Thank you. I’ll check them out right now.

Edited to add:

looks like an extra $50 for the equivalent laptop for the M5 Pro over the M4 Pro. A quick glance says the difference seems to be faster memory, faster SSD, Supermcores replacing the efficiency cores, more performance cores, faster graphics.

That's what we call a no-brainer!

The M4 Pro included a $360 (educational pricing) upgrade from a 512GB SSD to a 1TB SSD, while the M5 Pro includes a 1TB SSD in the base price.

I'm looking at the black M5 Pro with 24GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 96W USB-C Fast Charger. Looks like the price is about the same as the M4. No educational pricing for me.

I also see where they bumped up the specs for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

I just saw the WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0.

That's the same configuration, with the nano-texture screen, I'm looking at; it's $2,184 in Apple's education store. Even though I have it, they didn't ask for any proof for the education pricing when I ordered the M4 Pro.

I find that most art/film/video editing people all use Apple.

Most engineer types use Windows.

Silicon Valley uses Apple, programmers, AI.

Depends on the tools she is planning to use.

You can always run windows programs on a MAC.

Boost the RAM as much as you can afford.

You cannot upgrade the RAM on a MAC.

Check the specs on the programs she wants to use.

You can always add storage externally.

She should have external storage anyway for backup so if the laptop gets damaged or stolen, she does not lose her work.

quote:

Originally posted by Jupiter:

No educational pricing for me.

Are you eligible for Veteran pricing?

quote:

Originally posted by sig2392:

She should have external storage anyway

iCloud storage is not expensive, and allows access from your other Apple devices. I realized this after paying for a MacBook with 1Tb; in the future, I will buy much smaller storage and use iCloud for most of my data.

Bonus: iCloud allows you to set up shared folders, so I have a few for sharing some things with my wife. I had intended to set up NAS at home, with a personal (family) cloud server, but with iCloud's capabilities, I don't need to screw around with buying and maintaining my own setup. And it will continue to work transparently with no action required by my wife, assuming that I croak first.

External storage is a requirement a few of the programs she’s interested in. The specs they give for speeds exceed current widely available internet speeds.

New 2026 MacBook release ordering starts tomorrow.

Base SSD sizes have doubled from 256gb to 512gb in Air models and 512gb to 1tb in Pro models. M4 being replaced by M5 processors.



I just received a 2025 M4 refurb 13” MBA last week. I had been using a high spec 2023 M3 Max 14” MBP, but it almost never left home for two main reasons - small, but HEAVY and cost. Originally it was north of $3K, I was always afraid of theft if left in a hotel room or vehicle. As such, would on;y travel with iPad. There are always time I wished for a “full” computer though, primarily when trying to edit photos.


Figured better to have a desktop for home and a MBA for travel. So sold my 14” MBP to move to Mac Studio desktop at home and had been patiently waiting for almost three months for the MBA configuration (13”/10 and 10 core/24gb mem/1tb SSD) I wanted to show up on the refurb market.


Looks I can get the same configuration in the new release for only $123 more. Online geeks say 15-25% faster CPU performance, faster graphics, faster memory, WI-FI 7, and BT 6 as the major improvements.


So, packing up the one I just got to order the new one.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:

quote:

Originally posted by Jupiter:

No educational pricing for me.

Are you eligible for Veteran pricing?

Unfortunately not. I see where veterans and active duty can get a 10% discount.

I could try getting the student discount. Trapper189 said they didn't ask for proof in his case. For me, it would probably go something like this.

^^^Could be true. I found some information that says Apple may ask for verification at any point including after paying, but before shipping, so it’s entirely possible they just haven’t asked me yet. I bought her an iPad Pro two years ago and don’t believe they asked, but it’s probably different now.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
^^^Could be true. I found some information that says Apple may ask for verification at any point including after paying, but before shipping, so it’s entirely possible they just haven’t asked me yet.

You're in FLA.
Any educational discount orders originating from Mississippi would be flagged as suspicious.

It appears if you want top shelf stuff, be prepared to pay up. The new pros look quite capable, local AI processing and all. I don't need one and I think I'll wait to see how the tech falls out. It's advancing at unprecidented rates.

Tech Apple raises MacBook prices across the board as M5 chips, new displays signal AI-first strategy

quote:

Originally posted by sig2392:
<snip>
Most engineer types use Windows.
<snip>

Most? I doubt that. macOS is based on FreeBSD, an excellent Unix-like OS, loved by engineers. Certainly loved by this BSEE – me!

I seldom use the Finder. Instead, all of my Spaces have multiple iTerms open running bash shells.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:

macOS is based on FreeBSD, an excellent Unix-like OS

A significant portion of my working life was spent at Bell Labs, where UNIX originated. UNIX source code was licensed to Berkley, where it was massaged and released as BSD, which was an actual UNIX, rather than "Unix-like."

Later in life, I worked in the education department of Digital Equipment, teaching various courses covering both ULTRIX (DEC's release of BSD) and AT&T System V UNIX, including one course for system level programmers that covered the differences between the two types, and how to account for these differences when designing software that needed to run on both systems.

quote:

Later in life, I worked in the education department of Digital Equipment

V-Tail, were you in Maynard, MA by chance? Have we had this discussion?

^^ You two guys ('Pipe Smoker and V-Tail') are missing the point. This thread is 'really' about the computer needs of a college student, which will be dictated by the course of study, and the software used in said courses/majors, and coincidentally, also the career/industry said student will seek employment in. All engineering students use Windows because ALL of the engineering/design software runs on Windows. Virtually all creative arts students, to include film, music, video, graphic design, etc use Apple, because virtually all of the best software for those endeavors run on macOS.

Seriously, when you guys were in college and began your careers, Windows (or any OS with a GUI for that matter) had not even been invented yet! Everything 'sig2392' indicated in his post was absolutely spot on here in the 21st Century!

^^^In their defense, I did mention in my first post that the last Apple computer I had was a IIe. For about the same price as the one I’m buying for my daughter, my IIe had an 80 column card which also expanded to computer’s memory from 64KB to 128KB. The extra 40 characters of text on the green screen really made the VisiCalc spreadsheets much easier to see and with two 5 1/4” floppy drives, I never had to swap program disk and data disk. Hmm, better screen, more memory, more storage seems like timeless advice. Bought it from American TV, but we didn’t get a bicycle. Too bad I didn’t buy Apple stock back then.

quote:

Originally posted by Jupiter:
You're in FLA.
Any educational discount orders originating from Mississippi would be flagged as suspicious.

At first, I chuckled, then I looked it up because how bad can Mississippi be? I see Ole Miss, Mississippi’s flagship university, has a 97% acceptance rate and is tied for 169th place with Florida A&M, Florida’s 6th best university.


Edited to add:

Ordered, again. The base M5 Pro, 14", the nano-screen, and the app bundle. I skipped the memory and processor upgrades because I don't think she'll need them.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: trapper189,

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:

Edited to add:

Ordered, again. The base M5 Pro, 14", the nano-screen, and the app bundle. I skipped the memory and processor upgrades because I don't think she'll need them.

Same here minus the nano-screen option.

Holy cow, how many boxes does one MacBook come in?




The dates and time look odd because they are in local time and the International Date Line, time zones, and DST or not come into play.

It really looks like there’s two boxes for sure if not three. I paid extra for the bigger wall wart and the software license bundle so maybe the wall wart come separately, but surley the software license doesn’t arrive in its own box?