MAC vs WINDOWS PC for Mechanical Engineering Students

Is Mac or Windows PC better for engineers? In this video, I share my experience with both operating systems, talk about the pros and cons of each, and recommend the best laptop specifications and models to get based on whether you are a mechanical engineering student or mechanical engineer working in industry. Timestamps are provided below.

Best Laptops/Tablets for Mechanical Engineers / ME Students

Essential Books for Mechanical Engineers

My Favorite Textbooks

My Favorite CAD Books

My Favorite CAE Books

My Favorite Monitors

Filming Gear

Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:38 Mac VS Windows?
01:33 Why not Mac?
02:12 Parallels Virtual Machine
03:19 If You are an Apple Fan...
03:40 Advantages of Mac
04:13 Atlas VPN
05:28 What You Should Buy
05:48 Laptop Specifications
07:35 Which Laptop to Get?
07:59 Conclusion

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[justjosh]

i’m a senior in high school interested in mechanical engineering and was just thinking about these two options perfect timing and big help

[ItsaBAR]

Just a note for anyone interested in a Mac + VM setup, UTM is free and open source and can do most if not all the things parallels can do. Setup may be more involved than Parallels, but if you're an engineer, you can figure it out.

[danielzhang]

Definitely agree with getting a gaming laptop bro. I use a MSI Stealth which is plenty for basic CAD

[kevineina]

The video is mostly right but I would like to give another perspective.

I am also engineer graduates 2-3 years ago with professional experience.

Basically he is right, for students, get a windows and more or less forget about having a mac for now. I also had a rog laptop and an iPad for taking notes and drawing.

However, I recently bought a m2 pro 14 laptop and it is a wonderful machine. First of all, as he said fusion 360 is there, but also there are a lot of other mechanical engineering software available: Openfoam, Matlab, Simscape(online), and so on.

Definetly if you just use soldiworks, there’s no way… 🙅‍♂️. But as someone who fly 4-5 times a year, I have an extremely powerful laptop that I can bring with me to the airport do my stuff there for few hours and forget about searching for a cable connection. It has a wonderful sound and screen so overall it can still make sense for an engineer (not for a student) since you can use matlab, python, fusion 360 and that could cover most of what you could use privetly for your own projects+efficiency.

[informationtransmitter]

I am a senior mechanical engineering working in Analysis. If you are doing analysis, require mainstream CAD packages or analysis tools, you will need a Windows PC. The few classmates when I was in university who uses a MacBook had constant problems with not being able to run key software on their MacBooks. If you only require Maple, Matlab, or Scilab, and do not need CAD, you can get away with using a MacBook.

[MesbahGhasemi]

Thank you for sharing your experience, very helpful, appreciated!

[jdysung]

Solidworks work good on a bootcamp windows (macbook pro 2019 I9 32 gb ram Redeon 5530pro). He work good like a my job computer (with Nvidia A2000(like a Quadro series))

[hongsethya]

After studying 3year I completely agree that you really need IPAD for touch screen to your computer. This saved alot of time and for drawing etc

[saucy]

get a razer blade 13 or 15 if you want build quality on a windows laptop

[MaintDocs]

I don't use linux, but I was going to mention it would be a much better contender vs Mac. Most of the major engineering software have a linux version.
*But time is a limited resource. Mechanical engineering is a demanding study.* It's hard enough without hobbling yourself and needing to spend more time to get things to work. Make the reasonable decision and get through it.

[cem]

I asked this question to you a month ago thanks a lot bro I bought a intel gaming laptop after your comment :)

[huynhlenhuthao]

Thanks for your content. About me, I choose to use Windows for my work and Mac to remotely control them

[farzadabbasi]

As a mechanical engineer who probably works with openfoam, ansys, starccm+, I want to buy one of these two:
Dell xps 13 plus or 15. Surly the second one is more powerful but much expensive for me. Here is the configuration that I can afford:
Prozessor
Intel® Core™ i7-1360P der 13. Generation (18 MB Cache, 12 Cores, bis zu 5, 00 GHz Turbo)


Betriebssystem
Windows 11 Home, Englisch, Niederländisch, Französisch, Deutsch, Italienisch


Grafikkarte
Intel® Iris® Xe Grafikkarte


Display
34, 0 cm (13, 4")-FHD+-Display (1.920 x 1.200), 60 Hz, 500 cd/m², reflexionsarm, mit Touchfunktion und InfinityEdge


Arbeitsspeicher
32 GB, LPDDR5, 6.000 MT/s, integriert, Dual-Channel


Storage
512 GB-M.2-PCIe-NVMe-SSD

The problem is with the graphics which is not Nvidia Gforce. Do you think that "Iric" would be enough in ME or we need more graphics?

Or do you recommend another one around 1500 euro?
Thank you in advance ❤

[tong.clement]

Unfortunately the extreme 20 hour real world battery life and low power consumption of the Mac when doing word processing is too much of a quality of life improvement for me. Waiting for snapdragon and windows on arm just in time for uni next year. In the mean time onshape and fusion360 for the win.

[JazzC-qiwg]

What about Lenovo ThinkPad P53 or P series
Please give me the suggestion

[akin]

Thanks for making this video! Macbook fanactics may not want to hear this, but it is true. Macbooks suck for non-software engineering.

They can still have an Macbook Air or Mac Mini if their job offers them a Dell XPS 17/16 or Lenovo ThinkPad P16.

[katrinasoze]

Hi! I am going into college as a chemical engineering major this year. I am still deciding what computer to get. I would really prefer to use a MacBook because that’s just what I’m used to and I don’t really like windows computers. Do you think for my major it would be fine to use one? Or would I for sure need windows?

[ludvigengstrom]

I have a pc with 16gb ddr4 ram, a gtx 1080 and an i8700k, will that be enough for student CAD work? for notetaking and writing I plan to use my older macbook.

If these will not be enough then I wonder if I should upgrade the pc or just get a better laptop.

[Bestarorg]

I loved mac once I bought for college before starting freshman year a year ago but now I am in search to sell it and buy windows as I do not have solidworks in it😢😢

[imjerm]

if i already have a windows pc at home, should i get a mac, or stick to a windows laptop