Macbook, Chromebook or Windows Laptop?

[Pooherino ツ]

Before I begin, this post is all in Canadian dollars, so all the price seems a little off, but Canadian economy is pretty shit so yeah

 

So I've been looking for a laptop for so long now, but I haven't find one that satisfy me. I'm just a student and I want a laptop that I can work on, doing normal stuff like word processing and stuffs like that, but at the same time I want something that is premium and would last me a long time. So it came down to this

 

Option 1: save money and just use the ipad I have and borrow a Bluetooth keyboard from my brother and just use that for a month until the Apple keynote, when they will release the new macbook pro, because the current macbook pro is my favorite out of all the laptops that I looked that and I would use it for a long time, but since a new one is around the corner I just don't wanna invest so much money into a laptop and regretting it a month later, and then sell it and lose even more money. also I get student pricing for the macbook so instead of $1600 I get it for $1400

 

Option 2: commit to chrome os, and get a premium chromebook, which is the dell chromebook 13 with touchscreen, which is only $800, which is pretty cheap compare to the other options on this list. So I can save money and have a premium laptop at the same, but again I might regret it in the future cus I am not familiar to chrome os, and u might say why not just get a cheap $200 one, and the answer it I cant, because for some reason all the chromebooks in canada have bilingual french keyboard, which really pissed me off, especially on amazon.ca, where I ordered 2 acer chromebooks already and they both have french keyboard, but the description doesnt mention french keyboard, even the pics have regular english keyboard on it, but if I order directly from dell, it will for sure have english keyboard.

 

Option 3: Dell xps 13, Microsoft store is having a sale right now, for $300 off all the dell xps and other stuffs too. So I can get a 1080p non touch one for $1099, or or a QHD touch one for $1699 right now, and that is pretty amazing price, but I feel like I want mac os more, but idk cus the price is pretty attractive especially for the dell xps 13.

 

Thanks

 

[Pooherino ツ]

Just now, gFrenken97 said:

Many people will disagree but I recommend the MacBook, it's not the best bang for your buck but the premium build quality is just uncomparable and no Windows laptop has matched the amazing trackpad so far.

yeah I agree, I love the force touch trackpad, I think its the best thing apple have done for their macbook line

[Mikensan]

No way in my life would I spend $800 on a chromebook.

 

If you do not game, you don't need a dedicated graphics card so for a very nice Windows based laptop, you should be under $1,000ca even with a SSD. The XPS series are nice in my opinion, Dell like any other company has had their good years and their dark ages. I personally bought the Razer Blade 2014 and love it. Got it on sale when the 2015 model came out. 

 

MSI / Asus make nice laptops, those were my second choices.

 

As for the macbook, the macbook air would do everything you need it to. Macs break just as much as anything else out there, but it boils down to you being happy with what you spent your money on when you by a mac. Lot of Mac hardware (beyond the shell and power supply/brick) is shared between the PC world due to them switching over to Intel years ago. As for the operating system, it's not my personal choice but it is stable.

 

In terms of "looks" I think the macbook is very sexy. In terms of bang for your buck - PC. In terms of reliability, I would say there are PC vendors more reliable than Mac, and I would say that the MacOS has more stability but could easily fail based on what you do just as much as windows would fail. In terms of throwing away money, chromebook (just stick with your ipad and keyboard).

[ShadyHost]

10 minutes ago, gFrenken97 said:

Many people will disagree but I recommend the MacBook, it's not the best bang for your buck but the premium build quality is just uncomparable and no Windows laptop has ever matched the amazing trackpad, especially now that they are using Force Touch.

 

8 minutes ago, Pooherino ツ said:

yeah I agree, I love the force touch trackpad, I think its the best thing apple have done for their macbook line

 

2 years ago I would have agreed with you. I was shopping for a laptop recently and I considered getting another Macbook (to replace my late 2011 13")

 

When I bought the Macbook in 2011 it was by far the best build quality. Today, for the same or less money, you actually CAN buy a Windows laptop with the same build quality with 2x or even 3x better specs. The new Retina Macbooks are purely amazing but you can also buy a Netbook-like Windows laptop for $900 with a freaking 4K screen. 

 

The value simply isn't there anymore. As much as it pains me I suggest going to your local Microsoft store and play around with some of the laptops they have on display there. Unless you're a millionaire with lots of money to waste I don't suggest buying it from the Microsoft store. Get the part number and search it on Amazon or whatever online retailer you prefer. 

[Pooherino ツ]

10 minutes ago, ShadyHost said:

 

 

2 years ago I would have agreed with you. I was shopping for a laptop recently and I considered getting another Macbook (to replace my late 2011 13")

 

When I bought the Macbook in 2011 it was by far the best build quality. Today, for the same or less money, you actually CAN buy a Windows laptop with the same build quality with 2x or even 3x better specs. The new Retina Macbooks are purely amazing but you can also buy a Netbook-like Windows laptop for $900 with a freaking 4K screen. 

 

The value simply isn't there anymore. As much as it pains me I suggest going to your local Microsoft store and play around with some of the laptops they have on display there. Unless you're a millionaire with lots of money to waste I don't suggest buying it from the Microsoft store. Get the part number and search it on Amazon or whatever online retailer you prefer. 

actually idk about the states but amazon.ca is extremely shit in term of laptops, I love amazon.ca and I buy stuff from there a lot but they have the worst pricing for laptop. Microsoft store is having a sale right now thats why I would buy it from there

[Pooherino ツ]

13 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

No way in my life would I spend $800 on a chromebook.

 

If you do not game, you don't need a dedicated graphics card so for a very nice Windows based laptop, you should be under $1,000ca even with a SSD. The XPS series are nice in my opinion, Dell like any other company has had their good years and their dark ages. I personally bought the Razer Blade 2014 and love it. Got it on sale when the 2015 model came out. 

 

MSI / Asus make nice laptops, those were my second choices.

 

As for the macbook, the macbook air would do everything you need it to. Macs break just as much as anything else out there, but it boils down to you being happy with what you spent your money on when you by a mac. Lot of Mac hardware (beyond the shell and power supply/brick) is shared between the PC world due to them switching over to Intel years ago. As for the operating system, it's not my personal choice but it is stable.

 

In terms of "looks" I think the macbook is very sexy. In terms of bang for your buck - PC. In terms of reliability, I would say there are PC vendors more reliable than Mac, and I would say that the MacOS has more stability but could easily fail based on what you do just as much as windows would fail. In terms of throwing away money, chromebook (just stick with your ipad and keyboard).

Oh sorry, but when I say I want it for a long time I didnt mean it gonna break, I just mean I wanna keep it and not replacing it everytime something new comes out. Also if a mac breaks I can bring it to an apple store and they will replace it for me with a refurbished one.

[ShadyHost]

Just now, Pooherino ツ said:

actually idk about the states but amazon.ca is extremely shit in term of laptops, I love amazon.ca and I buy stuff from there a lot but they have the worst pricing for laptop. Microsoft store is having a sale right now thats why I would buy it from there

Amazon US is beyond amazing on pricing compared to the physical stores. I usually shop in store and then buy online when possible. 

 

I used this one the other day in the Microsoft store. http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/ASUS-ZenBook-UX305CA-UHM4T-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.328071100

[Pooherino ツ]

1 minute ago, ShadyHost said:

Amazon US is beyond amazing on pricing compared to the physical stores. I usually shop in store and then buy online when possible. 

 

I used this one the other day in the Microsoft store. http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/ASUS-ZenBook-UX305CA-UHM4T-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.328071100

yeah not amazon.ca lol, but i meant the online microsoft store, the physical microsoft store is so freaking stupid, it actually just a waste of time and it piss me off. you can never check stock online, even if you call them, and you cant even call the physical store, you can only call the microsoft center. one time I drove 45 mins to the nearest microsoft store, and they dont even have what I wanted in stock, and the wont give me student pricing either, the original price of the item is $1999, it was "on sale" for $1899, but if u apply 10% student pricing to the original price, you save another $100, cus the price will be $1799

[ShadyHost]

11 minutes ago, Pooherino ツ said:

yeah not amazon.ca lol, but i meant the online microsoft store, the physical microsoft store is so freaking stupid, it actually just a waste of time and it piss me off. you can never check stock online, even if you call them, and you cant even call the physical store, you can only call the microsoft center. one time I drove 45 mins to the nearest microsoft store, and they dont even have what I wanted in stock, and the wont give me student pricing either, the original price of the item is $1999, it was "on sale" for $1899, but if u apply 10% student pricing to the original price, you save another $100, cus the price will be $1799

I like the new stores but dealing with Micro$oft is a complete hassle. 

[Pooherino ツ]

48 minutes ago, ShadyHost said:

I like the new stores but dealing with Micro$oft is a complete hassle. 

Yeah, honestly I would prefer Bestbuy over microsoft but bestbuy doesnt have a lot of options, and apple store is just so much better

[Mikensan]

if you have money burning a hole in your pocket: http://www.razerzone.com/ca-en/store/razer-blade

Honestly if you want a laptop that won't be outdated, a skylake i5 with 16gb of ram and a SSD and you're set for at least 5 years. I have another laptop that's a 2009 i7 with 6gb and a SSD, still very much a viable laptop - just not a gaming laptop. (Toshiba)

[SansVarnic]

Windows laptop. Everybody pretty much covered the basics so I don't have much more to add.

[Pooherino ツ]

1 minute ago, Mikensan said:

if you have money burning a hole in your pocket: http://www.razerzone.com/ca-en/store/razer-blade

Honestly if you want a laptop that won't be outdated, a skylake i5 with 16gb of ram and a SSD and you're set for at least 5 years. I have another laptop that's a 2009 i7 with 6gb and a SSD, still very much a viable laptop - just not a gaming laptop. (Toshiba)

but you're missing the point, this whole time you're keep talking about gaming, I dont game, I grew out of that phase already, I am not looking for a gaming laptop, if you look in my signature, I have a pretty high end pc that I built and I barely game on it anymore, cus i dont have time for it and none of the options that i listed have a dedicated gpu in it, so idk where you got the mentality of gaming from. I am looking for an ultrabook with good battery life, premium design, nice screen and keyboard. something that i will feel comfortable working on for the next 2 years. And the razer is $3500, and a macbook or dell is only $1500, Im not gonna drop so much money on a laptop I wanna save money to buy a car, but im not gonna waste money on shitty low end laptops. But I made my decision anyways, ill use the ipad until next macbook pro comes out next month

[Pooherino ツ]

10 minutes ago, Mantayd17 said:

False, the 15" uses high end quad-core mobile processors, it eventually sports a dGPU tuned to support Metal, 16 GB of RAM as stock, PCIe Flash storage, amazing and sturdy build quality. The hell you can get 2x or 3x better performance for the same price, and the same applies to its smaller siblings, that's just fanboying at its best.

MacBook Air aside, what's the point of having a 4K display in a 13" fashion? None, just asking the laptop more power to drive the display and those pixels for no real benefit. Once you reach a high enough DPI to not distinguish individual pixel, there's no real point of going any further if not for saying "hey, mine has it bigger!".

yeah you have a good point, also 4k screen on a netbook is just gonna drain battery life

[Techie3195]

8 hours ago, gFrenken97 said:

Many people will disagree but I recommend the MacBook, it's not the best bang for your buck but the premium build quality is just uncomparable and no Windows laptop has ever matched the amazing trackpad, especially now that they are using Force Touch.

Unfortunately, as can be seen with the HTC one m9, sometimes excellent build quality and one major feauture isn't always enough. If it is ludicrously expensive and doesn't have the greatest functionality then it's not really worth it. I would recommend a number of Lenovo laptops with Windows 8 over any MacBook, but it does depend on your preference. If you're willing to spend the extra money and like the OS enough to buy it then go ahead, but I would recommmend Windows due to the accessability and the usability.

[AnnoyedShelf]

8 hours ago, Pooherino ツ said:

Before I begin, this post is all in Canadian dollars, so all the price seems a little off, but Canadian economy is pretty shit so yeah

 

So I've been looking for a laptop for so long now, but I haven't find one that satisfy me. I'm just a student and I want a laptop that I can work on, doing normal stuff like word processing and stuffs like that, but at the same time I want something that is premium and would last me a long time. So it came down to this

 

Option 1: save money and just use the ipad I have and borrow a Bluetooth keyboard from my brother and just use that for a month until the Apple keynote, when they will release the new macbook pro, because the current macbook pro is my favorite out of all the laptops that I looked that and I would use it for a long time, but since a new one is around the corner I just don't wanna invest so much money into a laptop and regretting it a month later, and then sell it and lose even more money. also I get student pricing for the macbook so instead of $1600 I get it for $1400

 

Option 2: commit to chrome os, and get a premium chromebook, which is the dell chromebook 13 with touchscreen, which is only $800, which is pretty cheap compare to the other options on this list. So I can save money and have a premium laptop at the same, but again I might regret it in the future cus I am not familiar to chrome os, and u might say why not just get a cheap $200 one, and the answer it I cant, because for some reason all the chromebooks in canada have bilingual french keyboard, which really pissed me off, especially on amazon.ca, where I ordered 2 acer chromebooks already and they both have french keyboard, but the description doesnt mention french keyboard, even the pics have regular english keyboard on it, but if I order directly from dell, it will for sure have english keyboard.

 

Option 3: Dell xps 13, Microsoft store is having a sale right now, for $300 off all the dell xps and other stuffs too. So I can get a 1080p non touch one for $1099, or or a QHD touch one for $1699 right now, and that is pretty amazing price, but I feel like I want mac os more, but idk cus the price is pretty attractive especially for the dell xps 13.

 

Thanks

 

I say go for a Clevo.  You don't have to get anything crazy, but they're super high quality, and they're incredibly reliable.

[Mikensan]

6 hours ago, Pooherino ツ said:

but you're missing the point, this whole time you're keep talking about gaming, I dont game, I grew out of that phase already, I am not looking for a gaming laptop, if you look in my signature, I have a pretty high end pc that I built and I barely game on it anymore, cus i dont have time for it and none of the options that i listed have a dedicated gpu in it, so idk where you got the mentality of gaming from. I am looking for an ultrabook with good battery life, premium design, nice screen and keyboard. something that i will feel comfortable working on for the next 2 years. And the razer is $3500, and a macbook or dell is only $1500, Im not gonna drop so much money on a laptop I wanna save money to buy a car, but im not gonna waste money on shitty low end laptops. But I made my decision anyways, ill use the ipad until next macbook pro comes out next month

Sorry if I upset you, the razer was more of a tongue in cheek link. My first reply was about non-gaming so I thought it was implied. But I did mean what I said: look for an i5 skylake w/ 16gb of ram and a ssd and it would last you for a good long while. 

 

That's good you made your decision and are content with it. At the end of the day that's all that matters - you're happy with what you spent your money on.

[Pooherino ツ]

1 hour ago, Mikensan said:

Sorry if I upset you, the razer was more of a tongue in cheek link. My first reply was about non-gaming so I thought it was implied. But I did mean what I said: look for an i5 skylake w/ 16gb of ram and a ssd and it would last you for a good long while. 

 

That's good you made your decision and are content with it. At the end of the day that's all that matters - you're happy with what you spent your money on.

nah u didnt upset me, thanks tho

[Dackzy]

Lenovo thinkpad T450s or something like that, they are way way better build than any macbook and I like the keyboard and mousepad more on a thinkpad.