Um, yeah, electro-mechanical vs solid state ?? Your buddy must live in a cave.

1.She's a Registered Nurse, she going back to get her masters. nothing she uses at work is Apple other than her personal watch and phone.

2. Reason she wants to get a desktop is one of our kids is starting school and will need access to a computer for somethings. She does not want out kids messing with her laptop and having a desktop is a way for us to keep a btter eye on them and make sure they are doing their work and not getting into things they shouldnt be.

If the kids need a desktop then buy one of those all in one PCs from hP or Dell. You get the 24" monitor and the whole PC in single package. Will latest Intel i5 or i7 and an SSD they are definitely fast enough for 95% of consumers and probably 99% of K-12 kids. Again check out Costco's stores or website.

@BrianSD_42 is pretty much spot on. I'd get a mid-range laptop and a mid-range desktop for the home. You don't need anything upper end so an i5 dual core would be fine. If the quad cores not much more it wouldn't hurt. BTW, Intel uses U and HQ to label dual vs quad core. So it's got a U as the last letter it's dual core. If it's got an HQ it's quad core.

There newest processors are Kaby Lake's. Honestly it's not a that much better the last years Skylake for what you need. You could save some cash by getting Skylake instead. Skylake is the 6xxxx series. Kaby is the 7xxx series.

I'd get at least 8GB of ram in both with 16GB if it's not much more. And get an SSD. It's worth it for the performance gains.

ive got a MacBook air for school, and totally love it. If she's enrolled in college she can get amazon prime for students (half off regular price, just need a .edu email account), and thats how I got mine. You still get the year free of apple care, and I got a better deal on it than through Apple itself.

My school offered all Microsoft free for all its students (excel, word, etc...), so I downloaded that software there.

I've found it to be more user friendly and less apt to have issues than my Windows based computer was. It connects more quickly to the network at school, and links between my phone and watch, which makes for ease of security. (dual layer authentication anyone?)

Get her a Windows, not a Mac.
If all her software uses Windows, get Windows.
And speaking from a professional technical perspective, if/when it does break or have an issue/virus (NO, Macs are not invincible, contrary to popular belief), it'll be a whole lot easier and cheaper to fix. Apple intentionally 'locks the back door' so you can't simply make tweaks/repairs to the OS as necessary. It's possible through the terminal line, but a whole lot harder.
This results in the easiest fix (the one most 'Geniuses' take) being a complete reinstallation of your OS, which can lose your all your data and programs.

Also, always have a data backup.

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IT guy/grad student here. Buy something lightweight and inexpensive. It doesn't take much horsepower for a computer to browse the web and run Microsoft Office, which is what the average student spends 90 percent of their time doing. I'd recommend looking at either a newer, used system if you're on a budget, or a cheap Lenovo or Asus. Just keep in mind that most newer computers, though they quickly become obsolete, will serve most college students well many years.


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Why don't you do this...

Get her a basic laptop.
Get a Monitor and Keyboard.
Get a very basic laptop for the kids.

She will be able to work on the road, or connect at home to full size monitor and keyboard, etc.

Kids can connect to full size monitor and keyboard AND you can more easily help with homework, etc without having to stare at small laptop screen. Then when parents are not around, the kids laptop could be locked away. Also you could put extra security features on that laptop either internally or via your router.

So two laptops and shared monitor / keyboard / Mouse.

Keyboards are dirt cheap. $15. Monitors are on sale all the time at NewEgg. probably $100 for a nice one. Her laptop $350. Their laptop $100.

You are looking at under $600 for a completely functional system where no one can screw up her laptop by accident. Everyone is mobile if need be. Everyone has a comfortable Monitor/Key/Mouse at home if need be.

The frustration level will be much lower than trying to share. Not to mention much safer on many fronts.

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