Starting my freshman year in like two weeks and the laptop situation is honestly stressing me out way more than it should. My budget is capped at about $750—maybe $800 if I skip eating for a week lol—and I'm trying to find something that wont just die on me halfway through sophomore year. I spent all last night looking at different subreddits and forums and honestly I feel more lost than when I started.

So I was thinking maybe a used MacBook Air with the M1 chip because everyone says the battery life is insane and the build quality is great for carrying around campus all day. But then I saw a bunch of people saying 8GB of RAM is basically a death sentence if you're trying to run VS Code, a bunch of Chrome tabs, and maybe a VM or Docker later on. My logic was that MacOS is unix-based so it should be better for dev work, but then I read that some specific software for architecture classes might not even run on the M-series chips without a bunch of headaches.

Then I looked into the ThinkPad route, specifically the T14 or even an older T480 because people say you can just swap the RAM and SSD yourself. That sounds way more budget-friendly but I'm worried about the screen quality and the battery. I'm gonna be in the library for hours and I dont want to be that person hunting for a wall outlet every 40 minutes. I found a deal on a Dell Inspiron 16 with 16GB RAM for $650 but some reviews said the hinge breaks after six months and the fans sound like a jet engine.

Is it better to prioritize 16GB of RAM on a cheaper Windows machine or just get the premium 8GB Mac and hope for the best? Or am I totally overthinking the specs needed for intro classes? I just want something that wont lag when I'm trying to compile code while watching a tutorial...