Why I switched to The Dark Side

[iRandomize]

I must say im impressed with how this thread turned out. For once an actual constructive debate on Apple Hardware / Software versus Windows Hardware / Software. It's been a long time since i last experienced that on a tech forum!

 

I was thinking about it but then I looked up the installation video and you basically have to tear the whole thing apart to get at the drive. The 2012s were superior in every way but dat Yosemite doe.

I really do agree with this. Linus' videos about the iMac has the same points. There is a sweet-spot between design and usability, and sometimes i feel that Apple takes the focus on design a bit too far. Hard drives / SSDs and ram should be user replaceable, and preferably as simple to do as possible. The iMac is impossible to take apart for the average Joe, rendering the stock hard drive irreplaceable and the Mac Mini has become impossible to take apart and the ram is soldered to the motherboard.

Apple does try to make up for this by offering great customisability on their website, but with the SSD prices they are demanding, i really would prefer the option to go with a lower capacity model and upgrade in the future, when SSD prices continue dropping.

[Hikaru12]

I must say im impressed with how this thread turned out. For once an actual constructive debate on Apple Hardware / Software versus Windows Hardware / Software. It's been a long time since i last experienced that on a tech forum!

 

I really do agree with this. Linus' videos about the iMac has the same points. There is a sweet-spot between design and usability, and sometimes i feel that Apple takes the focus on design a bit too far. Hard drives / SSDs and ram should be user replaceable, and preferably as simple to do as possible. The iMac is impossible to take apart for the average Joe, rendering the stock hard drive irreplaceable and the Mac Mini has become impossible to take apart and the ram is soldered to the motherboard.

Apple does try to make up for this by offering great customisability on their website, but with the SSD prices they are demanding, i really would prefer the option to go with a lower capacity model and upgrade in the future, when SSD prices continue dropping.

 

Exactly! They overcharge for their RAM by at least $200-$300. I could do the swap for $60 and a little more of my time. I bet the next generation after this will make so you can't even open the case whatsoever. They don't want people doing their own hardware swaps. Doesn't make sense especially if they're trying to get people to convert to Mac. Mac Minis are the cheapest Mac you can get and should at least allow swapping so they can get people more enticed to give Mac a try. 

[Mew]

Exactly! They overcharge for their RAM by at least $200-$300. I could do the swap for $60 and a little more of my time. I bet the next generation after this will make so you can't even open the case whatsoever. They don't want people doing their own hardware swaps. Doesn't make sense especially if they're trying to get people to convert to Mac. Mac Minis are the cheapest Mac you can get and should at least allow swapping so they can get people more enticed to give Mac a try. 

 

Well, it's not as if Apple is the only company that tries to stop you from upgrading your own hardware- Asus and Lenovo are both known to blacklist wifi cards in some of their laptops, I've heard that Dell blacklists some graphic cards. Apple, and most other manufacturers actually (at least in my Dell Lattitude), tend to use DDR3L which costs a little more but that rate their charging at is a little high.

[kirill_tolstykh]

APPLE, release a new mac pro with  upgradable CPU + GPU = instabuy

 

Well, CPU is

, but GPU... 

[ShadowCaptain]

Well, CPU is

, but GPU... 

 

yeah exactly

[Boil]

You do realize that you have actually come over to the Light, not the Dark Side.

 

The Dark Side is, and has always been, Windows.

 

But I might be somewhat biased…!

[Guest Johnny5g]

but macs are so great! 

[Joegeddon]

I think you should go with the 13" MacBook Air. It weighs practically nothing, has a supposedly 9 hour battery life, OS 10 is a very good OS. You can also get 8GB of RAM and with a good SD card to increase capacity you'll have blazing fast read/write speeds, responsive applications and a 1440x900 display which if you're doing economics studies should do just fine. Intel HD 5000 graphics should allow for a quick game here or there however it is your decision on whether you should keep OS 10 or install Windows, I personally think OS 10 will work best. The Dell XPS 13 is probably a bit much in the screen department and Apple's build quality is second to none.

[iHardware Shelden]

I really wish I could at least get a Core 2 Duo-based Unibody MBP, but my lord, the things are stupid expensive. I mean, I have a Latitude E4300 which gets the job done perfectly fine, but it has a freezing issue, and the screen is a bit crap. If I knew what caused the freezing, then I wouldn't need a MBP nearly as much, because I need something reliable for school (FCP wouldn't be a bad thing either).

Seeing you posted this almost a month ago I am still going to reply to it, anyways, you should check out the core 2 duo model HP Compaqs, they are amazing and dirt cheap on eBay right now. I have the AMD Turion II model but besides that they are almost identical.

[ChrisCross]

Why I switched to The Dark Side

My thoughts behind the 2015 13” MacBook Pro Retina.

Introduction

During my search for a replacement laptop for my ageing Sony Vaio 13" i have been taking down notes of every option and all my thought processes along the way. This turned out to be quite a long one. I do fully understand that people are not willing to read this long thread, but at least read the conclusion before arguing with the title.

My use case scenario and what I’m looking for in a notebook

Since my trusty Sony Vaio 13” from 2008 finally gave up on me, I found myself in the market for a new notebook. The primary purpose of this notebook would be to get me safely through my economics studies. Portability and battery life was a priority, but I can never compromise on the quality of the keyboard – the one thing about the Sony notebook I really loved, and kept it alive for almost 7 years.

 

Like Linus – and many other tech enthusiasts – I put a heavy workload on my ram. I often run 20+ internet taps open, and my economics studies often results in some pretty demanding excel sheets, easily taking up 2+ GB of ram if not more. I therefore often found myself using up most of the 8GB of ram I had installed in my Sony laptop. I also realised that the 7 year old Core 2 Duo was long overdue, and could no longer keep up with my increasingly demanding multitasking expectations. Excel calculations was simply becoming to cumbersome for the aging CPU, bugging down the entire system.

 

Although I would consider myself as a casual gamer, with a long time close relationship to the Battlefield Franchise, I have never found laptop gaming appealing in any way. Gaming is left to my desktop with a dedicated monitor, mouse and keyboard. Gaming was therefore never a priority for my laptop.

In summary my laptop should live up to the following requirements:

• Battery life
• Good quality keyboard
• At least 8GB of ram
• 13” has been the perfect size for me
• My maximum budget was 1500 USD
• A display resolution of 1440x900 or greater

  The laptop market – as I see it

Obviously a lot has happened in the previous 7 years. I have been following the evolution of the notebook computers fairly closely, especially the last 6 months as my current notebook was giving up. The most notable change has been the entry of the Ultrabook. These computers offer long battery life, great portability and performance that puts my trusty old Sony to shame. When you step back, its quite impressive what has happened to power efficient performance, and how much performance Intel has been able to squeeze out of such a tiny power envelope. I was instantly in love with this category of computers, and quickly decided that this would be the primary focus of my computer hunt. Although it seemed that every time I found an Ultrabook that seemed excellent, I could always find that one little flaw, that turned out to be a deal breaker for me. The budget listed above made virtually every Ultrabook an option, and I set out to experience all of them.

  Asus UX-series

This was possibly the most intriguing option in my searches, but I quickly found the series very confusing. There is almost an endless number of different configurations, models and focus area for these notebooks. Every single notebook seemed like a different compromise in my eyes. Either it would have a low resolution display, not being able to fit enough information at the screen at once to make my work comfortable, or it would have some sort of discrete graphics card, ruining the battery life, and make the computer noisier than it had to be. What I needed was a high resolution display, a lot of memory and no discrete graphics, and I could simply not find this option. I was constantly on the lookout for a version of this computer that would fit my needs, but it just never showed up.

  Lenovo Yoga-series

This truly is an amazing machine, everything about this computer seems very well-built and thought through. The keyboard is great, the display is nice and it is an overall nice experience. I couldn’t care less about the 2-in-1’ness, but as a dedicated laptop this one did just fine. The laptop had only one shortcoming – the battery life. Although 6.5 hours was better than my Sony ever did, I decided to keep looking and if nothing else, this would be the one.

  Lenovo X1-Carbon

The Lenovo ThinkPad series has always been known for their built quality, excellent keyboards and overall a great experience (or at least so I’ve heard). But how the hell did they manage to mess this up so badly then? The built quality feels horrible, the keyboard is a mess (I mean seriously, for productivity use, you remove the function keys?). Although it looks nice, weights nothing and has a decent battery life, this computer quickly lost all of my interests. I feel bad for everyone who was tricked into buying this by the Lenovo ThinkPad branding. This computer is just terrible. I’m sorry Lenovo but you need to get back to the drawing board on this one.

  MacBook Air

This notebook had two aspects – I could either run Mac OS X on it, or I could be more reasonable and Bootcamp Windows onto it. Although the entry level model seems very competitively priced, the price quickly gets up there once you choose the mandatory 256GB SSD and 8GB ram (mandatory to me at least). The built quality is excellent though. There is something about this all-aluminium construction that just works. The keyboard I quickly found quite appealing as well, this was an excellent computer in most aspects, and I always jumped the gun on this one, but then the XPS 13 was released.

  Dell XPS 13

This one is interesting. My dad found this and bought it on the spot, although he wasn’t really in the market for a new notebook. This was like love at first sight to me. I had never been to fascinated with HiDPI displays, and always prioritized screen real estate over screen quality. But suddenly the MacBook Air just didn’t seem very interesting anymore. My dad let me use this computer for a huge assignment at school, and this is when the one flaw I just couldn’t get past appeared to me. I could simply not agree with the keyboard. I don’t know if it’s the flex that Linus talked about in his review of this computer, or if it’s just they layout of the keys that messed me up, but I found my fingers to become very fatigued when writing on the keyboard, and I could simply not get used to it. Had it not been for the sub-par keyboard, this would have been the computer for me.

  Why I now love HiDPI displays

My experience with the HiDPI displays – that I had earlier not cared about – I started to value a high resolution display noticeably higher. The main thing is of course the added sharpness to everything. The natural look of text is simply amazing, and hard to live without after having tried it.

I did however underestimate the flexibility of the screen real estate you gain from a HiDPI display. Both Windows and Mac OS X offer different scaled resolution to allow for different levels of screen real estate and readability compromises. The scaling options for Windows are as follows:

• 125% scaling – make everything 25% larger
• 150% scaling – make everything 50% larger
• 200% scaling – make everything 100% larger
• 300% scaling – make everything 200% larger

Scaling on a Macintosh works a little differently. Mac OS X doubles the size of everything by default, making the 2560*1600 display on the 13” MacBook Pro seem like a 1280*800 display. The way Mac OS X handles scaling is through outputting to a larger resolution, and then downscaling or upscaling to the display resolution (a bit like nVidia Dynamic Super Resolution). The options on a 13” MacBook Pro is as follows:

• 2048*1280 – seems like 1024*640 (upscaled to 2560*1600)
• 2560*1600 – seems like 1280*800 (default setting)
• 2880*1800 – seems like 1440*900 (downscaled to 2560*1600, my personal preference, same as the 13” MacBook Air)
• 3360*2100 – seems like 1680*1050

This level of customizability is simply not available in a low-res display. I have seen people scale a 1080p 13” display by 125% in Windows, but its not that common.

  The 2015 MacBook Pro Retina

Having initially ruled out this option, because I didn’t feel I would get what I paid for in this price range, it started to warm up to me. A high resolution display, with great colour reproduction. Performance at a level that exceeded that of an Ultrabook and battery life on par with the Ultrabook counterparts. The decision not to go with dedicated graphics fit very closely with my preferences in a notebook. This seemed to be built for demanding office work like no other notebook on the market. The built quality is immaculate. I quickly fell in love with the form factor as well. What puzzles me the most is that there is simply no Windows counterpart to this computer.

 

After using it, I could not find any flaw with the hardware. They keyboard is great, with just enough key travel to make typing a joy. Performance is great. The computer is silent almost all of the time and the battery life easily gets me through a day of moderate use. Not only is this a great Mac, but it is possibly the best computer in this category when running Windows 10 as well. A point several of my fellow college students have figured out and some are even running Windows 7/8/10 full time on their 13” MacBook’s.

 

Lastly, the configurability options on the Apple website is just unrivalled. As Linus mentioned in his Dell XPS 13 review, not having the option to go with 16GB of ram is just ridiculous. Dell were the inventors of configuration your computer on their website, but today, Apple is in a category of their own in this regard. My MacBook is configured with the stock i5 CPU, 256GB of SSD storage and 16GB of ram – which is just perfect. Other computer manufactures simply have to step up in this regard.

 

The choice of the 2015 MacBook Pro Retina 13” as my new daily driver is therefore made from a purely hardware standpoint, not with a single thought on the operating system. My initial plan even was to just install Windows on the computer, and run that as my daily driver, but even that changed as well.

  Mac OS X

Having worked on a Mac before, I actually do like the operating system. I used to have a white MacBook and was actually decently satisfied with the user experience. The window management is just better than on Windows 7/8, with the virtual desktops and Exposé feature for switching windows. Although Windows has now caught onto those features (finally), I still find the execution on Mac OS X to be better. The multi-touch trackpad is just satisfying to work with, and makes every windows trackpad seem very badly executed. The precision-trackpad initiative by Windows, moving the trackpad features to be a part of the OS instead of the drivers, has been an improvement, but its still not there.

One thing however, has always kept me away from OS X; the Microsoft Office suite. There has always been a huge gap between the quality of the Windows Office suite and the Macintosh counterpart. This, however, has changed. Although I still find the Windows version better than the 2015 version of Office for Mac, the gap has now closed markedly, to a point where I like the two versions equally. This suddenly made Mac OS X a viable option.

 

For now, I am still using Mac OS X as my primary operating system. I rarely find myself booting into Windows anymore. Although Windows 10 has made a giant step, and is by far my favourite version of Windows, some things still annoy me. The default mail application is just terrible. Being a universal app is an inevitable compromise and does not seem to be optimal for use on a notebook. The Apple Mail application is far ahead of the Windows counterpart.

  Conclusion

The 2015 MacBook Pro Retina seems to be the perfect notebook for my use case scenario. I enjoy every moment of working on this notebook and have not had any chance to regret my purchase. Although it was expensive, I really feel like its worth spending the extra money on a nice experience for my primary tool for both work, studying and entertainment.

 

The main frustration behind this thread however, stems from the current direction of the Windows notebook market. The manufactures seem to be increasingly focused on specifications and less focused on the general user experience. With computers pushing screen resolution to meaningless points, and attempting to force 2-in-1 features, discrete graphics and benchmarks down our stomach. These benchmarks does not make a great experience - a nice, well built, thought through computer does!

 

well i needed a laptop for engineering class. i had similar needs than you.

i programmed on a 2013 macbook pro for a week and while keyboard and trackpad are good but i dont like the glossy screen and i really dont like the window management. when i open 5 windows without minimizing stuff i cant go to the first window with one button click. also i really like the windows explorer. however my biggest problem with osx is that i only own office 2008 and 2013. both versions dont feature the math options i need in word on mac. and i dont wanna write my stuff in latex.

so i pretty much need windows. but theres still the option of bootcamp. but the 13" mac doesnt feature anything special to me. there is no special iris pro cpu in there and the screen is glossy and has such a high resolution that skaling will really suck in windows.

so i was searching for really good battery life and found my current daily workhorse. the thinkpad l450. its 14" but with not too big bezels (like the macbook), it has the same i5-5200u, a decent 1080p ips panel, a sata based samsung ssd (not pcie based like the macbook), you can configure it with a single 8gb stick so that you can upgrade to 16 and you can configure it with a 72wh battery.

so after using it for a month i gotta say i like the keyboard, trackpad, display and battery life. the only things really annoying me is the fn button which is left to the cntrl button, the need for fresh install because of the bloatware and the thickness of the battery (still worth the 10-12h of battery life i get). seriously the only way i killed this thing in a day is to play portal for a couple hours. i also like the fingerprint reader and the smartcard reader. i think im gonna grab a smaller battery for when i need a thinner laptop.

[paps511]

Interesting, I just switched over to the Light side (desktop) for gaming, but ALL my laptops are mac (and still work!).

 

2009 15" MBP 2.93 gHz Dual core

2011 11" Air 1.6 gHz Dual core

2014 15" R MBP 2.3 gHz i7

 

I can't agree more with everything you said about build quality, and OS. However, I will say that Microsoft Office for Mac is NO WHERE as good as for PC. Same can be said about application support. It's getting better, but still not close.

[flibberdipper]

Seeing you posted this almost a month ago I am still going to reply to it, anyways, you should check out the core 2 duo model HP Compaqs, they are amazing and dirt cheap on eBay right now. I have the AMD Turion II model but besides that they are almost identical.

I already have a Latitude E4300, but a MBP would be so friggin handy for school, especially for communication arts.

[iHardware Shelden]

I already have a Latitude E4300, but a MBP would be so friggin handy for school, especially for communication arts.

I really want a d630

[flibberdipper]

I really want a d630

Too ugly, IMO.

[blueballs]

@iRandomize ,  I can say with certitude that you own an iPhone.

[othertomperson]

You should try it sometime, OSX is honestly a fantastic OS (in my opinion) and just as flexible and open as Windows. there are some usability options that just dont exist in windows and work better than 3rd party windows programs

Mission control, spaces, expose, OSX scrolling, pinch to zoom - windows handles these things all so badly, plus OSX just seems to perform so consistently well and is very robust as far as issues go from experience

 

Installing and removing programs is as simple as drag and drop, managing files is so easy with the tagging/search system etc

 

I wish I could use OSX as my main OS, including gaming 

 

One day 

 

If Vulkan takes off that's not outside the realm of possibility.

[iHardware Shelden]

Too ugly, IMO.

Yea its not the prettiest but great laptops non the less, basicly anything latitude with a Pentium M and up I like

[,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,]

Basically... "I am simple. Can't figure out laptop product-lines so... APPLE!"

 

$1500 could have gotten you a beast, thin laptop...

Also any OSX laptop can get malware. I used to know guys that would have botnets dedicated to apple machines because users we retarded and jacking credentials were easy.

[conspiravision]

I see nothing wrong with apple, yeah they are over priced but if it suites your needs then go for it.  I would much rather have a macbook air or something that runs osx for programming than using windows.  It really all is to just preference and needs for the consumer.  >2015, not being OS agnostic.

[BurgerBum]

phenomenal writing. i could not help myself from reading it as Linus in my head.

 

this has really made me reconsider my ideas on the dream netbook ive been drooling about.

 

anyway, rock on.

[iRandomize]

@iRandomize ,  I can say with certitude that you own an iPhone.

I used to have a leftover iPhone 4S, but it's too damn slow now. Switched it for a lefthover Nokia Lumia 920 recently. I only use my phone for messaging, phone calls and navigation - and both do just fine (please make a Maps app for Windows Phone, Google). At the rate of which i destroy my phones (most often drunk from Tequila), it simply makes no sense for me to spend money on them.

 

Basically... "I am simple. Can't figure out laptop product-lines so... APPLE!"

 

$1500 could have gotten you a beast, thin laptop...

Also any OSX laptop can get malware. I used to know guys that would have botnets dedicated to apple machines because users we retarded and jacking credentials were easy.

Thank you for reading my thread thoroughly. I see you got the point loud and clear.

 

phenomenal writing. i could not help myself from reading it as Linus in my head.

 

this has really made me reconsider my ideas on the dream netbook ive been drooling about.

 

anyway, rock on.

I'm glad you liked it!

 

I just watched the "perfect phone" video from MKBHD, and couldn't help but notice how similar the thoughts he expressed in that video reminds me of my frustrations with the search for my laptop! That one little detail that spoils perfection!

(I would like to point out that my thread was written a week before his video! )

[Hunter259]

Basically... "I am simple. Can't figure out laptop product-lines so... APPLE!"

 

$1500 could have gotten you a beast, thin laptop...

Also any OSX laptop can get malware. I used to know guys that would have botnets dedicated to apple machines because users we retarded and jacking credentials were easy.

Good reading skills dude. Top notch. The 13" retina pro is actually well priced to windows laptops. Also very few people code virus' and malware for macs as its such a small part of the market. Read and get facts before you be a dick.

[TroubleKlef]

"The manufactures seem to be increasingly focused on specifications and less focused on the general user experience"

 

Thank you for this.

[byalexandr]

I really wish I could at least get a Core 2 Duo-based Unibody MBP, but my lord, the things are stupid expensive. I mean, I have a Latitude E4300 which gets the job done perfectly fine, but it has a freezing issue, and the screen is a bit crap. If I knew what caused the freezing, then I wouldn't need a MBP nearly as much, because I need something reliable for school (FCP wouldn't be a bad thing either).

You can pick up a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro on eBay for like $200-300. I used to sell them at my work, pretty nice build quality.

[KlugeAnnett]

You made a good choice!
I personaly have a Macbook pro retina 15" 2012 (the first retina one) with i7 256GB SSD and 16GB RAM (just balls to the wall performance).

I can guarantee you that it was the best choice I made. It is just lovely to see how my friends new Asus ultrabook (13" with i7 and GPU) cannot even compete with the performance I have (tested with an LTSpiece simulation; electronics and stuff) but not only that, my display is better and it never crashed in three years!
I will probably use this Laptop for a long time and my friend will have to switch before I have to because this Apple devices may be overpriced but they sure never die!