Laptop for civil engineering degree

[tdh]

Hi there,

I'm new to the forum but I hope I'll be able to get some helpful insight here!

I'm going to invest in a new laptop in preparation for uni and maybe the future as well.

I have debated long and hard between the macbook air/pro/pro with retina and I THINK (still not positive) that I am thinking of buying the Macbook Pro with retina display, at least 256GB of flash storage. The rest of the specs would be of the base model. Does anybody know if this would be enough for a civil engineering degree? Would I have to be able to run CAD programs and similar things on my own laptop, and if so, are those specs capable of handling it?

I've done a bit of my own research and I know some people may say that I shouldn't be considering a mac at all, but I just want to clarify that my reasons for looking at macs is because battery life plays an important part in my consideration for laptops and macs have by far the best battery life from what I've seen.

SORRY FOR THE EXTRA LONG POST! :S

If if helps, I'm just going to include my thought processes when considering the macbook air/pro/pro with retina:
- Air: light, portable, really good battery life but specs aren't as powerful as pro.
- Pro WITHOUT retina: 500GB hard disk, but this will be slower than flash storage. Components in the laptop are not soldered together hence making it easier for repairs. Possible to upgrade hardware if required. Heaviest of the three though.
- Pro WITH retina: great screen of course, no disk drive, slightly better specs than pro without retina, thinner and lighter, but all components are soldered together so difficult to repair. Cannot upgrade hardware. Flash storage makes it faster but it's incredibly expensive

 

[voyagerfan99]

First off, no Mac is easy to repair, so there's no reason to put that in your list of thoughts for a Mac. And also there's no upgrade potential besides RAM (or a larger drive if you need more storage), so you can also strike that off.

A retina Macbook Pro will be perfectly fine. If you need Windows you can always use Bootcamp to install a copy of Windows 7/8/8.1 and you can boot to that when needed.

If you don't want to spend that much, you can always get a regular Macbook Pro and buy an SSD to install in it. Only downside is OSX doesn't support TRIM on non-Apple SSD's, but you can download TRIM Enabler and that will enable TRIM on the drive.

Other options to look at would be a high end Dell Latitude (E6440 or similar).

 

[tdh]

First off, no Mac is easy to repair, so there's no reason to put that in your list of thoughts for a Mac. And also there's no upgrade potential besides RAM (or a larger drive if you need more storage), so you can also strike that off.

A retina Macbook Pro will be perfectly fine. If you need Windows you can always use Bootcamp to install a copy of Windows 7/8/8.1 and you can boot to that when needed.

If you don't want to spend that much, you can always get a regular Macbook Pro and buy an SSD to install in it. Only downside is OSX doesn't support TRIM on non-Apple SSD's, but you can download TRIM Enabler and that will enable TRIM on the drive.

Other options to look at would be a high end Dell Latitude (E6440 or similar).

Thanks for your reply! Much appreciated

So do you think that the specs, mainly the RAM and processor, of the base retina macbook pro will be able to handle CAD work?

And do you know approximately how long 256gb will be able to last me if what I'm using my laptop for is for light gaming, internet browsing, music (about 1000 mp3 files for now) and CAD programs etc? I know this is kind of a vague question, sorry!

 

[voyagerfan99]

Depends on the games you play. You can always uninstall stuff you're not using to make more room.

The MP3's will probably take up between 3-6GB.

CAD is fairly large, so that will take up some decent space.

It all depends on how much you have to spend. I'd say get the 512GB Macbook Pro Retina.

 

[tdh]

Depends on the games you play. You can always uninstall stuff you're not using to make more room.

The MP3's will probably take up between 3-6GB.

CAD is fairly large, so that will take up some decent space.

It all depends on how much you have to spend. I'd say get the 512GB Macbook Pro Retina.

Alright, thanks a lot!