second-hand 2015 13"MBP for 1000$ ?

[A/C]

None to find, this macbook is the best deal I've found, besides an alienware m17x r3 with 2xSSD's for 800USD with an alienware bag, but its battery life is 2 hours max.

Also the topic is wether the macbook is worth buying or is there a better alternative for the money.

The thinkpads you've suggested are all way above the budget.

[don_svetlio]

None to find, this macbook is the best deal I've found, besides an alienware m17x r3 with 2xSSD's for 800USD with an alienware bag, but its battery life is 2 hours max.

Also the topic is wether the macbook is worth buying or is there a better alternative for the money.

The thinkpads you've suggested are all way above the budget.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Laptop-Carbon-GEN-2-i5-4200U-14-WQHD-WIN8-1-FPR-128GB-SSD-/121844614298?hash=item1c5e81449a:g:HcoAAOSweW5VB1OM

[siddharthk4498]

i have used every damn mac and windows os for the past 10 years. windows is pretty great but a macbook is much better for use as a laptop. i have a 2015 macbook pro 13" and i love it. it is just a no bullshit computer unlike a pc which works well when you are travelling and dont have to face any bugs. if you are really into word processing pages is a god send. and the macbook pro's keyboard is next to none. 

you don't even have to shut it down every time, i sometimes leave my macbook is sleep mode for like a week or more without much loss of battery.

seriously, get the macbook it is a steal. @a/c

[Philosobyte]

If the Thinkpad X1 Carbon is significantly cheaper, then I would suggest to go for it as well, although if you get a spare battery the price difference might close.

 

@don_svetlio

Price notwithstanding, the Macbook is still better in areas like case quality, audio quality, screen quality (100 nits brighter and more accurate), and battery life, at least when comparing these two reviews: 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-Ultrabook-Review.138033.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-MacBook-Pro-Retina-13-Early-2015-Notebook-Review.139621.0.html

We can obviously count the keyboard and tracking method on the Thinkpad as superior even though the keyboard/touchpad ratings are weird between the two Notebookcheck reviews. And, as expected, thermals/noise is better in the Thinkpad. 

The X1 Carbon is more expensive in the U.S. for the same processor/screen configuration as the Macbook Pro. 

[siddharthk4498]

plus it has amazing battery life and the pcie ssd is a pretty good deal. i know y-50 is great but it doesnt have the battery life of a macbook.

[asiancorruption]

i'd get the macbook because it doesn't have the 128ssd and it's way faster than any of the sata 3 drives in a lot of laptops these days. If you're down to use force touch that's also a really great feature. I use it on my 6s all the time. you already know it has great battery life, screen, build quality etc etc. osx is really gesture heavy, which I like. only problem is that a lot of shortcuts take an extra keystroke which is kinda annoying ( cmd + R to refresh instead of F5) so in my opinion, osx takes a backseat to win10 in terms of productivity, but other than that ,the macbook is a pretty good choice, even more for that price.  

[legopc]

Massive Thinkpad fan here (i own multiple). I think that for that price a 2015 macbook is great and it would fit what you want to do with it perfectly. I would say go for it.

[atrash]

If you think you can live with the non upgradeable 8GB ram down the line, I'd say go for it too. You can always upgrade the ssd or get the JetDrive sd card if you need more storage. OSX is very easy to learn trust me. 

[A/C]

Yeah I don't mind the 8gigs really, it's the minimum amount of RAM that I'd accept today, but it think it will do the job nicely. I don't do any video/photo editing or other creative stuff, I'm an insurance lawyer and most of my work I do on a really old desktop PC in my office. I've installed 4gb of DDR2 in it but it's an archaic dual-core Celeron with a 300GB 5400WD blue, and it gets the job done for my line of work...

 

But because of the nature of my work I sometimes travel to other cities to attend trials and sometimes I stay at hotels, so I appreciate the portability, battery life and the side cooling intakes (I feel like I can put it down on a bed and not be afraid of blocking the intakes, which is a case with most laptops).

 

I've got a Galaxy note pro 12.2" tablet which I'm using currently for media consumption, but it's rather lacking at document creation, but the battery life is great (2-3 days of moderate usage, around 10hrs of wifi streaming).

 

Also I'd be lying if i sad I wasn't just a bit swayed by the design, and the effect of that little apple logo... And before you bash me, I was a PC fanboy through and through my whole life, I even did some reviews and tutorials in my day

[A/C]

I think I owe you an update.

 

So I went and bought the macbook.

 

The hardware was great, excellent, but the software... I just couldn't use that...OS. To me it felt more like a mobile OS or a linux distro (i know it's unix and it shows). It really felt like any of the free linux distros and not at all like an exclusive (and expensive) OS. I hated most of the experience, and what I liked you can get on Windows hassle-free as well. I didn't like that you'd have to do a command or a "registry tweak" for most of the small tweaks you wanna do, and the OS gets cluttered easily with many apps you'll wanna run like alfred and such. It doesn't slow down at all but it gets cluttered if you know what I mean, the layout just isn't pleasing. If offered to choose between Ubuntu and OSX I'd choose Ubuntu any day of the week.

 

Loved the trackpad, loved the hardware, everything about it, the battery life was great, loved the cooling solution, the retina screen was excellent. The overall feel of the machine was excellent, I just can't find anything to complain about hardware-wise (didn't exactly love the keyboard, but because of my subjective reasons).

 

Sold the macbook after 10 days, earned 70$, so I've got that goin' for me, which is nice.

 

Didn't wanna use bootcamp, you lose the battery life and the force touch funcionality, and for that money it isn't worth it for me.

 

Back to windows. Found a lenovo yoga 500 for 500$, and a thinkpad T440p for 450$, looking into an M17x R3 for 750$ as well...

[Philosobyte]

I think I owe you an update.

 

So I went and bought the macbook.

 

The hardware was great, excellent, but the software... I just couldn't use that...OS. To me it felt more like a mobile OS or a linux distro (i know it's unix and it shows). It really felt like any of the free linux distros and not at all like an exclusive (and expensive) OS. I hated most of the experience, and what I liked you can get on Windows hassle-free as well. I didn't like that you'd have to do a command or a "registry tweak" for most of the small tweaks you wanna do, and the OS gets cluttered easily with many apps you'll wanna run like alfred and such. It doesn't slow down at all but it gets cluttered if you know what I mean, the layout just isn't pleasing. If offered to choose between Ubuntu and OSX I'd choose Ubuntu any day of the week.

 

Loved the trackpad, loved the hardware, everything about it, the battery life was great, loved the cooling solution, the retina screen was excellent. The overall feel of the machine was excellent, I just can't find anything to complain about hardware-wise (didn't exactly love the keyboard, but because of my subjective reasons).

 

Sold the macbook after 10 days, earned 70$, so I've got that goin' for me, which is nice.

 

Didn't wanna use bootcamp, you lose the battery life and the force touch funcionality, and for that money it isn't worth it for me.

 

Back to windows. Found a lenovo yoga 500 for 500$, and a thinkpad T440p for 450$, looking into an M17x R3 for 750$ as well...

Only buy the T440p if you're planning on using only the trackpoint and disabling the clickpad. The clickpad is quite horrible in that generation, but the trackpoint is excellent, even without dedicated buttons. The T440p's size is similar to my L440's size, and the weight should be manageable. Besides keyboard quality and durability, what the Thinkpad has going for it is the replaceable everything - you can easily swap batteries, you can replace the keyboard or trackpad, or screen, etc., and all these parts will still have good availability for several years. 

 

The M17x is too large and too heavy imo for carrying around. I don't have anything to say about the yoga 500, but I would choose the Thinkpad. 

[don_svetlio]

Some people actually care about build quality and don't like glossy plastic and red lights.

The only glossy thing is the bezel. As for the lights, Fn + Space = no lights

[don_svetlio]

Only buy the T440p if you're planning on using only the trackpoint and disabling the clickpad. The clickpad is quite horrible in that generation, but the trackpoint is excellent, even without dedicated buttons. The T440p's size is similar to my L440's size, and the weight should be manageable. Besides keyboard quality and durability, what the Thinkpad has going for it is the replaceable everything - you can easily swap batteries, you can replace the keyboard or trackpad, or screen, etc., and all these parts will still have good availability for several years. 

 

The M17x is too large and too heavy imo for carrying around. I don't have anything to say about the yoga 500, but I would choose the Thinkpad. 

IIRC the CPU should be a i7 2630QM? Which means it can also be replaced if needed

[Philosobyte]

IIRC the CPU should be a i7 2630QM? Which means it can also be replaced if needed

Nah, the T440p has Haswell chips. I'm not sure if that was sarcasm, but I honestly don't know if the CPU can be replaced - I forgot and can't check atm whether those mobile CPUs were soldered to the mobo. Even if it were possible, I don't think it would be worth the money or trouble, since you can only upgrade within the same generation and TDP of CPU. So just count the CPU as non-replaceable. I guess I should have said "almost everything" instead of just everything.

[don_svetlio]

Nah, the T440p has Haswell chips. I'm not sure if that was sarcasm, but I honestly don't know if the CPU can be replaced - I forgot and can't check atm whether those mobile CPUs were soldered to the mobo. Even if it were possible, I don't think it would be worth the money or trouble, since you can only upgrade within the same generation and TDP of CPU. So just count the CPU as non-replaceable. I guess I should have said "almost everything" instead of just everything.

Well, depends really. If it's an i7 then TDP is not a factor as those are already the max and the ThinkPads that started out with Sandy i5s could fit ivy i7s

[Philosobyte]

Well, depends really. If it's an i7 then TDP is not a factor as those are already the max and the ThinkPads that started out with Sandy i5s could fit ivy i7s

I'm not so sure about that because mobile motherboards tend to be much more proprietary/less-compatible than desktop motherboards. If you check here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_chipsets#Mobile_chipsets

The "Mobile chipsets" section shows that chipsets support certain processes, as opposed to certain sockets. There's obviously more to it than that, but this implies that you wouldn't be able to upgrade from a Sandy to an Ivy, or from a Haswell to a Broadwell. 

 

Also, I just checked and it seems that Haswell and Broadwell mobile CPUs use BGA sockets, which means they're soldered and can't be replaced. I imagine mobile Skylake and all future mobile architectures will continue to use BGA or another soldered alternative. 

[don_svetlio]

I'm not so sure about that because mobile motherboards tend to be much more proprietary/less-compatible than desktop motherboards. If you check here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_chipsets#Mobile_chipsets

The "Mobile chipsets" section shows that chipsets support certain processes, as opposed to certain sockets. There's obviously more to it than that, but this implies that you wouldn't be able to upgrade from a Sandy to an Ivy, or from a Haswell to a Broadwell. 

 

Also, I just checked and it seems that Haswell and Broadwell mobile CPUs use BGA sockets, which means they're soldered and can't be replaced. I imagine mobile Skylake and all future mobile architectures will continue to use BGA or another soldered alternative. 

Yep. There was a 4700MQ but that was the last socketed mobile CPU from intel

[Philosobyte]

The hardware was great, excellent, but the software... I just couldn't use that...OS. To me it felt more like a mobile OS or a linux distro (i know it's unix and it shows). It really felt like any of the free linux distros and not at all like an exclusive (and expensive) OS. I hated most of the experience, and what I liked you can get on Windows hassle-free as well. I didn't like that you'd have to do a command or a "registry tweak" for most of the small tweaks you wanna do, and the OS gets cluttered easily with many apps you'll wanna run like alfred and such. It doesn't slow down at all but it gets cluttered if you know what I mean, the layout just isn't pleasing. If offered to choose between Ubuntu and OSX I'd choose Ubuntu any day of the week.

I don't understand why you felt the app organization was cluttered. You can use folders and you can easily search for a certain app, so I can open any app I want within three seconds even though I have thirty to forty of them. 

 

But I also prefer Windows and Ubuntu over OS X because OS X's deisgn sacrifices pure speed for intuitiveness. And intuitiveness is something that's only important for beginners or the non-tech-savvy. I personally find that the real productivity difference between Windows and OS X is actually not that large after you've learned your way around both OSes, so even though I prefer Windows I would still be perfectly fine with OS X. To each his own

[A/C]

@Philosobyte

Strange thing is I didn't fint OS X to be THAT intuitive after all, I mean it was fine but so was windows xp, 7, 10, fedora, ubuntu open suse... and OS X wasn't really better IMHO. I agree that you can be perfectly fine with either OS but I feel Apple's price premium just isn't worth it.

 

Also I took one look at the t440 and the M17x side by side and bought the Alienware, love it so far. Never buying a laptop under 17" again. The screen realestate is great, love it and will defend it to the hills. I'm even considering getting the Alienware 18 next time around but time will tell...

I don't mind the weight, and I thought I would honestly, but I've got a good Wenger Ibex backpack which fits the M17x (a tight fit but it fits), which makes it pretty easy to carry around with me.

 

The battery life is abysmal at 2 hours but the bulk is so big you can't really use in on the go anyway, you've got to be stationary, there's no one-hand carrying this behemoth, but it's a tradeoff I'm happy to make now that I've tried it.

One thing I've got to say is I type MUCH faster on the alienware keyboard, I just couldn't get myself to like the MBP's keys and my typing was rubbish to say the least. Also the ctrl key should always be in the corner, I didn't mind that as much as the overall keyboard feel but it's worth mentioning. I type faster and more accurate on the alienware.

 

Specs:

i7 2720QM

16Gb Samsung DDR3

AMD 6790M

2x120Gb Kingston V300

 

Works like a charm, I only intend to swap out the dual V300s for a Samsung 850 500Gb SSD and a HDD for storage somewhere down the road.

The 6790M tops out somewhere around 82*C so I'm thinking about changing the thermal paste soon...

[Philosobyte]

snip

I'm glad you've found a device you like. I'm a bit surprised at the choice, though, since not only did you you consider the Macbook Air, which is quite the opposite of the massive behemoth called the Alienware 17, but you also mentioned in your original post that battery life was important:

 

...I've looked at some of them, but at this price point the battery life is awful, 5hrs at best...

 

[A/C]

I'm glad you've found a device you like. I'm a bit surprised at the choice, though, since not only did you you consider the Macbook Air, which is quite the opposite of the massive behemoth called the Alienware 17, but you also mentioned in your original post that battery life was important:

 

 

 

Exactly

I just can't fight it, when I saw the alienhead I was sold, I'm happy as a clam

 

Everything I thought I needed seemed unimportant, and I couldn't be happier, this is exactly how it looks like now: