New Laptop, help needed!

[Sinnamon]

I am looking to buy a laptop for university (PhD research). I've used windows/android all my life and have not been a big fan of apple/mac but in recent years, they seem to have taken over quite a bit in terms of performance. I'm looking to make the purchase in the next couple of weeks, so even though the ryzen ai max chips look promising, waiting is not really an option (and the devices look to be priced very similarly to the M4 pricing with similar performance). Since gaming is not a focus at all a laptop with a dedicated GPU is not necessary as my workflows are also >95% CPU only tasks.

 

I checked whether the programs I use also run on apple silicon/macOS and they do, so that should also be fine, in some cases even better/easier to implement than windows due to the unix kernel (yes linux subsystem for windows is a workaround). Further I have the option to move to a beefy workstation, use my windows PC at home, or run things on the cluster should I run into any compatibility issues/spec constraints.

 

I am currently deciding between two laptops:

 

ThinkPad P14s Gen 5 (14" Intel)

Specs: *IMPORTANT* : RAM and SSD are configured to the minimum here, I plan on doing the upgrades myself as Lenovo charges quite high amounts. With 96GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD I am looking at around 2050 CHF here.

• Processor: Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 185H vPro® Processor (E-cores up to 3.80 GHz P-cores up to 5.10 GHz)
• Operating System: No Operating Systemselected upgrade
• Operating System Language: No Operating System Languageselected upgrade
• Microsoft Productivity Software: No Microsoft Office
• Memory: 16 GB DDR5-5600MT/s (SODIMM)selected upgrade
• Solid State Drive: 256 GB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 TLC Opalselected upgrade
• Display: 14.5" 3K (3072 x 1920), IPS, Anti-Glare, Non-Touch, 100%DCI-P3, 430 nits, 120Hz
• Graphic Card: Integrated Graphicsselected upgrade
• Camera: 5MP RGB+IR with Microphone
• Color: Black
• Wireless: Intel® Wi-Fi 6E AX211 2x2 AX vPro® & Bluetooth® 5.1 (Windows 10) or Bluetooth® 5.3 (Windows 11)
• System Expansion Slots: Smart Card Readerselected upgrade
• Fingerprint Reader: Fingerprint Reader
• Keyboard: Backlit, Black with Smart Card Reader - English (EU)selected upgrade
• First Graphic Dongle: No Graphics Dongle
• Second Graphic Dongle : No Graphics Dongle
• Ethernet Dongle: No Ethernet Dongle
• Battery: 3 Cell Li-Polymer 75Whselected upgrade
• Power Cord: 135W USB-C Slim 90% PCC 3pin AC Adapter - Switzerlandselected upgrade

 

The other option would be the M4 Pro 14c/20g 14" Macbook Pro with 48GB memory and 512GB/1TB SSD which would run me 2360/2535 CHF, respectively.

 

Do you have any advice on how to go about the selection? A lot of tasks are single threaded (R studio analysis) where the Macbook would have the advantage due to the faster CPU and higher memory bandwidth. While parallelizing is possible in some cases RAM usually becomes the constraint where this would shift slightly in favor of the lenovo machine...

 

Beyond university, for things like travel and some light video editing in davinci resolve studio I think the macbook would also do a much better job from a performance and battery life perspective.

 

Really look forward to hearing your advice and whether I maybe forgot to consider something! Also if you have any other machine recommendations I would be very interested in hearing them!

Thanks a lot!

[jaslion]

2 minutes ago, Sinnamon said:

ThinkPad P14s Gen 5 (14" Intel)

Specs: *IMPORTANT* : RAM and SSD are configured to the minimum here, I plan on doing the upgrades myself as Lenovo charges quite high amounts. With 96GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD I am looking at around 2050 CHF here.

• Processor: Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 185H vPro® Processor (E-cores up to 3.80 GHz P-cores up to 5.10 GHz)

Literally uncoolable. This is a thin and light. It can max temp on an i5. This is gonna run like dogshit. The cooler is made for 35w cpu's it cant handle a 45-115w cpu. Hell it doesn't even allow the core i9 to run to it's max power anyway as this laptop is power limited.

 

What are the actual tasks it needs to fullfill? Because you list university phd but not actually what it needs to do?

 

 

[Sinnamon]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

What are the actual tasks it needs to fullfill? Because you list university phd but not actually what it needs to do?

Good point, mainly bioinformatics e.g. transcriptomics, image analysis etc.

Main cinstraint currently is single core performance and ram on my old xps.

 

Wasn't aware of the power limit, thanks for pointing it out, so that would sway me in the direction of the MBP for performance reasons.

[jaslion]

35 minutes ago, Sinnamon said:

Main cinstraint currently is single core performance and ram on my old xps.

Whats its specs? Depending on age single core hasnt gone up a lot.

 

Image analysis can need gpu so depending on that a shift may need to happen.

 

Staying on x86 is also a safer bet for program comaptibility.

 

Id also just have a look at current ryzen hx 370 laptops. They are performant and out right now.

[Sinnamon]

As I said, many people in the lab and institute have macbooks, program compatibility is not a concern, everything I need to use runs on either windows or mac and I can move to windows PCs if necessary. My main goal is simply do not hoard the workstations and to be able to do some stuff when away at e.g. conferences/travelling/commuting/away from my desk. So performance and battery life are key.

31 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Whats its specs?

i7-8550U is the CPU, so since then quite an uplift  (regardless of the system I go with)

[jaslion]

56 minutes ago, Sinnamon said:

As I said, many people in the lab and institute have macbooks, program compatibility is not a concern, everything I need to use runs on either windows or mac and I can move to windows PCs if necessary. My main goal is simply do not hoard the workstations and to be able to do some stuff when away at e.g. conferences/travelling/commuting/away from my desk. So performance and battery life are key.

i7-8550U is the CPU, so since then quite an uplift  (regardless of the system I go with)

Aha very good info. Then a mac is attractive or on of the current hx370 laptops as thats a coolable cpu

[Commodus]

4 hours ago, Sinnamon said:

I am looking to buy a laptop for university (PhD research). I've used windows/android all my life and have not been a big fan of apple/mac but in recent years, they seem to have taken over quite a bit in terms of performance. I'm looking to make the purchase in the next couple of weeks, so even though the ryzen ai max chips look promising, waiting is not really an option (and the devices look to be priced very similarly to the M4 pricing with similar performance). Since gaming is not a focus at all a laptop with a dedicated GPU is not necessary as my workflows are also >95% CPU only tasks.

 

I checked whether the programs I use also run on apple silicon/macOS and they do, so that should also be fine, in some cases even better/easier to implement than windows due to the unix kernel (yes linux subsystem for windows is a workaround). Further I have the option to move to a beefy workstation, use my windows PC at home, or run things on the cluster should I run into any compatibility issues/spec constraints.

 

I am currently deciding between two laptops:

 

ThinkPad P14s Gen 5 (14" Intel)

Specs: *IMPORTANT* : RAM and SSD are configured to the minimum here, I plan on doing the upgrades myself as Lenovo charges quite high amounts. With 96GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD I am looking at around 2050 CHF here.

• Processor: Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 185H vPro® Processor (E-cores up to 3.80 GHz P-cores up to 5.10 GHz)
• Operating System: No Operating Systemselected upgrade
• Operating System Language: No Operating System Languageselected upgrade
• Microsoft Productivity Software: No Microsoft Office
• Memory: 16 GB DDR5-5600MT/s (SODIMM)selected upgrade
• Solid State Drive: 256 GB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 TLC Opalselected upgrade
• Display: 14.5" 3K (3072 x 1920), IPS, Anti-Glare, Non-Touch, 100%DCI-P3, 430 nits, 120Hz
• Graphic Card: Integrated Graphicsselected upgrade
• Camera: 5MP RGB+IR with Microphone
• Color: Black
• Wireless: Intel® Wi-Fi 6E AX211 2x2 AX vPro® & Bluetooth® 5.1 (Windows 10) or Bluetooth® 5.3 (Windows 11)
• System Expansion Slots: Smart Card Readerselected upgrade
• Fingerprint Reader: Fingerprint Reader
• Keyboard: Backlit, Black with Smart Card Reader - English (EU)selected upgrade
• First Graphic Dongle: No Graphics Dongle
• Second Graphic Dongle : No Graphics Dongle
• Ethernet Dongle: No Ethernet Dongle
• Battery: 3 Cell Li-Polymer 75Whselected upgrade
• Power Cord: 135W USB-C Slim 90% PCC 3pin AC Adapter - Switzerlandselected upgrade

 

The other option would be the M4 Pro 14c/20g 14" Macbook Pro with 48GB memory and 512GB/1TB SSD which would run me 2360/2535 CHF, respectively.

 

Do you have any advice on how to go about the selection? A lot of tasks are single threaded (R studio analysis) where the Macbook would have the advantage due to the faster CPU and higher memory bandwidth. While parallelizing is possible in some cases RAM usually becomes the constraint where this would shift slightly in favor of the lenovo machine...

 

Beyond university, for things like travel and some light video editing in davinci resolve studio I think the macbook would also do a much better job from a performance and battery life perspective.

 

Really look forward to hearing your advice and whether I maybe forgot to consider something! Also if you have any other machine recommendations I would be very interested in hearing them!

Thanks a lot!

Between the two, absolutely the MacBook.

 

First-gen Core Ultra chips will be much slower; even second-gen lags behind.  You're definitely right that the Mac would be faster in key cases.

 

One very important consideration is performance on battery. Second-gen Core Ultra chips don't lose much, but that's not what that Lenovo machine has, and the performance is still behind what Apple offers. You want the MacBook if you're going to be doing a lot of your work away from a charger.

 

I'm actually trying a ROG Flow Z13 right now. It's fast as hell, particularly if you're looking for detachable tablets, but the fans kick up often and battery life is the pits (we're talking 3-4 hours in real use, 10 hours max). I'd rather go for an M4 Pro-based MacBook Pro and have something that can last a whole day with moderate workflows and doesn't sound quite so much like a jet taking off.

[Sinnamon]

On 2/26/2025 at 4:44 PM, Commodus said:

Between the two, absolutely the MacBook.

 

First-gen Core Ultra chips will be much slower; even second-gen lags behind.  You're definitely right that the Mac would be faster in key cases.

 

One very important consideration is performance on battery. Second-gen Core Ultra chips don't lose much, but that's not what that Lenovo machine has, and the performance is still behind what Apple offers. You want the MacBook if you're going to be doing a lot of your work away from a charger.

 

I'm actually trying a ROG Flow Z13 right now. It's fast as hell, particularly if you're looking for detachable tablets, but the fans kick up often and battery life is the pits (we're talking 3-4 hours in real use, 10 hours max). I'd rather go for an M4 Pro-based MacBook Pro and have something that can last a whole day with moderate workflows and doesn't sound quite so much like a jet taking off.

Thanks a lot for the advice, I think I'll pull the trigger on the macbook then. Also could not find a good hx370 laptop thats <15"...

Also prices on the new ryzen chips look to be right up there (or higher when you look at >32GB RAM) with apple and I dont think they'll beat apple in productivity unfortunately, GPU and gaming for sure though, but thats not what im looking for.