combataran

I've been thinking the same, but I'd settle with a Nexus 10 instead. Chromebooks aren't big where I'm from, and it's really hard to get good support for them. My friend had the same netbook as you, well truthfully I'm not impressed. Also my budget simply does not allow a netbook AND tablet, so I'll just have to settle for either one. Thanks for reply, helped cut down my choices down to the MBA or the pc tablet combo.

I do think that Macs are nice to have and use, and that my school computers are only [i3, 4gb, 500gb] machines, some are even older. Weirdly so, there seems to be this one Tesla supercomputer in that lab that's off-limits...anyways, the rMBP is beyond my $1200 budget, more so the normal MBP specced with a 256 ssd, so I think I'll stick to Windows machines until I have more disposable income to afford one. Thanks for your input, it was helpful!

Which brings me back to my pc+tablet or laptop debate. This is starting to give me a headache.

That's good to hear. What I'm worried about is the heat and weight, less so the build quality. I'd really like my laptop to last at least 4 years, more is better, performance wise as well. Apple laptops just don't seem to hold their own after 4 years(except for the body itself, ofc).

The 13 mba when specced with 8gb/256gb is still way cheaper than the similarly specced rmbp. Does the processor matter much when talking about running cad software(and i'm aware of the retina price premium, thats why i tend to shy away from it, prefer a fhd ips external monitor).

I pretty much had a change of heart during these few days, and came up with the following choices:

Asus N56JR-S4018H 15.6” FHD / i7-4700 / 12GB / 1TB / GTX760M 2GB GDDR5 / W8

and

Lenovo Y510P 5938-9550 15.6” FHD / i7-4700 / 8GB / 1TB / GT755M SLi 2GB DDR5 / W8

The price difference is a mere $6 where I'm from. I'm confident that these would do fine, even outperform the Macbooks in any way possible. However these 2 weigh a ton(almost 3kgs), and they are quite hot as well(80~90 degrees celsius for GPU/CPU, and ~50 degrees celsius surface temp, since they're plastic and all). And the build quality wouldn't even come close to Macs.

Decisions, decisions.

Would you suggest a 13" MBA + external monitor then?

Also, I'm pretty sure CAD, Solidworks and Matlab is all we run there.

I don't. Nobody brings a laptop to classes(unless he plans on gaming during the lecture, that happens a lot). Most of the actual work is done with pen and paper. However I would certainly miss bringing a laptop to the library, camp out for 5~6 hours and wait for the staff to chase me out.

Also, I plan on moving out sometime next year, so the weight could be a problem.

I'm not concerned with the PC atm, seeing that it's the cheaper solution. Can I actually get work done on a tablet?