New budget laptop vs MacBook pro (2015)

Computers & Tech
#1

My daughter (10) needs a laptop for school work (Word, Powerpoint, Excel) and possibly a bit of gaming along the line

She is (sorry) rather too well integrated in the Apple universe, so I am wondering whether to let her use an early 2015 MacBook Pro, or get her a new and cheapo £300 laptop, for example a Lenovo Ideapad

(Chromebook / Pixelbook isn’t really an option as her School has a silly reliance upon MS Office)

I think the MBP would be fine for the type of tasks (gaming aside?) that she has to do, but I’m not terribly up to speed with recent laptop tech etc - anyone have an actual scooby doo?

#2

Personally I’d go with the macbook. Kids install all sorts of shite on laptops and I could have my own business given the amount of time I spend cleaning up laptops for friends and family whose kids laptops have ground to a halt from shite. Macs are much better for managing account security and permissions than windows IMHO.

Macbook will also sync with her iphone if she has one and is quite light, mate bought his kids some big lenovo laptops and they weigh a bloody ton.

3 Likes
#3

We use a 2013 MBP which is still perfectly servicable when used from the mains. It would need a replacement battery to be portable again. Apple’s long term OS support is good.

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#4

if this is the case - then as much as i dont like Mac’s - you should stick to a Mac

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#5

Agree with sticking to Mac, more about what OS she has been used to. I have 2 x 2015 MacBooks, the well used one needs a new battery. Just like a second hand car, check how ‘shiny’ the keyboard buttons are from use, good indicator like the steering wheel of a car! Other thing to note with this age of Mac is that the coating on the screen wears off and leaves a strange uneven patchy look, again, if there is no sign of this then the machine has not been heavily used as this is caused by oils on the keyboard getting onto the screen when the laptop is shut. Apple know this is a fault and replace the screen for free but maybe only for the original owner.

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#6

Thanks for all the swift replies - very much appreciated. It confirms my thoughts (bias😉)

This will be my second MBP 2015. I had a “stain gate” example first time round but, as I was the second owner, Apple were not terribly interested in helping out.

#7

If you want a PC, I would recommend getting a used decent spec machine (i5, 8GB, SSD); if you bought new at that price you’d be getting a Celeron and 4GB of soldered RAM and it would suck arse.

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#8

I’m not up to speed on the UK prices but for around £350 equivalent, I can get a new Lenovo with i5, 8gb and 250 SSD over here. Screen’s nothing special though, to put it mildly, but anyway: I’m sure it’s gonna be an MBP now, assuming I can find one in decent nick

#9

Cheapest ideapad with i5 and 8GB is £500 that I can see on their website

#10

yep, and i paid more for one with a better spec - two years ago.

this is the new equivalent of what i bought two years ago.

From memory i paid about £650

#11

My bad. Dunno why I wrote i5 at all!

The model I’d seen had an AMD Ryzen 5 (3500) … which I had to read about, what with being 10 years behind the times, and the Ryzen seems really rather impressive compared to Intel i3, and according to some reviews at a similar speed to i5.

But I neither know nor really care about this kind of thing, and nor will I be buying one (unless I can’r get hold of a vgc MBP)

#12

Oooh, the school’s thrown a curveball at me (the f***ers)

Kids will be using Teams to share and save their work, and receive marking / feedback etc

Is Teams on Mac gonna be a PITA for a 10 yr old ?

#13

Our IT people have managed to set fire to Teams this morning across the whole Mac estate.

Hope this helps.

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#14

Appears to work for my colleagues, but i think the feature set is less than that on Win PC.

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#15

Nope, office on Mac is quite good now.

Our execs (lower mental age than a 10 yr old) have been using Teams on MacBooks for 11 months now and from what I gather they haven’t been reporting issues beyond the usual O362 stuff.

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#16

Nope, works fine.

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#17

Christ on a bike, that was bloody quick: thanks fellas

#18

Sorry for thread resurrection.

I need a cheap computer to run Fusion 360, chitubox or Lychee Slicer and download stuff from thingiverse.

Other than that it might be used for a bit of YouTube and possibly Word.

It’s aeons since I’ve owned a computer and have forgotten anything I learned about Windows so I was thinking maybe a refurbished MacBook, something like this?

https://www.musicmagpie.co.uk/store/products/apple-macbook-pro-core-i5-2-4-ghz-13-late-2011-4gb-ram-500gb?utm_source=Google&utm_medium=Surfaces&utm_campaign=PC%20-%20Tech%20Feed&agency=dreamagility&gclid=Cj0KCQiAvvKBBhCXARIsACTePW--eu1mX-thp9dZzneQ4qve3cHLAyIGIDqQMELHHUUF3mI17xj1ILIaAkr4EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

I have no idea if this is any good or good value?

#19

4gb ram sounds light for a cad package Rob

1 Like
#20

How hard is it to expand the RAM in a MacBook, is it diy?