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Ask HN: Which setup would be better(custom PC/MBA)?

1 points by combataran ↗ HN
I'm in college, and my laptop just died on me. I'm thinking of either:

"Great" config custom PC from logicalincrements.com + Nexus 7/iPad Mini

or

11" MBA i5/8/256GB + cheap external monitor

I'm in Mechanical Engineering, and coding work starts only during the 3rd year. I do still feel like the MBA would be more suitable(able to do more stuff on a larger screen on the go is really convenient), however I can't ignore my desire to game(which I do regularly). Using an Apple Wireless keyboard with a tablet would look really silly, plus I had such a keyboard with my prior iPad(gave it to my mum, so there's that).

Also, my room is hot as hell all year round, sweat runs down my back all day long.

I recall doing most of the paper writing and circuit simulations either in my room or somewhere in the house(before my HDD died). My university's tech lab only house super old workstations(i3, 2GB RAM). I only check WolframAlpha and review past year questions on my laptop in the library while doing psets with paper and pen.

And then there's the price factor. The MBA would obviously be the more expensive choice, and the price difference could be put to use. Just saying.

Which would be a better choice?

10 comments

[ 496 ms ] story [ 135 ms ] thread
noxin
If you don't plan on carrying it around, I'd recommend a custom PC. It has the advantage that if you rum short on disk space, RAM, GPU power or anything else you can easily upgrade it. Since heat production is an issue, invest in an efficient power supply (80! gold/platinum) and enable power saving options in BIOS.
combataran
I don't. Nobody brings a laptop to classes(unless he plans on gaming during the lecture, that happens a lot). Most of the actual work is done with pen and paper. However I would certainly miss bringing a laptop to the library, camp out for 5~6 hours and wait for the staff to chase me out.

Also, I plan on moving out sometime next year, so the weight could be a problem.

I'm not concerned with the PC atm, seeing that it's the cheaper solution. Can I actually get work done on a tablet?

mechgrad
I graduated from ME a few years ago and I can say that most everything you interact with (software-wise) is Windows based. So keep that in mind for your purchase. You may be able to run it on a MBA but some of the programs will run terribly (FEA/CAD) it really just depends on what programs your university uses and if you want to work in the computer lab or on your own computer.

Matlab was what we did all our programming in and that works fine on a Mac.

I feel like a laptop is much nicer choice but 11" is pretty small to get work done on (especially if you're going to try CAD software). And matlab can be screen heavy especially if your classes get into simulink.

combataran
Would you suggest a 13" MBA + external monitor then?

Also, I'm pretty sure CAD, Solidworks and Matlab is all we run there.

mechgrad
I don't know if a MBA will be strong enough to run Solidworks okay or not (you will have to use bootcamp if you want to run it so make sure you have enough harddrive space win7 + solidworks probably means 40-50gb or more easy + files and other such thing fills up fast). I think I had modeling files take up 10GB flash drive easy.

13" is okay for matlab, you could probably get away with 11" but I think it would be painful.

If you want to run the CAD software like Solidworks a MBP 13" might be the better choice (256GB + 8GB RAM) comes out to cheaper than the MBA 13" equiv with upgraded proc. And could probably run it reasonably well-ish (better than MBA). You usually don't need to do a lot of model analysis in undergrad but sometimes those CAD programs can be a system hog. Especially if you get to complicated model assemblies.

If you don't want to run the CAD software the MBA 13" should be okay it just might take longer to boot up matlab but with the programs you do processing power shouldnt make that much of a difference. If you can hook up an external monitor an 11" might be fine as well.

Heres someones experience with an air and solidworks: http://solidworksonamac.com/using-solidworks-on-a-macbook-ai...

combataran
I pretty much had a change of heart during these few days, and came up with the following choices:

Asus N56JR-S4018H 15.6” FHD / i7-4700 / 12GB / 1TB / GTX760M 2GB GDDR5 / W8

and

Lenovo Y510P 5938-9550 15.6” FHD / i7-4700 / 8GB / 1TB / GT755M SLi 2GB DDR5 / W8

The price difference is a mere $6 where I'm from. I'm confident that these would do fine, even outperform the Macbooks in any way possible. However these 2 weigh a ton(almost 3kgs), and they are quite hot as well(80~90 degrees celsius for GPU/CPU, and ~50 degrees celsius surface temp, since they're plastic and all). And the build quality wouldn't even come close to Macs.

Decisions, decisions.

mechgrad
Those would do more than fine. If you go with lenovo they have a very good warranty with accidental damage protection for a couple hundred dollars for 3 years if you're worried about build quality (I think you have to buy from the lenovo site though).
combataran
That's good to hear. What I'm worried about is the heat and weight, less so the build quality. I'd really like my laptop to last at least 4 years, more is better, performance wise as well. Apple laptops just don't seem to hold their own after 4 years(except for the body itself, ofc).

The 13 mba when specced with 8gb/256gb is still way cheaper than the similarly specced rmbp. Does the processor matter much when talking about running cad software(and i'm aware of the retina price premium, thats why i tend to shy away from it, prefer a fhd ips external monitor).

mechgrad
The processor matters when you get into complicated assemblies or analysis of parts. Your school should have computers capable of running whatever you need to do and to be honest a home built computer of ~$500US would be capable of undergrad work easily.

I specced the MBA with upgraded processor which would definitely be necessary (for CAD) but even the article I linked said it was a little slow with the upgraded processor.

I personally did all my CAD work on campus and MATLAB/programming at home because of computer specs.

I think a macbook is a nicer computer choice if you don't mind doing CAD work at school, or if later down the line you decide to spend ~$500 building a computer (just the computer not monitor, keyboard, os) because working at school is a burden. Though a lot of my CAD projects were group projects, depends more on school though.

The analysis work definitely is processor heavy (I think PRO/E might use CUDA somewhat now) but it just means a slower processor will take longer to run the analysis).

Just running the CAD program usually requires an okay processor and video card but if you google around or ask on forums some other people might have better experience with running solidworks on a MBA.

Here is another experience: https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/70311

We did have some programming in basic excel formula style but that you could run in parallels or virtualbox or what have you.

combataran
I do think that Macs are nice to have and use, and that my school computers are only [i3, 4gb, 500gb] machines, some are even older. Weirdly so, there seems to be this one Tesla supercomputer in that lab that's off-limits...anyways, the rMBP is beyond my $1200 budget, more so the normal MBP specced with a 256 ssd, so I think I'll stick to Windows machines until I have more disposable income to afford one. Thanks for your input, it was helpful!

Which brings me back to my pc+tablet or laptop debate. This is starting to give me a headache.