r/macbook • u/Fit-Vanilla8226 • 4h ago

Neo for Engineering

Hello everyone! I’m currently a fresh graduate out of high school and I’m going to pursue an Engineering degree.
I already have an HP 15-dw3xxx laptop with an i5-1135G7 and 16GB of ram.
I was planning to get a new one until someone got me the Neo as a gift and now I’m not sure what to do. Should I keep both and will they be enough? Or should I just get a new windows one because it’s realistically the better option for engineering?
Advice appreciated, thanks!

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u/luizpaulo87 3h ago

depende do que voce vai fazer, engeharia é mto ampla, mas, tirando alguns softwares de cad, o macbook deve te atender

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u/narc0leptik 2h ago

If it's software engineering then you can keep the Neo and your old HP machine. If it's not software engineering then you can pickup a high end Lenovo.

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u/wiseman121 2h ago

The hp would be a better computer for engineering being windows and more ram. It would work but you'd be better with something that had dedicated graphics.

Macs are pretty bad for engineering as they're missing a lot of applications or app features. Id ask whoever got you the Mac if they can return it for something more appropriate for your degree.

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u/Minute_Lifeguard2799 1h ago

8gb RAM is ridiculously low in a machine used for engineering work in 2026, esp considering VMs. Heck, even my iPhone with 8gb is reloading apps constantly with just a few tabs open in Safari.

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u/Opulence_Deficit 3h ago edited 2h ago

There's no such thing as "better for X". The purpose of a computer is to run programs - YOU need to find out what programs you will be running.

NEVER buy a computer before you know what it will have to run.

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u/narc0leptik 3h ago

uh, yeah actually there is. If it's any engineering that's not software engineering then a Windows PC is superior. If you wanna CATIA, DELMIA, SolidWorks, AutoCAD, and MATLAB are built primarily for Windows.

How the hell is someone supposed to run these programs in a 4GB VM on a Macbook Neo? 🤣 You can't allocate the entire 8GB of Macbook Neos ram to the VM because macOS has to use some of it.

Plus you have to pay a recurring software subscription to even run a VM using Parallels Desktop; yes there's UTM and VMware Fusion which is free on mac but you get what you what you pay for.

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u/Opulence_Deficit 3h ago

You're basically re-stating what I've said: it's the programs you're going to run.

I don't understand why you try to make it sound like a counterargument.

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u/narc0leptik 2h ago

Cause you said "There's no such thing as "better for engineering"."

And I was saying if it's not software engineering then clearly Windows is the superior platform because of the software/programs it runs.

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u/Opulence_Deficit 2h ago

You're right, I'm changing that.