Windows Laptops With MacBook Quality

Corn Flakes · March 20, 2023

Hello. I recently bought the MacBook Pro 16" M2 Max (38 Core/32 GB/1 TB). This is what I like about it: Battery Life, Nice Screen (love everything about it but it would have been nice to be a touch-screen and higher refresh rate), Build quality (feels sturdy), Stays COOL when surfacing the web and the fans don't kick on. When it's on my lap, it doesn’t get hot. The keyboard also feels very nice.

My question is if anyone has experience with using a Windows laptop with these qualities. Considering I spent around $3500 (USD) on the MacBook, that will be my budget. The reason for wanting a Windows laptop is because it's Windows. I bought the MacBook because I wanted to give it a try, love the hardware but not the software. My requirements are what I stated above (what I liked about the MacBook Pro) including portability (nothing too heavy). The latest hardware (13th gen and RTX 4000 series). I would also like to do some gaming but it isn’t a huge deal. A type-C charging option on the laptop would also be nice.

Yes, there are plenty of websites giving recommendations but I want to hear from actual people who have knowledge of it.

8tg · March 20, 2023

I think you have made the common misconception of viewing a MacBook Pro as a premium consumer laptop.

It is not a premium consumer laptop, but a low end professional laptop.

There are merits to mac without any shadow of a doubt, if what you do works best in OSX then their systems are the best option for you as a user. But when you start comparing the machines to other professional laptops of their class you start to see where the value in a closed ecosystem and macOS lies.

You’re talking about consumer tier hardware in a windows machine and that’s a different thing entirely. You want a light gaming laptop. Gigabyte Aero just across the board fits your bill. I would recommend the AMOLED based Aero 16, spec as needed up to the $3500 budget. It’s a god tier display in a competent and solid gaming laptop with decent enough battery life, though you won’t find anything that compares to the battery life of arm processors anywhere.

When you migrate over to professional hardware, Thinkpad X1 extreme starts at $3000 and it’s base model will hold up against the 16” MacBook Pro in performance, thermals and acoustics though not in battery life (again, arm raw advantage). And then you can configure it to kinda whatever you want performance wise.

Theres also the Lenovo P series to content with which is distinctly professional hardware, intel xeons and nvidia Quadros with ecc ram in a laptop meant to survive a nuclear bomb and look good doing it.
Even the Z series, as much as I personally hate it, is intentionally designed to compete with the MacBooks by being creator oriented devices with a lot of flashy features and a more consumer aesthetic design, and does a pretty good job of being that competition. I don’t like them, but if you like MacBooks for what they represent, a Z16 is basically the windows/Linux MacBook Pro.

Thats my stance, if you’re looking for a laptop on par with your MacBook Pro in the context of performance and material quality, thinkpad x1 series. If you want actual gaming performance, gigabyte aero.

And I recommend that mostly because while you can get machines on par with the MacBook Pro, being on par with it isn’t necessarily the best choice, because it’s a low end professional laptop, on par with that are other low end professional laptops.

Which is also the same price bracket of high end gaming laptops. There isn’t a best of both worlds without a sacrifice to some other qualities.

Corn Flakes · March 20, 2023

4 hours ago, 8tg said:

I think you have made the common misconception of viewing a MacBook Pro as a premium consumer laptop.

It is not a premium consumer laptop, but a low end professional laptop.

There are merits to mac without any shadow of a doubt, if what you do works best in OSX then their systems are the best option for you as a user. But when you start comparing the machines to other professional laptops of their class you start to see where the value in a closed ecosystem and macOS lies.

You’re talking about consumer tier hardware in a windows machine and that’s a different thing entirely. You want a light gaming laptop. Gigabyte Aero just across the board fits your bill. I would recommend the AMOLED based Aero 16, spec as needed up to the $3500 budget. It’s a god tier display in a competent and solid gaming laptop with decent enough battery life, though you won’t find anything that compares to the battery life of arm processors anywhere.

When you migrate over to professional hardware, Thinkpad X1 extreme starts at $3000 and it’s base model will hold up against the 16” MacBook Pro in performance, thermals and acoustics though not in battery life (again, arm raw advantage). And then you can configure it to kinda whatever you want performance wise.

Theres also the Lenovo P series to content with which is distinctly professional hardware, intel xeons and nvidia Quadros with ecc ram in a laptop meant to survive a nuclear bomb and look good doing it.
Even the Z series, as much as I personally hate it, is intentionally designed to compete with the MacBooks by being creator oriented devices with a lot of flashy features and a more consumer aesthetic design, and does a pretty good job of being that competition. I don’t like them, but if you like MacBooks for what they represent, a Z16 is basically the windows/Linux MacBook Pro.

Thats my stance, if you’re looking for a laptop on par with your MacBook Pro in the context of performance and material quality, thinkpad x1 series. If you want actual gaming performance, gigabyte aero.

And I recommend that mostly because while you can get machines on par with the MacBook Pro, being on par with it isn’t necessarily the best choice, because it’s a low end professional laptop, on par with that are other low end professional laptops.

Which is also the same price bracket of high end gaming laptops. There isn’t a best of both worlds without a sacrifice to some other qualities.

I want to say that I appreciate your response and will take what you said into full consideration when finding a windows laptop. And yes, I have to realize that compromises have to be made in some areas when buying a windows laptopn. Anyways, thankyou for your well thought out and professional response.