My 14 year old granddaughter is going to a special high school this Fall and it's been recommended she get a Macbook. This is a science school, it was recommended for CAD programs she'll be using. Her mother suggested "less cumbersome", so I'm thinking Air? How powerful should I go, I know nothing about Macs. I see I can spend $899 or $$$$.

Ask the school. Some schools can order at a discount.

Are you active military or veteran? Apple offers a discount, which can be combined with the discounted price for re-furbished computers to save significant $$$.

I recently bought a MacBook Air this way, saved a bunch.

First, remember that the processor is key to a long-lived purchase. The Apple M1 chip is well-regarded, and the M2 chip even more so. You do NOT want to purchase any ancient Apple, to save money, as the hardware does not work with the current operating system. Most people enjoy the certified Apple Store refurbished units to save some money.

As with any purchase, the size of the display drives the prices somewhat. A MacBook Air, with a small display, might work well, but might also be a burden for drafting / designing software. Keep in mind the price of a reasonable quality external display, keyboard, mouse, etc. also. Apple peripherals are pricey but good.

Absent extensive Apple hardware experience, I cannot recommend Facebook or Craigslist used purchases. Tempting, but not good.

Apple does have discounts for educational use. Your purchase may qualify.

The MacBook Air with an M1 chip is outstanding; I'm typing on one right now.
8 GB RAM is plenty; I would go for 512 GB SSD if it's in your budget, but for high school work 256 GB should be plenty.
Congratulations to your granddaughter on going to a high school that sounds terrific--CAD programs indeed!

It's very easy to connect the Air to a large, say 27 inch external display with an adapter. A wireless mouse is another very useful accessory.

Another bargain if you’re a veteran is to buy through one of the exchanges, they are usually running an Apple sale and no sales tax.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
The MacBook Air with an M1 chip is outstanding; I'm typing on one right now.
8 GB RAM is plenty;

8gb ram is plenty for web browsing.
8gb is a pittance for anything more serious than that.
I run 32gb minimum on my machines.
The one I'm typing this on has 64gb.
I cannot stress enough how much I would hate life with only 8gb of ram.
CAD programs can be very intensive - please do not do 8gb of ram!!!!!

I was going to disagree, but further research on the Apple Community forum indicates you're probably right.

In any case discussing with the pertinent instructors at the school would yield the best answer.

I went from MacBook Air to MacBook Pro and cannot tell any difference in performance. I do not use any special software, I would see which one the school suggest. She can get a discount here plus $150 in Apple gift cards: https://www.apple.com/us-edu/store

For some context on ram...

This machine (Mac Studio) has 64gb.
I'm currently using 30.81gb (as per activity monitor).
I'm running what I consider to be a low to medium load on it right now.

My Macbook pro (sitting here as well) has 32gb of ram.
It's currently using 28.31gb with a similar load as what the studio is running.

I would expect most CAD programs to need a machine that has at least 16gb (bare minimum).

8GB of Unified Memory on an M1 chip is a whole different ball-of-wax from the separate RAM of the past. In fact, Apple first introduced the M1 with only 8GB RAM as they didn't think any more was even necessary. Yes I opted for 16GB in my new Mac Mini as it was only $200 more, but if you're trying to be more cost-conscious, you'll probably be fine.

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
In fact, Apple first introduced the M1 with only 8GB RAM as they didn't think any more was even necessary.

lol...
My two machines in front of me prove that's straight up wrong

Are you a power user that actually does need more memory? And your machines are all M1/M2?

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
Are you a power user that actually does need more memory?

Which is why I said my minimum that I'd consider buying for myself is 32gb

I also have a trio of M1 Mac Mini's (yes I have a large mac install base here in my home).
These all have the minimum of 8gb ram.
I have what I consider to be a very light workload on each of them - and they sit at about 6gb used all the time.

So your answer is correct for you, but a lighter user such as a student might be fine at 8GB?

A student, in a science focused school that utilizes CAD is hardly a light user…

^That's a fair point. Missed the CAD part.

The MacBook Air should be fine for what she is going to use it for. The one that starts at $899 is last years model using the M1 chip. The M2 version is this years model and starts a couple hundred more. I’m only pointing it out in case you were wondering why one was slight higher price. The M1 model will handle any CAD and modeling programs they are using. I’m 100% with creslin above, spend the extra $180 to max out the RAM from the 8GB it comes with to 16GB. If someone was just buying one to surf the internet it’s fine, but she will be working with big/multiple CAD projects and the memory is integrated on the board, so you can’t add more later. It will benefit everything she uses the laptop for whether she dabbles in music, podcasting, or editing and processing videos for school or YouTube.

I personally would go up one more size on the main hard drive to 512GB, but if saving money is important in this instance it’s not needed. Of course the pro machines are more powerful and would be a great thing for her to move to later in college or in her career but I think you are on the right track for right now. It’s a great little machine and should do well in class and for going mobile. As others mentioned at home she can add an external monitor for more screen real estate if she feels it’s needed. Tell her good luck from grandpa’s internet buddies and congrats for getting into a technical high school. That’s good stuff.

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
And your machines are all M1/M2?

Missed this earlier.

Both the Studio and the MBP are M1max
The three mini's are standard M1

14? 4 more years of HS? I’d future proof the purchase. Buy for needs for the next 4 years, not just this year.

I wouldn’t get the Air. At least one step up from there. Something with fans to cool the system.

M2 processor sounds good. But check reviews. Sounds like they run a little hot.