I want to buy my college laptop during my senior year with stipend money, so my own money. As a rising senior looking into premed, the choice is complicated by my programming and 3D printing hobbies. I like Apple for programming but CAD has been a pain on anything not Windows, at least based on my experience. And on top of that, I have a sweet spot for Linux because that is the OS I use now. I have to prioritize something that caters to my premed degree first of course, and programming isn’t really a set “capability” per say but in terms of ease and accessibility, I really can’t stand Windows. This dipped into OS a lot more than I thought it would but since Apple is on the list I figured it ties into the search for a college laptop.
If you want a computer which you can CAD on, use as part of a standard premed degree, and do some programming, your best bet would probably be a higher end Windows machine. You can use the windows OS for your regular work and CAD, and run a Linux VM for programming (if you so choose). The other option would be to buy a Mac and dual boot windows, but that seem unnecessarily expensive and you may run into driver incompatibilities.
If you do end up looking at windows machines I’ve found that Lenovo makes some of the best mainstream PCs on the market so you may want to start looking there.
Sounds like a good idea to me. Can’t believe I didn’t think of VMs earlier. Forgot to mention that I have decided on minoring in Com Sci. Would you change your recommendation at all knowing that?