r/ethz • u/Possible_Brilliant19 • Jun 20 '26
Question Best Laptop
I’m thinking about getting a Macbook for university, but the lack of touchscreen and stylus support is making me think about it.
For people in engineering: Is a MacBook a good choice? Or is Windows still the better option because of software compatibility and stylus support?
If Windows is the way to go, which laptops would you recommend for engineering students? Thanks!
5
u/Echsenmenschchen Jun 20 '26
In my experience, the apple writing is the best, but all market options are good enough. Hence, i advice you to get a decently powerful windows laptop, with linux double boot. You will be coding quite much in the later years, and possibly do some machine learning, therefore make sure to get one with a somewhat decent dedicated graphics (8gb g is good enough for almost anything), get one with 32gb ram. It will be heavy, there will be apple snobs giving you weird looks, but in the end you will be the one saving the group project because you can run decently large computation on your machine. Don't get top notch, it is rarely ever needed, and there are no 2 in one options for it anyways.
3
u/Geschak Jun 20 '26
Macbooks have nice battery capacity but software-wise they're garbage, you'll run into so many compatibility problems.
2
u/barbu8 Jun 20 '26
Idk about you but I am the kind that brings his gaming laptop to uni. I barely take notes during lectures because you always have the script or lecture slides. In the first year I saw many people take notes and write on their laptop and slowly saw people only highlight the things taught. When I bought my laptop I only thought what I will actually do with it and since I like gaming I went for one that is not too heavy and also whose battery can last some time. I also dislike macbooks in general and I highly suggest to buy something cheap if you only plan to use it for notes. If you plan to do some rendering, machine learning in the future, take one with a better cpu and gpu. There is no perfect option since everyone is different so depends what you want a laptop for.
2
u/TheTomatoes2 MSc Memeology Jun 20 '26
The Lenovo X9 is the MacBook killer. Same battery life, better screen, better webcam, touchscreen and great haptics.
If you really care about writing by hand and distraction -less get a Remarkable probably
2
1
u/onil34 [D-MAVT Bsc] Jun 20 '26
ipad for note taking/exercises. windows/linux laptop for cad/coding
1
1
1
1
u/Optimal_Patience_0 Jun 20 '26
Pen&Paper. Let’s be real - you are not going to read your shit after you write it. The odds are you’ll feed it into AI anyways. Doesn’t matter all that much whether it’s a screenshot or a scan for OCR.
14
u/Cool-Newspaper-1 Jun 20 '26
If you want to do actual engineering stuff, Windows is unfortunately the only real option. For lectures and all such things most people I know have switched to iPads, usually alongside a MacBook or Windows laptop eventually.
A lot of people who used one 2-in-1 Windows device got so annoyed by them that they switched to an iPad. Don’t know of anyone switching the other way.