Have some insights from an actual buyer:

Speak to Slammer, apparantly he manages orgasms it seems

You may be alone in imagining Slammer having an orgasm

for day-to-day stuff yes. Until you need to put it into recovery mode and do a restore, or upload the latest iOS beta which isn't yet OTA, or want to install an older version of an app that you've saved (because the current v is no longer free, or has functionality removed), or you simply want to back up the phone in case you need to restore during one of the becoming-frequent iCloud outages.

Thankyou all for your input, including DK's rather visual interpretations of certain things that may be best left unvisualised.

I've decided the Macbook Air is probably best suited for our needs, mainly based on the connectivity possibilities the others don't have, and the eventual use of the machine.

I promise not to try and eat it when i'm drunk...

THANKYOU EVERYBODY

Aber nicht doch, plenty of people can imagine Slammer having an orgasm.

really?

https://www.interdiscount.ch/idshop/...s-x/detail.jsf

Bluetooth 4.0,HDMI,USB 3.0,Thunderbolt

You can still buy the really nice rMBP which have all what is needed

And here example for the smaller one: https://www.steg-electronics.ch/de/a...-18788469.aspx

Went with a Macbook air, 13.30", WXGA+, Intel Core i5, 8GB, 256 GB SSD

Couldn't agree more.

I have a 15" i7 MacBook Pro Retina from 2-3 years ago, and would buy that over the current range of MacBooks any day of the week.

So, if you can get one of the previous models (with "real" USB 3.0 sockets, and without the $300 Touch Bar gimic) then go for that.

Reviving this since my question is quite related and things have changed in the last four years.

The Macbook Air my dad gave me (once he was sick of it, lol) for university is slowly on its way out (early 2012 model, it's no longer allowing me to download updates and has randomly crashed a few times, once losing some documents). Seeing as I'm in the middle of my masters thesis I'm nervous as a cat that this thing is going to tank on me before I've finished. Obviously I'm backing up to an external drive frequently.

In the meantime, I'm looking at the new Macbook Air models and choking a bit at the 1'000+ franc price tag, especially since I'm a spoiled child who has always received perfectly good hand me down electronics haha. My dad encouraged me to look at the iPad offerings to see if a tablet could do what I needed with a cheaper price tag—basically, writing Word documents with one of those detachable keyboards, surfing the net for articles etc., as well as applications like Zotero and CLAN if possible, though I'd love for my uni career to be over soon so that's not needed afterwards. Simple video/audio/photo processing and editing would be a huge plus but not necessary. Ability to print documents a necessity, although I suppose one can get around that by emailing documents to a laptop/computer ... in short, does anyone have experience with the recent tablet offerings from Apple? Do they get the job done, or is it a completely different animal and I'd be better off with another Air ? My friends at uni are split, with the ones who love tablets having nearly always used them since they first came out whilst the ones who prefer laptops haven't really ever used a tablet, so they haven't honestly been as helpful as I could have hoped. I am a bit stuck on Apple products. My husband keeps telling me to just go PC but I've tried on and off with his old laptop and I just prefer Apple. I'm not keen on switching everything up in the middle of this thesis either—I'll already be switching to a different keyboard if I get an Air (iPad would probably be not too hard to get it to run an American keyboard?) and the last thing I want is to spent a month just adjusting to a PC system when I could be writing more efficiently on a machine I know better.

My mind just wasn't at peace when dissertating, nor my cohorts', either, unless we saved our stuff on a couple of external drives/whatever media and a couple of clouds. It is just a part of the deal. Set it automatically and you don't need to worry.

I was ok with a super light PC, would get a Mac if the hardware was really that much more quality. I am not persuaded, though. Still think that a laptop is better than a tablet, even now when tablets are way more than just a screen to scrible on. That said you said that you spent years on Mac, PC might bug you and that's unwelcome when finishing a big project.

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Entry-level 13" MacBook Pro.


Ideally though, try to reach for 16GB of RAM.

There might be the announcement of the first Apple Silicon device in November.
It may be a notebook. It may not.

You can always wait for Black Friday deals....

Thanks! Yes as noted I am saving it regularly, it’s a good habit for anyone. I had a prof who lost about a third of his book he was working on when his system crashed unexpectedly! I do think PC would bother me at this point. Seems like a laptop is the way to go, there really doesn’t seem to be much price difference anyway when one considers storage space and the cost of the keyboard for the tablet.

Curious, why pro over air? I will hope for Black Friday deals but last year the MacBooks didn’t have any if I’m not mistaken. Can still hope haha

What OS are you using? An upgrade to the lastest that your machine can run will work wonders.

Click anywhere on the desktop anywhere until it says 'Finder' beside the Apple in the upper right corner . Click on the apple and select About this Mac.

The OS name and number are the first two lines.

I’m on OS X El Capitan version 10.11.6. It’s not giving me any update options. Hasn’t for awhile honestly. The last application I tried to download wouldn’t work with this version.

The more modern PROs are about as small and light as the older airs.. Generally a little more power too.. You could probably find a decent priced 2017 pro and see a big difference in performance.. Without the whole cost of a new one.

I'd totally recommend, whatever you choose, enable iCloud backups - properly. Pay the 1chf per month (roughly?), get that 200gb space.. And set your 'Documents', 'Desktop' whatever else like photos etc to automatically store on iCloud.
It just works, no clicking, or remembering. So even a total loss of the device, just login to another MAC with your iCloud account and all your stuff is there, even accessible via a browser on a non-mac.

OK, it sounds like you are using the most recent OS for your 8 year old Mac. But just to be safe go to the App Store (Click the apple, it should be the fourth choice down.) And click on update. This will take less than a minute. If an OS update is available it will be listed there.

You can get external keyboards (Yes, US English Versions) for the iPad and you can order a Macbook with a US Keyboard.

And a little secret (so don't tell anybody) is that Apple gives discounts for students depending on the configuration it could be as much as 20%.

Or do a search on Ricardo etc for a 2nd hand one. Anything that was produced after 2014 will run the most recent OS (Catalina). The next one, BigSur will be OK for the same machines.

The iPad is getting better and better, but it still isn't quite there. Get a Macbook would be my advice.

Thank you! I'll have a look at second hand ones, can't say I've been super impressed with my second hand iPhone but I saved about 500 francs over buying a new of the same model ... so if the price difference is right I might give it a go.

Yes, I have definitely checked the App store for updates I didn't know Apple did student discounts! Do I have to go into an official store for that? Would it work online? Thanks for the tip about the 2014 and newer models running the most recent OS. That's been my biggest frustration the past year with this one.

To get the proper Apple education discount you need to log in via the education portal. Someone at your uni will be able to help you.

I‘m typing this on a 12.9“ iPad Pro 2018. Since I bought it, I rarely use my 2012 MacBook Pro. I only really use the MacBook for things that the iPad can‘t handle - some websites aren‘t touch friendly still for example. There is also software that isn‘t replicated that well on an iPad and the file system is quite basic in comparison.

I‘m fine typing on the keyboard, but I‘m not sure I‘d want to do university work on it. I‘m not sure I‘d 100% trust Word on iPad and it is feature light compared to desktop versions, as is Excel and I assume PowerPoint. Another thing that annoys me is that you have to pay for an Office365 subscription to get the mobile Office apps. There isn‘t a pay once option unfortunately. Printing, converting to PDF and similar seems to work just fine though. One area where I think an iPad would have been great for studying is the stylus. It can be used for marking up documents and now has handwriting to text conversion, so useful for taking notes.

https://www.apple.com/ch-fr-edu/shop/back-to-school

The link is actually on their Apple Store home page.