AIBU to buy a 2015 Macbook for a uni student.

[fourandahalfkids]

Dd1 needs a laptop for her uni course starting in September. She will be studying Fashion Design. We dont have a lot of money but have been squirreling away a bit to save up for one for her. Looking at buying a 2015 macbook with 512 storage and a subscription to Adobe illustrator. Any thoughts please?

Can't comment on the Macbook spec - but as a student she can get a huge discount on the Adobe suite, so don't buy this subscription until she has the details necessary to get it at the student price.

Love the MacBooks. I had one for uni. Just make sure she doesn’t spill beer on it 🙊

Why a 2015 Mac book? Just buy a new laptop with good graphics and space for the relevant programmes, that will be needed.

Lots of deals around discount codes. Most websites/shops do extra discounts for bank holidays, of which we have a few coming up.

'And' not 'around'.

Thank you. We have done a lot of research on best laptops for design courses and the macbooks have come up tops. Hence looking at them initially.

Thank you wineymummy will do.

I have my husband's old MacBook Pro which is probably around that age, it's very good still.

@flirtygirl if she's doing a design course then Mac is the way to go as they're generally favoured over PC by designers, programmers etc. I'm not an Apple snob and I prefer Android over iPhone for example, but in this case Mac is the better option. I find they last longer and are built to a higher standard too whereas even expensive high spec HP, Dell, Lenovo etc laptops seem flimsy in comparison.

If it’s for design work the processor speed and memory will be much more important than storage. Things do move on quickly in tech so a five year old laptop might be a bit out of date - take a look a minimum and recommended specs for the software she’ll be using and find something a bit better than minimum at the very least if you want the laptop to last the length of her course. Meeting or exceeding the recommended specs is obviously better.

For example Photoshop needs minimum of 2GB of RAM but they recommend at least 8GB. It also needs a NVidia GeForce GTX 1050 or equivalent minimum but Adobe recommend a GTX 1660. If you get something closer to the minimum spec the software will run but be slow, might crash and you might not be able to use some feature of the software.

I think I'd wait and see what she actually needs and what student discounts are available.

As PP have said, if its only just above the min. spec it is likely to be slow and crashy and I can tell you from experience, there is little more frustrating than your program and entire device crashing as it tries to save a huge multilayer file!

MacBooks are brilliant. I have one from 2013 that is still going strong. But, they do date quickly. There are some programs that I can’t get the latest version of because my iOS is too old and my laptop won’t accept a newer version. If you could afford a new one/can get one interest free then I would opt for that instead.

No, 5 years is too old, particularly if she’ll need a lot of memory and a high speed processor. It will be obsolete and they’ll stop supporting it in a year or two. Wait until she’s at at uni - they usually do student discount and interest free credit options.

Unis also can offer free/hugely reduced subscriptions to software. At mine for example you can get all the main programs for free. They are likely to do the same with Adobe if it’s a course requirement.

I love my MacBook, and my husbands is still going strong 15 years later, so I do think they’re worth the money.

Although as others have said, you can normally get student discount on any programmes etc so wait until she is enrolled to buy those

She can get a student discount off a Mac. Also, currys often do a deal where you can trade in an old laptop and get £250 off a Mac if that helps too?

I have a 2015 Macbook Pro, which I use for work (freelance). I got it to replace an older model a few years ago and still think of it as my new computer! It's an excellent laptop.

Which one, at what price? Are you buying 2nd hand or brand new? It boils down to this, as you may actually get more for your money by looking at another brand if you can’t afford a current model.

Frankly a fashion course isn’t that intense, some of my fashion friends used basic low end laptops and still secured firsts. So a MacBook would be fine...but so would any other brand.

2015 MacBook airs are awful in terms of specs. MacBook Pros have come a long way within the last 5 years, the 2015 specs are again outdated, but it’s a much better work device than the Air.

If you can afford one, Apple has made significant improvements to their current line up compared to the 2015 models.