I need a programming laptop Windows VS Macbook

[HardStoN]

Hi all, Recently i started to dig around the market for some good laptops for programming and general work, and i came across a few laptops, Macbook air/pro, and windows based laptops and i noticed

a weird thing the macbook's costs like 2200$ with I5 and only 8GB of ram unlike the windows based OS which gives you more quality specs for instance I7 with 16GB of ram for only 1400$.

And my question is how's the difference in performance with the windows based OS and the macOS because i heard that the macOS is so much better than windows and it basically gives you more performace

and more long time use for the laptop than other windows OS that has better specs. And do you guys think i should buy a macbook or a windows based laptop and if you can send me a link to something good that you know.

P.S We all can agree that apple's macbooks look way more quality than other laptops and they have better speakers and overall feel in the hand which all those things really matter to me in the laptop.

[5x5]

The Air overheats horribly so avoid that like the plague unless you want to kill it quickly with work.

The Pro 13" has the horrid butterfly keyboards that are prone to failure - avoid those like the plague. Not to mention they also overheat.

Currently the ONLY good option for MacOS is the base model 16"

 

As for Windows - get a business-class device like a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme or an HP EliteBook 850 G6/G7

[orangecat]

Unless you need to run Mac OS go for a Windows laptop.

[Jumballi]

DO NOT GET MAC FOR VISUAL STUDIO, no one including your teacher can help you if you run into an issue with it.

 

Visual studio is a very lightweight program, and only needs 2gb to run, so grab a cheapest windows laptop with 8gb of ram and you shouldn’t have any issues. Invest the remainder into food, games, alcohol, *insert illegal activity here*, or a desktop as they all are a better investment for your money.

[5x5]

3 minutes ago, HardStoN said:

P.S We all can agree that apple's macbooks look way more quality than other laptops

That's actually factually incorrect. Apple's laptops have a series of serious design flaws that make them substantially worse, on an electrical design level, than any business-class laptop in the past 5 years.

[aisle9]

ThinkPad P52. You're welcome.

[HardStoN]

9 hours ago, 5x5 said:

That's actually factually incorrect. Apple's laptops have a series of serious design flaws that make them substantially worse, on an electrical design level, than any business-class laptop in the past 5 years.

What i meant by saying that is that the apple overall look of a laptop is more high quality than windows for instance the tiny bezels and the good speaker and 16:10 aspect ratio which really matter

[5x5]

Just now, HardStoN said:

What i meant by saying that is that the apple overall look of a laptop is more high quality than windows for instance the tiny bezels and the good speaker and 16:10 aspect ratio which really matter

You know what also matters? Design flaws that break the machine fast.

Like the following.

If your laptop is in a humid room, the display connector shorts out the CPU data pin to the Display VID pin and sends up to 52 volts to the CPU, killing it instantly.
The fuzes are low quality and never serve their function of saving any component when there is overload.
The TB3 controllers frequently fail and explode (literally, look at Rossmann for evidence)
The display flex cables are super fragile and tend to tear if you open it slightly more aggressively.
The internal power circuitry is routed via the keyboard and trackpad so if your tracpad has issues, the whole system fails. For comparison, most laptops can have the trackpad explode and still continue to work fine. Even 200$ chromebooks aren't this retardedly designed.
The cooling solution runs the CPU and GPU at 100*C so as to be thin which in turn causes damage over time and destroys them as anything over 90 is not safe for them long-term
The Apple customer support on offer is utter shit and you will get quoted 300-1000$ for their design flaws even if it's not your fault

Just, this is in 3000$ laptops. This is insane. Even 500$ Acer Aspire models are more durable, not to mention the military standards of business-class laptops like ThinkPads, EliteBooks or Latitudes.
Apple's laptops LOOK good but are absolutely terrible if you know the basics of electrical engineering or PCB design

[kelvinhall05]

10 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

That's actually factually incorrect. Apple's laptops have a series of serious design flaws that make them substantially worse, on an electrical design level, than any business-class laptop in the past 5 years.

He said look, lol. I still think some Thinkpads look better

[HardStoN]

9 hours ago, 5x5 said:

You know what also matters? Design flaws that break the machine fast.

Like the following.

If your laptop is in a humid room, the display connector shorts out the CPU data pin to the Display VID pin and sends up to 52 volts to the CPU, killing it instantly.
The fuzes are low quality and never serve their function of saving any component when there is overload.
The TB3 controllers frequently fail and explode (literally, look at Rossmann for evidence)
The display flex cables are super fragile and tend to tear if you open it slightly more aggressively.
The internal power circuitry is routed via the keyboard and trackpad so if your tracpad has issues, the whole system fails. For comparison, most laptops can have the trackpad explode and still continue to work fine. Even 200$ chromebooks aren't this retardedly designed.
The cooling solution runs the CPU and GPU at 100*C so as to be thin which in turn causes damage over time and destroys them as anything over 90 is not safe for them long-term
The Apple customer support on offer is utter shit and you will get quoted 300-1000$ for their design flaws even if it's not your fault

Just, this is in 3000$ laptops. This is insane. Even 500$ Acer Aspire models are more durable, not to mention the military standards of business-class laptops like ThinkPads, EliteBooks or Latitudes.
Apple's laptops LOOK good but are absolutely terrible if you know the basics of electrical engineering or PCB design

Thank you for replying, Now i certainly won't buy an apple product but you have to agree that  

looks way more better than 

[5x5]

Just now, HardStoN said:

Thank you for replying, Now i certainly won't buy an apple product but you have to agree that  

looks way more better than 

It's subjective but to me looks aren't important - what's important is that when I invest 2000$ I don't have to scream at support every other month because something is broken (again)

[5x5]

@HardStoNbtw, this is what I'm recommending, you're looking at a 6-year-old ThinkPad design

[HardStoN]

9 hours ago, 5x5 said:

It's subjective but to me looks aren't important - what's important is that when I invest 2000$ I don't have to scream at support every other month because something is broken (again)

Yeah you are right. I'm just asking if any good looking laptop in the price range of max 1400$ which has 16:10 aspect ratio and i7 anf 16gb ram and a decent graphics card exist?

[5x5]

And this is the EliteBook G series

 

4 hours ago, HardStoN said:

Yeah you are right. I'm just asking if any good looking laptop in the price range of max 1400$ which has 16:10 aspect ratio and i7 anf 16gb ram and a decent graphics card exist?

16:10 no, but the 850 G6 (pictured above) is very good and usually costs less than that for a Ryzen 7/i7 config with 16GB DDR4 and a 512GB SSD

[HardStoN]

9 hours ago, 5x5 said:

16:10 no, but the 850 G6 (pictured above) is very good and usually costs less than that for a Ryzen 7/i7 config with 16GB DDR4 and a 512GB SSD

Ok that seems good. But are you a programmer if so can you tell me how of a difference in comfort does the 16:10 and the 16:9 when coding? 

[schwellmo92]

4 hours ago, 5x5 said:

16:10 no, but the 850 G6 (pictured above) is very good and usually costs less than that for a Ryzen 7/i7 config with 16GB DDR4 and a 512GB SSD

The new XPS 13 is 16:10 and the Surface Laptop is 3:2

 

4 hours ago, HardStoN said:

Ok that seems good. But are you a programmer if so can you tell me how of a difference in comfort does the 16:10 and the 16:9 when coding? 

Pick whatever OS you are already comfortable with, or if you are doing .NET definitely go Windows. There are also plenty of 16:10 windows laptops.

[5x5]

1 minute ago, HardStoN said:

Ok that seems good. But are you a programmer if so can you tell me how of a difference in comfort does the 16:10 and the 16:9 when coding? 

16:9 is very usable. I generally look at the keyboards and the ones on the EliteBooks and ThinkPads are so nice to use, I can't praise them enough. It's just a VERY nice experience, especially on ThinkPads. Latitudes are a bit off but also usable. I'd say Apple's Magic Keyboard is on the same level as Latitudes but EliteBooks and ThinkPads are better.

As for 16:10 - it's better, sure, but it's not a deal-breaker. On a 15.6" screen, even with 16:9, you get a ton of space.

 

1 minute ago, schwellmo92 said:

The new XPS 13 is 16:10 and the Surface Laptop is 3:2

The new XPS overheats as well. The SL is okay but you can't service it and it's ports are shit (1 USB A and 1 mini DP)

[HardStoN]

9 hours ago, schwellmo92 said:

Pick whatever OS you are already comfortable with, or if you are doing .NET definitely go Windows. There are also plenty of 16:10 windows laptops.

Actually im a web developer and .NET is not really my thing. Im doing most of the time web developing and Python and a little bit of basic flutter with dart

[kelvinhall05]

Don't buy a Macbook if you don't NEED MacOS or are super deep into the Apple ecosystem.

 

 

As said above, Thinkpads are probably some of the best laptops you can buy today. I personally am a sucker for the X-series but most people find those too small, so I'd take a look at a X1 Carbon or a T-series if you want more IO.

[schwellmo92]

3 minutes ago, HardStoN said:

Actually im a web developer and .NET is not really my thing. Im doing most of the time web developing and Python and a little bit of basic flutter with dart

What OS are you most familiar with? Go with that one. If you want a windows laptops that also looks good and feels premium look at Dell XPS and Surface Laptop 3.

[SenKa]

6 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

The display flex cables are super fragile and tend to tear if you open it slightly more aggressively.

There were maybe... two models with that issue? And the issue was they were a couple MM too short, and would tear if you aggressively opened the hinge all the way to its stop.

 

9 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

The TB3 controllers frequently fail and explode (literally, look at Rossmann for evidence)

They only "frequently fail" with liquid damage, and any laptop with catastrophic TB3 failure will likely do the same thing.

10 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

The internal power circuitry is routed via the keyboard and trackpad so if your tracpad has issues, the whole system fails. For comparison, most laptops can have the trackpad explode and still continue to work fine. Even 200$ chromebooks aren't this retardedly designed.

No? I mean, i havent looked at the touchbar models, but I've never heard of a trackpad flex killing the whole system. A bad trackpad flex cable will make the keyboard ***appear*** dead, because the keyboard runs it data through the trackpad, but if you replace that flex cable you'll be fine.

12 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

The cooling solution runs the CPU and GPU at 100*C so as to be thin which in turn causes damage over time and destroys them as anything over 90 is not safe for them long-term

Also no. The GPU is *not* at 100c, as that would kill it quite literally instantly. Thats way too hot. CPU? On some models, sure. And that's bad, but on the Pro models that have actually been refreshed (16" pro) thats not an issue at all. I would expect the 13/14" pro to follow suit when its refresh comes

 

13 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

If your laptop is in a humid room, the display connector shorts out the CPU data pin to the Display VID pin and sends up to 52 volts to the CPU, killing it instantly.

Hyporbole, it doesnt happen "in a humid room". It happens when you spill water on it. Is putting Display_VID right next to CPU data stupid? Yes. Will it happen while the machine is just sitting around on a humid day? No.

 

15 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

The Apple customer support on offer is utter shit and you will get quoted 300-1000$ for their design flaws even if it's not your fault

Not sure where you got those exact numbers from, but there is nothing unorthadox about charging a customer to fix a broken component. Now, if you press, you can get a direct line to the design team and try and talk some sense in to them about the issue. I know because I've done this with the 11 Pro displays.

 

 

OP, if you like macOS buy a mac. If you like windows, buy a nice windows laptop. I would personally sway towards macOS. As to why the spec/dollar looks way off on paper, its because theres a lot more than paper. macOS' software optimization is so much better than Windows' because Apple controls exactly what hardware the OS will run. Theres a reason a relatively modern dual core can edit 4k video under macOS. Also, do NOT buy the current 13" Macbook Pro. Its due for a refresh in the coming months that will be much better than its current iteration. 

[HardStoN]

4 hours ago, kelvinhall05 said:

Don't buy a Macbook if you don't NEED MacOS or are super deep into the Apple ecosystem.

 

 

As said above, Thinkpads are probably some of the best laptops you can buy today. I personally am a sucker for the X-series but most people find those too small, so I'd take a look at a X1 Carbon or a T-series if you want more IO.

Yeah but the price in X1 is god damn high lol

 

4 hours ago, schwellmo92 said:

What OS are you most familiar with? Go with that one.

Yeah now for sure after what 5x5 said i wont go with apple only windows

[kelvinhall05]

Just now, HardStoN said:

Yeah but the price in X1 is god damn high lol

What is your budget?

 

 

Get a last-gen one, half the reason to buy a Thinkpad is that there is a fucking enormous second-hand market for them and they tend to be pretty cheap (considering what you get).

[5x5]

1 minute ago, HardStoN said:

Yeah but the price in X1 is god damn high lol

The X1 and X series in general are very high end. You can get a ThinkPad T490 or T495 for much cheaper

[HardStoN]

9 hours ago, kelvinhall05 said:

What is your budget?

 

 

Get a last-gen one, half the reason to buy a Thinkpad is that there is a fucking enormous second-hand market for them and they tend to be pretty cheap (considering what you get).

My budget is top 1400$