when is the best time to buy a mac for college

When Is The Best Time To Buy A For College Portable Laptop And

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Apple hasnt introduced a new model in two years, and it killed off the 11-inch Air in 2016.

The company could phase out the 13-inch laptop in the not-too-distant future in favor of the thinner and more expensive 12-inch MacBook.

However, as long as the MacBook Air remains available, its a worthwhile choice for high school and college students.

Why the MacBook Air Is a Good Student Laptop Great Value (for a Mac): Most students and their families arent sweating 100 bills while they bask in the sun.

If you want an Apple laptop, and you dont want to spend at least 1,299 for a 12-inch MacBook or 13-inch MacBook Pro, the Air is your only choice.

The entry-level Air carries a 999 MSRP, but you can easily find it for 899 at third-party retailers, or even 799 on sale.

However, you probably will want to pay another 200 for a configuration with a 256GB SSD, rather than the 128GB you get on the base model.

Epic Battery Life: Students need a laptop they can carry around campus all day long, without needing to recharge.

The MacBook Air lasted an amazing 14 hours on a charge during the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi.

When Is The Best Time To Buy A For College Portable Laptop And

Its endurance is 6 hours longer than the average ultraportable laptop and way ahead of the MacBook 12-inch (9:38), the MacBook Pro 13-inch (9:50) and the MacBook Pro 15-inch (10:32).

Only a handful of PC laptops offer 14 hours of battery life or more.

Thin and Light: While the MacBook 12-inch and some PC notebooks are even svelter, the MacBook Air is still one of the more portable notebooks on the market, at just 0.68 inches thick and 2.96 pounds.

Best MacBook Keyboard: Whether theyre taking notes or writing a term paper, students have to do a lot of typing.

The MacBook Pro and the MacBook 12-inch have shallow butterfly keyboards that offer a measly 0.5mm of vertical space below each key, compared with a more-reasonable 1mm on the Air.

While some like the new thin keyboards, others have trouble getting used to them.

Regular USB Ports: Nobody likes carrying dongles with them everywhere they go, especially not students.

So, if you need to pop in a flash drive, attach an external hard drive or use a wireless mouse that has a dongle, youll really appreciate the Airs pair of standard USB ports.

Why You Might Not Want a MacBook Air Outdated CPU: A college freshman buying a new laptop should expect it to last at least through graduation.

The MacBook Air is from early 2015 and uses an Intel 5th Generation Core Series processor, whereas, in 2017, the latest PC laptops are on a 7th-Generation Core.To be fair, if your main computer activities are surfing the web, editing documents, sending emails and updating social media, youll probably be able to get by with the old processor in the Air four or five years from now.

Some PCs Offer Better Value: If you dont have your heart set on a MacBook, you can find a more powerful PC ultraportable for around the same price as the Air.

For example, the 2.68-pound Asus UX330UA costs just 699, 100 less than the best sale price for a MacBook Air, but it comes with a 1080p screen, a 256GB SSD and the latest 7th Gen Core i5 processor.

The HP Spectre x360 13-inch, our favorite 2-in-1, starts at just over 1,000, and can be found on sale for under 1,000 with the new Core i5 CPU, a 256GB SSD and a touch screen.

When Is The Best Time To Buy A Mac For College