MacBook Vs Surface Pro

[Yummiesttag]

I was going to buy a new deceive for essays and school work for my senior year in high school and my years in college, so I was wondering would a MacBook or a surface pro be better?

 

[AdviserKulikov]

I would advise the surface pro for an artist, as the surface pen turns it into a very respectable drawing tablet. I would advise the surface pro for a gamer or programmer due to the wider library support.

I would advise the macbook pro otherwise, as it is a slightly better device in most categories besides those two.

 

[Yummiesttag]

What are your thoughts on the "New MacBook"

 

[jaguarskx]

From the perspective of writing essays, I would choose the MacBook because it's keyboard will give you a better typing experience.

The keyboard for the Surface Pro does not have much key travel. While the keyboard is decent enough, short key travel generally does not provide a good typing experience for most people.

 

[AdviserKulikov]

I feel that both keyboards suck for writing essays (as do public places). If you're going to sit down and crank out a 10 page document it benefits having a tactile mechanical keyboard that you leave at home.

 

[velo3100]

It depends on which macbook.
If it is the air then choose the air as it has better battery life and keyboard.
As for the others, it will depend on your preference on the keyboard as both can do the job of writing essays very easily. The mac will have the better tactile feel where as the surface it is an additional add on which you have to pay.

My best advice if you want a cheap laptop with a good keyboard is buy a lenovo thinkpad series as they have one of the best keyboards on a windows machine. It also has a good battery life and students get discounts on it.

 

[orlbuckeye]

The new MSI Titan laptop has a mechanical keyboard but not much battery life and cost over 3000.

 

[EWDB]

I depends what you are studying. I am a chemistry PhD student and about a quarter to a third of the people I work with use Mac, unfortunately some of the software we have to use is not available for Mac so they either have to use the rubbish office PCs or run windows on their Macs. Some manage without complaint, others turn the air blue with the problems that arise.

The Core M processor is, as I understand it, less powerful than the i5 and i7 processors in the Surface Pro 3. There are several reviews of products with Core M processors that seem to show the device is less powerful than the previous generation which used an i5 or i7 processor. The advantage (and the reason Core M is impressive) of Core M processors is that they use far less power and don't need a fan which together result in longer battery life and thinner devices.

Note that while intel released Core M broadwell based processors they also released 5th generation Broadwell i3, i5 and i7 processors. ie. Core M is designed to complement Intel's processor offering and is not meant as a replacement for the iCore series. Unfortunately, most of the tech media (with the obvious exception of Tom's) clearly don't realise this; hence all the articles that say the Surface Pro 4 will *definitely* have a Core M processor and other articles that bang on about the new *fast* Core M processor in the Mac Book.

At this point I would wait a few months and see what the Surface Pro 4 offers. Personally I expect Core M, i5 and i7 versions of the surface pro 4 or possibly a jump straight to Skylake processors.

Remember!! No matter how good the review or how much kudos a device will give you it is still rubbish if it will not run the programs you want it too. I suggest looking into what software you will need to run over the course of your studies and then add more power as Universities often seem to understate the requirements especially on scientific and technical courses.