Mac or pc for business students? (10 comparisons )

which is better Mac or PC for business students?

a lot of businesses students are wondering to choose between Mac or PC, so which is better?

In this article, we’re going to respond to this question and also explain what are the pros and cons of using a Mac or PC for college business.

At the same time warning from some pitfalls that you should avoid as a college business student, so keep reading to know more about this subject.

should I choose Mac or PC as a business student?

mac and PC both are good to use as a college business student, they have slight differences from each other in terms of software support and hardware powerfulness.

But that will not create any difference for students who are studying business in college. But don’t worry we’re going to talk about the differences that mac and PC have and how they can affect you as a business college major.

in the business major, you will need mostly to use Microsoft softwares like:

  • excel
  • PowerPoint
  • Word
  • one note

These programs are working well in both systems, but in PC they tend to be more flexible and better. Because these programs are natively written based on the windows operating system.

But in general, they work also in mac without any issues, but for other majors like engineering, they might face some issues. So there is no worry about mac software support for business uses.

Now we’re going to list the 10 important thing that differentiates mac from PC and that can add value to a business major. We’re going to compare mac to PC in 10 aspects which are:

1 – Price

macs are known in the market as an expensive product but the reality is changing. In other words, mac devices are getting more competitive in price, especially for laptops.

If you ask as a business major what is expensive mac or PC the response will be in the table below. We brought the famous business laptops to compare and see the differences in prices.

Business laptops

Macbook Air

ThinkPad x1 carbon

MacBook pro 13

XPS 13

Microsoft laptop studio

Hp elite dragonfly

price

starting at

$999

$1149

$1299

$1379

$1599

$1779

These prices could be changing a little bit depending on the time, but as you can see it give a clear vision that MacBook isn’t the expensive laptop to use.

But the bad news is when we talk about desktop comptuer mac is so expensive. In order to have a desktop computer, you need to invest $3500 for only a screen and central unit without including the all accessories like a mouse or keyboard.

On the other side investing $1000 is enough to give a full and good PC or desktop windows computer with all its accessories. So as a business student if you think to get:

  • laptop, MacBook is affordable if you are looking for the best quality for best prices
  • desktop, buying Pc is cheaper so it is more effective and not harmful for you pocket

2 – storage

when we talk about storage all competitors of mac that we listed in the previous paragraph have the same storage, they came with 256GB SSD as a standard version.

256GB is not enough today, especially for business students who are making video editing or doing photography. If you are one of them your memory will get saturated quickly.

In this case, you have 2 options:

  • buy a laptop + external drive (SSD external drivers are expensive)
  • buy 512GB or 1Tb which cost and additonal $200 to $500

But if you want or need a desktop, this will not create a problem because PC comes with the largest memories. In addition, their prices are affordable as mentioned before in the last paragraph.

3 – powerfulness

The powerfulness is not something interesting for business students. But if you are a technical business student and ask which better mac or PC, we brought to you some tests numbers that you could find in the table below.

Ram Test

 Macbook pro

Macbook Air

XPS 13

Windows laptop studio

ThinkPad x1 carbon

Hp dragonfly

Single core test 

1741 

1743 

1503

1407

1456

1450

 Multi-core test

7730

7641

5526

 5406

5193

4904

 total Ram

score

9471

9384

7029

 6813 

6649

6354

this test that we made is including the processor speed and powerfulness. As we can see, MacBook Air and MacBook pro have the first scores with More than 9000.

So Macs are more powerful than PC by 40% thankfully to the latest processor generation M1 that Apple has released. So if you want to have a fast computer, mac is in the first position without any doubt.

4 – battery life

if you are interested to buy a laptop for a business major we made this test for you to see the difference between a mac device and a windows laptop, and here are the results.

Mac or PC for business students

As we can see we made a test between mac and its 4 competitors in the market that are:

  • Microsoft studio
  • hp dragonfly
  • Lenovo Thinkpad x1 carbon
  • DEll XPS 13

So as we can see MacBook is in the first position is better than any laptop in the market. In other words, there is no laptop that can beat mac devices.

this test was under intensive use, in other words:

  • we were running programs,
  • watching videos
  • and browsing on the internet,
  • and even running some programs.

The secret behind that is the M1 chip, consumes 50% less than other processors like Intel or AMD. For this reason, when looking at MacBooks we find are not warming like windows laptops.

5 – weight

The second thing that is interesting for business students is portability or weight, for people who are looking for lightweight laptops we made a full comparison between mac and windows laptops.

Weight

ThinkPad x1 carbon

xps 13

Hp dragonfly 

Macbook air

Macbook pro 13inch

Microsoft studio surface

Device weight 

1209g

1320g

1133g

1270g

1400g

1742g

Charger weight 

226g

136g

345g

450g

450g

226g

Total 

1435g

1456g

1478g

1720g

1850g

1968g

As we can see we included also the weight of each laptop charger because many students ignore this aspect.

So if look at mac laptops we find them lightweight but they have one issue which is their chargers are heavy. On the other side, the are other versions like hp are lighter than MacBook.

so if you want the lightest laptop you can opt for Lenovo products they are super light. But if you fully charge your mac laptop at the house before leaving you don’t need to carry a charger with you. Because the mac will stay you for a long journey without unplugging in a charge.

6 – thickness

the other side that many business students are looking for is having a thin laptop, in this aspect both mac and windows laptops are giving ideal option. We picked some examples in the table below to see a differentiation between mac and windows laptops.

xps 13

ThinkPad x1 carbon

Macbook pro 13inch

Hp dragon life

Microsoft studio surface

Thickness

14,7mm

15,24mm

15,49mm

16mm

17,78g

So as we can see all laptops are quite good, they are thinner than any notebook or textbook that you could carry in your backpack.

7 – gaming

for business students who are asking which is better mac or pc for gaming, we’re not going to ask about the performance of gaming, because business laptops like mac or windows are not designed for that.

you could read this article: 11 facts about gaming laptops as a college student

But any way you still play some video games with them. However, the interesting thing is the big difference in battery resistance for gaming.

you will find in this table below the battery drain test results playing video games on each laptop.

Business laptops

ThinkPad x1 carbon

XPS 13

Microsoft laptop studio

MacBook pro 13

Hp elite dragonfly

Battery life

4h 10min

2h 50min

1h 59min

5h 1min

4h 05min

So depending on the result, you are seeing, if you love to play video games on a laptop mac is highly resistant and has durable battery life.

8 – noise

mac computer is quiet and more comfortable for use, the bad thing that disturbs many people is the fan noise computers have. But MacBooks are great and quiet they don’t make a lot of noise.

But for people who have a MacBook air M1 version, as a business major, you will get rid totally form any noise sound, simply because this version doesn’t come with a fan.

you can watch more details about this subject in this video.

9 – ports

the drawback that mac devices have compared to PC is a lack of ports, if you are business students who like to connect your device to many things at the same time mac is not a good option.

PCs are better on these sides they have all you need to. But have a mac force you to buy an expensive adapter that will take a lot of money from your pocket.

10 – running multiples monitor

The other bad thing in mac is the limitation of running or driving multiples monitors.

For instance, the standard mac laptops can’t drive more than 1 monitor. So if you like to drive more than one monitor you need to buy expensive mac models like MacBook M1 14 or 16 inches laptops or have a MacBook M1 MAX processor.

Pc are good in this aspect you could easily drive 2 monitors on the average for each windows laptop or pc.

Conclusion

to sum up, for college students who are majoring in business there are 2 options for them:

  • if you think to buy a PC or desktop comptuer having a windows version is better and expensive than mac.
  • for students who are looking for laptops, MacBooks are better in terms of hardware capacities and battery life, they are more potable than windows laptops.

But remember this advice is for business students, not mechanical or software engineers, where things are completely different.

yassin.ajanif

Yassin ajanif is a physics graduate and electromechanical engineer width more than 5 years in the field. My goal and my team are to share our experience to help you succeed in your career as a stem major. we talk about all tips, problems, and struggle STEM students face in their career and how to overcome them.