Months long dillema about buying a laptop

[Munnki]

This is my first time purchasing a laptop, and together with some supply issues in my country (Poland), as in some laptops are not necessarily available or their prices are inflated due to low supply I do admit I am having some issues with my decision since I'm not necessarily sure what I'm going to need.

 

What I do/need:

I worked in game dev for almost 2 years until now, localization and later writing/narrative design (currently job hunting but likely to remain, however on a different position).

I do own a PC (mediumish level hardware, RX 480 Ryzen 5 2600), however I don't feel I need anything stronger, until now, an 2080ti from my job kept me company (had to return it unfortunately).

 

I plan to move over and start in game production, so a laptop that I can use anywhere, anytime seems reasonable.

I'm also finishing 2 master degrees right now (Covid kinda made it easy to finish these last exams), so I will probably write 2 separate papers for next 6 months.

I do photography, as in "artistic" kind, and sell a small amount of photo prints, so I do edit a bit. I hope to expand it tho.

I also need (at least needed to from time to time) to fire up some gaming dev tools or a media software, if it's something really heavy I would probably open it on a PC anyway, but I'm talking about medium loads of content able to be opened on a laptop.

I also write and read a lot in free time, so a good keyboard is very welcome.

I do short filmmaking with friend from film schools, so I am using the whole Adobe package and similar stuff including editing, rarely. I do not need a fast rendering machine tho, I can render it on a separate machine with no problems.

 

My current choices:

Macbook M1 Air:

• The display is phenomenal, and 99% DCI-P3 will come in handy while working with photos and media content, it is also an excellent cpu productivity workhorse. 
• I am a Windows guy for sure, however, my girlfriend own an Intel Mac Pro and I tend to use it rarely, I have no issue with different operating systems (I still own a PC).
• Keyboard and touchpad is great
• Battery is strong
• Small, light and sleak
• Can handle minor indie games or old games
• Doesn't lose performance while unplugged (I do know it thermal throttles while at 100% load for over 8 minutes)

 

HP Envy 13 x360:

• I tend to read a lot of PDFs, and like reading on a display as much as on paper, so a tablet mode is really a huge advantage for me
• Great keyboard and touchpad
• Dispaly relatively good, brightness and 100% sRGB is nice (if I needed a full DCI-P3 coverage I could just plug it in at home, but can't use it outside then)
• A similarly powerful to M1, ryzen 7 4700u cpu, with iGPU that can handle old games better than M1 (should I wait for 5th AMD generation Evnys?)
• Loses power while on battery (as all AMD laptops, so I heard)
• Same price as M1 in my country atm.

 

HP Pavilion Aero 13:

• Practically an Envy with Pavilion design
• Less expensive atm than Envy
• Better 5800u Ryzen CPU
• Similar display to Envy
• Good keyboard and touchpad
• Not so sleak as an Envy

 

Asus ROG Flow X13:

(Talking about R7-5800HS 3050ti 1080p model)

• A more powerful workhorse
• Still 13 inches with tablet mode
• Relatively sleak and slim
• The best GPU performance from my list, might come in handy when opening gpu intensive content, like 3D dev tools or animation previews
• The CPU might even be too strong for my laptop needs

 

Overall, I am also kinda fearful about some software not working on M1 Mac Airs, tho I won't use any specialist dev tools on a daily basis, I might just suffer through and open them everytime on my PC.

I think what I need is a powerful and small, content laptop. However, I am unable to make the final decision, that's why I wanted to write this post hoping someone might share their hardware and similar use cases and their experience.

Also the laptops mentioned above is my price range (it's a little more expensive in Poland due to taxes), I don't need a primary computer, just a second, portable one.

 

Sorry for such a long post, I am a newbie in such decisions.

[Commodus]

On 10/16/2021 at 9:31 AM, Munnki said:

This is my first time purchasing a laptop, and together with some supply issues in my country (Poland), as in some laptops are not necessarily available or their prices are inflated due to low supply I do admit I am having some issues with my decision since I'm not necessarily sure what I'm going to need.

 

What I do/need:

I worked in game dev for almost 2 years until now, localization and later writing/narrative design (currently job hunting but likely to remain, however on a different position).

I do own a PC (mediumish level hardware, RX 480 Ryzen 5 2600), however I don't feel I need anything stronger, until now, an 2080ti from my job kept me company (had to return it unfortunately).

 

I plan to move over and start in game production, so a laptop that I can use anywhere, anytime seems reasonable.

I'm also finishing 2 master degrees right now (Covid kinda made it easy to finish these last exams), so I will probably write 2 separate papers for next 6 months.

I do photography, as in "artistic" kind, and sell a small amount of photo prints, so I do edit a bit. I hope to expand it tho.

I also need (at least needed to from time to time) to fire up some gaming dev tools or a media software, if it's something really heavy I would probably open it on a PC anyway, but I'm talking about medium loads of content able to be opened on a laptop.

I also write and read a lot in free time, so a good keyboard is very welcome.

I do short filmmaking with friend from film schools, so I am using the whole Adobe package and similar stuff including editing, rarely. I do not need a fast rendering machine tho, I can render it on a separate machine with no problems.

 

My current choices:

Macbook M1 Air:

• The display is phenomenal, and 99% DCI-P3 will come in handy while working with photos and media content, it is also an excellent cpu productivity workhorse. 
• I am a Windows guy for sure, however, my girlfriend own an Intel Mac Pro and I tend to use it rarely, I have no issue with different operating systems (I still own a PC).
• Keyboard and touchpad is great
• Battery is strong
• Small, light and sleak
• Can handle minor indie games or old games
• Doesn't lose performance while unplugged (I do know it thermal throttles while at 100% load for over 8 minutes)

 

HP Envy 13 x360:

• I tend to read a lot of PDFs, and like reading on a display as much as on paper, so a tablet mode is really a huge advantage for me
• Great keyboard and touchpad
• Dispaly relatively good, brightness and 100% sRGB is nice (if I needed a full DCI-P3 coverage I could just plug it in at home, but can't use it outside then)
• A similarly powerful to M1, ryzen 7 4700u cpu, with iGPU that can handle old games better than M1 (should I wait for 5th AMD generation Evnys?)
• Loses power while on battery (as all AMD laptops, so I heard)
• Same price as M1 in my country atm.

 

HP Pavilion Aero 13:

• Practically an Envy with Pavilion design
• Less expensive atm than Envy
• Better 5800u Ryzen CPU
• Similar display to Envy
• Good keyboard and touchpad
• Not so sleak as an Envy

 

Asus ROG Flow X13:

(Talking about R7-5800HS 3050ti 1080p model)

• A more powerful workhorse
• Still 13 inches with tablet mode
• Relatively sleak and slim
• The best GPU performance from my list, might come in handy when opening gpu intensive content, like 3D dev tools or animation previews
• The CPU might even be too strong for my laptop needs

 

Overall, I am also kinda fearful about some software not working on M1 Mac Airs, tho I won't use any specialist dev tools on a daily basis, I might just suffer through and open them everytime on my PC.

I think what I need is a powerful and small, content laptop. However, I am unable to make the final decision, that's why I wanted to write this post hoping someone might share their hardware and similar use cases and their experience.

Also the laptops mentioned above is my price range (it's a little more expensive in Poland due to taxes), I don't need a primary computer, just a second, portable one.

 

Sorry for such a long post, I am a newbie in such decisions.

If we were simply talking about hardware, I'd pick the MacBook Air all day, every day. Better overall performance, better battery life, completely silent, actually gains power while on battery. It's a good choice for creative workflows.

 

However, the need for game development tools throws a wrench into the equation. If you're writing Windows games, you'll want a Windows PC. The Mac would only really fly if you were either working on cross-platform games or Apple-centric (iPhone/Mac) titles.

 

If you do need Windows, of those systems I'd go with the Envy. It's not the fastest, but the form factor and input more than make up for it.