structure that they identify theirself with that gives them away usually. When you try to criticize them about it, they only become more defensive. They persistently relentlessly downplay getting mediocre specs when it comes to those specs that factually matter the most, in their desperate attempts to cover up the blatant fact that Apple pricings typically are worse than exorbitant. So much so, a lot of these people ARE the marketing strategy. In short, they keep buying overpriced while at the same time also, they do all the marketing work entirely for free so as a result Apple doesn't have to do anything in that regard besides wait until it's the perfect time again to give the wheel another push so the wheel never stops. This strategy is the superlative of bulletproof, really.

I am an IT pro also BTW. I am an Enterprise Java developer who works for very large corporations, and, most of what I do for a living has got almost nothing to do with Microsoft Windows. The laptop you see in my specs is not what I use for work. I am not permitted to publicly discuss detailed specifics about what I use for that, but I can tell you that it isn't running on Windows. And it certainly isn't a Macbook. lol

hdmi said:

They persistently relentlessly downplay getting mediocre specs when it comes to those specs that factually matter the most, in their desperate attempts to cover up the blatant fact that Apple pricings typically are worse than exorbitant.

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For me, with a laptop the specs which matter to me most are: #1 is battery life. #2 is going to sleep and coming out of sleep that are the most important. Coupled with a great screen and a very functional touchpad, Mac's are great laptops. With the M series silicon, apple managed to somehow still nail #1, while bringing unbelievable performance along with it. These M series processors are quite impressive.

pparks1 said:

Different yes, but non enthusiasts seem to find them pretty intuitive. I've never really heard many macbook users complaining that they cannot for the life of them figure out how to use their computer.

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Well, I guess I'm in the minority, because I never found them intuitive at all. Sigh . . . The things hated me.

Wynona said:

I guess I'm in the minority, because I never found them intuitive at all. Sigh . . . The things hated me.

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If you have been a Windows user for years, there is such a thing as a Windows brain and a Mac brain. My one Mac only frend was lost in Windows and I was basically lost using theirs.

pparks1 said:

For me, with a laptop the specs which matter to me most are: #1 is battery life. #2 is going to sleep and coming out of sleep that are the most important. Coupled with a great screen and a very functional touchpad, Mac's are great laptops. With the M series silicon, apple managed to somehow still nail #1, while bringing unbelievable performance along with it. These M series processors are quite impressive.

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A college student doesn't generally require that much extra battery life, though. It takes only about an hour to charge the Zenbook 14X OLED fully, and, where I live I could still always decide to get a 45000mAh 67W power bank for just 73 Euros inc shipping. Xtorm Fuel Series 5 67W Powerbank 45000 mAh - LED display - 2 x USB-C PD / 1 x USB-A -... | bol
Apple has limited software choices due to their walled garden approach, and the real-world performance of the M2 also is held back by this, in a number of ways, although that still also depends on how you use it (and on what you use it for). Either way, the Intel Core i7-13700H overall real-world performance is not very far behind the M2 (and actually even beats the M2 in a lot of situations). Also I don't think the Zenbook 14X OLED has troubles with sleep.

The Macbook Air 13 (or 15) with M2 has pretty much zero serviceability, as only the battery is user-replaceable so, if you choose to go with the 8GB-RAM-and-256GB-SSD to keep it "affordable", it means that you will inevitably be stuck with those two choices. I find that a rather bitter pill to swallow when you're shelling out that much money for a student laptop with no touchscreen that you could use during class to take notes with a stylus pen. In situations when you can't/won't use a mouse, a touchscreen with a stylus pen also is more convenient and faster to use than a touchpad.

Wynona said:

Well, I guess I'm in the minority, because I never found them intuitive at all. Sigh . . . The things hated me.

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Ditto. And yes you’re right parenting sometimes needs to overrule but it’s a bit of a battle and want him to be happy as well. All the logical explanations went in one ear and out of the other. To be honest I would rather pay £2000 and get anything that isn’t a MacBook Air - if I can find something else he likes and makes the choice himself.

Yes it is a bit of a cult and it’s sad he is listening to what other people say rather than me (as he always used to). Thats teenagers for you.

On the other hand it’s ridiculous. Some students don’t have a laptop at all and have to borrow a crappy old one from the colllege. I know what it is - he likes the idea it will interact with his phone. I said that’s not a reason to get a laptop. And someone told him it’s the best laptop you can get. Which Im sure many people do believe and all the review sites put it at the top of the list. But to me it is form over function in some ways and bad ergonomics. That’s my beef and Im probably in a minority.

hdmi said:

A college student doesn't generally require that much extra battery life, though. It takes only about an hour to charge the Zenbook 14X OLED fully, and, where I live I could still always decide to get a 45000mAh 67W power bank for just 73 Euros inc shipping. Xtorm Fuel Series 5 67W Powerbank 45000 mAh - LED display - 2 x USB-C PD / 1 x USB-A -... | bol
Apple has limited software choices due to their walled garden approach, and the real-world performance of the M2 also is held back by this, in a number of ways, although that still also depends on how you use it (and on what you use it for). Either way, the Intel Core i7-13700H overall real-world performance is not very far behind the M2 (and actually even beats the M2 in a lot of situations). Also I don't think the Zenbook 14X OLED has troubles with sleep.

The Macbook Air 13 (or 15) with M2 has pretty much zero serviceability, as only the battery is user-replaceable so, if you choose to go with the 8GB-RAM-and-256GB-SSD to keep it "affordable", it means that you will inevitably be stuck with those two choices. I find that a rather bitter pill to swallow when you're shelling out that much money for a student laptop with no touchscreen that you could use during class to take notes with a stylus pen. In situations when you can't/won't use a mouse, a touchscreen with a stylus pen also is more convenient and faster to use than a touchpad.

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Plenty of decent laptops (win 11 capable) for well under even $ (US) 1200 if you discount macbooks. I've no trouble with using a macbook (I'm used to Linux so Unix type OS'es for me aren't that problematic).

For me though (although my student days are long gone !!) would be for weight and the best possible screen. There's very few places where access to electrical outlets isn't available so really long battery life IMO isn't as important as it once was. The problem with macbooks is the whole proprietary nature of both hard and software that one can use / connect to them. Windows allows almost every conceivable bit of hardware to be connected and almost no limit on software too -- that though can be a bad thing.

I never found iPhones intuitive though -- I found the navigation horrible, far less intuitive than Android models.

cheers
jimbo

That is a point - can you dual boot Linux on a MacBook? Like you can on a windows laptop? Might be an argument against a MacBook!

Hazel123 said:

That is a point - can you dual boot Linux on a MacBook? Like you can on a windows laptop? Might be an argument against a MacBook!

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Yes, there's a project called Ashahi Linux that should be possible to boot and run on Apple silicon. Not sure about the current state though. I've also read that Kali Linux is an alternative.

Wynona said:

Well, I guess I'm in the minority, because I never found them intuitive at all. Sigh . . . The things hated me.

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I'm sorta in the same boat. But as an enthusiast who has done windows since Windows 2 and Linux since 1998 or so, I've learned particular ways. When I get confused on my Mac, I ask my kids....if you had to do this what would you do and that's how I figure out the confusing bits.