You had to know we’d throw a MacBook Pro in here. And not just because MacBooks give you great street cred, but because the newest MacBook is a badass powerhouse. They’re the most expensive in our list, but with a fast AF i9 chip, 2.9GHz, and Turbo Boost up to 4.8GHz, the price makes sense. Like we said, MacBooks will seriously last through beatings — if my MacBook from 2012 can last six years and counting, I have no doubts that a 2018 MacBook Pro will last well over a decade, taking you from college and straight into the working world.
While Apple hasn’t gotten around to a totally touchscreen laptop yet, the OLED touch bar is such an Apple thing to do. Here, you can control brightness, sound, use touch ID, and do what you would with FN keys. (A lot of people question the point of this, though.) The 2,880 x 1,800 display has True Tone technology, which automatically adjusts the yellow and blue tones in your screen to match your environment, making things easier on the eyes. As people who appreciate the iPhone’s Night Shift feature will say, the color of your screen can affect your health, and too much blue light before bed can affect your sleep. This is extra clutch for students, because you’re gonna need all the shut eye you can get.
Amazon customer DAB writes:
“Purchased this laptop to replace a 2013 model. I have been blown away by the speed, the bright crisp display. The keyboard takes some getting use too for sure, but it’s not bad. I know I will get use to it quickly. The big trackpad is very nice. Then there is the touch bar, which is interesting. I have really gotten use out of it and I really didn’t think I would. Also I really like using Touch ID to be able to login to my computer. Apple computers are always expensive, but for me I can’t imagine ever going back to a windows machine so it’s worth the money.”
The 2018 Pro is a great general-use laptop (and is probably what everyone in your classes will have) but is especially nice for serious apps like Adobe Premiere. Its importing and exporting times are lickety split, even for large files like long 4K videos. If you’re in school for anything like photography, film, graphic design, or music, this will be an ace choice to keep up with your assignments. Its T1 internet connection and insane download speeds also allow most webpages and apps to load in less than a second. However, it does lack in gaming speed. Not everyone cares about gaming specs, but if you do, you could get an external GPU to fix the lag. Other lame things include the crappy battery life (as low as five hours on a bad day) and the fact that you’ll be living in absolute dongle hell.
At the end of the day, there are PC people and there are Mac people, and if you’re a Mac person, no amount of shortcomings will change your mind. The 13-inch starts at $1,799.99and the 15-inch can be as much as $2,799, depending on how much you deck it out. You can also snag the 2017 MacBook Pro for $1,599.99 here or an even cheaper (but still good as new) refurbished one for $419.39 here.