5 Laptops that Destroy the New MacBook Pros

Page 5 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
Personally I never understood why people spend so much on apple laptops. I have a Dell Inspiron and an XPS 1530 and have to say I still use them to this day.

Spent 6 months in India using my old inspiron for gaming and work without any issues. However I have to say that the XPS did feel flimsy and had to replace the keyboard (10$ on ebay and replaced myself)

Rule of thumb is, if the PC just "doesn't work for you" then its probably best you get an apple product.

However if you can manage to create yourself a power profile within windows, have enough strength to carry a book and not wine about it then your golden.



 
Hey guys intresting coversation this is my 2 cents I Dj part-time and I usually use pcs and just bought a new hardware (ns7) used a brand new Sony vaio comp with better specs than the MacBook not the pro and the Sony pc could not handle the hardware (it did work but I had drop outs and it was jumpy on a few occassions but when I used the MacBook it ran with no problems I remeber when I contacted the hardware maker they said windows usually had IRQ problems I am not a tech guy but this difference and performance made me believe MAC is doing something right And I am a pc lol
 
if it wasn't for all the infections that plague a windows based pc mac wouldn't really have a leg to stand on. so what if the battery life is longer, when the battery finally wont hold a charge you have to send it in for them to replace. most people dont know how to use OS X anyway. Not to mention the cost of a mac. I dont think they are a bad product but the best move they could make is to allow clones. would bring down the price and create innovation.
 
I guess the extra weight would make a difference if you humping the thing around all the time and your some kind of Nancy boy / Girlie man. But I rarely take mine out so the Hardware muscle is more important than either battery life or weight. With a max resolution of 1920x1080, Blu-ray combo drive, EAX Advanced HD audio, illuminated keyboard the ASUS G Series G51JX-A1 looks like a winner to me. And the Apple only supports a max screen resolution of 1440x900. Pfft!
 
You can't understand the difference between owning a Mac and a PC until you have lived with one. It grows on you, the lighted keyboard, the finely crafted aluminum exterior, the rubber mounts to quiet the hard drive, the nearly non existant fan noise, the huge smooth glass track pad, long battery life, it's elegant design. It's about the sum of the parts, not the individual specs and prices.
 
Laptops are for portability and moderate convenience, spend $350-400 and buy a netbook... take the $1500 you have left over and build a screaming fast desktop. It works for me.

Also the battery life on my Samsung N120, after 6 months, is 5 hours bare minimum.
 
Guide to Apple fanboyism

When provided with evidence that shows an Apple product's inferiority, do as follow:

1) Pick out the one or two elements that the Apple product is better at than the PCs that are overall better.
2) Claim that those elements that Apple has better are the most important aspects that you look for in a computer.
3) Make claims about the Apple product using better components, even though inside they use the same stuff.
4) Make wild claims about how Apple computers last forever and any PC will break and fail within 3 months of buying them. Don't forget to mention how OS X never crashes or has problems at all while Windows ia virus infested crash bag.(provide fake stories as needed to prove point).
3) In the face of all other evidence, fall back to intangibles like "User experience" or "You don't get it".
4) Repeat step 1.
 
I don't use Apple at all. When I did it seemed more complicated than Windows based ones. Less weight is good, but Nvidia Ion Windows based laptops last long and weigh less I would think also. If I were to get a laptop it would prolly be something light and long lasting, and with good specs. I just wonder which laptops work longest, in terms of years, cause they seem to break a lot. I'd say no to Apple for now. Works good, but they need much more improvement. I wouldn't give it to Eve :)
 
I got an Refurpished HP HDX16
1920x1080 screen,
Core 2 Duo P7500,
4GB of DDR2 Ram,
320GB Hard Drive,
Blu-Ray Player,
512MB nVidia GeForce 9600M GT,
Windows 7 64 Bit.
Price? $650 dollars.
It may not have the latest Quad core in it or the most or best RAM in it but I can watch all my Blu-rays, play all my games and it was less than a thousand.
I've never had my Laptop crash on me or have ever gotten a virus. Everything has been running perfectly fine. The body of it is sturdy and looks good. It is completely silent.
The Only thing I see Apple having over it is battery life.
It is only my personal opinion but I believe that in both performance and price my Laptop beat the last generation of Apple Laptops. Cheapest Refurbished Mac laptop in Apple's store is $850.
 

don't need it, i can type fine in the dark (also i have a lighted keyboard already, its called the G110 and i can take it from my desktop and use it on the laptop if i must)


could care less about aesthetics, if it has the performance i want, then its fine


i live in a house with a gaming desktop with 2 x 4870 and an HTPC with 5 HDD's, the little amount of noise from a laptop HDD (almost none) and the fan are not that bad
and personally i would rather have a fan i can hear so i know when it is working


i use a mouse most of the time anyways


agreed it is nice, though you can buy a higher capacity battery for a PC laptop as well, its not very expensive ($100 maybe)


yeah, but the sum of this stuff isn't really worth $800+ dollars

btw the screen i am getting on my laptop, 15.6" LED backlit LCD 1920x1080, much better than what the mac books of the same size gets 1680x1050 max (normally only 1440x900)

EDIT: i still think leaving out the bare bones laptops are a bad idea as they can be had from other companies customized for you
 
[citation][nom]Euphoria_MK[/nom]Correct,and what is the point of buying a laptop if you are not buying it for mobility, which means it needs to be light, sturdy and have a great battery life... 13 inch and maybe 15 is the way to go.I laugh at those 17 inch and 18 inch laptops. I might as well build two desktop PCs with twice the performance for that money. I can't imagine someone dragging around a 10 pound laptop with them all day. Lol... you might as well put some wheels on them and roll'em around[/citation]
Depends on the person. 15lbs MIGHT become a problem for me. Regardless, The 17-18 inch laptops are not THAT much bigger to the point where you'd have to carry the laptop differently than a macbook. You're gonna carry either of them in a bag, so I don't see the problem.

The laptop is supposed to be your computer away from home. It was never super portable even though it was initially marketed that way. If you want an ultra portable computer, you need to look in the netbook department. 😉
 
Apple tax: There is no such thing as apple tax. Tax, by deffinition, is a compulsory contribution to state revenue. You cannot avoid it unless you break the law. It's a free market you can buy from any other brands.
Apple is able to charge more for its products becasue the preceived intrinsic value of its products is higher than its competitors. In other words the prices are higher becasue people are willing to pay more.
The same is true for the MS Windows and Office. Have you ever wonder why peope pay for an operating system when they can get one for free (linux)?

Laptop means freedom for many users, but freedom comes with a price. You have to carry your laptop around and it has limited battery life unless it's plugged in.

You must be kidding calling a 9.7 lbs. monster as a laptop. Add an extra 2 lbs. for the charger, 3 lbs. for the bag and proably another 2 lbs. for the extra battery. It are not meant to be carried around you cannot compare it with a 5 lbs. laptop especially if it has 3x more battery life.

I have a macbook air (3 lbs.) and I'm quite happy with that. It's very light and perfect for work, surfing on the internet even watching movies. People still comment on its slimness and its light weight after 2.5 years. It's not good for gaming but that's not its purpose.

Also, if you look at the price you must consider how much your laptop will be worth after a few years when you want to sell it. I could sell my macbook air for almost half of its original price on ebay today. I've got about 40% for a 6 month old HP with warranty.
 
Apple tax: There is no such thing as apple tax. Tax, by deffinition, is a compulsory contribution to state revenue. You cannot avoid it unless you break the law. It's a free market you can buy from any other brands.
Apple is able to charge more for its products becasue the preceived intrinsic value of its products is higher than its competitors. In other words the prices are higher becasue people are willing to pay more.
The same is true for the MS Windows and Office. Have you ever wonder why peope pay for an operating system when they can get one for free (linux)?

Laptop means freedom for many users, but freedom comes with a price. You have to carry your laptop around and it has limited battery life unless it's plugged in.

You must be kidding calling a 9.7 lbs. monster as a laptop. Add an extra 2 lbs. for the charger, 3 lbs. for the bag and proably another 2 lbs. for the extra battery. It are not meant to be carried around you cannot compare it with a 5 lbs. laptop especially if it has 3x more battery life.

I have a macbook air (3 lbs.) and I'm quite happy with that. It's very light and perfect for work, surfing on the internet even watching movies. People still comment on its slimness and its light weight after 2.5 years. It's not good for gaming but that's not its purpose.

Also, if you look at the price you must consider how much your laptop will be worth after a few years when you want to sell it. I could sell my macbook air for almost half of its original price on ebay today. I've got about 40% for a 6 month old HP with warranty.
Click to expand...

Apple Tax is just a saying for how expensive the macs are compared to the other laptops
also apple can sell them more expensive because they have a monopoly on OSX on computers (only theirs can have it), if they were to sell the OS to the general public i would imagine they would have lower prices

as for the 9.7lbs, don't take this list as a good list, there are plenty of laptops just as powerful ,cheaper than the MBP's, and weight about the same (1/2lb more)

@the macbook air, yeah its neat to have a thin light laptop, but its not that powerful (and way overpriced)

selling an old laptop, the only reason the mac's sell well used is the higher initial price and enough people wanting a cheap second hand macbook (supply/demand)
personally i am giving my old laptop (equivalent of the MBP of its time, but $800 cheaper) to a friend to use until he gets his desktop
 
I have to laugh.. 99% of people do not consider the package
they just look at the hardware and scream.. (( well . I agree.. on some points.
Apple have more expensive parts that are the same.. eg: cpu.. io chips..
However the real difference..
1: quality
2: weight
3: battery life
4: performance (yes an apple is much faster than winblowzz because of the OS)
you never thought of that I bet. Or you never wanted to think of that part.
5: reliability stability
6: the market they are aiming the laptop at.
7: lack of viruses .. much safer operating system (guys.. don't argue..
Unix is much safer). it is always the clown in front of the keyboard that
is the problem.

All the above points are what make apple sales.

I myself have apple and windows. and ubuntu..
My fav OS interface list.. (yes.. the Osx interface is the least fav for me)
1: ubuntu
2: win7
3: osx
 
I have to laugh.. 99% of people do not consider the package
they just look at the hardware and scream.. (( well . I agree.. on some points.
Apple have more expensive parts that are the same.. eg: cpu.. io chips..
However the real difference..
1: quality
2: weight
3: battery life
4: performance (yes an apple is much faster than winblowzz because of the OS)
you never thought of that I bet. Or you never wanted to think of that part.
5: reliability stability
6: the market they are aiming the laptop at.
7: lack of viruses .. much safer operating system (guys.. don't argue..
Unix is much safer). it is always the clown in front of the keyboard that
is the problem.

All the above points are what make apple sales.

I myself have apple and windows. and ubuntu..
My fav OS interface list.. (yes.. the Osx interface is the least fav for me)
1: ubuntu
2: win7
3: osx
Click to expand...

battery life doesn't shouldn't be on the list since you can get a better battery for PC's (not for macs, you can't even replace it yourself without voiding warranty)
quality is very subjective
reliability and stability, ok you are stretching it here, depends on how the person runs the system, the only time i get crashes or instabilities is from over clocking
the lack of viruses, if they keep getting market share, don't expect it to last

fav OS's:
Arch Linux (developement) / LFS (its a tie)
Windows (7 first, Vista Second, XP third)
Ubuntu
 
[citation][nom]hoyt81[/nom]Will they play Crysis?[/citation]
ironically, that is actually a fair question. nvidia naming conventions, especially for notebook cards really confuse me. I know this is just a news page, but it might be nice to see these claims backed up by a real world test (not that I don't believe you), with the macs running win 7. would also be nice to know how far laptops have come against the still one and only gaming benchmark.
 
Hey! manny of you are just justifying yourself thinking you are "the smart guys" here and there. But you are not. Are all of you doing a demanding science job on a $1500 mobile machine? or your life depend on a better marginal performance for a few hundreds less?. I don't think so because If you are you may need a $6000-8000 fancy laptop and even on those machines you wont be able to do all your job. Oh no, you need a laptop to play 3D video games, I forgot to mention that and that should be the standard for everybody.

I know manny smart people with heavy, bulky, better performance laptops that run out their battery faster than they like. For their needs is way better to have a 10 hour working machine than some "better specs" less expensive laptop. That is my case. I do create a lot of 3D content and I need a fast mobile machine for certain occasions but I too only have $1500 to spend. That is why I do my numbers too and read about it. But don't even think I am going to do a lot of 3D rendering on a $1500 laptop anyway, so my only concern is not raw performance. I too prefer to spend 6 - 8 hours working on a 3D model and other jobs and doing the rendering later on a desktop or a server. And I do not prefer to carry an additional battery with me. I do prefer a lighter machine with maybe an hour or two more. Can you live with that? Maybe or maybe not but You who likes to listen to others conversation and later come here offending people just to look very smart: You are superficial!! and it shows. Considering all the job most people has to do on a $1500-2000 laptop the benefit from the performance from a core duo or quad or i5-i7 is marginal. In general the same goes to the Nvidia 320m to 360m chips.

So it is not about performance in this segment is about battery life, is about weight, is about look and feel among other people needs and preferences. If it only were about performance those who could afford it are going to spend a lot more than $1500 - 2000 on a fancy laptop. In my family and friends group I know very few if any who could benefit from faster machines, so why are they going to listen to you?

And by the way, even though the title is misleading thank you for the article, really. I am going to keep reading more and more. But just to mention it just yesterday I was doing my usual research on Amazon and Newegg and searching for prices and options on PC laptops and MacBooks and I am not ready to buy one yet. But I am not going to choose a machine because some Advertisement says so and certainly not because some controvercy on the internet. I apologize for the long answer.
 
The article title "5 Laptops that Destroy the New MacBook Pros" ... Destroy? why do i get the impression that it will not happen because in reality it's not the same market?
How can you compare the fantastic Alienware to the Macbook Pro? They are not made for the same kind of users.
 
All the laptops in this article are bigger and heavier than the MacBook Pro. Product design is always about trade-offs. I have found that Apple is better at design and as a result needs to make fewer trade-offs. They are expensive, but they are truly the best. And I deserve the BEST.
 
One thing you left out is the OS, and as a graphic designer I think it is much better than windows. It is hands down much more reliable than windows. I currently own exclusively PC's as the price/performance is better. But I can't tell you how many times my computer has locked up and lost data. My friends Macs haven't frozen up once. I have a side job as a computer tech so I know how to keep my computer up to date and fast. Macs OS is just better and run CS4 better with lower specs.

 
[citation][nom]griffed88[/nom]One thing you left out is the OS, and as a graphic designer I think it is much better than windows. It is hands down much more reliable than windows. I currently own exclusively PC's as the price/performance is better. But I can't tell you how many times my computer has locked up and lost data. My friends Macs haven't frozen up once. I have a side job as a computer tech so I know how to keep my computer up to date and fast. Macs OS is just better and run CS4 better with lower specs.[/citation]

I would agree with you, but I've had my fair share of the 'pin wheel of death.' Back in my undergrad, I did a lot of music production in the school of music's main MIDI lab. Everyone who went into that lab, including the professors, could count on the system crashing at least once during a session.

Another example: my film music editing teacher, whose name shall not be mentioned but who's very reputable in the film world, had loads of problems last semester with the Mac when it came to "privileges."

The Mac OS is NOT perfect, and I would not, especially this generation, say it is any better than Windows. It has given me and many of my colleagues problems. If anything, the only reason why it is widely accepted as a superior media creation OS is purely because of tradition and a glorified past.
 
I don't really see the point of this article. Every reasonable person knows that macbooks are overpriced for their spec, and that you can easily get a laptop with equal or better components for half the price. At the price point of macbooks, you are paying for brand recognition, status, and sexiness [I believe this point has been made and argued for countless times before, but just my 2 cent].
 
[citation][nom]Euphoria_MK[/nom]None of them can even compare. PC laptops: Average battery life 4 hours; Material: Cheep PlasticMacbook Pros: Average battery life 8 - 10 hours; Material: Aluminum Unibody[/citation]
I have changed out the multi-drive for a blu-ray multi drive on my Dell Studio XPS 1340, which required an almost complete teardown of the internals being the disc drive is under the motherboard. I can tell you that everything under the hood on the Dell Studio XPS says foxconn, and the whole chassis is one piece of aluminum. I have changed some card options under the bonnet of my MacBook-pro, everything says foxconn, and the chassis is one piece of aluminum. My point is aluminum one-piece chassis is the backbone for other laptop vendors as well (most of Dell's current lineup), Apple just made it very obvious in the MacBook-pro line. I can tell you that when I travel for work with my MacBook-pro (work gave me one!) that the battery life is nothing near 8hrs more like 6hrs updating presentations/spreadsheets. Other flights I get barely two full length 720p encoded movies and the battery is done. I get the same type of battery life from my Dell Studio XPS, except I can play two full blu-ray titles before the (standard) battery is done, and I have the option of plugging in a higher capacity battery if I choose. I am saying that if I multi-task many apps on either the Apple pc or the Dell pc, the battery life is about the same. If I single task the Apple pc (just spreadsheet editing, no iTunes, no browsers open, it does appear to run a bit longer; definitely not worth hundreds of dollars for a little bit longer runtime though. The testing labs that gage battery runtime do so in a very controlled way, and there is no way for them to accurately achieve testing with all variables covered. I am citing my own experiences of the last year with my two laptops.

Having both a MacBook-pro and a Studio XPS to use, I can tell you that under the hood they are the same animals, made from the same parts, by the same vendors, with the same cpu's/chipset/memory/and IPS-lcd led-lit display (oddly enough). When I bought my Dell Studio XPS (Feb09) I paid 1448$ (with Dell incentives and my EPP discount) listed as custom configured at 1950$. When my work purchased my MacBook pro (Apr09), it cost just over 2700$. I know prices for everything have changed since Feb~Apr 2009, I am just giving an example.

I use both laptops they give me the same productivity, and being a hardware person, I really do not understand the Apple hardware tax.
Anyhow, these words are ultimately just my opinion.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom