New Laptop

[ThatGuy]

I apologize in advance for how long this post is going to be. I want to get a laptop as I am starting university in September. To give a bit of use case and background knowledge, I am going to school for business, so most of my use will be paper writing and such things.

 

Now on the flip side to that, I do own a small media production company. Through my company we do photo, video, and web design work. I have an editing machine that I built and use at home, so the laptop I get won't be my main source of work. I would however like to get one that has enough power behind it that if I have any off time, I can do some timeline editing or photo work, but rendering isn't a concern. I use the Adobe Creative Cloud software, so my projects are saved to the cloud and I can open them on any computer that has adobe on it, So I would be doing minor editing work on the laptop, but handle the rendering and mastering on the editing machine.

 

I want to keep the laptop price as close to $1000 USD. I am also looking for a laptop that is around 13 inches. I would be willing to get a 15 inch, but I'd prefer the smaller size.

 

Now I know this is an unfavorable opinion, but I am honestly leaning toward getting a 13 inch retina macbook pro. My main reason are I am becoming more and more unhappy with Microsoft and their business. I also had a very very bad experience with their customer support regarding a surface pro my dad purchased. I have had nothing but good experiences with apple's customer support, and I like the financing options. You can pay it off in any payments you want over 18 months, with no interest. Not bad for a broke college student. I also obviously like the screen resolution on the macbook as well.

 

Some of the other laptops I'm looking at are the asus taichi, the zenbook prime ux31A (second choice behind macbook) and a lenovo ideapad. Some of my main questions about laptops are; is there a notable difference between the ultrabook i5 and i7s? Should I wait for haswell before shopping, and when will those start to hit the market? I'm not too impressed with the current systems scheduled to get haswell. The only one I like the look of so far is the Zenbook Infinity, and I don't know what that will be like entirely until it's actually released.

 

So on that note, any suggestions, comments, tips? Any personal experiences or similar use cases? Seriously anything you guys can tell me would be great. Thanks for sticking with me through this!

 

Edit: I broke this up into paragraphs for easier reading

[MegaDave91]

Can you break it into paragraphs?

[Joeytyndale]

For what you want, as much as I hate to admit it, the Macbook pro is probably the best option. If you can afford it. As and alternative I'd recommend Lenovo as I've had a Lenovo g560 since 2009 and I also do video, photo and web design work on it, and it's my main machine (I badly need to upgrade) but for what you want the newer models would keep up pretty well in my opinion. 

[ThatGuy]

Yeah the macbook is a solid machine, its just, well apple. If anyone else has any more opinions I'd love to hear them! Multiple outlooks are never bad!

[WoodenMarker]

Yeah the macbook is a solid machine, its just, well apple. If anyone else has any more opinions I'd love to hear them! Multiple outlooks are never bad!

The macbook or any of the thinkpad series are good. 

For the i5 vs i7 ultrabook, the only difference is the ease of editing larger projects. It's up to you if it's worth the extra money for a bit of a smoother experience.

[Snake]

I would zen book but wait for haswell to ship seeing as you will get a lot better battery life. 

[ThatGuy]

Any idea on the release date of the haswell ultrabooks?

[criso8]

Any idea on the release date of the haswell ultrabooks?

They should be rolling out shortly I think. Probably a month or two. There are a few out already.

[Dudenstein]

They should be rolling out shortly I think. Probably a month or two. There are a few out already.

 

Any idea on the release date of the haswell ultrabooks?

I wanna say that the major gamebreaking ones will be coming out around Windows 8.1 around October ish I think. It's just a shot in the dark that my gut is telling me. 

[kirashi]

Yeah the macbook is a solid machine, its just, well apple. If anyone else has any more opinions I'd love to hear them! Multiple outlooks are never bad!

Oh c'mon, do you really want to be @ThatGuy? Wait... now that didn't work. Oops. :P

 

Seriously speaking though, I'll have to throw my two bits in and say that myself for schooling would probably go with either the MacBook Pro Retina 13.3 inch, ASUS ZenBook Prime (been eyeing this ever since it was announced last year), or something from Lenovo's mid-to-high end range that still keeps it light and slim. Main reasons behind my recommendations would be the support and service you'd expect (and generally receive) from all 3 companies when you buy their higher end models, and to keep things nice and light.

 

Ideally I'd go with the ZenBook Prime with Windows 7 if you can still get one, or install yourself, but that's simply because of compatibility of games, alongside my software I use for web design and coding. I definitely hear where you're coming from in regards to the whole Microsoft fiasco, as I work in electronic retail sales, but I really think it's a tossup for you depending on what you prefer, because from the sounds of your needs, both systems would run the software you require fine.