ganzey
banned
compaqs are shitty machines, i would never buy one, i just really wanna buy one of teh hp hdx20's, they got a 20 inch screen.http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-Pavilion-HDX...iewItemQQptZLaptops_Nov05?hash=item35a45d3641
Who makes the best laptop? Why?
- Thread starter EJG
- Start date
compaqs are shitty machines, i would never buy one, i just really wanna buy one of teh hp hdx20's, they got a 20 inch screen.http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-Pavilion-HDX...iewItemQQptZLaptops_Nov05?hash=item35a45d3641
gloveroliver12
New Member
asus is all time best bt dell is also good.
ScOuT
VIP Member
Sager...FTW!
http://www.sagernotebook.com/product_customed.php?pid=171297
The new ones have Intel Core i7, Triple channel DDR3 and GTX 280M in SLI! Show me another laptop that will beat that
I have had one for 3 years and still love it. Very nice and solid as a rock!
http://www.sagernotebook.com/product_customed.php?pid=171297
The new ones have Intel Core i7, Triple channel DDR3 and GTX 280M in SLI! Show me another laptop that will beat that
I have had one for 3 years and still love it. Very nice and solid as a rock!
Feuerfrei.x
New Member
never dell -- hate them
i on this certain laptop u had to pay £40 more if you wanted it in a diferent colour!!!
diduknowthat
formerly liuliuboy
Personally I think Macs make the best laptops. If I had the money I would love to buy a Macbook pro and run window 7 on it.
tlarkin
VIP Member
We've visited their warranty and if I recall we found out that is not really the case, and they don't cover abuse. Accidental damage seems, very gray in their warranty agreement. There is a whole thread about it, but I don't have time to sift through the threads with the search feature.
I've been in IT for 10 years now, 5 of which were spent mainly as hardware repair and end user support. During that time, I serviced every major company, every brand of laptop, and a very broad range of users. I've also owned a laptop from every major company as well.
My opinion is very biased as I am not an average user and I have taken apart and repaired pretty much every laptop under the sun. I don't really do many hardware repairs today, but I am pretty sure I could still very well easily do it. It is like riding a bike in some aspects.
I think the best laptop made, is the Macbook Pro. I have many reasons for this, and could go on and on about it. It is light weight and slim for how powerful it is, and it can run any software and any OS. This gives me the most flexibility and mobility out of one single device.
Now, if I were to buy a PC laptop I would buy the following:
Lenovo
Asus
HP Business class (not consumer models)
I would stay away from everything else. I think that Sony makes a decent laptop but I used to service them, and getting parts from Sony is a huge pain and dealing with them on the warranty side was also a nightmare. Their company in those regards suck big time. Dell makes crap, that is just my opinion and you aren't going to change it. HP/Compaq consumer stuff is cheaply made, and you can get a good deal but you are getting what you pay for. Acers are the same thing. I feel that they are a good deal but I also feel that their qualify is not as high as the three I mentioned above.
Alienware and Sager I think are a joke. They don't perform all that much better than any other laptop and they cost sometimes over double. What does a 6 second boot time really get you over say a 12 to 15 second? Also, look at the power requirements and battery life on those. They are hardly mobile machines. I think if you want a gaming rig, build a desktop. If you want a portable one, build a barebones shuttle gaming rig.
All of my Apple laptops over the years (I've had about 5 different ones now) have in general performed better than any Windows laptop I have had. When I had my HP business class laptop and desktop (at a previous job, we had 10,000 PCs to support) I ran Linux on them strictly, and they were fast and responsive and very solid. I had an Asus for a short while which I liked a lot, but I sold it to buy something else which I can't recall at this time. At my job now we also have a few Dell and Lenovo laptops floating around and I do like the Lenovo ones. They are solid machines.
When I said earlier that my opinion is extremely biased, it is, and it is because I think a laptop is meant for mobility, not for gaming, or any other ridiculous configuration that some of the expensive laptops use.
realmike15
New Member
I have the 13" MacBook Pro, the build quality is second to none. There are some drawbacks though. Overpriced but slowly coming down. Not for gaming, the best card they offer is a 9600gt which is completely out of date and only offered in the $2000+ models. No Express Card slot except in the most expensive model which almost every laptop has these days. Lastly the aluminum enclosure although beautiful and extremely durable gets hot as shit on your lap.
tlarkin
VIP Member
I wouldn't call them over priced per se, there are some subtle differences you are paying for. It is just a different business model is all.
realmike15
New Member
I think for what you get it's overpriced. Don't get me wrong I'm not a Mac hater, I wouldn't own one if I was. I think the MacBook's and MacBook Pro's, and iMac's are a far better deal than the Mac Pro which is the most outrageously overpriced computer i've ever seen. You can build i7's for 1/2 that price that has better components. I realize a lot of the price goes into the design (which Apple does amazingly well), but it's common knowledge that Apple products are typically a 50-60% markup instead of the usual 25-30%. If you look at a tear down of most Apple products, it's an ASUS or Foxconn motherboard with generic Memory, Harddrives, Power Supply, and CD Drives. Aside from the Motherboard, Processor, and Display... most of those components are not on par with what you should get based on what you're paying.
tlarkin
VIP Member
See this is where you are completely wrong. i7 != Xeon. Xeons are far more expensive for a reason, and they are built for bigger purposes. Plus you can't run dual i7's, but you can run dual Xeons. You can't sit there an say you can build a better system for half the price, because that is just flat out wrong. However, Apple doesn't have any middle ground, it goes Mac Mini, iMac then a Mac Pro. Mac Pros are 10x overkill for 90%+ users out there. It is a serious beast.
Other than that, feature for feature and part for part the Macs are very competitively priced. For example, all their laptops have LED back lit LCD screens, which are more expensive. You go build to order a Dell laptop and add that option it costs you more money. Apple just uses premium parts and doesn't give the consumer a choice or a BTO (build to order) option.
Maybe you don't quite understand how business works. When you buy a prebuilt system, you are buying components from the lowest bidder. There is competition amongst the part makers to allow for the giant computer companies to buy in bulk and buy from the best deal available. Then you have Sun, which is just like Apple. They design their systems from the ground up, they design the hardware, and they design and run their own OS (solaris), and they are a bit more expensive but their total cost to make is also higher. They can't go around and get the lowest bid, they have to hire and maintain a work force to build everything in house.
That costs more money because you have to pay them salaries and benefits, where when you buy in bulk from a parts company you just pay a flat sum of money, or possibly do contracting which is cheaper than salary and there are no benefits involved.
So both Apple and Sun have to pay top dollar to keep their engineers there designing their hardware, their software, their applications, and getting their systems built, because they want to keep them on board. The total cost of doing business this way is more expensive. However, you have greater quality control. This is because you control every aspect from the ground up, from the transistors and resistors you use, to what chipset you want to put in there, to how many capacitors you put on the logic board. Then factor in they design their OSes to run on that exact spec hardware, and that is where you get the it just works saying from.
See, both Apple and Sun both do this with their systems. They are a closed platform system. It is a different business model than your average Joe PC which is more of an open platform.
Both have their pros and cons, but Apples are hardly over priced. Try to build a PC, spec for spec like any of the Macs and you will find it is not over priced.
realmike15
New Member
It's well documented that the only real advantages to Xeon's over i7's are it's server features, which boast no benefit to a home or professional user (like a graphic design or video editor). Dual i7's will be available soon enough, and if you don't think so then i'd argue you're not familiar with Intel's history. An i7 will handle overclocking far more easily than a Xeon, who's only benefits are mostly stability and reliability. You need to do more research because you're giving bad information that's completely untrue.
You cannot compare laptops, I specifically talked about building a computer which totally throws laptops out of the discussion. I can build a desktop that has a better motherboard, memory, hard-drive, graphics card, and power supply than an iMac or Mac Pro... and in the case of the Mac Pro could do it for about half the price. The only thing I can't replicate is the sleek design and compact size. I would also argue if you don't believe me, then you don't know how to distinguish Good/Decent Hardware from Great/Highend Hardware. Also, I got to tell ya most $800+ laptops are LED backlit now... it's not like they're using an IPS display, the thing that makes the MacBook Pro display so nice it's 300 nit display.
I understand business, I'm in a field where I constantly have to purchase items using multipliers and see the difference between retail and our pricing on a daily basis. The majority of Apple's products is bogged down by design costs, which I even acknowledged is arguably very good compared to other companies. However this doesn't excuse the fact that Apple's markup is generally 50% on most products, the documentation is out there, whether you choose to acknowledge it's existence is another story.
I've played around on Newegg building systems, they always came out cheaper and better than the information you can find online in a "Mac Tear Down". I respect the fact that you like Apple (I do too), but just as you said they are a business. They have a very loyal customer base and because they make better computers than 90% of the competition and include these packages in a very sleek and sexy design... they're able to rip their customers off a little with high mark ups. But when it comes to DIY's they just can't compete, if you're statement held any sort of truth... than the DIY market would be very small and most people would just buy a Mac.
No offense, but I've been building computers since I was 12 years old, my knowledge is pretty strong in this area. I suggest you head over to AnandTech.com and check out some hardware benchmarks, then Google "Mac Tear Down" and you will find the hardware that's available to the DIY computer builder is far superior or equal to what's in the Mac, and available at a cheaper price.
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tlarkin
VIP Member
Wrong, they have more cache, and can address multiple memory controllers so technically they can access RAM faster. Like I said, a Mac Pro is 10x over kill for your average user, I agree with you on that, but it being over priced for what it is, is false. Xeons are also the only processors that support ECC memory, again not going to benefit your average user, but still that is why they are priced that way. You argument is still invalid because I said, for the price, spec for spec they are not over priced. Go look at a Sun Spark station with Xeons and look how they are priced.
Again, you need to read what I said. Spec for spec, what you get with an iMac and a Mac Pro is not over priced. Go compare similar builds spec for spec. Apple doesn't use low quality parts either. Just the dual motherboard alone for a dual Xeon set up is gong to cost over $500 easily.
Please show me where you get this mark up of 50%. I used to work for a company years ago that did both private and business sales of computer equipment. I was the lead tech of their service department for 6 years. We were partners with Apple, HP, IBM, Compaq (before the merger), Sony, Dell, and so forth. We did warranty repair on all of them. I could look up the actual cost of parts versus the mark up all day every day as I had to price out of warranty repairs to clients. I never saw a 50% mark up, even on service parts. However, there is always a mark up, and that is how businesses out side of Apple stay in the black. Every time you buy a part from anyone they mark it up, every time you get your computer serviced anywhere, parts have a mark up. I still have access to several companies parts databases because I renewed my certs with those companies. I could even make claims with them if I did any repairs or consulting on the side if I had my own business.
You need to look at the total cost of ownership before you can compare anything, and then average it out for what you get against the basic level of a consumer. Apple is far from over priced, you just can't see that.
Oh, no offense taken. I was building computers back when windows 3.11 was the main OS you can buy. I remember building a Mac clone when you could. I also have over a decade in the IT field and I have been published in CIO magazine, Mac World, and several other tech geared websites.
I also, as my job, manage 8,000 Macs (6,000 laptops 2,000 desktops) and about 5,000 PCs running XP Pro SP3. I manage 30+ Xserves on my own and help out when I can with the SuSe Enterprise linux boxes that run the Windows side.
realmike15
New Member
I think I made my points very clear, I don't know you're sitting here saying I didn't read what you said, but you failed to address any of the counter points I made and mentioned things like ECC RAM, which offers no benefit except to a server and doesn't make the computer any faster... ECC is nothing but error correction and you being in an IT field know that. Having multiple memory controllers doesn't mean anything, if the i7 can be OCed far more than the Xeon.
All the benefits you speak of are server only benefits, therefore putting them in a system that's intended to be used as a desktop computer doesn't make it over kill... it's poor design. Furthermore I keep telling you I have put a system together for cheaper with better hardware. Not to mention the fact that Apple buys this stuff for much less than any of us can find on Newegg... which just proves how high their markup actually is.
I think we should just agree to disagree on this one, still I respect you're opinion but I think your views on Apple's pricing points is a little skewed. For the record I think you're still getting the idea that I'm saying Apple's hardware is cheap or low quality. On the contrary my point was that for what you get in the box... the price should be lowered or... they should use better hardware to justify the price. If you think Apple uses the best hardware available... not just the processor but the motherboard, ram, hd's, power supplies etc, then you're kidding yourself. If you do have access to that many Mac Pro's in your field feel free to open one up some day... you will find quite generic RAM, HD's, Motherboards, and PSU's. Point being, it's not the best of the best as Apple would have you believe. They cut corners to save money just like any other company, and I think you're fooling yourself to think anything different.
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tlarkin
VIP Member
Since you are so versed in hardware you should already know a few things. First, clock speed does not mean performance, and since most processors can't clock past the 3Ghz mark with out getting serious over heating issues the processor manufacturers looked at adding other features. Multiple cores, more cache, built in instruction sets and so forth. ECC memory is ungodly expensive. You again, are not reading what I am writing here. I said, spec for spec for what a Mac Pro is, it is not over priced. I don't have to address any of your counter points because they aren't even countering what I said to begin with. I know what ECC is, and I know how much more expensive it is and how much more expensive the memory controllers are for the motherboard that supports ECC RAM. So, a Mac Pro, being 2400ish dollars for what you get, spec for spec is not over priced. It may be over kill for your average user, which I have no said 4 or 5 times, but it is not over priced. Also a core i7 is not a faster or better computer for half the price. It may be better for your average user, but I have already said that.
Furthermore, Xeons are not limited to server only computers. They are made for serious work. You find them very commonly in the audio and video industry. When you have to render, say a movie like Toy Story, you do it on Xeon work stations, with a render farm back bone.
You are going to need to prove that, and Apple doesn't buy anything. They design it, and have a manufacturer make it for them. They aren't buying parts from any company. They actually design the hardware then have some tech company and Asia manufacture it for them. I have had this debate many times with many people on this forum. When you compare a PC (custom built or not) feature to feature and spec to spec with a Mac, they are not really over priced. You just have dogmatic thinking when it comes to that.
You can agree to disagree all you want. I used to think just like you until I sat down one day and broke it down and actually looked at total cost of ownership, spec for spec, and feature for feature, plus look at life cycle. Also, Apple doesn't buy any generic parts, they design them. The PSU is an Apple designed PSU. The RAM and the hard drives and the video cards are of course purchased from third party. Their logic boards, chip sets, memory controllers, PSUs, and so forth are all designed by Apple and built for the spec of the Mac you are getting.
Like I said, it is a different business model. It is a closed platform just like Sun and their desktops, which also run Xeon processors, and yes they are desktops!
realmike15
New Member
There are soooo many things wrong with what you said, starting with CPUs are capped at 3.0Ghz without having series overheating issues, or that all ECC ram is ungodly expensive, or that Apple designs all their parts (because asking ASUS to build something with certain specs does not equal designing parts)... but I really don't have the energy to continue this debate. I don't know where you get your information but, this is going to turn into a Mac is Overpriced flamefest, something I have no interest in wasting my time with.
tlarkin
VIP Member
Yeah, well if you can back up what you are saying then do it. I am not flaming but simply disagreeing with you. I never said they are capped at 3Ghz, I said pushing clock speeds past the 3Ghz mark has serious over heating issues, which is why if you want to OC you got to invest in after market (aka not supported by the manufacturer) cooling. If clock speed were the end all be all, they would be focusing on faster clock speeds instead of multiple cores, multiple memory controllers, more cache, and more built in instruction sets. Since pumping pu the clock speed that high tends to have over heating issues on a generalization, the processor companies took a different route. You don't see a stock Intel or AMD come out of the box clocked at 5Ghz. When they started pushing the 3Ghz spectrum they ran into lots of over heating issues, and found that processors lasted a lot shorter in their life span.
You can design parts, choose what specs and what goes where and have them built. Not every company manufactures parts, only a hand full do. When I say Apple designs them, I mean that literally. They actually design them, then whoever makes them (LG in a lot of cases) makes them with their design. They aren't just sending specs to a company and saying, here whip something up for us. When you take apart an iMac you typically see the silk screen stamp of the company that manufactured the part. I can tell you from my work experience Hitachi and LG manufacture parts for pretty much every major company. They don't sit there and design the part for every company, they manufacture them based on the designs they are sent, with the specs specified by the company.
You have yet to counter my main points. I said spec for spec and feature for feature Apple computers are competitively priced. You simply said you could do this or you know for a FACT that I am wrong, yet you haven't cited any references or even attempted to discredit what I stated.
ECC RAM is ungodly expensive, especially when you buy it at high end spec. There are several levels of ECC RAM.
The fact that you think the i7 is on par with the Xeon tells me you don't grasp the differences in the products. Also, if that were true, then why in the hell would Intel still market and try to sell the Xeon at such a higher price?
The bottom line is, when it comes price for price versus pound for pound, Apple makes a product that is very competitive. I built my last PC last year and it cost me around 1100ish out of my pocket for everything, including a new 22" monitor. Sure, it was slightly better hardware spec wise than an iMac, but I did not have all the features an iMac has standard. Plus my desktop is not an all-in-one.
Computers these days are not just about hardware specs, they are also about features and benefits you get from the product.