Alternative to Mac Book Pro

[Guille.R]

Hi everyone, I need a laptop for typing, browsing, answering emails… Normal office work but specially writing. I want a 13 inch or even 14 (not more) lightweight laptop. I’ve been using a 2013 Retina 13 MacBook Pro, and now i don’t know if continuing with MacBook Pro m2 13 or 14, changing to MacBook Air, or changing to windows. If I change to windows I was thinking on something like HP Dragonfly Elite (the problem is the price) maybe the Dragonfly Pro, but I would like to have proper I/O, other option may be the XPS 13, (not the 2 in 1, the normal one). Since I love the project of framework I’ve considered purchasing one of those but I’m a little concerned about battery life. The requirements for my new laptop will be: as much battery life as possible (6 hours minimum i would 8 or even 10, I want to be able to use all day with charging it once, my Mac now does about 2h so almost ent thing would be a huge upgrade. For ram 16Gb will be fine and I would prefer it to not be soldered but I accept it probably will be. For SSD I would like it to be 512Gb or 1Tb and better if it’s upgradable. For the CPU I don’t need a lot but I want it to open multiple apps fast and manage to do multiple tasks at once, I personally prefer AMD ones but I don’t really care (I was thinking of Ryzen 7 or Core i7 although and i5 or Ryzen 5 probably would work). I do have big requirements for the display: I don’t need or want 4K but rather 1600p or something like that, I would like 16:10 or even 3:2 but 16:9 is also fine, I would like at least 300 nits but more is always better, and I don’t really know what type of panel should I chose my display now is IPS and I love it but OLEDs are also grate so any of both works for me. The next thing are speakers, webcam and microphone, I don’t really care about speakers and I would like the webcam to be the best it can be but is not one of my main priorities. I have also been a little concerned about the size of the power brick because Mac one is pretty compact and on a lot of windows devices is huge and really heavy. Finally one of my main concerns is the keyboard because since I will be typing on it a lot of hours every day I need it to be as good as possible, and the same with the trackpad, I really love the Mac keyboard so I would like it to be as similar a possible to it. Also I have heard that Mac have more lifetime than windows devices and I would like it to last 10+ years or so… Thank all of you a lot and sorry for this huge text

[mMontana]

@Guille.R thanks for detailed explaining. A bit more "returns" would help to feel less lost between all your necessities and experience.

 

Firsts things firsts: I am totally not Apple fan. Quite the opposite.

And I don't like at all current path of upgrade from Apple products (you buy, than throw away). But you're having the experience of a 10 years old Mac. However, currently the efficiency of M2 SoC from Apple are quite hard to reach from any other X64 producer. Really. So... you're really sure you want to leave Cupertino?

 

Solely insanable defects of Apple products are:

• not best keyboard in the world as reliabilty, however better than former butterfly, yet still short course
• upgradeability (which is none)
• price  (Apple don't want to be cheap in any way)
• accessories (on which apple want to put feet, hand, and pickpocket money from resellers)

For PC world, I'd happily give away sleekness and style of Dragonfly for... better repairability, future expandability, tougher structure.

In HP world, I would look into Elitebook range, for Dell the Latitude range, and... I'd solidly look into Lenovo Thinkpad range. 

Look all over the internet: Thinkpad keyboard is an experience (good one) on it's own about consistency, reliability, force used, layout. (I am a pro-ISO layout, but Lenovo think provide both).

 

Business lines range from cheap chunky employee laptop fleet to upper managament sleek and thin products. Most of the times, without the fancy of design/flamboyant look of Dragonfly. Usually with better upgreadability.

 

 

 

 

[manikyath]

staying in the HP product line, for each one below other brand options exist:

- HP EliteBook (basicly the "office critter premium option")

- HP ProBook (less premium flavour of above)

- HP Envy X360 (VERY home user in comparison, but the x360 formfactor is just factually best.)

 

on the HP EliteBook side of things specificly, HP REALLY wants those things to be repairable, because they're sold with an actually insane on-site warranty, so they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they cant just send a tech out to replace a part on your laptop.. and if their tech can, so can you.

[Darkseth]

Wait untill Apple announces the M3 Macs, and get that one. Will be even faster and more efficient than current Macs, and maybe they might upgrade the 8gb Base Ram to 12 or so.

Probably even more batterylife on the Air.

 

My M1 Macbook Pro 13" did 20 hours on basic Office stuff, that's insane.

 

The current Macbook Airs are basicly perfect for you.

They are high quality, best trackpad, great Display and speakers, great Keyboard, they are very very fast and snappy in everyday workload and have a great batterylife.

Current m2 Air can do like 14-15 hours batterylife with doing basic tasks.

You might do 2 full Days without charging. When you're done, just close the lid, it consumes almost no energy. You never need to boot, it's always ready.

and despite it beeing so snappy, it doesn't have a fan, and stays silent and quite cool.

 

Windows does have some options, but nothing will come close to what a Macbook Air can do (speed & Batterylife & lack of fan noise and heat). And those that do, aren't cheaper.

 

Make your decision based on if you want to stick to MacOS, or rather use Windows.

If you want to switch, i would prefer Ryzen 6000 or 7000. 7000 with at le ast Zen3+ technology (7000 series can have Zen2, Zen3, Zen3+ and Zen4).

 

Just let me tell you, Apple Silicon Mac is a whole other Experience than Intel macs were.

[Kvores Daniel]

On 9/2/2023 at 7:46 PM, Darkseth said:

Wait untill Apple announces the M3 Macs, and get that one. Will be even faster and more efficient than current Macs, and maybe they might upgrade the 8gb Base Ram to 12 or so.

Probably even more batterylife on the Air.

 

My M1 Macbook Pro 13" did 20 hours on basic Office stuff, that's insane.

 

The current Macbook Airs are basicly perfect for you.

They are high quality, best trackpad, great Display and speakers, great Keyboard, they are very very fast and snappy in everyday workload and have a great batterylife.

Current m2 Air can do like 14-15 hours batterylife with doing basic tasks.

You might do 2 full Days without charging. When you're done, just close the lid, it consumes almost no energy. You never need to boot, it's always ready.

and despite it beeing so snappy, it doesn't have a fan, and stays silent and quite cool.

 

Windows does have some options, but nothing will come close to what a Macbook Air can do (speed & Batterylife & lack of fan noise and heat). And those that do, aren't cheaper.

 

Make your decision based on if you want to stick to MacOS, or rather use Windows.

If you want to switch, i would prefer Ryzen 6000 or 7000. 7000 with at le ast Zen3+ technology (7000 series can have Zen2, Zen3, Zen3+ and Zen4).

 

Just let me tell you, Apple Silicon Mac is a whole other Experience than Intel macs were.

I just wanted to quote this because it's my experience with my M2 MBP 13. It's simply the best laptop that I've ever owned, and in the last couple of months I've tried lots of them (Thinkpad T490, XMG Fusion 15, Surface Laptop 4, MacBook Air M1, Zephyrus G14 2020), and now the MacBook Pro M2, and I just love it.

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

The Razer Blades will be the closest thing to the MBP in form factor and price. However, the user experience won't be the same. It'll be just like any other windows laptop. Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra is also a close contender.

 

Every other windows laptop are more different than similar to the Macbooks.