No more do you have to compromise on modern features if you want an “affordable Mac”, and that makes the MacBook Air one of the best laptops for college students. Read the full review: MacBook Air. Best College Laptops 2018. The MacBook Air earns its place back on our list of the best laptops for college students. The 13.3-inch machine costs a bit more than its predecessor, but the. For example, the 2.68-pound Asus UX330UA costs just $699, $100 less than the best sale price for a MacBook Air, but it comes with a 1080p screen, a 256GB SSD and the latest 7th Gen Core i5 processor.
Today's Best Tech Deals
Picked by Macworld's Editors
Top Deals On Great Products
Picked by Techconnect's Editors
You worked incredibly hard to get yourself (or your child) into college. Now when it’s time to pack up your bags and head off to campus, you’ll want to bring along all the right technology to help you do your best.
Most of Apple’s Mac lineup is overdue for a refresh, but if you’re shopping for college, you might consider a MacBook or iPad Pro. Both have key features that make them especially handy for college students. And both are eligible for Apple’s back-to-school promotion.
If you buy an eligible Mac (any model but the Mac mini), you can get a free pair of Beats Solo2 Wireless Heaphones, via a $299.95 instant credit. Buy an eligible iPhone (6, 6 Plus, 6s, or 6s Plus) or an iPad Pro, and you’ll get a $199.95 credit for a pair of Powerbeats2 Wireless Heaphones—and you can pay $100 more to get the Beats Solo2 instead. This promotion expires September 5, and conditions apply, so be sure to read all the fine print.
These are our picks for the best Apple gear for students—what to buy now, and what to wait for, as several major Apple product lines should see refreshes by the end of 2016.
12-inch MacBook
Look, I’ll just level with you: This isn’t the greatest time in history to be in the market for a cutting-edge Mac laptop. As of this writing, the MacBook Air lineup has not been refreshed in 525 days, since March of 2015, and the Retina MacBook Pro lineup has languished 454 days, since May 2015. Rumor has it, Apple is poised to introduce totally redesigned MacBook Pros this fall, but perhaps not until October.
So if you need something today, the 12-inch MacBook (starting at $1299 in the Apple Store) is the most recently upgraded Mac laptop, having gotten a proper refresh this April. It’s got a lovely Retina screen, and at just a hair over 2 pounds, it’s the lightest Mac you can buy, which makes it perfect for students whose laptops spend a lot of time in backpacks getting lugged from the dorms to class to the library and back.
The MacBook only has a single USB-C port, along with a standard headphone jack. This shouldn’t slow you down when taking notes in class or studying in the library—it gets 10 hours of battery life, after all. And you can always pick up a dock for the desk in your dorm room. A USB-C dock would let you keep peripherals hooked up, like a hard drive for backups, an external display, or just a couple spare USB ports to charge your iPhone and iPad. We like the $45 Satechi Type-C Pass Through USB Hub with USB-C Charging Port if you don’t plan to hook up an external display, or the $150 OWC USB-C Dock if you do.
Best Apple laptop for students
9.7-inch iPad Pro
The iPad Pro isn’t a real laptop replacement, but if it can handle most of the tasks you would need a laptop for, who cares? With a Smart Keyboard, you’ve got everything you need to type notes during class. Or grab an Apple Pencil and use a clever app like GoodNotes 4 to scratch notes on an infinitely scrolling notepad—they’ll sync to your Dropbox and thanks to OCR you can search them later.
The iPad Pro has some more advantages for students too. With a Wi-Fi plus cellular model, you’ll always be online, on campus or off. The multitasking features in iOS 9 let you research in Safari while writing a paper in Byword or Scrivener—or just watch movies in the Picture in Picture window while you’re catching up on your reading. In fact, I’d rather read ebooks on an iPad than any other device, and the iPad Pro has Night Shift and True Tone to keep those late-night study sessions easy on the eyes.
Of course, college isn’t all work and no play, and an iPad has tons of entertainment options too, from streaming video services to games. With a $49 Lightning Digital AV Adapter, you can hook it up to your TV without needing a set-top box—but you could beam content over wirelessly with a $35 Chromecast or a $149 Apple TV.
Oh, and if you ever find yourself with free time to learn things on your own, outside of class (yeah, right), the iPad Pro is the perfect device for diving into Apple’s brilliant Swift Playgrounds app, in preview now and shipping this fall alongside iOS 10. This teaches you Apple’s Swift programming language step-by-step, no coding experience required, but it’s as fun as any cerebral puzzle game.
Best iPad for students
on Apple
Apple TV
You don’t need an Apple TV to succeed in school. But you don’t need a cable bill at college, either. For $149, the Apple TV can turn the cheapest 1080p TV you can find into a connected cornucopia of content, from Netflix and Hulu to Apple Music to the cable-like packages of Sling. You’ll have fun watching Game of Thrones with your dormmates, or blowing off steam after a test with a few rounds of NBA 2K16.
Grab a gamepad if you plan to do much gaming—these are our favorites—and consider the $199 64GB model of Apple TV. But if all you want to do is binge-watch your latest Netflix obsessions (hey, there are different kinds of all-nighters), the 32GB model is plenty. Either one will be able to AirPlay content from your other Apple gear, which can come in handy when you’re having a group study session and want to mirror your MacBook or iPad’s screen on your TV.
Best set-top box for dorm rooms
on Apple
What to wait for
We’re stuck in a little bit of a holding pattern waiting for some Apple products that should be coming soon. These probably shouldn’t find their way into your shopping cart today, but they’ll all be solid buys for students when Apple does refresh them.
Apple Watch
The rumors about an Apple Watch 2 say it could be announced in September, alongside the next iPhone. So it might not be the best time to pick up the first model, although it’s never been cheaper, starting at $299 for the 38mm Apple Watch Sport. After a year, I still love mine the most for its fitness features, and students should find the glanceable info it provides invaluable. It’ll let you keep track of your calendar, see when the next bus is coming, order an Uber, answer a phone call, set alarms, make Apple Pay transactions, and never miss a text from your bestie.
MacBook Air
I love the MacBook Air—even without a Retina display, it’s got the right mix of size, weight, performance, and ports that I need day in and day out. The 13-inch MacBook Air starts at $999, and the 11-inch at $899, and that starter model is no slouch. The 13-incher, for example, comes with a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5, 256GB of flash storage, and 8GB of RAM, which Apple just made standard in April. If the company can keep those prices the same while upgrading the line to newer processors, this could be a more convenient option for students than the single-port MacBook.
MacBook Pro
If you’re smart enough to get into college, you’re hopefully wise enough to wait for the heavily rumored MacBook Pro refresh we’ve been hearing about. Apple reportedly plans to slim down the MacBook Pro, and add Touch ID as well as a pressure sensitive trackpad. The row of function keys along the top will be replaced by a strip of touch-sensitive OLED keys that can change depending on what app you’re using. Current MacBook Pros start at $1299 for the 13-inch and $1999 for the 15-inch, but it could conceivably last you all four years.
The next iPhone
Since a new iPhone comes out every September, buying one in August is a last resort—as in, only if your screen is so smashed you’re cutting your thumb every time you slide to unlock. (But first, try to hobble by with a screen protector or just a layer of clear packing tape.) While you could pick up an iPhone 6s now and just rely on iOS 10’s launch this fall to make your phone feel new, it’s probably best to wait for the iPhone 7. It should have a better camera, faster processor, more storage (starting at 32GB)—but no headphone jack. So I guess if that’s a dealbreaker, the iPhone 6s (or the iPhone SE) is your last chance to upgrade to a headphone-jacked phone, but then again, the 6s price should drop when the new one comes out.
Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Read our affiliate link policy for more details.
View Gallery
$6.99
- ProsExcellent performance. Strong OS X integration. Seamless cloud-based sharing with Office for Windows, iOS, and Android. Familiar features and interface for Windows users.
- ConsRequires OS X 10.10 or later. A few minor Office for Windows abilities not supported in the Mac version.
- Bottom LineMicrosoft Office 2016 for Mac is by far the most powerful set of productivity apps for Apple computers, fitting smoothly into OS X and offering strong cloud support.
Microsoft Office 2016 for the Mac is the kind of upgrade I hope for but rarely get. It took five years from Office 2011's release to get this latest Mac office suite, but it was well worth the wait. Almost everything is improved, with a bright, spacious interface, yet the learning curve is almost flat. That's because all of the suite's essential features work as they always did, though with added options and conveniences. There's nothing so startlingly new that it will get in the way of being productive. In August 2016, Microsoft released an automatic update that replaced the old 32-bit code of Office for the Mac with 64-bit code. The 64-bit version starts up faster, but otherwise it looks and acts like the earlier code, which was already an Editors' Choice for office suites.
- $6.99
- $19.99
- $19.99
- $19.99
- $6.99
- $0.00
Payment Options
Microsoft managed to make using Office for the Mac easy for anyone familiar with Office for Windows, while also integrating it more closely than ever into the OS X ecosystem. Office 365 subscribers can download Office 2016 for as little as $6.99 per month for one license, or $69.99 per year. If you prefer the traditional buy-once-use-forever model, Office Home and Business will run you $229.99 for one license. A stripped-down Office Home and Student is also available for a $149.99 one-time fee. The main difference in Home and Student is that it does not include Outlook or Access. If you can't afford even the $6.99 per month, you might try the free LibreOffice, but you'll be sacrificing some polish and capabilities by doing so.
Microsoft managed to make using Office for the Mac easy for anyone familiar with Office for Windows, while also integrating it more closely than ever into the OS X ecosystem. Office 365 subscribers can download Office 2016 for as little as $6.99 per month for one license, or $69.99 per year. If you prefer the traditional buy-once-use-forever model, Office Home and Business will run you $229.99 for one license. A stripped-down Office Home and Student is also available for a $149.99 one-time fee. The main difference in Home and Student is that it does not include Outlook or Access. If you can't afford even the $6.99 per month, you might try the free LibreOffice, but you'll be sacrificing some polish and capabilities by doing so.
Word Home And Student 2016
Improved Everything
Office 2016 looks and acts better than Office 2011—and it closely resembles Office 2016 for Windows. The ribbon interface is redesigned, with the same flat look as the Windows version and the Office mobile apps. The Mac version features a modern task-pane interface for selecting text styles, building formulas, and similar features. Long-term Windows users will rejoice that Windows key assignments, such as Ctrl-O for Open and Ctrl-F for Find, now also work in the Mac version. There's no need to remember to press Cmd instead of Ctrl.
Office 2016 looks and acts better than Office 2011—and it closely resembles Office 2016 for Windows. The ribbon interface is redesigned, with the same flat look as the Windows version and the Office mobile apps. The Mac version features a modern task-pane interface for selecting text styles, building formulas, and similar features. Long-term Windows users will rejoice that Windows key assignments, such as Ctrl-O for Open and Ctrl-F for Find, now also work in the Mac version. There's no need to remember to press Cmd instead of Ctrl.
Mac-Native
The suite also gets Mac-native features like pinch-to-zoom as well as support for Retina displays, so text and graphics have sharper resolution than ever before. Word and PowerPoint allow simultaneous editing by multiple users. Under the hood, the whole suite has been rewritten with up-to-date code, and it runs only on the most recent versions of OS X, specifically Yosemite and El Capitan.
The suite also gets Mac-native features like pinch-to-zoom as well as support for Retina displays, so text and graphics have sharper resolution than ever before. Word and PowerPoint allow simultaneous editing by multiple users. Under the hood, the whole suite has been rewritten with up-to-date code, and it runs only on the most recent versions of OS X, specifically Yosemite and El Capitan.
Online sharing via Microsoft's SharePoint service or its OneDrive cloud-based service is seamless among all Office platforms. You can stop work on one platform and pick up exactly where you left off on another—I tried it with the Mac, Windows, and iPad versions—and you can easily restore earlier versions of files saved to the cloud. It would be nice to have built-in iCloud integration, but I doubt it's going to happen any time soon.
Components
The Mac version of the suite comprises Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. Microsoft updated Outlook and OneNote prior to this release, so the latest versions of these two components are only a minor, though welcome, upgrade. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are all faster, easier to use, and more elegant. Most features are almost identical those of the Windows versions, but not all. For example, the Mac version can't import PDF files and create editable Office documents from the contents, but the Windows version can. However, PowerPoint for the Mac continues to outclass the Windows version in its Reorder Objects feature. On the Mac, you reorder objects by dragging them forward or back in an animated three-dimensional view, while in Windows you drag objects up and down in a less convenient list format.
The Mac version of the suite comprises Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. Microsoft updated Outlook and OneNote prior to this release, so the latest versions of these two components are only a minor, though welcome, upgrade. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are all faster, easier to use, and more elegant. Most features are almost identical those of the Windows versions, but not all. For example, the Mac version can't import PDF files and create editable Office documents from the contents, but the Windows version can. However, PowerPoint for the Mac continues to outclass the Windows version in its Reorder Objects feature. On the Mac, you reorder objects by dragging them forward or back in an animated three-dimensional view, while in Windows you drag objects up and down in a less convenient list format.
![Access for mac 2016 Access for mac 2016](/uploads/1/2/6/1/126196364/260137035.jpg)
A few features have disappeared from the previous version. For example, the Publishing Layout option in Word that made Word act more like a page-layout app rather than a word processor is gone, as is the ability to rearrange the tab order on the Ribbon.
Apple's Word competitor Pages simply can't compete on power-user features like advanced typography and footnotes and endnotes. Likewise, Numbers trails Excel when it comes to advanced scientific and technical work. Keynote, on the other hand, is better than PowerPoint in many ways. It lacks some of the technical abilities of Microsoft's offering, but it's impressively powerful and creates amazing-looking presentations, winning it the Editors' Choice for OS X. Overall, Apple's suite is quite good. As a whole, however, Office trumps it.
Interface
The Ribbon interface on the Mac closely matches that of the Windows version, with the same tabs and features on both platforms, though with slight differences to match the operating system—for example, the Mac version supplements the Ribbon with a top-line menu, like the menu in all other OS X apps, though the Windows version has only the Ribbon.
The Ribbon interface on the Mac closely matches that of the Windows version, with the same tabs and features on both platforms, though with slight differences to match the operating system—for example, the Mac version supplements the Ribbon with a top-line menu, like the menu in all other OS X apps, though the Windows version has only the Ribbon.
As in the Windows versions of Office, Word gets a Style pane instead of a floating Inspector panel, Excel gets a Formula-building pane, PowerPoint gets an Animation pane. Word and PowerPoint get threaded comments—comments that can be linked to earlier comments to create collapsible discussion threads. Excel gets the strong Recommended Charts feature from the Windows version—and also PivotTable Slicers and improved AutoComplete. Word for the Mac finally gets the one feature I've wanted forever—the ability to click on the blank space between pages and hide the page header and footer, so that text flows from one page to the next with only a thin line between the pages, not an inch or more of blank space.
Best Mac For Students 2017
I noted one first-release glitch when I originally looked at Office for the Mac when it first released in 2015. When I saved a Word document to PDF, the hyperlinks in the saved PDF didn't work, because an extra character somehow got added to the Web address. The problem has been fixed in the latest update, however.
Mac MVP
Overall, Office 2016 for the Mac is a highly successful update, bringing the best of Office to Apple users. If you're choosing an office suite, the choice is clear for anyone who needs advanced features. Word and Excel surpass Apple's Pages and Numbers, and PowerPoint is close enough to Apple's superb Keynote to keep Office users from envying Keynote users. Office for the Mac is the clear winner of the Editors' Choice award for OS X office suites.
Overall, Office 2016 for the Mac is a highly successful update, bringing the best of Office to Apple users. If you're choosing an office suite, the choice is clear for anyone who needs advanced features. Word and Excel surpass Apple's Pages and Numbers, and PowerPoint is close enough to Apple's superb Keynote to keep Office users from envying Keynote users. Office for the Mac is the clear winner of the Editors' Choice award for OS X office suites.
Microsoft Office 2016 (for Mac)
Bottom Line: Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac is by far the most powerful set of productivity apps for Apple computers, fitting smoothly into OS X and offering strong cloud support.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.blog comments powered by