Best windows laptop under $800 usd.

[Milly342]

While I love Apple and Mac, this is important and you need to be serious. School recommended you get a Windows machine. You should get a Windows machine. As you get further on In school, there is the distinct likelihood some professor somewhere is going to throw customize software that they wrote at you. You might be able to get it to work in an emulator, but that’s a big might. You’re dedicating a lot of time and possibly a lot of money going to college. You will face many challenges, that’s what colleges about but it’s silly to introduce additional ones.

So you should absolutely get a Windows machine and (It hurts to say this a lot) You probably wanna make sure it’s an Intel machine too. The people making the recommendations probably don’t even understand the difference between arm and Intel but once again why do you want to take an additional risk?

I installed windows through boot camp on my MacBook and it’s working perfect tbh

 

[Milly342]

While I love Apple and Mac, this is important and you need to be serious. School recommended you get a Windows machine. You should get a Windows machine. As you get further on In school, there is the distinct likelihood some professor somewhere is going to throw customize software that they wrote at you. You might be able to get it to work in an emulator, but that’s a big might. You’re dedicating a lot of time and possibly a lot of money going to college. You will face many challenges, that’s what colleges about but it’s silly to introduce additional ones.

So you should absolutely get a Windows machine and (It hurts to say this a lot) You probably wanna make sure it’s an Intel machine too. The people making the recommendations probably don’t even understand the difference between arm and Intel but once again why do you want to take an additional risk?

 

[Milly342]

They are close but the M3 has several advantages in terms of efficiency and cpu raw performance. The Ultra 7 is Intel's first somewhat competitive chip and the start of advancing process map in order to catch up with and potentially exceed Apple's process advantage. Intel and TSMC has different naming nomenclature for their process density and Intel claims their Process 4(Ultra 7) is as dense as Apples M3 even though the nanometer size for Apple is much lower. With a cpu process density or the number of transistors in a space vs. Nanometer size reported by TSMC of 3nm is much more advanced than Intel's process 4 or 7nm. So who do you believe?

What I can say is I have an M2 Apple MBA and Ultra 7 laptop with same ram. The M2 is probably 30% more efficient but not as fast. So I would imagine the M3 is even more efficient while being faster than the Ultra. Graphics on Ultra are very good compared to M2 but M3 Pro is much better.

The Ultra is by far, Intel's best effort yet at bridging the gap between efficiency and performance but is still behind Apple overall. Lunar Lake should be the processor that is possibly disruptive and finally matches Apple m series. We will see. Interesting times!!

Gotcha

 

[Technerd108]

That seems pretty strict. You better get a Windows laptop. using bootcamp on your old mac is a bad solution.

Spend $1500 or so on a good Windows laptop. Later this year lunar Lake will be out and it might be worth considering. I would also ask if Windows on Arm is an option? The new Surface laptop 7 copilot PC's with QC Elite processor would be a great choice for college if the college says it is compatible.

Otherwise, An Hp Spectre 14" with Ultra 7 and 32 gb ram and 2.5k OLED anti reflective touchscreen, The GalaxyBook 4 Pro or similar laptops would be a great choice and fully compatible. BestBuy will have summer sales on both of these laptops offering them for several hundred off MSRP and they are really nice.


battery life is about 10 hours average. 6 hours doing really intensive stuff minus gaming and most likely 8-10 hours for most people. You can extend that with low brightness and battery saver to 14 hours. I use my laptop with full brightness and performance mode or balanced.

 

[Milly342]

That seems pretty strict. You better get a Windows laptop. using bootcamp on your old mac is a bad solution.

Spend $1500 or so on a good Windows laptop. Later this year lunar Lake will be out and it might be worth considering. I would also ask if Windows on Arm is an option? The new Surface laptop 7 copilot PC's with QC Elite processor would be a great choice for college if the college says it is compatible.

Otherwise, An Hp Spectre 14" with Ultra 7 and 32 gb ram and 2.5k OLED anti reflective touchscreen, The GalaxyBook 4 Pro or similar laptops would be a great choice and fully compatible. BestBuy will have summer sales on both of these laptops offering them for several hundred off MSRP and they are really nice.


battery life is about 10 hours average. 6 hours doing really intensive stuff minus gaming and most likely 8-10 hours for most people. You can extend that with low brightness and battery saver to 14 hours. I use my laptop with full brightness and performance mode or balanced.

Out of the 3 laptops you mentioned which one is overall the best in terms of performance and screen quality? And also arm shouldn’t be a issue

 

[dumastudetto]

... which will never replace a Windows laptop that the OP actually needs as he clearly stated.

He wasn't actually sure why Windows was needed when I was inquisitive, just presumed it wa because everyone else seems to use Windows at his job. No point responding to the rest of your anti-iPad rant as your issues are irrelevant.

 

[SnowCrocodile]

He wasn't actually sure why Windows was needed when I was inquisitive, just presumed it wa because everyone else seems to use Windows at his job. No point responding to the rest of your anti-iPad rant as your issues are irrelevant.

What's irrelevant is your attitude of a five year old child in tantrum. You can't take constructive and polite criticism.

Muted.

 

[dumastudetto]

What's irrelevant is your attitude of a five year old child in tantrum. You can't take constructive and polite criticism.

Muted.

It wasn't my finest post. Having re-read your previous comment, I apologise.