Hi all, I need to buy my daughter a laptop for school.My only requirements are:
must be very light
must have long battery (7hrs+)
reasonable performance (no gaming)
Under $1100 (including Office purchase)
Any suggestions? I am leaning towards the Macbook Air 11 but she would prefer Windows.
Samsung Series 9, or ATIV possibly.
NP915S3G-K05US or NP915S3G-K02US from http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/pcs/all-products
Obviously you daughter will be eligible for Student MS Office edition, so separate the purchase of that from the hardware.
Local prices needed and look for sales.
Pax
You can get those for a good price, but that AMD processor is no Haswell.
you are right….
simple staticice search
http://www.computeralliance.com.au/parts?id=11672 or http://www.computeralliance.com.au/parts?id=11671.
perhaps start looking for models in the "Ultrabook" space
" I am leaning towards the Macbook Air 11 but she would prefer Windows."
So buy it and run bootcamp on it to boot Windows. Easy!
Do people actually prefer Windows? …ducks for cover.
Bootcamp is a good idea and depending upon the RAM, maybe even a virtual environment like Parallels or VMWare.
You may struggle to find an alternative machine as slim, tough, fast and with good battery life at that price.
The Air will run Windows fine. And while Macs are great and all, I personally find Office better on Windows than on OS X.
You don't need to purchase Office up front. You can get her an Office 365 subscription. I think that would allow her to try Office on Mac first and then optionally change to Windows later if she really really needs it.
WARNING: There is a strong rumor the Macbook Air will be replaced by a new model by late 2014, possibly sooner.
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/04/09/12-retina-macbook-air-lo…
reasonable performance (no gaming)
The no gaming, is that your decision or hers?
If you are not wanting her to be tempted, then the Macbook would be the best choice as the games, are more limited than on the PC.
What is the reason she wants windows.
If that's compelling then a windows PC would be the preferred option, if its for some occasional use then the Mac would be fine.
She plays things like minecraft but that is about it.
I think I will go with the Macbook - 11 inch under a $1000 at JB Hi-Fi seems to be looking good. Will also look at 365.
Just keep in mind that there are educational prices for Macs (and I think MS office as well) so see if that improves the price offerings that you negotiate.
Refurbished models are even cheaper than educational. http://store.apple.com/au/browse/home/specialdeals/mac
I find that the screen on an 11 inch macbook air is too small to comfortably fit word documents and websites for easyviewing. Obviously this comes down to personal preference so I would recommend going into a store and trying out basic websites and word if possible. This also depends on how old your daughter is, if she is going to be doing important yr 11-12 work on it, I would almost always recommend the 13 inch.
The nice thing about Macs is resale value. If you get an 11" now for a decent price, keep the box, and she needs a 13" later, you haven't lost out by too much. Even less if you start off with a second hand one. But make sure you get the Jun 2013 model, it has Haswell, fast SSD and Intel 5000 graphics.
the NEW macbook airs will have retina screen, i would wait and buy that with a decent SSD of say 256gb
Will they? I highly doubt it, do you have any concrete evidence?
256GB isn't really worth it in an Air, just get a cheap and much greater storage space external drive.
Will they? I highly doubt it, do you have any concrete evidence?
Nothing concrete, but reasonably credible rumors:
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/04/09/apple-2014-product-roadm…
256GB isn't really worth it in an Air, just get a cheap and much greater storage space external drive.
128GB SSD and 4GB RAM should be ample. If you need more, an Air probably isn't the right solution.
That source only say a 'higher resolution display' doesn't mention retina at all. I doubt apple will include a retina display on the Airs as this would undercut the sales of the retina Pros and also decrease battery life
Also that's 6 months away. If you read the OP's post I doubt if her daughter is willing to wait that long.
Now if I was updating that would be a different story as I have a system already and could maybe hang on.
They did handle the retina's battery usage ok with the ipads, so hopefully they would be able to do the same with the Air, but it will be harder to do.
Yeah I agree.
What I was trying to get at was that Apple want to maximise bettery life on the Airs and probably wouldn't think it was worth the decrease in battery life for a retina display.
One of the ASUS Transformer series?
Not at all comparable to a Macbook performance-wise but ought to be sufficient for a few years and will leave money in the budget for an upgrade (that probably will be comparable performance-wise) in a couple of years.