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.

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.