Y700 or Macbook Pro?

[SYTography]

Hey guys, recently my laptop broke upon my college admission decision. I was wonder which of the two are the better buy. I want something that can last me from freshman year in college to when i go to graduate school. (aprox. 4-5 years)

 

Things I'll need the device to perform are: 

• Photoshop
• Basic word processing/browsing
• Netflix/HBO
• LoL
• CSGO
• and i'm pretty sure since my major has to do with anatomy, i'd have to work with a 3D based program

 

 

[PlayStation 2]

Assuming it's Lenovo, the Lenovo Y700.

[ALwin]

Go with a non MacBook for gaming.

[N_Bot]

Y700. Actually has a good CPU and GPU compared to the Mac.

[SeanAngelo]

3 minutes ago, SYTography said:

Hey guys, recently my laptop broke upon my college admission decision. I was wonder which of the two are the better buy. I want something that can last me from freshman year in college to when i go to graduate school. 

 

Things I'll need the device to perform are: 

• Photoshop
• Basic word processing/browsing
• Netflix/HBO
• LoL
• CSGO
• and i'm pretty sure since my major has to do with anatomy, i'd have to work with a 3D based program

 

 

Lenovo. hands down.

[SYTography]

Does lenovo have good customer service? Because my dell inspirion (The one that died) the screen hinge came apart, and the video card adapter tore within. If that were to happen, would lenovo offer a replacement (not assuming free)

[Virtual01]

Getting an unbiased opinion of Macs here is impossible. That being said, the Lenovo is a hugely better value for your money, but in all likelihood the Mac will outlast it.

[SYTography]

3 minutes ago, Virtual01 said:

Getting an unbiased opinion of Macs here is impossible. That being said, the Lenovo is a hugely better value for your money, but in all likelihood the Mac will outlast it.

Ah... That makes it even harder of an decision. 

[ALwin]

I only recommend a non MacBook because of the requirements for gaming.  For productivity I prefer MacBook Pros, unless there is a need for Windows specific software.  But then again one could always run Windows via Bootcamp or as a VM inside a MacBook.

 

I have yet to see any Windows laptop in the same price range as a MacBook Pro when it comes to buying a portable workstation for my needs.  The Windows workstations I'd ever consider buying again (mind you I worked with Windows based machines for nearly 20 years before making the switch to OSX) are the HP Elitebooks or Dell Precision laptop workstations with Quadro GPUs that cost more than a MacBook Pro.

 

I find the trackpad on a Mac to be much much better than any available on a non Mac.  OSX runs better than any experience I had with Windows (ranging from 3.1, 95, 98 all the way to Win 10 now).  Software updates, installation, removal does not give me headaches in OSX.

[ALwin]

Oh and the aluminium unibody design and build of a MacBook Pro is ahead of any non MacBook portable I have ever seen.  I've owned laptops that weigh several kilos and had the thickness of a small dictionary... now I can't ever look at anything that doesn't have similar form factor of a MacBook Pro.

[3DDude]

22 minutes ago, ALwin said:

I only recommend a non MacBook because of the requirements for gaming.  For productivity I prefer MacBook Pros, unless there is a need for Windows specific software.  But then again one could always run Windows via Bootcamp or as a VM inside a MacBook.

 

 Yes Macbooks are compatible with your games I think? LoL and CS GO are, there are mac versions of those games

22 minutes ago, ALwin said:

 

I have yet to see any Windows laptop in the same price range as a MacBook Pro when it comes to buying a portable workstation for my needs.  The Windows workstations I'd ever consider buying again (mind you I worked with Windows based machines for nearly 20 years before making the switch to OSX) are the HP Elitebooks or Dell Precision laptop workstations with Quadro GPUs that cost more than a MacBook Pro.

I agree, Had an MBP 15", now for work I have somekind of Dell, really I hate it

 

 

22 minutes ago, ALwin said:

 

I find the trackpad on a Mac to be much much better than any available on a non Mac.  OSX runs better than any experience I had with Windows (ranging from 3.1, 95, 98 all the way to Win 10 now).  Software updates, installation, removal does not give me headaches in OSX.

The Trackpad depends, there are better trackpads out there for high end laptops.
The Mac pad is very good !


@t Sytografy

 

Lenovo: It probably wont last 5 years.

Mac: It probably will last those 5 years.

 

The questions is do you prefer Windows or MAC OS X? And also; What is the price difference! Maybe you can buy a new Lenovo in 3 years for the price of 1 MAC.

I don't know

[maremp]

You've probably come to a wrong place to get an objective response.

I'm using macbook pro and I'll try to explain what you're buying. I can't compare to the Y700 or similar laptops, since I haven't used it.

 

For the components or price to performance, it's probably the worst thing out there. That's the biggest argument of mac haters, it costs a lot. They're not wrong, but it's not all about the specs. I know that this just triggered a hardcore pc fan, I hope their flaming rage won't burn the forum down. But it does matter for gaming. Lightweight games like lol or csgo would probably run at playable fps even with the integrated gpu. Any newer AAA titles would only run on the mbp with dedicated gpu, but that one costs a shitton of money ($2500+). To be honest, if you're buying a mbp, it's cheaper to buy a lower-priced mbp and spend the rest of the cash to build a gaming pc.

For me, it's the operating system, os x is amazing for developers (I know, this is biased). But I see from other users that it's great for other areas, except gaming. Don't expect a lot of games to work w/o wine or some other kind of virtualisation. Continuing about the os, the sleep/wake is amazing, you just close the lid when you stop using the computer and open it when you're back and it's right where you left it, working without any issues. Unlike windows, where putting the computer to sleep few times caused it to behave in weird ways and needed to be restarted. This again is a bit biased, I haven't been using windows actively for the last 2 years.

And most of gaming peripherals software is not working or poorly supported, so don't be surprised if you won't be able to customize your cool-looking peripherals. 

It's known for great battery life, although other companies are catching up. About battery quality, for just over 2 years old rmbp (bought in early March '14) it's still at 88% of the design capacity and it can easily hold the charge for 3-4h when I'm coding, about 5h when watching movies (in vlc) and around 6h if only using is as fb machine. Keep in mind that for youtube, netflix or similar streaming, browser decoding is pretty energy hungry and the battery life will be significantly lower (about 2h). Also, these numbers are for 13" rmbp and I usually run it at near-full brightness. By the way, the battery in 15" model has more capacity, but the display doesn't eat that much more, so it should last even longer. This is based on very unscientific test performed by my roommate (15" rmbp, late '12) and myself (13" rmbp, late '13).

Also the trackpad works great, it took me a day or two to get used to it and now it just feels natural. I always hated using other trackpads, they all behaved strange and usually had a special area for left/right click, which was annoying. It's so great that I would consider buying an external one to use with my upcoming hackintosh build. Your mileage may vary, but from my experience, I haven't talked to any mbp user who didn't like their trackpad.

 

If I would be buying a laptop, I would pick mbp again. As a web developer, the workflow support is unmatched on any other OS. This is not biased, just look at other web developers, especially in high-end companies such as google or fb, most of them will be using a mbp.

But for school use and gaming, I can't say the same. In this case, the battery life still plays a major role, so you won't be forced to always look for a power outlet. But other features can't really justify the price in your use case and you might not get the performance you need/expect. Also, try to find out what programs you'll be using at school and check the support on os x or you might need to run a virtualbox to run the program. All in all, if you're concerned just about the specs and price to performance, apple products aren't something you should look at. If you also care about aesthetics, build quality, user experience and status symbols, a macbook will probably suit your needs.

[ALwin]

8 minutes ago, maremp said:

price to performance, it's probably the worst thing out there. That's the biggest argument of mac haters, it costs a lot

Yep, a lot of those people are so adorable they make religious fanatics and extremists look like saints.

[SYTography]

35 minutes ago, maremp said:

 

Wow you make a lot of great points. I think i'll be purchasing a Mac. I thought deep about it. I guess once I get into college my mindset would be Education first, photography second, and gaming third in my priority list. And since longevity does matter to be, I guess the mac would be worth it in the end since I don't wanna drop another 1200 each couple years. Thank you for the help from above as well! Do you think 8 GB of ram would be able to explore basic 3d antomy programs, and photoshop (Occasionaly)  

[maremp]

50 minutes ago, SYTography said:

Wow you make a lot of great points. I think i'll be purchasing a Mac. I thought deep about it. I guess once I get into college my mindset would be Education first, photography second, and gaming third in my priority list. And since longevity does matter to be, I guess the mac would be worth it in the end since I don't wanna drop another 1200 each couple years. Thank you for the help from above as well! Do you think 8 GB of ram would be able to explore basic 3d antomy programs, and photoshop (Occasionaly)  

Oh, you haven't mentioned photography in your first post. I've seen my coworker use his mbp for working on photos, it's just amazing and the display has great color reproduction.

About ram, I can't say for sure, but these programs are probably not that ram hungry for the 8gb to not be enough. I have 8gb and it's more than enough most of the time. My usual usage is 3-4gb, of which about half goes to Chrome the Memory Hog™ and the rest is split among various IM chat apps (caprine = fb messenger, slack, skype, hipchat, iMessages), code editor, spotify, mail client and few other apps. I only ran into the issues with not enough ram when I was trying to run 2 virtual boxes at once. Since you're not going to do that, it should be fine. But if you want to be safe longer down the road, you could consider investing a bit more into extra ram, since you can't upgrade it later.

[ALwin]

For photography, no MacBook Pro is capable of displaying a high percentage of AdobeRGB yet, but they do display sRGB quite well.  Hell, no consumer Windows laptop supports a high percentage of AdobeRGB either and few are capable of displaying above 90% sRGB.

 

But for visual artists, OSX comes with several tools built in that will benefit those who want to work with colors.  Tools that are third party purchases on Windows.

 

iWork suite (sort of like MS Office's Word, Excel and Powerpoint) which includes a word document editor, spreadsheet editor and presentation editor are now completely free with OSX.

 

The 15" retina MacBook Pro is my portable workstation for photography and video editing away from home, and in the field.  I have the 16Gb with dGPU version.

 

22 minutes ago, maremp said:

But if you want to be safe longer down the road, you could consider investing a bit more into extra ram, since you can't upgrade it later.

I agree with this statement, sure it might cost a bit more than what you want to invest in initially but it will pay off on the long run.

 

If you can, I'd recommend you get the 16GB memory and at least 512GB SSD storage version.

 

When you buy a MacBook, there are a few things you'd want to enable/activate first.

• Turn on the firewall, it is in the Security and Privacy settings
• Activate Filevault
• Setup Timecapsule if you have an external drive or a partition on a NAS

[maremp]

11 minutes ago, ALwin said:

For photography, no MacBook Pro is capable of displaying a high percentage of AdobeRGB yet, but they do display sRGB quite well.  Hell, no consumer Windows laptop supports a high percentage of AdobeRGB either and few are capable of displaying above 90% sRGB.

 

But for visual artists, OSX comes with several tools built in that will benefit those who want to work with colors.  Tools that are third party purchases on Windows.

 

iWork suite (sort of like MS Office's Word, Excel and Powerpoint) which includes a word document editor, spreadsheet editor and presentation editor are now completely free with OSX.

 

The 15" retina MacBook Pro is my portable workstation for photography and video editing away from home, and in the field.  I have the 16Gb with dGPU version.

 

I agree with this statement, sure it might cost a bit more than what you want to invest in initially but it will pay off on the long run.

 

If you can, I'd recommend you get the 16GB memory and at least 512GB SSD storage version.

 

When you buy a MacBook, there are a few things you'd want to enable/activate first.

• Turn on the firewall, it is in the Security and Privacy settings
• Activate Filevault
• Setup Timecapsule if you have an external drive or a partition on a NAS

You're right, I should've mentioned relative to other laptop displays.

 

Good point about bringing up other software. I've forgotten about those, since I don't use these apps a lot. But yeah, you get a lot of free software tools with os x, I bet someone did the math on how much value it is, I'd say at least $300 for windows alternatives. 

 

About the 512gb drive, I'm not sure if it's really worth it. Sure if you can afford it, but I'd say 256gb and external drive or nas is much cheaper option and not that much worse. Unless you have to work with tons of data at the time, like editing videos, and can't have a fast connection to the external storage.