Macbook Air capabilities for Aerospace Engineering Student

Well, I'm a soon-to-be highschool senior, and I'm looking to buy a Macbook for college. I plan on majoring in Aerospace enginering. I know the 15" rMBP with the dedicated graphics card would be optimal, but that is out of my budget. However, I have two options picked out, and I'm curious of your opinion on what I should buy.
I'm thinking a 13" Air with the i7, 8GB of Ram, and 256 GB of flash storage.
Originally, i was thinking of a refurbished 13" Retina Pro with an i5, 8GB ram and 256 SD.
This is not the case anymore, as the Air now has the PCIe based Flash storage, Haswell Processor, Intel Graphics 5000, 108.11ac Wi-fi, and astounding battery life. Another reason for me leaning toward the MBA is because of the ghosting screen problems on the rMBP. If you haven't seen that problem yet, just simply google (or bing) it.
In most of the places I've researched, the Air with this processor is boasting Geekbench scores of the rMBP, and it is keeping up with speed tests against the rMBP 13".
So, my question for you guys is, do you think this Air would be capable of handling an engineering workload and programs? Would the 13" rMBP boast any features (besides Retina) that I would notice over the Air?
Thanks for your help!

I second the above opinion, as I am an Electrical Engineering student currently. I've been using an 11" Air for everything (full options, i7, 8gb, 512ssd). I was using a mid 2011 and i just got the new 2013 model and I have to say both have performed outstanding.
Since you're gonna be an engineer i'll tell you how I run my machine to let you know how powerful it is for school:
I run 4 desktops that i swipe between constantly with 10+ programs running, most of which are not your normal small programs (Autocad, MotionBuilder, etc.)
My 5th desktop that i swipe between is Parallels Desktop running windows 7 for the non-mac apps, inside of windows i typically run 3+ programs which include AutoCad, Quartus (electronic modeling) and PSpice.
Keep in mind that I run all of this at the same time and it's probably too much (I don't need to run everything at once I just love to keep evrything up so between classes I don't have to prepare for the next).
All I have to say is the machine kills it. i'm serious, no lag, fluid autocad building, low heat, and great battery, i got about 5 hours out of my 2011 model and i expect to see 8+ out of this one when school gets going again.
You're in the right direction, i think you'll be more than happy with a new Macbook Air if you max out the options, and then you'll increase the resale so in 2-3 years you can grab the latest and greatest as i did.
Good luck in engineering and don't let it get to you, stick it out and it'll be worthwhile!

Similar Messages

Macbook Air right for an engineering major?

I'm currently a Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering double major at UC Davis, and I wanted some input on whether or not a Macbook Air would be suitable for my needs. The 13" 2013 unit with the Haswell CPU is only $999 on Amazon right now and I figured it is priced so competetively with other ultrabooks now that I can actually consider it.
As far as I know, I need access to a Python and C/C++ IDE and compiler, MATLAB, and several CAD applications that my school gives us for certain classes. That's pretty much all I need from now through my bachelors degree. I'll also dual boot Windows 8 since I may occasionally miss Windows, since this will be my only PC from now on (I completely stopped gaming so I sold my custom desktop). I'll also run any programs that are Windows only in Windows of course.
Sure, I will be doing some software design, but the ULV i5 is plenty powerful. I'm not doing some insane rendering or anything. Just some very basic rendering and programming.
So I have 3 questions:
1. Is a Macbook Air right for an Engineering major? How has having a Macbook "changed" you as an engineer?
2. Is there any way to have a Windows Partition, an OSX Partition, and an exFAT partition to share my music and videos across both OS's? Both Windows and OSX can read and write to exFAT right?
3. What external hard drive and USB drive formats (other than FAT since I have files larger than 4GB) are best for transferring files to and from OSX and Windows machines?
Thanks for the help! I'm looking forward to purchasing a Mac since they are so competetively priced now. I think Apple mad a great move with these price cuts.

I second the above opinion, as I am an Electrical Engineering student currently. I've been using an 11" Air for everything (full options, i7, 8gb, 512ssd). I was using a mid 2011 and i just got the new 2013 model and I have to say both have performed outstanding.
Since you're gonna be an engineer i'll tell you how I run my machine to let you know how powerful it is for school:
I run 4 desktops that i swipe between constantly with 10+ programs running, most of which are not your normal small programs (Autocad, MotionBuilder, etc.)
My 5th desktop that i swipe between is Parallels Desktop running windows 7 for the non-mac apps, inside of windows i typically run 3+ programs which include AutoCad, Quartus (electronic modeling) and PSpice.
Keep in mind that I run all of this at the same time and it's probably too much (I don't need to run everything at once I just love to keep evrything up so between classes I don't have to prepare for the next).
All I have to say is the machine kills it. i'm serious, no lag, fluid autocad building, low heat, and great battery, i got about 5 hours out of my 2011 model and i expect to see 8+ out of this one when school gets going again.
You're in the right direction, i think you'll be more than happy with a new Macbook Air if you max out the options, and then you'll increase the resale so in 2-3 years you can grab the latest and greatest as i did.
Good luck in engineering and don't let it get to you, stick it out and it'll be worthwhile!

Help with choosing a MacBook Air Model for a college student.

I am a college student and I am debating between the two 13 inch Mac AirBook models that Apple offers. I was wondering if someone can give me a breakdown of the differences and also, which model would be a better fit for a college student?

The two models are described here:
MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013) - Technical SpecificationsJun 10, 2013
Actually, there is only one model. You can purchase it with 128GB or 256GB of storage. But you can customize other features as well, such as the processor speed and the RAM size.
Asking which model is best for a college student is just like asking what type of car you should buy. It's up to you. In my opinion, if you're going to spend a bit of money to upgrade from the base model, the first place to upgrade would be the RAM size.

MacBook Air 11" for a College Student

I am an incoming freshman in college and will definitely not be majoring in any math or computer courses (therefore, no heavy gaming, no intense graphics, no photoshop, no art stuff, etc.). I would mostly be using the laptop for writing papers, spreadsheets, presentations, surfing the internet, and storing photographs and a couple of movies. I have an external disc drive (1TB) to store the thousands of pictures I have and whatever so it doesn't take up a lot of space on my computer. I love the portability and sleek design of the MacBook Air 11" and I am definitely purchasing it, but my question is: what specs should I get in terms of RAM, speed, etc. so that I can do what I need to do and it will last me 4+ years with software updates, etc? Will the base model be enough?
Thanks in advance for your help.
-Dominique

I would suggest the 13" screen because it is much easier to read. Get the most RAM you can afford; next the biggest SSD you can afford.

JDeveloper capabilities for Reverse Engineering existing instances and data

We are experiencing difficulty obtaining the indexes, synonyms, and triggers via reverse-engineering capture of existing 10g DB's. Does JDeveloper have the capabilities for Reverse Engineering all objects from existing DB's ?
Will 10g JDeveloper handle reverse-engineering large 300 table schemas rich with large quantity of indexes, synonyms, & triggers?
And last, how can a listing of the Data Dictionary be extracted /exported in CSV or excel format for review distribution? Via JDeveloper? We have a large distributed development, test, quality, and integration team which prefers to review various elements of schema updates and changes in excel.
Thanx.

Vicki-
Thanks for the additional info. I was thinking you were most concerned with reverse-engineering existing schemas. I did not realize you were designing new schemas.
When you mention ERDs, are you interested in logical ERDs (as compared to physical tables and foreign keys)? If you are interested in doing pure logical ERD modelling, then Designer is the way to go. It has been years since I worked with Designer, but it has ooodles of capabilities to forward and reverse engineer between databases, physical models, and logical models of schemas. It sounds like you might be using Designer today and are hitting some snags. Is this the case? If so, I suggest you see if Oracle Support or the Designer forum can help you get past the specific Designer issues. The forum for Oracle Designer is here: Designer
Sue mention that JDeveloper does support database modelling. Here is a how-to for JDeveloper 11g that shows how it works:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/obe/obe11jdev/11/db_dev/obe_%20databasedevmt.htm
The how-to is pretty complete showing you forward and reverse engineering capabilities.
A few more minor notes:
1.The JDeveloper schema modelling features work on a physical (not logical) level. In other words, they work on tables not entities.
2.The SQL Developer report features certainly work on "DATA". But, the "DATA" they work on can certainly be the data dictionary data. In other words, I can write a report in SQL Developer that queries all of the column names, column data types for a subset of tables. Then I can export that "DATA" into excel and use it for whatever your downstream needs are. The potential capabilities are practically unlimited.
Cheers,
-dave

I have a MacBook Air and for what ever reason, the print settings have gone out of whack. I am not sure how to set to print a normal A4 paper size or a standard envelope. These settings were working O.K., but not now

I have a MacBook Air and for what ever reason the print settings for envelopes and normal A4 paper size changed from printing correctly each time I wished to print. Now, each time I wish to print either, I have to rest paper size and or Envelope vertical or horizontal. Can anyone assist with how to reset in order to print correctly without the need to rest each time please?

Log in to the Developer forum. You will find instructions on how to install the lastest beta. Your problem is the beta you have installed has expired. All of them did on October 5; you will find hundreds of threads discussing this. If you have a beta it is assumed that you will continue as a beta tester, so a simple update using iTunes will not work.
If you no longer want to be a beta tester install the GM 7.0.2 by restoring from iTunes using DFU mode.

Hi I'm new to Mac. I have a macbook air and for some reason the top keys, ec, f1 etc etc are not functioning and emitt the non function noise when pressed. Also the volume keys don't adjust the volume. Have I done something to disable them?

Hi I'm new to Mac. I have a macbook air and for some reason the top keys, ec, f1 etc etc are not functioning and emitt the non function noise when pressed. Also the volume keys don't adjust the volume. Have I done something to disable them?

I don't have the same version of OS X here but try System Preferences>Keyboard. Is there an option similar to "Use the F1, etc, keys as standard function keys"?
If so, and it has a checkmark, uncheck it & see if that does the trick.
~Lyssa

Is the MacBook Air recommended for working with RAW photographs using Aperture or Lightroom and perhaps Photoshop?

Is the MacBook Air recommended for working with RAW photographs in Aperture and Photoshop, or do I need a more powerful MacBook ? The relative lack of weight of the AIr is what attracts me to it.

For doing Photography with RAW files in either Aperture or Photoshop, the new MacBook Air is fine, but for Photoshop CS6 some of the filters and plugins really need a better graphics card and plenty of RAM.
You'll also want an external disk if you are going to be doing lots of shooting.
Summary:
Yes, you can use an air but you'll want external storage and at least 8GB of ram.
Or go MacBook Pro with 16GB ram with the 650M card.

Is MacBook Air Suitable for my iTunes files

This is my first post here, so I apologize if this is the wrong forum.
I have decided to buy a MacBook, and I am leaning heavily towards the MacBook Air. However, the "256GB Flash Storage" makes me wonder if it is the best choice. I have several gigs worth of iTunes files (music, video, etc.); I believe it is between 40 and 50 GB. Is the MacBook Air sutiable for this, or should I go with the MacBook Pro?
I'm not a gamer, and I have a work laptop to do all of my powerful MS Office stuff. We just surf the internet, manage our iTunes, and mess with photos.
Thanks in advance.

I agree. I purchases 13 " with 128 GB storage. I use mine for pretty much same thing; also have an iMac for cpu intensive tasks. I find 128 GB to be enough storage. I am happy with my purchase.

Macbook Air 13" 2011 vs Macbook Pro 13" for a uni student?

Hi all,
I am a university student studying Humanities and Psychology, so I write a LOT of essays. My other computer activities include watching movies, surfing the web, the occasional MMO (WoW and/or EVE Online) and listening to music.
I have a 1Tb external HDD connected to my wireless so hard drive space isn't an issue.
I am torn between the new MacBook Air 13" 256Gb, 4Gb RAM, and the 13" MacBook Pro 500Gb, 8Gb RAM.
The cost of either isn't an issue.
Let me know what your experiences are with either, and leave your opinion on which would be the best for me.
Thanks.

First off EatsRainbows, DO NOT get a new computer without a solidstate drive (SSD) it is the most important component of your computer (prorams open faster, saving is faster, transfering files is faster, everything happens fast). IMO the better screen, slightly better keyboard of the Air will be better for you. Also it wins in my hardcore comparision:
2011 13” MacBookAir vs. 2011 13” MacBook Pro
Both are the base models, the Pro has the optional128GB SSD to match the Air.
Cost:
MacBook Air - $1299
Macbook Pro - $1449
Winner = MacBook Air
Screen:
MacBook Air – 13.3” 16:10 1440x900
Macbook Pro - 13.3” 16:10 1280x800
Winner = MacBook Air
CPU Performance:
MacBook Air – i5-2557M
Macbook Pro – i5-2410M, Single Thread 5.5% faster,Multithread 13.5% faster
Winner = MacBook Pro
GPUPerformance:
MacBook Air – 384MB Intel HD 3000 (IntegratedGraphics)
Macbook Pro - 384MB Intel HD 3000 (IntegratedGraphics)
Winner = Tie
Size:
MacBook Air – 0.68 in thick max, 45.2 in^2
Macbook Pro – 0.95 in thick max, 108.5in^2
Winner = MacBook Air
Weight:
MacBook Air – 2.96 lbs
Macbook Pro – 4.5 lbs
Winner = MacBook Air
BatteryLife:
MacBook Air – 50WHr, 7 hours
Macbook Pro – 63.5WHr, 7 hours
Winner = Tie
Winner:
13.3”MacBook Air by A LOT
So you give up slight loss in single thread speed,for something that is much heavier, much larger, and has a worse screen. Basically you would be mad to pay more for aMacBook Pro.

MacBook Air 11" for photographer?

Hey everyone, my name is Brandon Isaiah Garcia & I'm an 18 year old photographer & college student. I am going to purchase a MacBook Air, but I need your help to decide which size I should get! This MacBook Air will be my primary device, because I plan on being on the go very often (& eventually going minimal). The thing is I'm having a tough time deciding whether I should get an 11" or 13". At first I had ruled out the 11" because of the lack of SD card slot, but that problem can be solved with an adapter for $10 or so. Also, the battery life is estimated at 3 hours more for the 13", but I just got an iPhone 6 Plus as my little entertainment device. Is the 11" too small for Photoshop, Lightroom, & graphic design work or will I be just fine? Will I regret the smaller screen size & lesser battery life or has the 11" MacBook Air worked great for you or other creatives you know? Thanks for all of the suggestions in advance!

I would suggest the 13" screen because it is much easier to read. Get the most RAM you can afford; next the biggest SSD you can afford.

Macbook pro or macbook air 13" for high school?

Hi, I'm entering high school in the fall and I'm saving up for a macbook. I want to get the air, but I'm not sure if the pro is better. All the other websites say it depends on what you're using it for. I'll be using it for basic stuff (Facebook, gmail, homework, movies, iTunes). I went to the Apple store to try them out and I like the air because its super light and the battery lasts really long so I can take it to school if I need it and when I travel. I'll be getting a external hard drive anyway so storage isn't a problem. Also, I can rip my dvds so no superdrive isn't a problem either. I want it to last all through high school and the pro seems more durable and not easily damaged. I'm really leaning towards air and I just wanna make sure its the right choice. Thanks!

It really is a matter of choice . Some food for thought though . The macbook air was designed with students in mind and in some ways is more rugged than the pro . The air using an SSD and not a conventional hard drive can survive knocks that would scramble the drive on a pro . Any notebook by its very nature is exposed to the possibility of dammage that would never affect a desktop . I own both a 13 " pro (2011) and an 11 " air and if I take one with me its the air , the pro sits on my desk .

Is my Mid-2011 MacBook Air eligible for free upgrade to Mountain Lion?

hey pals, I bought the MC969 (11" 4GB 128GB) MacBook Air on 1st July 2012. Just wanna know that is the IVth Gen MacBook Air which is barely a week old, eligible for the mountain lion uptodate program?

Caution!
As stedman1's reference states, the customer must purchase a qualitying new Mac system.
The question was about last year's Mac model. I'm convinced you will have to pay the $20 for Mountain Lion.
Anyway, you can check back on the stedman1 reference page once Mountain Lion is released for definitive results.

New MacBook Air SuperDrive for G4 PowerBook

My G4 PowerBook is still going strong except the original SuperDrive died a few months ago. While watching the MacWorld 2008 Keynote, I see that there is now an External MacBook Air SuperDrive option available for the new MacBook Air for $99. Does anyone know if this external Superdrive will work with the G4 PowerBooks?
Thanks.

Hi, DLaid, and welcome to Apple Discussions. You could replace your internal Superdrive yourself for $50-S75 USD (depending on what drive you chose) and an hour of your time. See the link in my post above. Buying an external optical drive to use with a portable computer would be silly, but if you wanted to do it anyway, there are dozens to choose from besides Apple's. As I explained above, a USB-only drive is totally inappropriate for use with a Tibook, even if it would work. Get a FireWire-capable drive if you buy an external.
Be aware also that when you post in these forums, you aren't talking to Apple; you're just talking to other Mac users like yourself. The people at Apple who need to hear your concerns don't monitor these boards. This is explained in the "Help & Terms of Use" link that appears in the right sidebar of every Discussions page. Your second-paragraph gripes would be more usefully addressed directly to Apple through the appropriate Product Feedback channels:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/

I have a new Macbook Air and for the last few days the fan had run continuously, this is the first time it has ever run, and now it won't stop, the fan starts up as soon as I turn it on. The computer is not hot.Any ideas on how I can fix this please ?

I have a new Macbook Air, 6 months old, and for the last few days the fan had run continuously, this is the first time it has ever run, and now it won't stop, the fan starts up as soon as I turn it on and the computer seems to running more slowy.The computer is not hot but I am worried it may burn out,.Any ideas on how I can fix this please ?

Hello dwb,
Here is the screen shot, just the top half, there are another 10 pages, but I guess this should enough for you to have an idea of waht is going on, bit small I am afraid. No, I don't have any apps setup to run when I open my computer, the kernel, varies between 290 and 305 per cent ish.
Would that PRAM thing help ? I think it may be the computer itself, well something inside, as this the first time that the fan has ever started running since I have this computer, even when I have 3 or 4 apps running.
Thank you again for your advice,
Regard,
Beauty of Bath

Macbook Air capabilities for Aerospace Engineering Student

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for