I’m sort-of in the market for a new laptop, and for a couple of reasons (having to do with client needs), it needs to run Windows. This is the time of the year that new laptops come out and are reviewed, and it’s grim.
For example, this is from a review of the Sony Vaio Pro 13:
Sony has finally found a way to combine a high-res touchscreen with decent performance, great battery life, and a thin and light body — that’s all good, but I still want more. Much more. For $1,249 I want a computer that doesn’t feel like it would break in a stiff breeze, and one without the jumpy trackpad that sometimes makes me wish for a stiff breeze.
That’s typical of pretty much every non-Mac laptop review that I’ve been reading. Either the keyboard or the trackpad has issues, or the battery life sucks, or the reviewer thinks its flimsy, or the manufacturer has done somethings stupid. Yes, Asus, I’m looking at you: who the hell wants glass (even “Gorilla glass”) embedded in the top and keyboard surround of their laptop? Asus calls it the Zenbook Infinity, “infinity” referring to the number of pieces into which it will shatter when dropped the first time.
Perhaps I’m not the right kind of Microsoft Kool-Aid drinker, but I also don’t understand putting a touchscreen on a laptop. I have no issue with touchscreens on phones or pads, but two input devices (keyboard and pad) seem like enough for a laptop. Not to mention that Windows new “Metro” look makes it into a catdog of operating systems, the cat being the old Windows apps that look just as they have for years, and the dog being these new Metro apps that run in tiles like your big fucking laptop screen is a tiny little phone that must be poked at with fat fingers. Thinking you could meld those two together in some kind of unholy matrimony is putting Microsoft’s corporate goals (one Windows everywhere) squarely in the path of common sense and usability.
Speaking of screens, the Windows laptop market is finally starting to put high-resolution ones into their laptops after Apple came out with Retina displays, and it’s another mess. Very few Windows applications are set up to scale to the higher resolution of the new displays, so it’s essentially an annoying waste of money, because many applications render at microscopic size. On the new $4,000 31.5″ 4K display from Asus, this probably doesn’t make a huge difference. On a 13″ laptop display, it’s deadly.
By the way, none of these laptops are appreciably cheaper than a comparable MacBook. You can still buy a cheap Windows laptop, but if you want one that approaches the low weight, performance, fit and finish of a MacBook, the Windows laptop is usually more expensive or has a much smaller battery. I’ll keep looking but it’s no surprise to me that Apple has been steadily gaining market share in laptops.
lonesomerobot
Why not just run VirtualBox on a MacBook? It’s free and works pretty well when I use it. This is pretty much my advice to anyone who prefers Macs but “has to run Windows”. The Macs have Intel chips and run Windows just fine.
Walker
I say this only half jokingly, but in response to
If you do not need to run Windows 8, and can live with Windows 7, Mac laptops are perfectly fine. Indeed, this is why most CS and engineering students at our university have Macs these days; it allows them the ultimate flexibility.
Edit: I see I was beaten to the punch. But do not waste time on an emulator. Just put Windows as a (large) partition. Emulators tend to suck when it comes to graphics card acceleration, but native Windows on a Mac runs just fine.
Ahasuerus
Obvious answer, but why not a MacBook Pro or Air with Parallels/VMWare and Windows? More expensive, but better built and a bit more future-proof.
ETA: well, I *did* say it was obvious…
El Cid
Also most major retailers and e-tailers have amazing selections of very recent refurbished — meaning, someone really rebuilt, repaired, and tested — laptops with great specs at very low prices. The one time I bought a refurb product and it had a problem, it got swapped out by the manufacturer with a new one.
jibeaux
I need a new laptop too. My technical requirements are that it be able to boot up before I die of old age. I don’t want to spend $1000+ on a Mac for that, but it seems like it’s the only option that meets my technical requirements. Other ideas are welcome.
Mike D
Have you considered running off RDP? Then you can use whatever machine you like – my ‘laptop’ is usually my Transformer Pad Infinity remoted into my home machine or work laptop.
The Vaio ultrabook I got my wife is nice, but we can definitely second the shitty touchpad. But that’s what portable mice are for, right?
TheMightyTrowel
I’m a really big fan of my new Lenovo. Thayer not really stylish but they’re fast sturdy and reliable which is all I care about if I’m going to shell out over a grand on some thing that I sometimes will have to take into the field.
mistermix
I know about parallels – seems like a waste to buy a mac, a copy of windows, and a copy of parallels, just to run Windows decently.
Comrade Mary
MacBook. Dual boot. You’re welcome.
Derelict
I have no idea what your specific needs are, but I’ve been happily running a Toshiba Satellite for a year now. (For reference, I’ve been using Macs since 1984, having owned every iteration except the Lisa since then). With Windows 7, it runs everything I need for my business.
Shameless Plug: WordsWorksEditing.com
John S.
Been running a MacBook 15″ for 2 years with a VMware Windows 7 emulator. Runs like a dream.
When I need to do some creative stuff in Adobe, I use the Mac. When I need to run business apps like Office, I use Windows.
And when I want to play Skyrim or Mass Effect, I run Bootcamp. And the thing runs like a dream. The best of all worlds.
PaulW
My current laptop is Vista-based (yeah well I was unemployed when Win 7 came out and couldn’t afford it) and the battery’s been long gone, so looking for a replacement now that I’ve gained employment has been an issue.
My biggest worry isn’t the hardware – I just need a keyboard and portability to go write my NaNo novel projects at the closest Panera Bread – but the software. Windows 8 has turned out to be a major headache, a design miscue throwing everybody off, and not just going from the standard desktop view to the Tile App clutter mimicking smartphones, but just compatibility issues from the sound of things. If I save up enough to buy a laptop I’m going to have to make sure first I get in the proper dick-ish attitude to kick and scream about getting said laptop with a bleeping Win 7 OS.
And no, no Macs. I’m a Unitarian, I’m already in a cult thank you very much…
Comrade Mary
@mistermix: You get to play with two OSs, too. Keeps the old brain flexible.
Walker
@John S.:
What are you doing that necessitates the Windows version of Office rather than the Mac version.
Bootcamp, I understand. But I have never found an emulator that could run anything other than the most basic applications like Office, and decided it was not worth the bother.
cleek
i never pay attention to reviews. instead, i zip over to Best Buy and play with what they have on display. if i don’t find anything there, i zip over to Office Max/Depot/Staples and play with what they have on display.
and, ignore Windows 8. just get one with Win7, or buy a copy of Win7 and install it yourself.
PaulW
@Derelict: more of an OpenOffice fan meself.
Walker
@mistermix:
Do not waste your time with Parallels. Anything requiring heavy DirectX is going to fail hard.
Bootcamp. It is free and the right way to go.
jibeaux
Has anyone bought a laptop at Costco? I’m wondering how they compare on price with other big box stores.
Ramiah Ariya
Parallels heats up the Mac. I have 8 GB RAM with 4 for Windows and 4 for Mac and all that. Yet, if I run Windows and Mac on Parallels, it is freaking hot, loud and runs out of battery soon.
Pee Cee
I have never understood the appeal of a trackpad., but I’m one of those renegades that has used Thinkpad laptops ever since IBM made them. Now as for a touchscreen? I could care less for finger touch, but you will pry my convertable tablet and Wacom pen from my cold, dead hands. Inking is just too useful if you teach for a living, and a convertable tablet is essnetially a portable Smartboard.
lonesomerobot
@Comrade Mary: Dual boot is nice, but I prefer VirtualBox to avoid having to restart at all. Just run Windows as an app inside OSX. And FREE.
Scott S.
Bah, I can’t understand why anyone would use a laptop. I need a good solid desktop machine with a nice ergonomic keyboard and a real mouse. Something I can run real programs on, something that won’t run out of battery after 15 minutes of use.
Portability can’t possibly be worth all the hassle of a laptop, can it? Why do y’all use the finicky little things? (EDIT: Actually a bit curious, as I’ve rarely used one and really don’t understand the appeal.)
dmsilev
@Walker:
Actually, the latest generation of VM software (both Parallels and VM Fusion) do fairly well with GPU acceleration. Not as good as native booting, but good enough for a lot of things. For instance, I was able to play the new version of XCOM in a VM (using Parallels 8 on a 2011 MacBook Pro) and it worked just fine. Dial a couple of ooh-shiny sliders down a notch, and you’re good to go. The main reason I have a Windows install on my machine, Autodesk Inventor, works great under Parallels.
Keith
If you want a high build quality Windows laptop, get a Surface Pro. MS is also frustrated with crappy build quality in Windows laptops, which is why they went out and started competing with their hardware partners (believe me, Acer was not happy with Surface).
mistermix
@lonesomerobot: I run linux in a virtual box on my Windows system, and it runs fine. But it’s command line only.
I used to run Linux on everything, and Windows in a Virtual Box, and it does work, but it’s a pain. I have no interest in running OS X, not that there’s anything wrong with it, just don’t need it for work.
But I’ll be damned if I can find hardware as nice as a MacBook.
@cleek: Yeah, I’m planning on doing that when the next gen of laptops gets to the stores. By then Windows 8.1 will be out which is supposedly better than 8.
Pee Cee
@Scott S.:
Ever try to sit a desktop machine on a podium in a classroom?
barath
I’ve been noticing that Mac laptop quality has been declining for the past couple of years as well. I have late 2008 model Macbook (the first generation of the unibody aluminum ones), and running Snow Leopard it works great. Recently I got a 15″ Retina Macbook and running Mountain Lion it’s been really flaky (freezes for seconds at a time randomly) and the display has all sorts of ghosting issues.
evap
@jibeaux: If you want a Windows laptop, Costco is the way to go. However, their selection is limited, if they have something you like, the price will be better than almost anywhere else. Plus Costco treats its employees well, and you can stock up on 5 lb. bags of pecans while picking up your laptop. It’s a win-win-win.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
This is what I bought my kids: Acer 14 inch touchscreen. Right now, this one is $704. If you are going to run Windows 8, it’s a lot easier to use if you get a touch screen, though you can pay a little bit and get the start8 button.
In addition to their schoolwork and surfing, they play Minecraft and a few other games on it.
The Red Pen
Another vote for VirtualBox. I run it in Linux.
Also, I guess people have forgotten gorilla arm. This is what happens when your arm becomes exhausted after holding it up for several hours of touch-screen (formerly light pen) use. Your tired arm ends up dangling at your side, with your knuckles threatening to drag on the ground like a gorilla’s.
Walker
Windows 8 was a hail Mary attempt by Microsoft to get into the tablet market by guaranteeing an immediate App ecology.
It has been a dismal failure for the same reason that Surface was a failure. People use tablets and computers for very different things. If it is a tablet, I want it to be 99% touch screen based so I can use it while walking or in some position that makes the traditional keyboard/trackpad set-up inconvenient. But with its floppy keyboard, Microsoft made a laptop that cannot be used in your lap.
You cannot mix these App spaces. Apple has made some controversial moves by including some of its UI features from iOS in OS X (e.g. the new scrolling in Lion+), but even they are not crazy enough to try one-size fits all.
Walker
@barath:
That is an OS issue, not a hardware issue. Lion was the “Vista of OS X”. The same machine I had that ran Snow Leopard solidly started to Kernel panic regularly.
Mountain Lion is better, but Snow Leopard was the last 100% stable OS.
Ben Grimm
I bought a Toshiba Satellite right before Windows 8 came out (deliberately avoiding it), and I’ve been very happy with it. My wife has an older Toshiba that’s about 4 years old and hasn’t any real problems to date. Their quality seems to be quite good.
ruemara
@Walker: Glad I can’t update then. I spent nearly $700 updating a broken macbook that was tossed my way (thank you, people with so much money you don’t care!) and it is a blessed replacement for my titanium machine.
Mistermix, just buy a decent dell for what you need. I’m running open office on both machines and use the dell for travel, gaming and mainlining anime while I work on the other machine. It’s pretty decent and since I keep the mac locked down at home, I feel much better.
Jerzy Russian
@Scott S.:
Someone above mentioned teaching.
I have a MacBook Pro, and it is practically my main computer now. Until recently, it’s speed on a single processor was better than the single processor speed on all of my Linux boxes (my latest Linux box really kicks ass). I can do code development on the laptop and then run large jobs on the multi-core Linux boxes. I swapped out the optical drive for another hard drive, and I can keep all of the data I work on on the laptop (I back-up the shit out of it). When I want to work from home I take the laptop home, and when I am in the office I have it here. I always have the thing plugged in, so battery life is not an issue.
Kirbster
Another “yes” vote for refurbs from me. Refurbished business computers have fewer bells and whistles than consumer models, but they’re inexpensive, ruggedly built and you get a clean install of your chosen OS (plus the media for a reinstall) without all the crapware.
Windows 8 seems like a lot of pointless change for the sake of change and the Metro interface is ugly.
joes527
I have both a MacBook Pro and a Lenovo W520 running Linux/Win8. (I hate the trips where I have to fly with both laptops) They both have nice point and sucky points. The W520 is a boat anchor, but it has a wonderful screen, great battery life and good connectivity. The MacBook Pro is sleek and light weight, but the screen* is lower resolution and battery life sucks balls. If I want to connect it to a projector, I need the dongle. If I want to use more than 2 USB devices I need the hub. … The W520 has an even (fairly hot) temperature. The MacBook Pro revs up and down more noticeably based on load, and when it is hot, it is too hot to be on my lap.
Build an affordable laptop without compromise and the world will beat a path to your door.
* Don’t even get me started on the glossy finish on the screen. The person who designed a screen that has glare: No. Matter. What. should be taken out and shot.
greennotGreen
I’ve had my Lenovo Thinkpad a couple of years now, and I really like it. I needed something small and cheap. I don’t think the display is anything to write home about, but the battery life is sometimes as high as eight hours. Besides the fact that I run software that doesn’t work on a Mac (and yes, I can run an emulator, but why?) the ultracool vibe at the Mac store gives me the hives.
Comrade Jake
Mac fanboy here, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
The thing to keep in mind with purchase price is that PC laptops are designed to last about 3 years. In my experience that’s about right. After about 3 years, if nothing else the battery is hosed.
Macs just seem to last quite a bit longer. My wife held on to an old 13″ PowerBook for close to 10 years. It was still working like a champ when we finally donated it to charity.
Francis
Anyone have any thoughts on Dell’s ultrabook series?
maya
Oldie that I yam, I still miss the first laptop I got, -don’t laugh – a Compaq 13″ er w/XP. Very durable machine, solid case with a nice feel. Can’t upgrade, sigh. Next a HP something or other POS that one of the two hinges broke off. Still use just for surfing. Now have Lenovo, OK but wondering what kind of stealth bomb the Chinese may have installed. I worry about things like that.
greennotGreen
@greennotGreen: BTW, it was also a refurb. I don’t remember now, but I think it was $700-$800 from TigerDirect.
barath
@Walker:
It’s both a hardware and a software issue from what I’ve seen. The screen ghosting is almost definitely a hardware issue with the Retina displays. But yeah, Apple really broke their previously solid OS with Lion.
Walker
@joes527:
Unless you have a retina display (which it sounds like you are not), the anti-glare screen was a simple upgrade option.
Soonergrunt
The Toshiba Satellite I bought almost four years ago is still going strong. Just upped the memory from 4gb to 8gb and bought a new battery for it. I do a lot of stuff for work on it when I don’t have a work-issued laptop available. And frankly, my laptop is every bit as good as the Dell 6420 that I get from work, and with the new extra memory, a LOT faster.
The only thing I’m missing off of it that I’d get in a new laptop is a USB 3.0 port.
gussie
@Derelict: I love shameless plugs. Always interesting to see what people are doing.
You make money on that? My wife and I have 14 books published (Simon and Schuster, Doubleday, etc.) and we’re just about on the verge of going freelance with _something_ …
dr. luba
You realize you can run Windows on a Mac, right?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@maya: I tell everyone I know to avoid HP. They install their own software that makes everything suck.
greennotGreen
@maya: Newbie. My first laptop was a Zenith running Windows 3.3, I believe.
Just a few years ago I saw in a thrift store an early Compaq portable computer. It was the size of a large carry-on suitcase or a little bigger, and it had an about 6″ CRT embedded in it. $50. I didn’t buy it – my garage isn’t big enough for that kind of collector’s item.
lonesomerobot
@mistermix: OK, just boot Windows on a MacBook, no VirtualBox inside OSX. Problem solved. Next thread.
Forum Transmitted Disease
Suck it up and go but a cheap Lenovo from Newegg. I’ve been buying them for the company for the last two years now. They’re pretty light (all plastic), get the job done and only cost $400 bucks. It’s not like this is going to be your main laptop, right?
There’s an Acer model that I was recommending highly, small, light as my wife’s MacBook Air, decent specs and a reasonable battery life, also about $400. They discontinued the entire series about four months ago, I suspect because it wasn’t making them enough money and was killing sales of their more expensive stuff.
NickT
@TheMightyTrowel:
Which Lenovo are you running? I am big fan of theirs, although they haven’t been that good on audio/microphone issues.
Pylon
My wife’s HP is slow, overheats and sucks power. Other than that it’s great ;)
She won’t get rid of it though, even though she sees how my Mac (and my kid’s) perform.
Maude
@TheMightyTrowel:
I have a Lenovo. The thing could survive nuclear war.
Bill E Pilgrim
FWIW my Windows machine for several years was a white Macbook running Windows on Bootcamp, and this was from early 2007, so I’m sure it’s gotten even better now. Same thing, I have to use Windows for work but missed Macs which is what I started with back in the days of stone knives and bearskin rugs i.e. mid 90s. Worked fine, yes I had to buy a copy of windows but the Macbook and that were still cheaper than the Vaio I had been looking at.
I went back to a Vaio for complicated reasons after the Mac fell apart after about three years but then they all do, I use them hard with lots of travel and etc.
Oh and I tried a preview of Windows 8 last year — big mistake. I couldn’t even back out, I had to dl a copy of windows 7 and reinstall, starting from scratch. I’d definitely say stick with 7.
@Walker: Do you mean using Boot Camp?
BethanyAnne
Looks like the HP Envy’s get decent reviews.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
For those who like Lenovo, direct from the website is a great way to buy. There are weekly sales, and if you contact the sales dept you can get great deals. E.g., when my NAMI needed a laptop <$750, Mr. Q checked the website and found a deal.
By the time the Board figured out that Lenovo was not an "off brand" (true story), that deal was over, and there was another one. Mr. Q contacted sales with a question about some spec, and essentially the guy configured a better machine for a lower price. ~$680 shipped. Our house version, ordered shortly thereafter was more as chez Q is not tax exempt.
davebo
I don’t know. The Dell XPS convertible offers a touch screen and keyboard and with the flipping screen doubles as a 12″ tablet that literally blows any flavor Ipad out of the water.
Walker
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Yes.
Until you want to buy apps that do something. It is all about the app ecology.
peej
I recently bought a Lenovo at their outlet store. Yeah, it doesn’t have the latest Intel processor (it’s back one generation), but I didn’t need the extra computing power since it’s being used mainly for work. And they threw in a copy of MS Office Home and Student which I didn’t expect. The best part is that it came with Windows 7 so I didn’t have to screw around with Windows 8. My only complaint so far is that the touch pad was too sensitive so I’d be typing along and the cursor would suddenly move because my hand had accidentally swiped the thing. I fixed that problem by disabling the touch pad (I prefer a mouse anyway).
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
One fine day with a woof and a purr…
kindness
You can run Windows on Macs you know. You might want to. I love my Mac laptop.
Monty
When shopping for a new laptop I tend to skip the ones marketed towards the
“home” user. If you go to the Dell website and go to the “business” sections and look at the Latitude laptops. Dell Latitudes are built for corporate road warrior types so they are built well, usually come with windows 7, and are reasonably priced.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Walker: Thanks. Ah okay I just looked it up and it’s been built-in since Leopard — my Mac was the OS before that so it was an extra still.
Note that your second reply isn’t to anything I wrote, not that it matters but just to clarify.
MattF
Another good thing about using a Mac laptop as a Windows computer is no crapware. And, since you don’t care about the Apple layer, don’t forget that OS X is easily upgraded to UNIX. (Joke!)
A Ghost To Most
I’m writing this on my Surface Pro, and if the form factor suits you, it is an amazing machine. It is fast, the screen is 1080P awesome, and it is small and easy to carry. When using it on my lap, if I don’t need the physical keyboard, I just turn the keyboard around and use it as a stand under the kickstand. I can run any x86 software (except very high end games).
YMMV, but for me, this is the machine I’ve been waiting for.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Francis: We had a user pretty much demand that we provide one because the Latitudes were (and I quote) too heavy. We tried three models, and we’re happy with none of them. She’s currently using the XPS 15, and we have recommended that no more be purchased. Our user base does more than email and surf, and the ultra units are not suitable for this. Of course, YMMV.
Sloegin
Mac Bootcamp, relatively painless as long as you make the partition large enough (estimate what you need, and then double it).
VMware or Parallels if you don’t want to reboot the box to get to the other OS, want to run more than one WinOS, or don’t care about native performance. I have Parallels right now and it’s fine, but I’m itching to try out VMware to see if its a better match for me.
RareSanity
I’m going to join with small group of people recommending Lenovo.
After almost 15 years of using Dells, the company I work for finally sucked it up and switched to Lenovo…the difference is night and day.
I have a W520 and (as far as Windows laptops go) it is awesome! No it’s not some thin, sleek, fashion model of a laptop…it’s not built for looks, it’s built to get shit done.
It has a beautifully bright 15.6″, 1920×1080 LCD display, Core i7 processor, dual graphics cards (integrated Intel and additional Nvidia Quadro 1000M), wonderfully textured trackpad and the ThinkPad’s legendary pointer (the little nub in the middle of the keyboard, which can be disabled), and the feel of the keyboard is the best of any laptop I’ve used, including MacBooks…nice and “clicky”.
At home, I have a Windows desktop, but mainly use a Macbook Pro. But, I can say with strong confidence, that if you “have” to use Windows for work, don’t try to be cute and get some laptop that favors form over function. Get something that is built to do work stuff, and get a Lenovo.
Save the ultra-this, and ultra-that, stuff for a personal laptop…you need a work laptop, that was built to be a work laptop.
joes527
@Walker:
I didn’t get to spec out the Mac I got, so I pretty much got the defaults.
So, the default screen was a pro-glare design, but you could “upgrade” to anti-glare if you realized before the purchase how horrible the standard screen was? Most laptops have had anti-glare screens standard since forever.
That’s some think’n different.
Jay C
Yeah, grim news indeed: I’m typing this comment on what has turned out to be my standard every-day computer: a cracked* three-year-old Dell with a wonky trackpad and a moribund battery. It’s going to have to be replaced in the immediate future, but I am SO not looking forward to having to deal with Windows 8 – which ought to be tagged Windows H8, since I have not seen ANY review of the system that said the least thing positive about it….
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Amen to the HP-hate: I had an HP printer that I moved, but my laptop still gets clogged up at bootup with a bunch of useless HP ad and info programs. And their tech support is like a bad episode of SNL….
mike with a mic
Windows laptops have had retina grade displays since before retina. It’s just never been that much of a selling point. What do you need it for? Hate to break it to you but the people who need such a display tend to run things that laptops don’t have the power for no matter how high end a display you have. I run extremely high res displays on a tri-sli desktop, for a laptop it’s kinda meh. Sign me up for a 4k resolution monitor though.
Interestingly though razer has been gaining market share since apple scrapped the 17 inch MBP. Though you’re going to pay for it. Apple was stupid there though, sub 17inch just doesn’t work for designers and programatic staff, it’s fine for bloggers though.
joes527
@RareSanity: I have a W520 too. It is a wonderful machine, but built like a tank. (people laugh out loud when I bring out the power brick) It has better graphics, connectivity and battery life than my MacBook. But I have to say, once I upgraded the Mac’s memory to the max (actually 2x the legal limit) the performance difference between the 2 was negligible.
And the Mac is _much_ lighter.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I have a Lenovo. It seems durable and solid and runs fast. I’m running Windows 8, which sucks, but runs fine on the Lenovo. It does have the touchy trackpad issue, which can be maddening at times. I’ve actually erased two to three paragraphs of text by accident because of the thing. Very frustrating. Other than the OS (which I need for teleworking) the trackpad is the only problem I have with it. I never cart it anywhere but around the house so size/weight wasn’t an issue for me, but it’s definitely not super-thin and super-light. It has the tiles but not a touchscreen, and I definitely don’t miss the fact that it doesn’t have a touchscreen.
mai naem
The lenovo website has an outlet store with some pretty good deals. My friend bought a few pcs/laptops off the outlet store. They have some refurbs, some discountinued and a third term they use(slipping my mind right now) where the computer comes back unopened but they can’t sell it as new legally.
I would like a touch screen with a laptop – that way you could use it as a tablet and a laptop. I bought a google tablet but I love the concept of the ASUS slider with the tablet with the keyboard which slides out. I hate hate hate touch screen typing and am way faster on a regular qwerty keyboard.
les
If there’s a Microcenter around, check their refurbs. My 4 year old, $300 Compaq still does everything I ask it to (lawyer, so mostly push words around w/ occasional spread sheets); and their staff have been uniformly knowledgeable and helpful).
Ivan X
@mistermix:
Disclosure: Mac consultant here.
Depends on what you consider to be a waste. If you want hardware you like (a Mac), and the operating system you need (Windows), there’s a solution. It costs more, requires more effort to set up, and is less well supported, but it exists. If it’s something you’re going to be using 12 hours a day for the next 2+ years, and it’s going to make you happier than a computer that comes with Windows, I think that’s well worth it. (And you won’t have to run a Decrapifier, either, and you could install Windows 7 if you hate Metro.)
Also, FWIW, I really have been impressed with Parallels 8 in terms of both its performance and integration. It’s not as good as native performance in a dual-boot setup, but I need to live in a Mac world, and with 8 GB RAM in my MBA, it’s pretty damn good when I need Windows. Not saying it’s the right solution for you, though.
Rich Webb
Interesting — another Lenovo W520 owner here. I almost didn’t go for it as I thought that the “eraserhead” would be a PITA. Turns out I was wrong and I’ve actually come to like that little red nubbin. Matt screen (yay!), excellent keyboard, solid graphics accelerator for 3D CAD work, I’m happy.
RaflW
@Walker:
My dad’s partner bought a Surface and admits she rarely uses it. Even though she’s on the web, email and games on her Motorolla smartphone all the time. So it’s not that she’s old, or techphobic. I think it’s the stupid floppy keyboard. I tried it once. Blergh.
I mostly travel with just an ASUS Transformer pad now. I use a Macbook most of the time at home, actually in my lap, and fire up the 2006 work Lenovo for MS Publisher and Xcel only. Its a physically huge “desktop replacement” notebook so it sits on the kitchen island.
I’ve not been thrilled with the Lenovo, and it’s never been quite the same after a possible power surge in a rural location gave me a blue screen of death. That took 2 days of downloading and running various software repairs to finally more or less fix. (I used my then 6 year old, now 10 year old Dell to download and burn the boot/repair disks. Running a tiny nonprofit with no IT budget has meant I have to learn shit I just don’t want to really know….)
cmorenc
With the Win8 travesty, MS has come close to pushing me back to Apple/Mac for my next laptop, unless I can find one that includes the downgrade to Win7. I switched from Mac to the dark side about ten years ago, and was frankly ok with it…until now. I’ve tried Win8, and IMHO it’s an awful kludge I’m simply unwilling to put up with.
The reason MS created such a kludgey mess with Win8 is because their overwhelming motive for the new tablet-style interface was NOT primarily improving consumer ergonomics, but rather to leverage their existing OS marketing position to adapt Win users to Microsoft’s version of a tablet interface instead of watching them gradually, progressively leak off to iPads and other touch-screen devices. MS wanted to forcefully nudge users of Win8 toward using the new MS touch-screen interface, rather than a more graceful straddle which permitted users an easy way to opt to stay entirely in an interface environment identical to Win7. Oh, you can sorta kinda get something sorta like the classic Win interface in Win8, but not without all sorts of annoying reminders that this isn’t really what Microsoft prefers that you do (e.g. the missing “Start” button, unless you add a 3rd party replacement app). Yeah, and with the professional version of Win8, they offer the option to “downgrade” to Win 7 (but only because they knew too many business customers would balk at being immediately forced to change to the new interface).
The difference is that Apple has always made user ergonomics with their operating system a high first priority (with stylish appearance a close second), and it’s rare for Apple to introduce a UI innovation that isn’t a seamless enhancement for what went before, rather than some jarringly different kludge. Not that Apple is pure as the driven snow; but compared to Microsoft they are.
RareSanity
@joes527:
I agree, and I think that it is accepted that the Macbook is going to be lighter…and shall we say, sexier, than most performance comparable Windows laptops. The fact that Lenovo hasn’t figured out, or doesn’t care about, making a smaller transformer for the power brick, is actually kinda humorous.
However, I would also say that I don’t really place a high priority on small weight differences in laptops. I mean we’re not talking about one being 5 pounds and the other being 25 pounds…the Lenovo is 6.2 lbs, and a 15″ MacBook Pro is 4.5 lbs.
I just don’t think that 1.7 lbs difference is in any way significant. You can’t really tell the difference when it’s in a bag slung over your shoulder, with all kinds of other crap in it…and when your using it, it’s weight is being supported by something.
But don’t get me on my soapbox about that kind of stuff. I have a similar rant with smartphone manufacturers constantly chasing “it’s the thinnest you can buy!”, when I’d gladly take a few tenths of a millimeter of thickness, if it meant they could use a bigger battery and improve battery life. Plus, since I have big hands, the thinner a phone is, the more uncomfortable it is for me to use.
RaflW
@Comrade Jake:
The other thing I’d say about Mac, so far, is the support. My partner and I have each had problems with our Macs, and Apple (and in his case also the local Apple retailer) have provided repairs free … sometimes after a bit of arm twisting, but generally not anything too extreme. As usual, its all about escalating past level 1, but then you get folks who are smart, responsive and seemingly pretty empowered.
Steeplejack
I will insert my rant here about screen aspect ratio. I deal with documents a lot—Word docs, PDFs, e-books, pre-press proofs, etc.—and they are almost all “portrait” objects, not “landscape.” So with a portrait window on a landscape screen I have unused space on either side of the window. It’s not an issue on the gigantic desktop monitor, but it is a nuisance on (some) laptops, especially as their screens become wider. Currently I’m using a Dell Inspiron 8600 (nine years old!), which at 1680 x 1050 pixels has a 1.60 aspect ratio. The screen is 15.4", so it’s not too bad, even for long sessions.
I have been test-driving a Lenovo ThinkPad X130e, possibly for me or possibly for a client, with an 11.6" screen. It’s a nice little machine, extremely portable and very nicely built (excellent keyboard and Windows 7, thank God), but the aspect ratio is 1.78 (1366 x 768). That’s really wide, and, although the screen is very readable, it’s harshing me for document work. I feel like I’m looking through a slit porthole. Maybe I should imagine that I’m working on a futuristic version of a TRS-80 Model 100 (very cool back in the day, especially for reporters who needed to write and file remotely).
My perception is that the industry has gone to wide-screen displays mostly because of movies and video, but is that how most people work on a daily basis? I can see where spreadsheets and graphics work need to be wide, but isn’t most business work still (electronic) paper-pushing of documents of one kind or another? Even when I’m coding I typically look at my work in a portrait window. But it’s impossible to find a laptop now with the old 1.33 aspect ratio (4 x 3) that used to be standard.
I don’t even know what the point of my rant is now. Maybe I just want to get people’s opinions on how they relate to screen size and format. What’s your sweet spot for size, resolution, weight, portability, etc.? Or maybe I should just get off my own lawn.
ETA: I seem to remember someone here (Maude?) mentioning that there was a Lenovo model you could still find that has a 1.33 aspect ratio.
Gromit
@The Red Pen:
I’ve never understood this argument. Teachers and artists use their arms like this all the time.
Pococurante
@Walker:
I’m not sure how you are measuring failure. For a new technology, new hardware, new OS, new paradigm in integrated computing Microsoft has done very well.
I share the opinion stated here.
For anyone in the academic/gov/corporate world who has to play nice with other systems, Win8 on laptop-comparable tablet is a clear winner. It bridges cloud, traditional data center, and standalone computing very well.
Apple is a terrible business partner for the aformentioned academic/gov/corporate world environments. They excel at consumer appliances.
@ruemara: Agreed.
dollared
@RareSanity: Agreed. My Dell Windows 7 Intel i5 laptop with 6G of RAM has a 14″ screen and weighs 4.1 lb. Yes, it’s a bit cheesy in construction quality. It was also $358 refurbished and performs well.
MM is looking at a BMW 530, and pissed that Honda doesn’t offer it.
Steeplejack
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
I think you can disable the trackpad and just use the pencil-eraser pointy stick. I hardly ever use the trackpad on the X130e.
JR in WV
Good friend, ex-IBM ubergeek, self-employed as a free-lance computer geek. Mostly helping small businesses cope with MS, and a few jobs for individuals.
He decided to branch out into Apple support and bought an appropriate box. So then we talk on the phone and he says “Actually, it’s UNIX underneath, the terminal box will run all the old UNIX commands we learned to work in a real computing environment!”
So he’s happy to be doubling his customer base with stuff he learned 20 years ago working on telecom switch testing. Apple OS-X is really BSD Unix, with a good graphics interface glued on top.
But to be on topic, MS has no more common sense than a Republican frothing about Obamacare. In 20 years they will hate themselves for naming a popular program for their worst enemy.
And MS will (if they still exist) hate themselves for trying to make a touch-tablet run Windows and business machines run a tablet OS. Stoopid, it burns!
me
Wait for Haswell-ULT machines if you want something thin and light.
Derelict
@gussie: Yep, that’s how I make my living, such as it is.
RaflW
@Steeplejack:
I recommend a Xerox Alto.
Robert Sneddon
If your intended usage for a laptop is portability and usability in awkward situations (podiums, workshops, building sites etc.) then get a Panasonic. They don’t break if you drop them. If you’re using a laptop as a mobile desktop, only using it on tables in Starbucks then Lenovo are quite good as a few folks have mentioned; they’ve not lost the IBM recipe for making reliable business-oriented portable computing devices (yet).
I’d hold off buying a laptop if you’re thinking of getting a new machine as the Haswell chips from Intel are only just entering the market and they are significantly getter than their predecessors in terms of power use which translates to longer running times and/or smaller batteries = less weight. Apple’s expected revamp of their product line, which will include Haswell chips, is due real soon now too so if you go the Apple route then waiting a bit is also recommended. It’s likely that as the retail chain unspools Ivy Bridge chipset laptops out of inventory there will be real bargains to be had in the near future too if cost is a key factor.
RareSanity
@Pococurante:
I disagree.
The “tablet” version of Windows 8 (RT), was built for “mobile” ARM based processors. This requires all of the application developers to refactor their code bases to use the different architecture. That fact alone dispels the myth of Windows 8’s “seamless” user experience.
Currently, you cannot even use Outlook on a Windows 8 tablet, there’s no RT version of it yet.
The only thing that is seamless going from the “desktop” version to the “mobile” versions is the purely cosmetic user interface.
Microsoft took a huge gamble on the whole “one size fits all” operating system…and, at least to this point, it’s come up snake eyes. They are scrambling with PR blasts about the start menu returning on the next version of Windows 8, but their cash cows…the enterprise users, are telling them to piss-off, they’re sticking with Windows 7.
It requires too many resources for for enterprises to go through the process of training and integrating the large scale changes that Microsoft is forcing with Win8. Enterprises are pissed off, because Microsoft did the same thing to them when they went from XP to Vista/Win7 a few years ago.
They’re not going to go through that again, just because Steve Balmer had the “brilliant” idea to use the Windows 8 platform, to try and take mobile market share by force.
Windows 8 is a failure up to this point, because the Microsoft customers that really spend money, the enterprises, are telling Microsoft to go pound sand.
dollared
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Touchpads suck, suck, suck. And thanks to Apple, they now cover every inch of the laptop where my hands could possibly rest, creating all the accidental erasures, cursor travel, etc. Suckssssssss.
JerryN
Another Lenovo user here. Switched over from HPs after a run of bad experiences with them. I’m using a W530 as my primary machine with an SSD and a ton of RAM running Win8. (I guess that I’m an outlier regarding Win8, after installing Start8 to get the old start menu back I haven’t had any issues.)
Anyway, to echo the comments above about the W520, it’s got a great keyboard, the best non-Mac touchpad that I have ever used, runs fairly cool, and gets surprisingly good battery life given the horsepower it has (4+ hours or so). It’s heavy and it’s not cheap, but as mentioned above you can usually get a deal on Lenovo’s site if you have a little patience, since they seem to rotate their offers. Definitely go for a SSD regardless of what you buy – the performance difference is amazing.
ETA – y’all know that you can adjust the touchpad sensitivity in the mouse setting on the Windows control panel, right?
NickT
@dollared:
It’s true you know. All over South Carolina and Oklahoma decent Christian conservative men are rushing to complain that they accidentally gay-machine-married their laptops due to homo-liberal touching surfaces.
Formica
@TheMightyTrowel: I agree. Lenovo is making excellent laptops. The T series fits all of your needs as described, mistermix; I just bought a T530 and it’s exceeded my expectations already. If you buy direct, you can get it custom without a bunch of high margin add ons, delivered about two weeks from date of purchase. Spring for an SSD and get Win7 and it’ll be very, very fast.
Pococurante
@RareSanity: Win8 is more than just the ARM platform. The Pro is essentially as powerful as standard laptop but higher quality than most tablets.
Win 8.1 is also still more – what makes it most attractive is now hyper-v virtualization is fully integrated into the OS in a way that Parallels is not.
I’m a mobility and enterprise integrations architect for a major home security company. The RT is attractive for our field techs because the price point is low and it plays well with our cloud strategy. Our consumer-facing strategy is not specific to any one OS of course.
I’d never suggest the average consumer consider the RT hardware. The next wave of Surface Pro however are very interesting.
Dave C
Let me put in another good word for Toshiba Satellites. I purchased one on sale 3 years ago for a little under $700, and it has treated me beautifully ever since.
tBone
Like others here, I’m confused as to why you don’t just buy a MacBook and install Windows on it (bare metal or VM, whatever suits you). Get a sticker to put over the logo if you’re worried about being mistaken for a hipster dbag.
Pococurante
@tBone: Not sure which machines we’re comparing but in my experience the Apple products carry roughly a $500 premium retail. In many cases most of that premium may be deserved but still.
As of today the baseline W530 is @1,230, and the baseline 15″ MacBook Pro is @1,800.
RareSanity
@dollared:
I love trackpads. For some reason, I don’t seem to experience many inadvertent touches of them.
I guess I can see how this may happen a bit more on 13″ laptops, but on 15 inchers, there’s always been ample room for me to rest my palms without getting near the trackpad.
As far as trackpads go, it’s the gestures that have me hooked. Being able to scroll, zoom, and select text by using gestures is just one of those things, that I just can longer imagine not having.
Which is another point in favor of the Lenovo laptops, being that with their trackpad, I can configure it to use the exact same gestures that I use on my Macbook. As a matter of fact, Lenovo/Windows gives me more control over the configuration of the gestures than the Macbook/OS X does.
If I didn’t just prefer the fact that with OS X, I can drop down into a UNIX command line, I think that it would be a tough decision for me choosing between a Lenovo and a Macbook as my personal laptop.
That UNIX command line on OS X settles all conflicts for me, and since I don’t ever have to worry about Microsoft ever having a native *NIX environment, I don’t have to ever worry about having an internal conflict as to which laptop to buy, for personal use.
Although it is almost mandatory to keep a Windows desktop in the house for the one or two games I might play, and for a lot of the “tools” I use for my various electronics/audio related “hobby” projects.
Steeplejack
@RaflW:
Ha! Love it.
JerryN
@Pococurante: Ditto here. I was comparing the W530 and MacBook Pro at the beginning of the year and without discounts, there was a $300 – $500 difference between comparable machines. Toss in a healthy discount from the Lenovo store and it was closer to $700. Since I do .NET development for over half of my work, that made it a no-brainer.
RareSanity
@Pococurante:
Of course Win8 is more than ARM, that’s the problem. From a development standpoint, you are asking application developers to double their workload to make both Intel and RT versions of their applications.
As far as the “Pro” versions of Win8 tablets, in reality, they aren’t “tablets” at all…they’re laptops with detachable keyboards. They’re the same price, and would be under consideration, by the same group that would be considering a laptop purchase.
The consumer that would be in the market for a tablet, specifically, would be comparing Android, iOS, and Windows 8 RT tablets, as they are comparable in performance, form, and more importantly, price.
It would only be the people looking to replace an older laptop, that would be open to paying the $200, $300, sometimes $400 extra, to by a Surface Pro.
That’s the problem. The “average consumer”, that is looking for for a tablet in the price range of an iPad or an Android tablet, isn’t going to pay $200 more for a Surface Pro, they are going to be looking at the RT tablets.
Can you imagine being a salesperson at an electronics store, trying to convince someone in the market for a tablet, that they should pay $200-$300 more than an iPad costs, to buy a Windows 8 tablet?
That debate is lost before it even starts.
As you can see by the sales numbers, you can’t even convince people to pay the same price as an iPad for a Windows tablet…not to mention the quality Android tablets that are cheaper than both.
? Martin
@Pococurante:
A 2009 MacBook Pro will fetch $500-$600 today. If you get on the Mac train, it’s no more expensive than the alternatives once you start getting your resale value back, and you get a more solid machine to use in the meantime.
eam
i’ve had a Dell XPS 13 ultrabook for about a year and I really love it. I am running linux on it (ubuntu 12 something) so I can’t speak to the windows experience. But the hardware is really nice: it feels solid, the battery life is amazing (6-7 hrs if I’m careful), the keyboard and trackpad, etc are all great. screen is nice. the i7 runs my software builds faster than my office desktop (which is a bit old now). The linux support is now quite good — this is the machine used for their ‘sputnik’ project, so there has been extra dell-supported work to get things like the trackpad and suspend working right. I have it set up to hibernate (power off) after 30 min on suspend, so I can actually leave it on the shelf for a couple weeks and it comes back to life with good battery. I tried to go with a mac air 3 years ago but being a life-long unix guy, I just couldn’t make my fingers or brain deal with the (minor) UI differences. (The lack of focus on mouse-over without raise on the mac just kills my user experience).
RareSanity
@? Martin:
$500-$600?
Hell, Just last summer I bought a 2009 15″ MacBook Pro…with a dent(!)…for $700 off craigslist…and that was the low-end of the price range because of the dent.
Where are you shopping for your Macbooks? I’m clearly looking in the wrong places. :-)
Arclite
One of our product people recently got an HP touchscreen laptop with Win8. She loves the touchscreen. So there are at least some people out there who like it.
joes527
@RareSanity:
Yes, developing testing and releasing for multiple architectures is more work than for a single architecture.
But if 2 architectures are 2x the work of one, then you’re doin it rong.
Pococurante
@RareSanity:
But that is the nature of today’s development. We’re creating more than just two flavors, but one for each OS floating around out there.
Building to ARM or otherwise in the .NET world is not that big a deal. At least for shops who understand how to design more than just point solutions.
No argument. I’ve already noted they shouldn’t be positioned that way. Anymore than I’d have recommend the Walmart laptops etc.
Walker asserted that both Windows 8 and Surface have failed. That’s simply not true, and that’s what I was speaking to. One can argue that Surface RT was mis-marketed if the real intent was to break into the consumer market.
I don’t think that was the real intent.
Cranky Observer
Whatever you select you want to buy it from the vendor’s business web site or CDW, not a big-box store or even the vendor’s consumer site. CDW can get you a bare-bones Lenovo T530 (wish it were an updated T41, but still pretty good) without all the flashy add-ons for a reasonable price.
NickT
@Pococurante:
I think you can make a coherent case that Microsoft thinks (although it obviously won’t say it) that Windows 8 has failed on some level. To me, they give the impression of trying to pick up the pieces while denying that there was ever any significant problem. I don’t think that Windows 8 was a bad idea per se, but I do believe that they got the wrong end of the stick by trying to rush it onto the world’s laptops when Windows 7 was doing a perfectly good job.
dm
@Scott S.: what fiddly bits? I do plug in an ergonomic keyboard when at work, but battery life has grown to five-to-ten hours, depending on model and workload, performance and storage are quite good. I’m surprised people still buy desktops. I’m thinking (since most of my programming is Unix-based) that if I get to a place where the marginal performance improvement of a desktop was necessary, I would just rent time on a cloud-service (for many uses, Amazon’s EC2 has a free service (loss leader, no doubt) that might be sufficient).
I’m another “buy a Mac & run Windows in a VM” supporter. I use VirtualBox, and will now spin up a VM at the drop of a hat — separate VMs for different projects, even.
longwinded
Gorilla Glass is incredibly tough, and virtually scratch proof. I dare you to break a piece, by dropping it, running over it in a car, or any method of damage you choose.
Rennie
@Steeplejack: Just to continue your off-topic “rant” about screen aspect ratios, I really hate that you can’t even buy a non-widescreen desktop screen anymore. (Glad a couple of my old CRT-based moniters are still holding up …)
? Martin
@NickT:
Well, from MS perspective, it’s not doing a perfectly good job. You’re idea of a good job is running your apps. Their idea of a good job is maintaining their 85%+ marketshare and steadily annual growth. Windows 7 was clearly failing at the latter even though it’s very good at the former. And it’s failing for reasons that MS never prepared for – the iPad, the difficulty of keeping the system updated and secure (and though Windows 7 is vastly better than anything before it, it’s vastly worse than say the iPad), and things like that.
The market is shifting out from under MS and they haven’t fully figured out why. Their response is understandable if somewhat off the mark. But if they stick with the old Windows model, they’re going to find themselves in 2nd place in a market that they’ve been a dominant first for 30 years now. And what does that then do to their next cash cow Office? Office has become a real burden where I work compared to say Google Docs. While Google’s stuff is technically quite weak, it solves a lot of our sharing/cloud/collaborative problems in a way that Office never has been able to.
? Martin
@Steeplejack:
I was having that problem with my old MacBook Pro, but the new one with the Retina screen allows me to work very comfortably with a much lower zoom than what I used on the old laptop (and which gave me headaches in the process). I know it doesn’t seem that just going to clearer text should allow you to shrink it and be more comfortable, but that’s how it’s gone for me. I used to always use Word at 125% zoom, and now I keep it at 100% while typing, and if I need to do any layout work, I can go down to 75%, get the whole document on the screen and still be able to read everything, even the 8pt footnotes.
I can’t really express how much more productive this has made me. Everyone around me has noticed.
Steeplejack
@Rennie:
I sort of monitor that in a half-assed way (pun intended), and I think HP still has a flat-screen monitor that is pretty close to 4:3. . . . Hmm, just checked my notes and find the L1750 (17", 1280 x 1024, 1.25 aspect ratio) and the LA1956x (19", 1280 x 1024, 1.25 aspect ratio). The first seems to be “out of print,” but Amazon shows the latter for $180.58. Not a bad deal. Aspect ratio is actually 5:4—even “boxier.”
And there’s a link from that Amazon page to the HP LE1911, also 19", non-wide-screen and only $150. And I see there are links on that page to other “boxy” monitors. Cool.
I wussed out and got a big Dell widescreen monitor (26") for my desktop 18 months ago. Got a good deal from a friend/colleague who is a Dell reseller, and the thing is so damn big that I can look at my portrait-oriented documents and not miss the unused space to either side.
The laptop thing is bugging me, though. I really want to love this little Lenovo X130e—it’s about the dimensions of a sheet of paper and an inch thick—but the extremely wide screen may be a deal-breaker.
RareSanity
@joes527:
But it’s not “just” 2 architectures…it’s 2 different architectures, with vastly different capabilities. We’re talking about 2 different architectures that are also in two completely different categories. This isn’t the desktop equivalent of Intel and AMD, or the mobile equivalent of ARM and Freescale.
In addition, you’re talking about an application that not only has to deal with the foundational differences between a “mobile” oriented device, and a desktop/laptop oriented device…you’re talking about an application that will need to present itself as “consistent”, whether it is running on a 7″-10″ ARM based RT tablet, all the way up to a Core i7 desktop with a 21″+ screen.
Not to mention how you’re going to handle, over that range of devices, with any kind of cohesiveness, that some of them won’t have touchscreens.
That is no trivial matter, and at least with OS X/iOS, there is a distinct difference in the operating systems (although Apple is trying to blur the difference somewhat). So it is accepted by the consumer that there will be a “full” application, and a “mobile” application.
Microsoft wants to say, “there is no difference, it’s all Windows 8!”, and that is exactly what the consumer is going to want.
@Pococurante:
True. But that’s for different OSes, which means different user bases, which means more potential sales for each platform you develop for.
That’s not how Microsoft is positioning Windows 8.
If I have a RT tablet, that have bought applications for, I’m not going to be happy if I “upgrade” to a Surface Pro, and find that because the developer sees this as a different platform, I have to buy the same app again.
As a consumer, I bought the application for my Windows 8 tablet. I just bought another, more expensive, Windows 8 tablet, and you’re telling me I have to buy my apps again?
If Microsoft would have continued to keep the “mobile” space separate from the “desktop” space, these issues wouldn’t come up. Trying to make everything seem like it’s the same thing, benefits Microsoft greatly…not so much for app developers.
See my previous response to @jose527.
It’s not just about being able to compile an application for a different processor architecture. It’s about the user interface having to account for everything from a 7″-10″, ARM based RT tablet, to Core i7 based desktop/laptop with a 20″ 4k (non-touch) display, and mouse.
Then, after you have figured all of that out, and put all the work into creating an “acceptable” level of consistency across all those platforms, how do you sell it?
Do you sell it once, and allow access for all that user’s “Windows 8 devices”? If you do that, you’re going to have charge a higher price to cover the added complexity of development/support. But the consumer that only has one Windows 8 device, might not appreciate the higher price you have to charge, to cover all devices, so they might not buy your app.
Or, do you actually make different apps…a desktop/Pro version, and an RT version? If you do that, you run into the problem I described earlier, with the person that upgrades from a Surface to a Surface Pro, having to re-purchase the same app.
I would agree whole-heartedly with this, and I think that it’s consistent with the points I’ve been expressing from the developer’s perspective.
The problem, in my opinion, is that Microsoft isn’t looking to correct this mistake. They’re doubling down on it, and it’s going to hurt them, overall, in the long run.
They’re making their desktop OS look like the mobile one, to try and increase the use of the mobile one…and in doing so, they’re pissing off desktop OS users. If there isn’t a more wide adoption of Windows 8 on the desktop/laptop/Surface Pro level, it can’t be used to push adoption at the mobile/RT level.
They’re doubling down on a lose/lose situation, because Steve Ballmer is a stubborn, arrogant prick, that thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room…always.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand that the current approach needs to be adjusted.
NickT
@? Martin:
I think you are right about the gap in perception – but Microsoft never quite seems to grasp the idea of flexibility. It just rolls out products like a steamroller with asphalt and assumes it can crush everyone down into some sort of uniformity. If their products were better, it wouldn’t be quite so bad, but Microsoft seems to have surprisingly little idea of how to design what people actually want and will be prepared to pay for. You’d think they’d have woken up to this weakness by now, but they show little sign of doing so.
tBone
@Pococurante:
Lenovo makes good gear and the W530 is a nice machine, but it doesn’t match the MacBook in terms of fit and finish…which is one of the criteria mistermix specifically listed.
Now, a lot of people don’t give a shit about fit and finish, or at least the level of fit and finish that Apple products typically offer. But the fabled Apple “price premium” evaporates when you start looking at the whole machine, and not just the spec sheet.
A Ghost To Most
@RareSanity:
Some of us have no problem paying extra for a quality machine – which is the Surface Pro. To me, the iPad is a very nice toy, but hardly a work capable machine. Same with Android; good for consumption, lousy for real work. I now have a powerful WINDOWS machine and a consumption tablet in the same form factor as my Toshiba Thrive android tablet, plus a very good physical keyboard.
Let me know when I can run Oracle software on an iPad or Android.
Central Planning
Bootcamp + Fusion is the way to go on the Mac. That way, you can still run your Windows VM inside MacOS, but on those occasions where you want to run without the VM overhead, you start up Windows via Bootcamp. Same OS, same settings, documents etc.
ETA – Co-worker has a W530 – it’s a POS. He’s on #3 now over the course of a couple months – some issue with the display every time.
tBone
@A Ghost To Most:
To most people, the lack of software like that on tablets is a feature, not a bug.
A Ghost To Most
@tBone:
True, but many of those people have to carry two machines; one for work, one for leisure.
Steeplejack
@? Martin:
I know what you’re saying. A lot of my work involves close proofreading—not just spelling but kerning, justification, letterspacing, etc.—and fine detail is often more important than size in the display.
Right now on the Dell laptop (15.4" display) I have Word set at 108%. That’s a good viewing size for my default font, 15-point Adobe Garamond Pro. I get a 24-line “page” on the screen, which is a good chunk of text to work with.
By the way, I wanted to tell you that your “Balloon Juice Light” Stylish style does not show up when you click “Find styles for this site” while on a Balloon Juice page. I got to it from your link in a previous thread, but I’m sure other people would like to know it’s available.
JerryN
@tBone:
I’ll grant you that Apple has a leg up on pretty much everybody else when it comes to industrial design. But the retro styled higher end Lenovos are well built and finished, there’s nothing flimsy about them. They aren’t lightweight and they don’t look sexy, but they also have some features that Apple can’t be bothered with. Like a bay for a DVD or second hard drive and a pretty full set of I/O ports, They all add size and weight, but also improve the flexibility of the machine. As far as I’m concerned, there are no scare quotes involved in the price premium.
tBone
@A Ghost To Most:
Yep. And judging by sales numbers, those people prefer it to the alternative (one machine running an OS designed by Dr. Frankenstein and Jack Ofalltrades).
gussie
@Derelict: Very cool. I get people sending me mss. sometimes (as if I know wtf I’m doing). I’ll mention your website …
A Ghost To Most
@tBone:
As I said, ymmv. Personally, I have never owned (and will likely never own) any Apple product; I have things to do that big brother can’t do for me, and won’t let me do for myself. Others are quite happy in that environment; different strokes. Windows 8 is hardly as bad as it is being portrayed by the apple fanboiz, and the desktop is just a touch away.
RareSanity
@A Ghost To Most:
I think that I specifically said, “average consumer” in that same comment.
You are NOT the average consumer.
As I mentioned in the same comment as well, anyone in the market for a Surface Pro, is the same person that would be in the market for laptop/ultrabook…which is the Surface Pro’s equivalent in price and performance.
I said that someone in the market, for a tablet specifically (not a laptop replacement), are not going to spend the extra money for a Surface Pro, when they can have the most popular tablet in the world (iPad) , or a Surface RT, for the same price Especially when they can have a more than capable Android tablet, for less than all of the other options.
A Ghost To Most
Yes, yes, all true, but mistermix is looking for a laptop replacement, not an oversized smartphone.
RareSanity
@A Ghost To Most:
What are you talking about?
I recommended that he get a Lenovo…the whole Windows 8/Surface Pro thing was a completely separate conversation.
JoyousMN
@Mike D:
Me too. I have an Android Asus Transformer with the optional keyboard. I added a wireless mouse, so I rarely use the track. I use splashtop to remote to my work PC to use Windows, and Android for everything else.
Re touch screens on a PC…Honestly with this setup I find myself using the touch screen a bunch…my kids laugh at me when I get on a conventional computer and try and “scroll” the screen up or down, but it does save using the touch pad or mouse for quick moves.
tBone
@JerryN:
I’m not arguing that the Lenovos aren’t well-built – they are. But unibody aluminum casing with no exposed hinges, latches, etc wins on fit and finish – especially long term, because there’s fewer pieces to wear out, gradually move slightly out of true, etc.
The base MacBook Pro still has an optical bay, btw. They only eliminated that from the Retina models.
tBone
@A Ghost To Most:
What the fuck are you even talking about? The topic at hand is laptops. A MacBook gives you access to a full UNIX shell, out-of-the box Apache, MySQL, and PHP and a bunch of other useful tools, and the ability to run Linux or Windows in hardware or virtually.Take that Big Brother bullshit over to an iOS story on Engadget where it belongs.
Audio
The best Windows laptops, by a long shot, are MacBooks running bootcamp or VMWare/Parallels.
A Ghost To Most
@RareSanity:
Whatever; he asked for suggestions, I gave him one. Just because it doesn’t work for you doesn’t mean it would not work for mistermix.
Maude
@Steeplejack:
No, but I have a “normal” display. I hate wide screen.
I have a refrurbished Win XP, T60. It does exactly what I need.
I do call it a tank and I am fond of it.
It has a 17″ screen.
I saw the widescreens at the library and ick.
It has a dvd player and the codecs were installed.
They put OO and a lot of other software on it.
Didn’t want Win 7.
I hope you see this. My NST is heaven.
ETA Have a before the flood Sony Vaio. Slower, but it’s my backup. It’s sweet.
Vlad
A few reactions, mostly echoing what others have said, from someone who owns both a 15″ Retina Macbook Pro and a Thinkpad W530:
1. I think the Verge’s reviews of PCs are so Mac-oriented as to be useless, honestly. Their reviewers are so deep into the Apple way of doing things that they seem to have totally internalized Apple’s design goals (and tradeoffs) as, objectively, the best way to do things. In that review, for example, the reviewer goes on and on about how flimsy the Vaio Pro feels, but it’s obvious that all he’s really saying is that the Vaio’s carbon fiber body has a lot more flex than the Macbook’s aluminum body. That’s a deliberate design choice by Sony — carbon fiber flexes a lot more than aluminum, but it’s also lighter and much less likely to dent or crack. You might disagree with the tradeoff of carbon fiber for aluminum, but dismissing a carbon fiber computer as “flimsy” just because it doesn’t feel like a Mac is bad, lazy reviewing. Same thing goes for their obsession with the Mac’s trackpad — yes, it is nicer than most PC trackpads, but the difference isn’t night and day, and for most people it’s not the dealbreaker that their reviews make it out to be.
2. Don’t buy a Mac to run Windows. The VM software on the Mac is pretty good, but even “pretty good” VM software still has a lot of compromises compared to running Windows natively. And while bootcamp works, Apple’s Windows power management drivers aren’t nearly as advanced as they are in OSX, so you lose a lot of battery life.
3. The Thinkpad T and W series are, as many have pointed out, the best Windows laptops currently available. They’re significantly thicker than the current Macs, especially the Retina Macs, but they don’t actually weigh that much more. What you lose in thinness you more than make up in customizability — with a Thinkpad it’s trivial to add new hard drives and upgrade your ram, while on the Macs it’s either difficult (the pre-retina models) or impossible (the retina models). Thinkpads, unlike Macs, also have easily removable batteries, so if long life unplugged is a big issue, you can carry a spare (this can be very useful when traveling).
4. Keep in mind that the Retina Macbooks address the high DPI issue by forcing the screen to use lower apparent resolutions; the 15″ rMBP, for example, has an actual resolution of 2880×1800, but defaults to an apparent resolution of only 1440×900 (although you can select an apparent resolution as high as 1920×1200). So the amount of screen real estate you get to work with isn’t any better than what Windows laptops typically offer; it’s just that things on the screen tend to look much nicer. The display on my Retina Macbook is gorgeous, but again, it’s not a night-and-day upgrade over the 1920×1080 high gamut display on my Thinkpad W.
5. Don’t buy any laptop now unless you can confirm that it has one of the new Haswell chips from Intel. It seems clear that the Haswell laptops are going to have a significant battery life upgrade over their Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bride counterparts, although it’s not clear yet whether it’s going to be a 20% upgrade or a 50% upgrade on average.
RareSanity
@Vlad:
Excellent synopsis!
I believe we have a thread winner.
burnspbesq
@John S.:
Except for a couple of quirks in Outlook, Office for Mac is better.
Anna in PDX
@jibeaux: We bought a very cheap Acer laptop for my stepson who needed it for school so it had no CD-ROM drive. It has been fine for his needs. Costco had good helpful staff, better than Best Buy in that regard, and comparable pricing.
Josh G.
If you can afford it, buy a MacBook Pro with the Retina display and a copy of Windows 7 Pro to install on it. You may have to set Windows’ resolution scaling to 200% to avoid things being too small to read, but it should work well.
Steeplejack
@Maude:
What is NST?
PopeRatzo
@mistermix: Don’t waste the extra money on a Mac just to run Windows. You can get a great laptop with SSD storage for about 60% the price of a Mac.
Use the money you save to eat dinner out once a week for a year. Being able to flash the Apple logo at your local coffee shop isn’t worth the additional cost, nor will it assuage the guilt you feel for supporting a company that evades taxes and forces its customers into a walled garden. The next version of the 10 year-old OSX will definitely make it harder for you to install whichever software you want. It might not be a walled garden, but Apple’s definitely moving in that direction.
Anyway, if you talk to the young’ns, you’ll find that Apple is so last decade.
Mandalay
@PopeRatzo:
This.
I will never understand why Apple Inc. gets a free pass from the progressive world. I don’t see them as being any better than Lockheed Martin, Goldman Sachs, Monsanto or Exxon.
phil
If you need a notebook/ultrabook for work, ignore the flashy consumer models and stick to the business models (like Thinkpad). They’ll last longer and you won’t be paying for features you don’t need. Just wander over to newegg . com and compare.
I really like Asus: great keyboards, hinges that hold together, great power management, really big selection of models – www .asus . com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ . I have an older business model that was originally sold in Europe, newegg ended up selling the extras for a nice discount.
tBone
@Mandalay:
With the tiny caveat that they haven’t (yet) willfully despoiled our land and water, dumped trillions of gallons of oil in the ocean, brought the US economy to near-collapse, or engaged in war profiteering. But they DID use all available legal means to minimize their tax burden, which is just as bad.
Mandalay
@tBone: Thanks for proving my point.
fuckwit
Fuck all this Winbloze bullshit.
I’m a Linux geek all the way through, and I’ve been in love with Asus hardware for about 6 years now.
Bought a new “Windows 8” notebook from Asus the first day they came out, wiped the drive immediately, installed Linux, and been happy as a clam every since. Asus stuff works perfectly on Linux, the ergonomics fit me well, and the power and battery life are excellent.
Yes I too also have to run Winblows for customer things sometimes; that is what KVM (or VMWare) is for.
The only reason I could possibly see for running any M$ crap at bare metal level (as opposed to on a VM inside a real OS like LInux, BSD, or Apple-BSD-oh-excuse-me-OSX) is if I were a gamer. But since I don’t do games, I don’t need that.
In the world that I work, everyone has MacBooks. I’m often the only Linux geek, and I have not yet seen a Windows8 laptop in the wild (other than on display in stores).
tBone
@Mandalay:
Is your point that you’re a wanker who can’t differentiate between sleazy tax schemes that every large corporation in America engages in, and truly heinous corporate fuckery that destroys lives and property? If so, you’re welcome.
MosesZD
Buy a GAMING laptop that’s not an Alienware. Problem solved.
John S.
@burnspbesq:
Completely disagree. Outlook on Mac is total shit, and doesn’t sync with my mobile phone properly. Excel runs way better on my VM than it does on Mac. The only thing roughly comparable is Word.
Adobe runs better on Mac. Office runs better on Windows. Anything else is a crappy port. I prefer to go native.
kenneth tiven
By a 13 MacAIr and the software to run windows on it. Buy a 20″ flat screen monitor to hook up as a second screen for the `Mac version or comparable for the extra landscape when working at office or home desk. Never look back. You will soon wean yourself off most Windows applications. And you will thank me.
Andrew
Lenovo X1 Carbon, I love it
John
Try any of the Panasonic Toughbooks. They are horribly expensive, but very well made, well designed, and extremely durable. Instead of buying a laptop every couple years when they inevitably fail (usually while I’m in some foreign country), I just buy a Panasonic every 4-5 years. They’ve been dropped, spilled on, squished in overhead compartments, stepped on, and used as ass warmers by 110-pound dogs. No problems!
You might be able to get one a bit cheaper on E-Bay.