Ask Slashdot: Best Laptops For Fans Of Pre-Retina MacBook Pro?

stigmato writes "Once upon a time the MacBook Pro line was well-regarded amongst IT professionals for their quality, performance, serviceability & upgradeability. As appealing as the new Retina displays are, I don't want a device I cannot upgrade or repair. Glued in batteries and soldered in RAM with high prices have made me look to other manufacturers again. What are you buying, /. community? System76? Dell? Old article but still rings true with the latest models. I post this from my 2010 MBP 13" with a 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD in the optical bay, 8GB (possibly 16GB soon) and a user replaced battery."

Comments

Lenovo.

[squisher]

I really like my Lenovo T-series laptop. Sure, it may not live up to the legendary build quality back when it was an IBM, but it is still pretty good. It has all the user replacement options that are standard, a good keyboard and screen. It's not getting an award for its looks, but well, who cares.

Re:Lenovo.

[Narcocide]

Vertical lines are still very key to some people. Long before 1920x1080 became "HD" after a few years of severe regression in vertical resolution, there *were* 1600x1200 screens.

Re:Cannot upgrade or repair?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is repairing sealed phones is - for most people, even IT folk - a non-trivial and risk-filled task. Likewise with newer MBPs.

Generic Wintel laptops, while not entirely user-serviceable (though I've replaced several screens and keyboards without incident and of course RAM and hard drive upgrades are trivial), are much, much easier to upgrade than sealed MBPs. Of course it can be done but generally it's done by "professionals" who have done it a hundred+ times and have the right tools for separating plastics, un-glueing (is that a word? De-glueing?) without cracking screens, cases, etc.

Likewise a car engine is "user serviceable" if you know what you're doing but I've tried doing relatively minor repairs on my engine (spark plugs and such) and did some real damage because I am just not that great mechanically and had to take it to a mechanic.

The r question is

[Registered Coward v2]

"Do you want to stick with OSX or are fine with a different OS?" If the former you are stuck. If the latter then decide on a feature set must haves and price point and buy what meets those needs. Dell, HP, Leveno all make good machines so it really comes down to what meets your needs.