My granddaughter will be starting education hopefully leading to a degree as a dentist. I would like to purchase her a laptop to use in her education goals. Is there a preferred laptop for this area of study? My personal preference leans toward Apple but that may not be the best choice for her education. I understand there are apps used to view 3D images used in diagnostics and probably specialized programs. Does one computer work better than the other?

Maybe see what her school recommends.

In my interactions with the medical community, pretty much every practice uses MS Windows OSs on their business side of the house, and pretty much every medical device has an embedded OS of the same (although I'm seeing a little bit of Linux in this role lately). I don't know if this implies applicability to medical studies unless the student is more interested in the mechanics than the medicine.

For the sake of the young girl's sanity, I would recommend her becoming more familiar with the Apple-verse than with Mr. Gates's Win-obscenities. Not that macOS won't drive one insane, but it's a little more elegant style of madness.

Serenity Now!

Let her pick it based on what the school recommends.

She may not even want a laptop, I know a lot of younger kids who are perfectly happy with only an iPad, Surface or Chromebook now.

Neither of my college kids use a laptop. One uses an iPad Pro and the other uses a Surface. Both use the pens to take notes. Both have keyboards as well, but they don’t use the keyboards in the classroom.

quote:

Originally posted by xantom:
Maybe see what her school recommends.

This is the right answer.

In general, if there is specialized software involved (autocad, many accounting packages, the stuff that drives the digital Xray systems that the dentists use, etc), it is available for windows. In some cases, it may be available for MacOS.

Personally, I think windoze sucks ass, but there is a whole lot of software out there that is available for windoze but not for MacOS.

At one point the PC market was 90% windoze and 10% Macs. I have no idea what it is now, but would be willing to bet that windoze, though stunningly inferior in many ways, still has a larger percentage of the market. If you were developing specialized software and hardware, would you base it on the platform that has more of the market or the one that has less?

Yep. It's going to come down to what OS she's already used to, and what OS the software she needs is available for.

Most of the time, that's going to be PC.

You'll need to ask her.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
Yep. It's going to come down to what OS she's already used to, and what OS the software she needs is available for.

My thoughts as well.

One more consideration: which environment is her phone? Integration in this area may be more important than a "keyboard" OS.

And WRT to what her school might recommend...I see no evidence that they know better than the average clueless individual in the street.

Definitely go with the school's recommendation. Also when she gets her student ID she may be eligible for discounts. I just bought my son a new Apple laptop yesterday and the discount was decent through their educational purchase site.

My daughter just graduated in computer science. She switched her emphasis from front end (UI) development to back end (API, database, etc) development. For UI her school school required a mac book. I know our front end devs much prefer mac to windows. For backend her school required Win 11. Moral of the story, check with the school.

Many colleges and public school systems have a strong preference for Apple. I suspect it's partly because Apple is providing some discounts for specific users and because Apple just plain works better. BTW I am not involved in education however I do have a Niece who is a school teacher and in here system in was Macbook only.

My only dog in this fight is that I have a serious interest in Photography and if all the editing software I use were available for the Apple platform I would be there in a heartbeat. BTW I will NOT lease software. I only use perpetual software and that includes Windows 11.

Simply because Windows Sucks. It's buggy, updates avoided will trigger massive slowdowns on the computer, and Windows has ZERO Customer Service. I recently moved to Windows 11 and wasn't able to opt out of One Drive and when it got full the computer became very nearly unusable because it was constantly blocking keyboard and mouse response because the One Drive was full. The only option to solve this issue in all the constant popups was to upgrade One Drive. BTW, you can uninstall One Drive but it's a feature that Windows doesn't advertise.

My wife got a new macbook for Christmas and I installed Parallels (https://www.parallels.com/) on it along with a copy of Windows 11. Now she has both OSs and can go back and forth with ease.

JP

Go with what the school requires, they have an IT department that will make recommendations to the administrators. I can assure you they'll know better than sigforum and the average clueless street dweller. If you're so inclined find what their recommendation is bring it here and you'll get several good options.

Does the school have a computer store?

For example, here what USF says:

“General computing requirement

PC/Laptop preferably less than 5 years old
Minimum Specifications:
Processor: current generation of Intel Core Series (i3, i5, i7, i9) or AMD Ryzen equivalent
Memory: 8GB RAM
Storage: 256GB
Camera, Microphone, and Speakers
Wireless connectivity (WiFi)
Windows 10 or Mac OS X

Please Note: Individual colleges and programs may have their own requirements. Connect with the USF Computer Store for the latest recommended hardware (NetId required).” Link

Note the last paragraph. I don’t believe most schools’ IT departments would have a clue what their school’s various degree program’s computer requirements are.

Is this for college or grad school?

How old is she?

quote:

Note the last paragraph. I don’t believe most schools’ IT departments would have a clue what their school’s various degree program’s computer requirements are.

They sure won't, nor will the store that just wants to sell one. Probably the MAC for $ $ $!

I agree that asking the specific program she'll be in for preference or requirement, and if either is fine, what she is used to and will likely use in real world. Learning a new OS at the same time she's on this adventure not helpful unless needed.

I'd lived in WIN world since '87 until starting current job in '17. This is all Mac, all the time, and it took me a beat to get my feet planted effectively in that.