Best Apple laptop for real estate?
West Orange, NJ · Member since 2016 · 63 posts · 7 votes
I’m in the market to buy a laptop to do real estate (i’m an agent) but i’m not sure which one to buy (I would prefer an Apple laptop but I’m open to other suggestions)? Thanks for your assistance.
I buy the cheapest computer I can find. The $349 special. When it's on the hood of my car and slides off, I don't cry as much. If I'm crawling through a HUD house I don't worry about putting it on a counter and using my phone for a hotspot. My Google accounts are linked with MS Office so it doesn't matter if I swap it every other week. Sometimes I have to leave it in the trunk while I head into a restaurant or go walk the back 40. I don't think about it much. If it was a $1800 piece of equipment, I may be more careful, but what good Is a tool I don't have access to when I need it?
Just my 2 cents and good luck
@Mike Atkins Thanks for the info. I unequivocally will go for a separate keyboard if I do decide to go with the MacBook Pro (simply because I’m more use to them).
@Kurt Brauner thank you for replying. I will be doing a fair amount of graphics and videos so yeah I agree, the MacBook Pro would make more sense for me.
@Bjorn Ahlblad. Thanks for your response. Which MacBook have you been using if you don’t mind me asking?
@Bjorn Ahlblad. Thanks for your response. Which MacBook have you been using if you don’t mind me asking?
I had a 17, and a 15 twice-they last 5-7 years in my experience. PC’s were lasting less than 2 years when we had software engineers. My wife, the PM, uses a MB Air.
@Bjorn Ahlblad. Thanks for your response. Which MacBook have you been using if you don’t mind me asking?
I had a 17, and a 15 twice-they last 5-7 years in my experience. PC’s were lasting less than 2 years when we had software engineers. My wife, the PM, uses a MB
Thanks a lot
I’m in the market to buy a laptop to do real estate (i’m an agent) but i’m not sure which one to buy (I would prefer an Apple laptop but I’m open to other suggestions)? Thanks for your assistance.
Lavaud,
I'll be the odd one out in this thread and suggest a Windows laptop, they tend to be cheaper and, because I build computers, I like the freedom/ability of being able to shop around / customize it to my specific liking.
With that, it really depends on what you'll be doing with the laptop, ie: basic email, MS office, BP or video rendering / editing for your listings-walk through, future rehabs etc ?
If it's basic day to day items, and if you don't store tons of photos / videos on it, anything with 8GB of ram would be sufficient in today's market.
If you need something a little more intensive for video editing, let me know your price point and I can help recommend a few things.
Thanks,
MacBook Pro's for sure! 15inch.. Seems like that is the the most popular choice here anyway. A little overkill for just looking at home pictures and text. But i use mine for everything else as well.
To be honest though, 98% of all real estate stuff, i do on my phone (alway on move, driving, looking and homes etc) so phone is the answer. Laptop is just to write offers and update my spreadsheets..
Make sure you get all the ram and the largest hard rice you think you will need because neither are upgradable in the new MacBook Pros
Good to know. Thanks a lot.
@Aaron Taylor thanks for replying. But could you guys (You & Mike Cumbie) name a few PCs on the low budget side. It would be highly appreciated.
You could go with something like this from Amazon (it's not on sale now so you can get it cheaper sometimes, but you get the idea):
https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-i5-8250U-GeForc...
Has 8 hour battery (it says 15 but let's be real here lol), good graphics card, ssd, etc.
Macbook Air's are a pretty decent deal too if you want to go Mac. They also have a SSD. That's the most important thing, gotta have a SSD, otherwise your laptop will be super sluggish no matter the manufacturer.
MacBook Pro's for sure! 15inch.. Seems like that is the the most popular choice here anyway. A little overkill for just looking at home pictures and text. But i use mine for everything else as well.
To be honest though, 98% of all real estate stuff, i do on my phone (alway on move, driving, looking and homes etc) so phone is the answer. Laptop is just to write offers and update my spreadsheets..
I intend to use the laptop for real estate and some personal use but I kind of see where you coming from. Being always on the go myself. Thanks for your insight.
@Aaron Taylor thanks for replying. But could you guys (You & Mike Cumbie) name a few PCs on the low budget side. It would be highly appreciated.
You could go with something like this from Amazon (it's not on sale now so you can get it cheaper sometimes, but you get the idea):
https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-i5-8250U-GeForc...
Has 8 hour battery (it says 15 but let's be real here lol), good graphics card, ssd, etc.
Macbook Air's are a pretty decent deal too if you want to go Mac. They also have a SSD. That's the most important thing, gotta have a SSD, otherwise your laptop will be super sluggish no matter the manufacturer.
Thanks a lot Aaron.
@Lavaud Charlemagne - Really depends on what you want (need) to do.... I’ve been a Mac guy since 1984. Used a PC twice during that period, but got sick and tired of viruses and blue screens, so pretty much Mac for 30+ years. I have a MacBookPro, IPadPro, iPad, iPhone and Mac Air. The Air is pretty much worthless for just about everything. The iPadPro is great for watching movies on long flights, but not much else. More and more websites no longer use flas, so I can do 90% of what I need to do with an iPad and iPhone. Just got the 6th generation iPad, so it uses the pencil if you need it. Also, more and more you can use apps on the iPad to do what you use to need Photoshop and an MacBookPro to do, such as Canva and WordSwag. Unless you’re editing movies in FinalcutPro, or need to access sites that use Flash, an iPhone or iPhone will probably do the trick for 90% of what you’ll do as an agent.
I’m in the market to buy a laptop to do real estate (i’m an agent) but i’m not sure which one to buy (I would prefer an Apple laptop but I’m open to other suggestions)? Thanks for your assistance.
Lavaud,
I'll be the odd one out in this thread and suggest a Windows laptop, they tend to be cheaper and, because I build computers, I like the freedom/ability of being able to shop around / customize it to my specific liking.
With that, it really depends on what you'll be doing with the laptop, ie: basic email, MS office, BP or video rendering / editing for your listings-walk through, future rehabs etc ?
If it's basic day to day items, and if you don't store tons of photos / videos on it, anything with 8GB of ram would be sufficient in today's market.
If you need something a little more intensive for video editing, let me know your price point and I can help recommend a few things.
Thanks,
I intend to use the laptop for Real Estate primarily but I’ll be using for personal stuff which requires some video editing so your suggestions are welcomed. Price range up to $1500.
The Acer I mentioned above works decent for video editing. I've made about 160 videos on it (older version of that one). To be honest though desktops typically work better for video editing if you're going to do a lot of it, bigger screens + faster. I only did it on the laptop because I like sitting in a recliner. :)
I’m in the market to buy a laptop to do real estate (i’m an agent) but i’m not sure which one to buy (I would prefer an Apple laptop but I’m open to other suggestions)? Thanks for your assistance.
Lavaud,
I'll be the odd one out in this thread and suggest a Windows laptop, they tend to be cheaper and, because I build computers, I like the freedom/ability of being able to shop around / customize it to my specific liking.
With that, it really depends on what you'll be doing with the laptop, ie: basic email, MS office, BP or video rendering / editing for your listings-walk through, future rehabs etc ?
If it's basic day to day items, and if you don't store tons of photos / videos on it, anything with 8GB of ram would be sufficient in today's market.
If you need something a little more intensive for video editing, let me know your price point and I can help recommend a few things.
Thanks,
I intend to use the laptop for Real Estate primarily but I’ll be using for personal stuff which requires some video editing so your suggestions are welcomed. Price range up to $1500.
if the laptop will primarily be hooked up at home, the laptop in the links below are fairly solid well rounded ones at the price point.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/dell-...
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/inspi...
The ones below offer more portability and performance but with a larger price tag.
I’m in the market to buy a laptop to do real estate (i’m an agent) but i’m not sure which one to buy (I would prefer an Apple laptop but I’m open to other suggestions)? Thanks for your assistance.
A good camera or a new smartphone with a cutting-edge camera may trump the need for a laptop, but if you are seeking a laptop I personally like the Microsoft Surface Book - its lightweight, its got a touchscreen, it got a good battery and decent entry point for a decent machine. I had an apple for years, they are all powerful workhorses, personally like the MacBook pro 13" - dislike not touchscreen.
I'm a Mac person, and I know more about them than PCs. Will you do a lot of video editing? Or do you use a computer mostly for web-based work?
If video editing, you need something with a more powerful processor - MacBook Pro with a lot of RAM. Do you store things on the cloud? Then you don't need a large hard drive. If you store locally, get a terabyte external HD, and a 256G SSD. You'll love the speed.
If you're mostly web-based, then a MacBook Air will be sufficient. Good and powerful but no need for local storage.
I have a MacBook Pro and an iMac desktop. I do a lot of CPU intensive calculations. For most people, the MacBook Air is sufficient.
The Acer I mentioned above works decent for video editing. I've made about 160 videos on it (older version of that one). To be honest though desktops typically work better for video editing if you're going to do a lot of it, bigger screens + faster. I only did it on the laptop because I like sitting in a recliner. :)
The recliner part is funny lol. Thanks Aaron.
I have a cheap Acer laptop that i use. It has touch screen and Bluetooth which has been very useful, especially the touch screen!
Thanks Dung
I’m in the market to buy a laptop to do real estate (i’m an agent) but i’m not sure which one to buy (I would prefer an Apple laptop but I’m open to other suggestions)? Thanks for your assistance.
Lavaud,
I'll be the odd one out in this thread and suggest a Windows laptop, they tend to be cheaper and, because I build computers, I like the freedom/ability of being able to shop around / customize it to my specific liking.
With that, it really depends on what you'll be doing with the laptop, ie: basic email, MS office, BP or video rendering / editing for your listings-walk through, future rehabs etc ?
If it's basic day to day items, and if you don't store tons of photos / videos on it, anything with 8GB of ram would be sufficient in today's market.
If you need something a little more intensive for video editing, let me know your price point and I can help recommend a few things.
Thanks,
I intend to use the laptop for Real Estate primarily but I’ll be using for personal stuff which requires some video editing so your suggestions are welcomed. Price range up to $1500.
if the laptop will primarily be hooked up at home, the laptop in the links below are fairly solid well rounded ones at the price point.
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/dell-...
https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/inspi...
The ones below offer more portability and performance but with a larger price tag.
Wow the XPS 15 2-1 is pretty cool. You can use either as a laptop or a tablet. Thanks for replying
I've been a huge windows fan (mostly because of the hardware freedom) until recently when I had to start using a Macbook pro for work. I thought the trackpad on my thinkpad worked pretty well but the trackpad on the Macbook is much better. Took me a long time to get used to the different keyboard / hotkeys.
Macbook pros have PCI SSD drives so they are faster working with photos and movies than most desktop machines with SATA SSDs. They boot up quick and battery life is amazing.
The upfront cost was really hard for me to overcome because most windows laptops were cheaper and had better specs but so far I'm really happy with the Macbook pro.
I’m in the market to buy a laptop to do real estate (i’m an agent) but i’m not sure which one to buy (I would prefer an Apple laptop but I’m open to other suggestions)? Thanks for your assistance.
A good camera or a new smartphone with a cutting-edge camera may trump the need for a laptop, but if you are seeking a laptop I personally like the Microsoft Surface Book - its lightweight, its got a touchscreen, it got a good battery and decent entry point for a decent machine. I had an apple for years, they are all powerful workhorses, personally like the MacBook pro 13" - dislike not touchscreen.
Thanks Steven. Wait the MacBook Pro is not touch screen?
"@Aaron Taylor thanks for replying. But could you guys (You & Mike Cumbie) name a few PCs on the low budget side. It would be highly appreciated."
I'm Like Aaron. I worked at CompUSA in the tech department a lifetime ago then went on to teach building upgrading classes and onto system engineering for too many years. I gave that life up years ago. If you are doing things a typical agent does (contracts, uploading images to the web, using websites that have zero bearing on client side computing), you could get away with an $80 tablet as far as performance goes.
If you are doing real video editing or real graphic intensive work, then yes an Apple would be a better choice. If you need that kind of performance as an agent, you may want to decide if selling houses is your real passion or you should get into a field where you need to make up clock cycles on some highly graphic intensive project. We are talking about heavy 3D rendering, not uploading some images you add some clouds to the sky. I would recommend any graphic/marketing people you hire have one and a copy of Photoshop. Neither is cheap and learning to use them is not like click/drag/push button, look I have a great photo. Expect to spend 25 hours trying to make a flyer and then task it out to some graphic person for $25 and get back to researching houses :)
Recently picked up a HP 15-BS060WM on Ebay for like $370. 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD Windows 10, touch screen. If it only lasts 2 years, I will go through 5 of them by the time I would have paid the $1800 for an Apple. I will run this silly cheap thing against any 10 year old Apple. All of my files are stored online, I can access them from anywhere. I login on a new computer and am up and running in 5 minutes, They are a disposable tool in my opinion, just like my phone. But you have to be happy in whatever you decide to use.
Good luck in whatever route you decide to go!