Laptop recommendation

[tonoy]

Hey there folks,

I need help in choosing a new laptop for myself. I am leaning towards a macbook pro. But I am seeing mixed review.While I do like the new design but I wouldn't want something that is not great when it comes to portability. What would you guys recommend?

[iDumb]

Hp spectre x360 ..newer model is good ....powerful laptop with good looks ..

MacBook you can buy just to be hip but from Apple the only thing I would buy is iPhone. .... clearly superior than any other but in laptop not so much ....my opinion ...don't kill me ..

[tonoy]

That's also in my contention list, but I'm just hesitant about the HP brand. I usually don't upgrade my notebook for five years atleast. What do you run Orphy?

[Nasif]

Work or leisure?

I would suggest Surface Pro or Surface Book. Been using Surface Pro since it came out in 2012; and upgraded to 4th gen last year. I have nothing but positive review. Allows me to use it for simple browsing while at the same time allows me to do serious work. Perfect machine for both fun and work. Love the Surface type cover: elegant and simple; works like a fully featured keyboard. At times use it just as tablet to read books or watch TV.

Get a Surface Pro and you will love it

[tonoy]

How is the battery life on the surface book Nasif?
It's for both work and leisure. I tend to work with Java. And another big factor is the screen.

[Nasif]

Mine is Surface Pro 4, so I can speak about that. With full change I can watch couple of full length hd movies, power left after that, never ran out of power. In occasional use, I have gone days without hooking to power. I use Visual Studio on it and don't really have problem with text size or screen.

Official specs say 9 hours of power for Surface Pro 4;and 12 hours for Surface Book.
http://m.windowscentral.com/surface-pro-4-specs
https://m.windowscentral.com/surface-book-specs

[iDumb]

Surface pro is a good recommendation but it is expensive. But I guess if you want a good premium laptop you will have to go upward of 1 grand.

this is what i got recently

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-spect...?skuId=4864800

Initally wanted to go for 13 inch but then decided I am used to 15 so why go for that. I bought that computer on black friday/cyber monday season when it was on sale for 1K. When it arrived, I opened it up.. started it.. it asked me to set up the internet - i was too lazy to get up to look for the password...I turned it off and put it back in the box which is still in my room in the box.

But after opening it I did feel like i should have bought the 13 inch for travelling as I seldom take laptop when i travel - my phone has been enough for me. But would need a laptop if a bd cricket match is going and i didn't have access to legit sources.

you ask why I bought it in the first place... thats because my current laptop was thrown to the floor by a female in my life for not paying attention to her. It withstood the abuse but the screen and the back cover came apart and one of the wire connecting the screen got loose.. i kept having to adjust the wire for the screen to work when it got positioned. So I bought it thinking why suffer? Then just used a tape to hold the screen and the back cover which in tern stabilized the connecting wire never to cause any problem..

So I don't really need a laptop but i have one sitting in the box just in case. THa's why i think the 13 inch NEWER MODEL with changed hp logo would have been better.

My current laptop is an Asus core i5 with 1.6 ghz, 750 gb and 8 gb ram. back lit keyboard, back lit logo... touch screen. Performance wise has been great. But then again i am a very light user.... no gaming or design software. Bought it for 700 dollars about 4 years ago... no problem whatsoever.

-------

again once you hit the 1 Grand + mark for laptop , you have few good choices. If you wanna be cool - go with apple. But if you are a windows fan, these premium laptops (surface, spectre, ?xp) somewhat rivals macbook on looks but don't underestimate the "coolness" of apple though....It is a part of a fashion culture as much as a performance device...

[Nasif]

We have a MacBook Air as well, wife uses it. In terms of ease of use and "coolness", yes MacBook works great.

But I will still rate Surface Pro higher. Just writing on the screen (OneNote) with the pen and then later be able to search written text is just too cool! Its a fantastic piece of hardware, login with facial recognition or finger print works great as well. It is small but a serious machine.

[iDumb]

I have no doubt surface is cool. You are defining coolness in the things you are able to do - look and ease of functionality. You are ignoring the perceptive coolness from others which apple built a premium brand on - which will take a lot of mis steps to erase that perception.

If I actually liked the apple OS - I would buy macbook any day of the week. But I don't like the OS so I go with good windows laptop... and yes surface would probably be my next choice but it was hell expensive last few times I checked.

The truth is no matter how cool looking and powerful laptop hp, dell, lenovo shells out they are still hp, dell, and lenovo.... It's hard to wipe this branding.

Surface fortunately does not have that problem so much as it doesn't make other non premium laptops.

So I say go with apple if you have no problem with apple OS.

It's the same with ppl comparing all the great phones and features.... sure but it is still NOT an iphone.. lol that logo from outside is what turns my head.

[Jadukor]

@Tonoy: I use a Lenovo yoga 13" ultrabook with core i7 processor and i love it.
There is even a newer version to mine which i bought 1.5 yrs ago.

[DinRaat.]

Originally Posted by tonoy
Hey there folks,

I need help in choosing a new laptop for myself. I am leaning towards a macbook pro. But I am seeing mixed review.While I do like the new design but I wouldn't want something that is not great when it comes to portability. What would you guys recommend?

I can be honest with you and give you two sides of the coin, when going for a macbook pro, they are extremely overpriced, and are not worth the money, let me put it to you this way, A top of the range macbook pro with 2.7ghz Core i7 costs around about 4.2k in AUDs, not sure what you get in GBP or USD. But that is hideously over priced and comes with only 512gb of Flash Storage(Fancy word for SSD), now the SSD itself costs 500-600 dollars plus the apple branding, theres about 16gb of DDR3 DIMM RAM, which to be honest costs around about 200 AUDs here down under, the GPU is give or take 400 Dollars, but I doubt you will be gaming on the mac, the rest are usually on the build design and quality. Thats one side of the coin

The Hardware:

let's say you spill coffee or juice on the macbook, your keyboard is instantly gone, the keyboard is soldered onto the motherboard/logic board, so thats 2000 AUD of replacement parts right their, trust me, my macbook pro was spilt with just 100ml of water and it cost us 1.6k to just get it repaired,on the otherhand a HP,Lenovo,Dell and several other companies do not solder their motherboards and keyboards togethere, thus it is much cheaper to repair if you go with another brand such as apple, however keep in mind you are literally screwed after the warranty period, if anything hard ware related occurs on the mobo or logic board, as they are extremely hard to replace.

The OS:
Windows hands down wins, functionality and availability absolutely trumps apples OSX/MacOS, almost 95percent of all apps are designed for use on Windows PC and are later ported over to the mac, good luck getting anything other than office suite to run on macbook pro, unless you have years of experience on the UNIX based OS, or you're a godsend with WINE, I would steer clear of mac, good luck playing any games on it aswell if you choose to.One down side of windows is the amount of virus/trojan/malware/ransomware/bloatware/spyware.... that exists, even then it is easily avoidable if you don`t click on any shifty ****, or have a decent AV installed(windows Defender Is the best though, then I `d rate bitdefender very highly).....Don`t forget theres a ton load of cracked apps/warez on windows too.

Design: Apple wins hands down no questions asked

Recommendation:
Work: Go with ASUS, Gigabyte, these guys build computer parts, they know what they`re doing, purchasing an ASUS or even GIGABYTE machine will last you a very long time

MY personal Recommendation would be the Gigabyte p34g, comes with a
2K display, the latest architecture i7, and a very beefy MGPU, to handle any editing/videoing/gaming tasks that you may choose to do, also has a 1TB SSD, so booting will take around about 10 seconds, copying/moving files will take approx 1-2 minutes (30gb File). Pretty Thin as well.

Gigabyte P34G V7
Priced at 1000-1500AUD

Check Out the ROG G751, it`s intial purpose is for gaming, but its built really well, its light and can handle any task you throw at it with 16gb of ram and 512 SSD plus 1tb HDD

PRO TIP: You probably thinking of going for Dell, HP,Lenovo, ASUS

PLEASE DO NOT GO FOR HP, their PAvilion series is very prone to over heating, they get extremely hot, extremely quickly.

Dell is fine, but personally, I like to shy away from the big 4 brands, Lenovo is dead,ASUS, GIGABYTE and MSI are very good laptop manufacturers

[DinRaat.]

IMO, nothing is cooler than a ASUS/Gigabyte LAPTOP, with modifying LED LIGHTED KEYBOARDS, Air Cooled Palm rest and a silver chrome finish

[DinRaat.]

APPLE= OVERPRICED, UNDER POWERED

[DinRaat.]

If you want to stand out

[DinRaat.]

Originally Posted by tonoy
How is the battery life on the surface book Nasif?
It's for both work and leisure. I tend to work with Java. And another big factor is the screen.

If you tend to work with Java, you defo need anything over i5, i7 is the best choice....
Thats coming from a C.Scientist...

Then shy away from the Dell/HP/Lenovo, go for ASUS or gigabyte, judging by your comment I`d say your pretty tech savvy and know your way around computers

[DinRaat.]

I run a ASUS ROG G751, I used for heavy UNIX/LINUX work with two VMs running almost daily, 16gb of ram is a bonus and i boot my vms of my SSD so, never have to worry about speed, it will last me over 5 years, but I try to upgrade atleast every 3

[DinRaat.]

This is a very good suggestion as well, for developers/leisure, only 1500 AUD

[iDumb]

Din Raat took over the thread.

HP's pavilion series may not be that great but the spectre series is actually a very well made, good looking, well functioning laptop. But it is still an hp.

Personally I dislike that lenovo hinge otherwise it is also a nice looking laptop and lenovo always make good quality laptop. Some ppl like it i don't know how... You have to be a girl to like that kind of a hinge...

so yoga vs xps vs spectre vs a little dif ? surface book : if you are a heavy user and need portability. I doubt u will go wrong with any of these.

vs Macbook : looking pretty and just do blogging - has some catching up to do in term of specs too.

Remember people don't buy Jordans to play basketball... they buy it to put it in the shoe showbox...and takes it out during those special occasions...So when you wanna buy your nephew the math geek who likes soccer, you don't buy him the 80 dollars adidas so he can go run around and score goals... you buy him Jordans so he can solve big math problems wearing those 300 dollars pair of sneakers and have someone say "nice jordans".

[DinRaat.]

Originally Posted by iDumb
Din Raat took over the thread.

HP's pavilion series may not be that great but the spectre series is actually a very well made, good looking, well functioning laptop. But it is still an hp.

Personally I dislike that lenovo hinge otherwise it is also a nice looking laptop and lenovo always make good quality laptop. Some ppl like it i don't know how... You have to be a girl to like that kind of a hinge...

so yoga vs xps vs spectre vs a little dif ? surface book : if you are a heavy user and need portability. I doubt u will go wrong with any of these.

vs Macbook : looking pretty and just do blogging - has some catching up to do in term of specs too.

Remember people don't buy Jordans to play basketball... they buy it to put it in the shoe showbox...and takes it out during those special occasions...So when you wanna buy your nephew the math geek who likes soccer, you don't buy him the 80 dollars adidas so he can go run around and score goals... you buy him Jordans so he can solve big math problems wearing those 300 dollars pair of sneakers and have someone say "nice jordans".

Get used to it, I like computers since I was 5, if there is anything about choosing which pc is best to buy, I`ll always come up with lots of suggestions

[DinRaat.]

I`ll stop spamming now

Just remember this rule of thumbs with all Mac laptops/desktops

Bhaire Fit Phaatt, bhitore sadarghat

[iDumb]

Originally Posted by DinRaat.
Get used to it,

yes ofcourse you are currently the boss of this site. I have no other choice but to get used to your repeated yawning orange juice "jokes" and your boring posts.

It gets difficult to shift through all the garbage to find posts that i actually want to read but this is an open site.... so that's how it is.

[DinRaat.]

Originally Posted by iDumb
yes ofcourse you are currently the boss of this site. I have no other choice but to get used to your repeated yawning orange juice "jokes" and your boring posts.

It gets difficult to shift through all the garbage to find posts that i actually want to read but this is an open site.... so that's how it is.

No, i didn`t mean it in a bad way, more of as a joke.

[iDumb]

Tonoy let us know what you decide at the end. I just looked up the newly designed macbook pro with touch bar ... if you used apple os and are fine with it, I see little problem with it. Don't read the reviews ppl will always have their say..... The question is are you willing to fork out close to 2 grand for a laptop.

I think you should go for it and be different Test it out in apple store.. buy it and if you don't like it maybe return it. Stop thinking so much.

My biggest problem with buying expensive gadgets are always guilt. Not that I don't think it is worth it.

no more glowing logo though... what a shame.

[Zeeshan]

You guys must be really fun in parties.

[Jadukor]

Originally Posted by Zeeshan
You guys must be really fun in parties.

Yes we discuss your book to make the party even more fun