Macbook Pro College Review 2018
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| Portability | Battery | Display | Connectvity | Performance |
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| 4.5 pounds | 9 hours | 15” Glossy Retina Display |
WireLess AC x2 ThunderBolt 2 |
i7 HQ 16GB RAM 512GB PCIe SSD |
| We Like | We Don’t Like |
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Beautiful, high-quality, ultra high-resolution display (2880×1800, 220 ppi). |
Expensive |
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Summary: Known for their beautiful design and their incredible perforance, the MacBook Pro has remained one of the most popular laptops college students across all fields of study have available today. Being yearly updated with new components and configurations, this particular model is especially designed and aimed for those students looking for the highest performance from the Mac Series. Particularly this model sports a 16GB RAM memory, 512GB PCIe-based flash storage and most importantly the AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB GDDR5 memory as the GPU. The latter feature along with its i7 2,5 GHZ processor with four cores allows the Pro to run just about any software or application students from all majors should encounter from Animation, 3D Design to intensive numerical analysis processor. It also sports the new forceTouch technology allowing different “levels” of actions based on how firmly you press the TouchPad and the retina Display making everything look more crisp and crystal clear. |
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Engineering Architecture Science Computer Science |
Medical
Nursing Business & Accounting Graphics Design |
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| Specs | Apple Macbook Pro MJLT2LL/A |
| Screen | 15.4-inch Retina Display (2880×1800) with IPS technology |
| Processor | 2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 with Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz |
| Video | AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB GDDR5 memory |
| Memory | 16 GB DDR3L |
| Storage | 512GB PCIe-based flash storage |
| Connectivity | 802.11 A/C , Bluetooth |
| Ports | HDMI, x2 USB 3, x2 Thunderbolt 2, SDXC card, Mini Display |
| Baterry | 9 hours |
| OS | OS X El Capitan |
| Size | 0.71 x 14.13 x 9.73 |
| Weight | 4.5 lbs |
| Extras | FaceTime HD camera, backlit Keyboard, forceTouch Trackpad |
Review By Degree
Engineering
The MacBook Pro is quite a popular choice among engineering students mainly for it’s durability. You’ll notice some of your peers working with very old mcBook Pros, no they didn’t buy them used. It actually lasts that long.
Although it is downtalked for being a Mac machine and the problem with engineering software being compatible or not. The truth is the gap between windows and mac compatibility is getting smaller. So save for a few unknown engineering programs, most engineering applications (MatLab, AutoCad) do run on OSX just fine.
EE/CE: Unlike the Air or the 13” MacBook Pro, you can run MatLab, AutoCad and any programming environment on this machine with no issues due to it’s incorporated GPU. AutoCad is compatible with a Mac, there will be no need to bootcamp. However other CAD/CAE software will require you to bootcamp. Simple circuit design software will also require you to use Windows virtually or through BootCamp. If you can put up with having to wait a few seconds to switch to Windows Mode, it’s a good choice that will probably last you through college and beyond.
ME/Civ.E: Likewise ME and CE engineers will be able to run CAD/CAE software including SolidWorks, AutoCad,CATIA, Revit, etc. However dual booting into windows will be required for some of them (Revit for example), as far as Numerical analysis goes it will run ANSYS without issues and any other software you might encounter during your classes witih n
Architecture
This particular model with the configurations given above should be more than enough for you to handle all types of 3D drafting and models encountered within your program. It has more than enough RAM and a very updated SSD to handle 3D Design and other programs (Adobe PhotoShop) simultaneously. Not only that, it has enough storage to make sure you don’t run out of space quickly from large autocad CAD files. Although like every Architecture student, you should invest on an external hard drive anyways.
The GPU is not the best in the world for CAD software or 3D Design in general (that would the AMD FirePro). However, this is more than enough for all the undergraduate projects encountered in architecture. Even rendering your projects will be much more efficient than you’re average gaming laptop due to the fact that it’s processor has four cores. Very few portable(if any) laptop that are not workstations have 4 cores indeed.
Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that it’s a Mac Machine, you might have to dual boot whenever you encounter Revit or 3DS Max. That should be no problem though, you can instantly dual boot into Windows whenever you need to use them. MacBook Pros are known for their blazing fast boot up times which are mainly due to their models always using the latest SSD Technology and the fact that the Machine is built to operate efficiently with it’s operating system. You might be lucky enough and not having to do that though, some schools do not use Revit/3DS Max and actually use Macs for their entire programs.
Other than that if you are looking for a laptop reasonably portable while being able to handle ALL of your architecture assignments, the Pro is not a bad choice, in fact quite popular among many universities and students.
Science
Science students generally have to deal with nothing more than Excel, MatLab and a few programming languages in some scenarios. The specs shown on these MacBooks are a bit too much as you might not even need to use them at all more specifically the gPU and large RAM. However if you have the cash to spare and you don’t mind carrying the extra weight of the MacBook Pro 15”, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t buy it. But we highly recommend you to go for the MacBook Air or the 13” MacBook Pro instead to make it much more portable and productive while giving you the necessary performance for your studies.
Computer Science
MacBooks are highly regarded as the best laptops for programmin for some mainly due to it’s unix based system allowing to run alot of open source software that you’ll encounter in school and career. You can also simultaneously program for Android Devices and iOS devices and many of the programming languages most popularly used by programmers are natively installed on a MacBook.
For general programming courses and most computer science students this specific configuration might be a bit too much. Virtual Machines, most IDEs and even heavy SQL Querying programming do not require a GPU, i7 processor speeds or too much storage for those cases we recommend considering the new MacBook Pro shown here or the MacBook Air, both having far less weight than this model and the necessary performance for computer scientist. All having the same advantages of a MacBook described before.
However if you are into game designing and 3D Animation or require to use programs such as Unity then this is the perfect choice for you, the AMD Graphics card on this macbook should be enough.
Nursing & Medical
We don’t recommend the MacBook Pro for nursing or medical students. The increased resolution might give you better quality videos and images in both procedures and exams questions but that’s not reason to pay the extra cash and carry the extra weight. You might want to consider other models such as the MacBook Pro(2016) or the MacBook Air both being around 3.0lbs and much more ideal for you to carry around all day between lectures and clinicals.
Business & Accounting
We don’t recommend the MacBook Pro 15”. It can be unnecessary extra weight to carry with not much benefit from cheaper and lighter laptops. Surely 4.5lbs isn’t that heavy but for business and accounting students assuming they’re using this model for school purposes it can be unnecessary power even for the heavy video editing you “might” encounter in marketing classes. Better options are the Dell XPS 13 or if you still want to stick with MacBooks, the 13” MacBook Pro weighting 3lbs or the MacBook Air are better options.
Graphics Design
This is actually the dream laptop for Graphic Designers in general as you’re probably aware of it. Surely it’s heavy relatively speaking and compared to ultrabooks but 4.5lbs is the trade off for you to get all the perks from a MacBook Pro: The Retina display, user experience with graphic design software, 15” display , the large storage capacity for those heavy editing images and libraries and fastest SSD technology MacBooks are known to have. This one also sports a dedicated GPU, in which case, if you are also doing Motion Graphics work or 3D Design is a must to have. For inPrint, web and UI design however it’s totally unnecessary but you never know when you’ll make the jump to motion graphics or other 3d applications, the graphic design industry is very versatile. If you are sure you’ll stay with non-3d applications and heavy video editing, then you might want to consider purchasing the MacBook Pro 13” or the MacBook Pro 15” instead.