Wanting to simplify | Perhaps a single powerful laptop?

E

excellsior

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 10, 2006
Messages
323
Hi HF, I was randomly looking at laptops on xotics and was wow'd by how powerful things have gotten- especialy the top models which are equally priced vs macbook pros.

I'm a power-browser and rendering artits (20 tabs open, multiple apps running on my macbook, photoshop, autodesk alias) and my 2.4 dual core 2 gig mac can't handle it. It's rather annoying when conducting simple research let alone when it comes down to use photoshop.

So discovering how powerful the new PC laptops are I was thinking why not replace my macbook and PC desktop with a single powerful laptop.

Backup is one of my main concerns. I may be out with my one and only machine and drop it, spill some coffee or even drop a drill on it and there you go... gigs of information potentially gone.

Is there an easy way these days to sync everything up rather easily so that masses of music, video, documents, and pictures are safety stored to an external hdd connected at home through some sort of network or direct through a docking station?

I'm a bit behind on the times so knowing what is available would help me make a decision on owning one of these powerful new laptops.

Thank you for reading. Ciao!
 
Yeah, Norton Ghost or similar can do daily differential backups in 15-20 minutes easy.

Personally though, I'd keep the desktop and leave the laptop as something smaller and lighter. It's impressive what you can get in a modern "desktop replacement" chassis, but these things are also 10+lbs, some of them, and battery life is rarely more than 2-3 hours even with light usage.
 
/shrug,

If you stay with OSX, you get time machine, and that works absolutely brilliantly. You plug in an external drive (or setup a network drive) configure it as a time machine drive, and voila, you're done. Plus you can use target disk mode to import everything from your current machine in the same places, easily and simply.

And as you say, you get pretty close to the same power out of a MBP as a top model PC. And you'll get significantly better battery life on the MBP because of all the power-saving built into OSX.

Make sure you've got 8 or 16gb ram (but don't buy them through apple, order a kit through newegg), and you'll be fine.

Personally, I asked the same question, and now have a 15" MBP, and a pair of external monitors/keyboards/mice (one at home, one at work).

I basically have a powerful, dual-display system at home or at work, and when I'm on the road, I have the exact same power, save without the second display.
 
No actually, you don't get anywhere near the power from a MBP as you do a top end PC laptop, because MBPs have shit for GPUs. Reread the OP -- that was his point, getting away from the MBP line because it simply can't compete, not to mention the price premium.

OP, consider waiting a few months until they hit eBay off corporate lease and picking up a HP Elitebook 8570w for around $1000-1200 with 3 years warranty remaining. That'll likely get you a Ivy Bridge i7 quad, 8+GB of RAM, a 500+GB HDD or a SSD, and a workstation equivalent of a high end AMD 7xxx card with a 1600x900 or higher IPS display. Should be perfect for your needs. Oh -- and they're built like tanks. Plus, for around $200 you can extend the 3 year warranty to 4 and add accident protection.

If not willing to wait that long I saw a deal on Dell Precision laptop workstation refurbs (with full warranty) from Dell Outlet for about $850 with similar specs, but high end 5xxx series mobile workstation cards and Sandy Bridge quads. Should still be a beast of a system.
 
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silent-circuit said:
No actually, you don't get anywhere near the power from a MBP as you do a top end PC laptop, because MBPs have shit for GPUs. Reread the OP -- that was his point, getting away from the MBP line because it simply can't compete, not to mention the price premium.

OP, consider waiting a few months until they hit eBay off corporate lease and picking up a HP Elitebook 8570w for around $1000-1200 with 3 years warranty remaining. That'll likely get you a Ivy Bridge i7 quad, 8+GB of RAM, a 500+GB HDD or a SSD, and a workstation equivalent of a high end AMD 7xxx card with a 1600x900 or higher IPS display. Should be perfect for your needs. Oh -- and they're built like tanks. Plus, for around $200 you can extend the 3 year warranty to 4 and add accident protection.
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I'd disagree honestly, none of the things he listed were particularly graphic's card heavy, more CPU limited, and the Ivy Bridge MBP's are expected next week.

On top of that the "shit" graphics cards that MBP's have right now can run just about anything game on the market at decent settings, and at the native resolution of the high-res screen, I would hardly call that "shit", anyways. And with the Ivy Bridge refresh, we'll also see a graphics card refresh, probably a mid-to highish end AMD 7000 series, but we won't know until then.

Decent chance the MBP's will also get Retina displays, quad-core Ivy Bridge i7's, additionally, because they have a very capable, but not power-hungry graphics card, they'll still pull 7+ hours on battery life working. Which I don't know of any PC that can pull that, and I personally have gotten 8 hours on a flight once working (gotta love those LAX -> New Zealand flights /grumble)
 
My EliteBook with a slice battery will run for something like 16 hours. 6 without it, with the medium sized cell. 9 with the large. Close to 20 with the large cell and the slice, but then you're looking at like 8 lbs. You could easily buy a spare mid or large cell and get 12+ hours if you're willing to shut down for 2-3 minutes half way through that.

No, Sandy / Ivy integrated graphics can't handle modern games at mid to high settings at 1600x900+, and I certainly wouldn't want to be dealing with them if doing rendering work.
 
silent-circuit said:
My EliteBook with a slice battery will run for something like 16 hours. 6 without it, with the medium sized cell. 9 with the large. Close to 20 with the large cell and the slice, but then you're looking at like 8 lbs. You could easily buy a spare mid or large cell and get 12+ hours if you're willing to shut down for 2-3 minutes half way through that.

No, Sandy / Ivy integrated graphics can't handle modern games at mid to high settings at 1600x900+, and I certainly wouldn't want to be dealing with them if doing rendering work.
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And no 15"-17" MBP uses integrated graphics if a dedicated card is needed. And if you're looking for a "powerful desktop replacement", you aren't really looking at a 13" MBP.

OSX is pretty good at figuring out how much graphics power is required, and switching back and forth.

And an AMD 6750 is plenty good enough for anything non-gaming (and quite a bit of gaming) at 1680x1050, and the 6770 is good enough at 1680x1050 if you are looking to seriously game. But, as mentioned, he's said nothing about gaming.

And the productivity of OSX/multitouch is hard to pass by, especially when you are already used to OSX.



**EDITED IN**

I should point out, I'm not looking at getting into a pissing match as much as trying to correct comparing a Macbook Pro that is at LEAST 3-4 years old, to a modern professional grade PC. Tit-for-Tat a modern MBP is going to be similar build quality, and similar real-world performance, at a similar price. Toss in being 'comfortable' in OSX, and the performance lost to productivity changes is likely to be somewhat sizable for a few months while adapting.

An Elitebook is a good option, I'm merely pointing out a MBP is also. And spec-for-spec they are going to be comparably priced.
 
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Ivy Bridge laptops off-lease in a few months? How short ar the lease terms?!
 
Zumino Zufeilon said:
I should point out, I'm not looking at getting into a pissing match as much as trying to correct comparing a Macbook Pro that is at LEAST 3-4 years old, to a modern professional grade PC. Tit-for-Tat a modern MBP is going to be similar build quality, and similar real-world performance, at a similar price. Toss in being 'comfortable' in OSX, and the performance lost to productivity changes is likely to be somewhat sizable for a few months while adapting.

An Elitebook is a good option, I'm merely pointing out a MBP is also. And spec-for-spec they are going to be comparably priced.
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All you said is fairly accurate...except the price factor.

Spec for spec, Apple computers ALWAYS have a premium. The Apple tax is not imaginary. EDIT2: Nothing against you if you want to go that route. Just saying.

EDIT: As far as backup is concerned, doing it over the network with a PC is straightforward enough, but it is still going to be a bit costly (though you may be able to repurpose the old MBP to act as a backup server). Not sure about Macs and Time Machine though.
 
BigJayDogg3 said:
All you said is fairly accurate...except the price factor.

Spec for spec, Apple computers ALWAYS have a premium. The Apple tax is not imaginary. EDIT2: Nothing against you if you want to go that route. Just saying.

EDIT: As far as backup is concerned, doing it over the network with a PC is straightforward enough, but it is still going to be a bit costly. Not sure about Macs and Time Machine though.
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If you look at just CPU/Ram/HDD, yes there is an "apple tax".

If you include weight, battery life, trackpad, etc, the apple tax goes away.

The "apple tax" is almost always based on apple not skimping on the details. That does cost a bit more, but is usually a value-judgement for each individual.

You aren't paying more "because it's apple", so much as you might be paying a bit more because apple has dott'ed a bunch of "i's", and crossed a bunch of "t's".

But, at most the price difference is $100-$150 for most machines (there are exceptions, in both directions btw (apple's are sometimes cheaper then their nearest competitor, sometimes more expensive, but always in the ballpark when taking into account all the spec's).

The "apple tax' myth comes from people comparing apples to oranges (pardon the expression) and then complaining.

Comparing a consumer-grade HP to a MBP, and saying the HP has better spec's. Ignoring battery life, weight, build-quality, etc, etc, etc.

A MBA is +/- $100 for any comparable Ultrabook

I just priced a comparable spec Elitebook to my MBP, using my universities "institutional discount program", and it came out to $1845 as compared to the $1789 I paid for my MBP.

Now, the HP does have a 1080P screen, and a better graphics card, while I have to "make do" with a 1680x1050 and a graphics card that has yet to let me down gaming.
On the flipside, I do get a better touchpad, and because the HP needs a 9cell battery to match what I get battery-wise, I end up with something a bit lighter.

Is that worth it for you? Well, that's your call. For me it is.

But it's hardly an "apple tax" when the spec's are damn near identical, and the price is about the same as well.
 
I you are good with OSX, just get a new Powerbook. I Like Lenovo TP's, but I do not game much on my laptops. Lots of VM work and dev shit. I like the flexibility of Windows7 as a base due to the large selection of software.
 
Of course, as I said, you can get the exact same specs on an off lease Elitebook with full warranty for about $600 less. Good luck finding a similar deal on a used MacBook -- many people seem to believe they're still worth full original retail, scuffs and all.

Yes there is an Apple tax. No the specs aren't identical. No this isn't a pissing match, it's been well documented, for years.

I love how you said the specs are comparable... then went on to say they weren't. No, your Macbook with a lower resolution screen and weaker GPU is not comparable. Seriously? Please, keep shooting yourself in the foot.
 
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silent-circuit said:
Good luck finding a similar deal on a used MacBook -- many people seem to believe they're still worth full original retail, scuffs and all.
.
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This has always made me laugh. A 5 year old Apple Laptop goes for $700+... and people pay for it. :confused:

Status symbol.
 
silent-circuit said:
Of course, as I said, you can get the exact same specs on an off lease Elitebook with full warranty for about $600 less. Good luck finding a similar deal on a used MacBook -- many people seem to believe they're still worth full original retail, scuffs and all.

Yes there is an Apple tax. No the specs aren't identical. No this isn't a pissing match, it's been well documented, for years.

I love how you said the specs are comparable... then went on to say they weren't. No, your Macbook with a lower resolution screen and weaker GPU is not comparable. Seriously? Please, keep shooting yourself in the foot.
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Bingo.

Right now I can buy a brand new 15 inch Elitebook for ~1500 that has a dual core i7 (vs quad core on the MBP), better GPU (6550 vs 7570), about the same resolution screen, (iirc) more RAM, the same weight (.1 lb heavier).

The only things the MBP has is an extra two cores, better battery life, and a trackpad that is "better". If you put Windows 7 on a MBP, the battery life is going to be in the same range, so it isn't like Apple has a larger (read:more expensive) battery in the MBP.

AND with the Elitebook I can do this cool thing called changing the battery. I hear it about doubles battery life.

Does a trackpad and two extra cores you should pay $300 more? That's on you. You know what you want, and like I said earlier, if you don't mind paying the extra money, more power to you. Does a processor upgrade and a trackpad driver that has been optimized really cost $300? If the answer is no, you cannot deny Apple's wares are more expensive "spec-for-spec," therefore, the Apple tax is alive and well, even today.

Zumino Zufeilon said:
A MBA is +/- $100 for any comparable Ultrabook
Click to expand...

The Dell XPS 13 128/256 is $1000/$1300. The 13 inch MBA SSD is $1300/$1600. What were you saying?

I'm fine with people buying Apple laptops. It is your money. I couldn't give two shits if you bought a house or just burned piles of it for heat in the winter. But don't tell an outright lie that the Apple tax is a myth.

EDIT: Also just configured a Lenovo T530...with quad core Ivy Bridge. Just under $1600. So again, "spec-for-spec" + full-HD screen, it is still $200 cheaper.
 
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Since when are Elitebooks "consumer grade"? Isn't that HP's high end business line? I'm surprised it's actually cheaper than a MBP in any way since they tend to charge a premium for those too...
 
Impulse said:
Since when are Elitebooks "consumer grade"? Isn't that HP's high end business line? I'm surprised it's actually cheaper than a MBP in any way since they tend to charge a premium for those too...
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Never claimed it was. In fact, I said (in this thread and many others) that I would never purchase, nor recommend the purchase of, a "consumer" grade laptop, ever again. Elitebooks are the no bullshit business line, and it shows in everything about them. Yes, there's a premium -- there's also build quality and support Apple and many other retailers can't hope to approach.
 
excellsior said:
Hi HF, I was randomly looking at laptops on xotics and was wow'd by how powerful things have gotten- especialy the top models which are equally priced vs macbook pros.

I'm a power-browser and rendering artits (20 tabs open, multiple apps running on my macbook, photoshop, autodesk alias) and my 2.4 dual core 2 gig mac can't handle it. It's rather annoying when conducting simple research let alone when it comes down to use photoshop.

So discovering how powerful the new PC laptops are I was thinking why not replace my macbook and PC desktop with a single powerful laptop.

Backup is one of my main concerns. I may be out with my one and only machine and drop it, spill some coffee or even drop a drill on it and there you go... gigs of information potentially gone.

Is there an easy way these days to sync everything up rather easily so that masses of music, video, documents, and pictures are safety stored to an external hdd connected at home through some sort of network or direct through a docking station?

I'm a bit behind on the times so knowing what is available would help me make a decision on owning one of these powerful new laptops.

Thank you for reading. Ciao!
Click to expand...

Photoshop, autodesk alias, and multitasking sounds to me like a Lenovo Thinkpad W530.

The W series is designed for the type of work you listed. The screen can be calibrated for accuracy and is equipped with Nvidia Quattro cards for rendering programs. They have outstanding build quality (metal hinges and magnesium alloy case). The keyboards have drainage holes so if you spill coffee or a beverage on it, it drains out the bottom. The components are sealed from the keyboard. So it's not waterproof per se, but it can survive spills over the keyboard. It can be equipped with a 9 cell battery for extra juice away from the outlet.

Thinkpads are also equiped with sensors to detect drops to stop the hard drive and help it survive the fall. You can also swap out the drive with an SSD if you'd like. You can also swap out the optical drive for another HDD and setup raid for backup.

It sounds like a good fit for you so I'd add it to your list.

Lenovo has frequent sales with 20% off coupons so keep an eye out.

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...=8290D97BCD4869FF73A91D590D8749C5&action=init
 
silent-circuit said:
Never claimed it was. In fact, I said (in this thread and many others) that I would never purchase, nor recommend the purchase of, a "consumer" grade laptop, ever again. Elitebooks are the no bullshit business line, and it shows in everything about them. Yes, there's a premium -- there's also build quality and support Apple and many other retailers can't hope to approach.
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I didn't say you said it silly circuits. ;) I'm actually quite impressed with the build quality of recent Elitebooks, and even with the design. I was alluding to this comment:

Zumino Zufeilon said:
...The "apple tax' myth comes from people comparing apples to oranges (pardon the expression) and then complaining.

Comparing a consumer-grade HP to a MBP, and saying the HP has better spec's. Ignoring battery life, weight, build-quality, etc, etc, etc.

A MBA is +/- $100 for any comparable Ultrabook...
Click to expand...

Frankly I think the idea of the so-called Apple tax is as prevalent as ever... Sure it's not a massive difference (and in a few cases it's not present, 27" iMac maybe), it's been larger in the past, but across the board you do pay more for the same hardware with Apple.

ASUS ultrabooks are $100-250 cheaper regardless of config, and the newest Prime has one of the best laptop displays ever. Apple's upgrades are obscenely overpriced and doing it on your own (like anything that deviates from "the vision") quickly gets complicated, so you're forced to pay for sub par SSDs if you want a larger one, etc.

The resale value of Apple's hardware can't be ignored tho, if you upgrade often it's worth taking into account... It's like selling an old Civic, only instead of a poor college kid willing to pay for reliability or an easy car to rice up it's wannabe yuppies paying for a fashion accessory. :p
 
If you're going to go with the "single powerful laptop" option I'd suggest the Lenovo Thinkpad W-series unless your primary concern is gaming. The new W530 would last you for years and do a damned fine job of it too. The W520 is just about as good though, especially as you'll probably get discrete graphics (and the CPU power of the older SB vs the newer IB is apparently miniscule).
 
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