I'm sure that zenbook has good battery life. My core i9 dell precision (work provided) gives me a total of about 2 hours. That stinks. Always carrying my charger around. I think a student would appreciate all day battery life.A college student doesn't generally require that much extra battery life, though. It takes only about an hour to charge the Zenbook 14X OLED fully, and, where I live I could still always decide to get a 45000mAh 67W power bank for just 73 Euros
Core i7 "could" outperform it, but whats the hit on battery life? Most college kids aren't compiling code or doing non stop blender renders, so having super high performance I wouldn't think would outweigh the faster drain on the battery.Apple has limited software choices due to their walled garden approach, and the real-world performance of the M2 also is held back by this, in a number of ways, although that still also depends on how you use it (and on what you use it for). Either way, the Intel Core i7-13700H overall real-world performance is not very far behind the M2 (and actually even beats the M2 in a lot of situations). Also I don't think the Zenbook 14X OLED has troubles with sleep.
Yeah, i agree that part is not awesome. And apple does punch you in the gut with their pricing to upgrade those things. With that said, I have a 2013 macbook pro with 8gb and a 2020 m1 mac mini with 8gb of ram and for the basic tasks I use my Mac for, it hasn't been a problem. Meanwhile I have 64GB of RAM on my windows desktop.The Macbook Air 13 (or 15) with M2 has pretty much zero serviceability, as only the battery is user-replaceable so, if you choose to go with the 8GB-RAM-and-256GB-SSD to keep it "affordable", it means that you will inevitably be stuck with those two choices.
Yeah, I'm torn on the touchscreen. On my computer, I've never had a touchscreen laptop or desktop. I've supported coworkers who used them, so I have experience with them, but never really wanted to have one. I'd think Apple would add touchscreen support to the Macs, but they never have. I'd have to believe they have marketing research showing its not as important and touchscreen support is best supported by the phone or tablet.I find that a rather bitter pill to swallow when you're shelling out that much money for a student laptop with no touchscreen that you could use during class to take notes with a stylus pen. In situations when you can't/won't use a mouse, a touchscreen with a stylus pen also is more convenient and faster to use than a touchpad.
I've found with work, if there is a meeting and a drawing goes up on a whiteboard, I'm going to just take a picture of the board with my phone versus drawing it all out on my device.
My Computers
System One System Two
-
- OS
- Windows 11 Pro
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- Manufacturer/Model
- Beelink SEI8
- CPU
- Intel Core i5-8279u
- Motherboard
- AZW SEI
- Memory
- 32GB DDR4 2666Mhz
- Graphics Card(s)
- Intel Iris Plus 655
- Sound Card
- Intel SST
- Monitor(s) Displays
- Asus ProArt PA278QV
- Screen Resolution
- 2560x1440
- Hard Drives
- 512GB NVMe
- PSU
- NA
- Case
- NA
- Cooling
- NA
- Keyboard
- NA
- Mouse
- NA
- Internet Speed
- 500/50
- Browser
- Edge
- Antivirus
- Defender
- Other Info
- Mini PC used for testing Windows 11.
-
- Operating System
- Windows 10 Pro
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- Manufacturer/Model
- Custom
- CPU
- Ryzen 9 5900x
- Motherboard
- Asus Rog Strix X570-E Gaming
- Memory
- 64GB DDR4-3600
- Graphics card(s)
- EVGA GeForce 3080 FT3 Ultra
- Sound Card
- Onboard
- Monitor(s) Displays
- ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQ. ASUS ProArt Display PA278QV 27” WQHD
- Screen Resolution
- 2560x1440
- Hard Drives
- 2TB WD SN850 PCI-E Gen 4 NVMe
2TB Sandisk Ultra 2.5" SATA SSD
- PSU
- Seasonic Focus 850
- Case
- Fractal Meshify S2 in White
- Cooling
- Dark Rock Pro CPU cooler, 3 x 140mm case fans
- Mouse
- Logitech G9 Laser Mouse
- Keyboard
- Corsiar K65 RGB Lux
- Internet Speed
- 500/50
- Browser
- Chrome
- Antivirus
- Defender.