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.

[bill_mcgonigle]

I'm typing this on an Lenovo e-430 with an added mSATA SSD boot drive - you can add one if you get the Centrino wireless option. I got the slowest i5 with AES-NI and VT-d to maximize battery life.

The T-series are nicer, but I can upgrade this one twice as often for the same money.

Oh, and it has a matte screen, which was my #1 criteria.

Re:Lenovo.

[tapspace]

T420s owner here. Sure, it's got all the processing power of a MBP and a robust chassis, but the battery life, audio and screen quality are all terrible.

Re:Lenovo.

[jellomizer]

I went with a Lenovo Think Pad too.
They are good professional systems. They just have the opposite aesthetics that apple does.

Black Matted Rubberized Plastic, the same that they had for 20 years.
But it is a solid design. A good keyboard even though the new version has a chicklet keyboard, it is still very nice, and feels good.

If you are actually using Windows 8, you may want to get an X series with touch but it comes down to what you want.

However unlike Apple where there is a few to choose from there is a good selection of Think Pads to choose from.

Re:Lenovo.

[martiniturbide]

Even that I had my problems with lenovo (Thinkpad Tablet bootloader locked). I think that the Thinkpad brand is still a good choice.

Something that I really like from the technical point of view is that they always (almost) publish the "Hardware Maintenance Guide", so you know exactly how to disassembly the machines to add more card, replace screen, change/update hdd and RAM.

Re:Lenovo.

[Barlo_Mung_42]

"Compared with the MBPs, though, it's a brick. My T410 is almost double the thickness of my older MBP."

Yeah, that's why they started gluing things down and making them hard to repair. It's a tradeoff. The OP doesn't care so much about thin and light.

Re:Lenovo.

[webmistressrachel]

1920 x 1080 is very high-res, compared to my 640x480 VGA panel. What panels did you have in mind, and where can I see one?

Re:Lenovo.

[h4rr4r]

Not in 2013, it is standard tv resolution.
A new macbook pro is 2560x1600 or 2880x1800. A Chrome pixel is 2560x1700.

1920x1080 is not an uncommon android phone resolution. At at 5" just about perfect. For a screen any larger it is simply too low.

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:Lenovo.

[damn_registrars]

Indeed. The only laptops I buy are Lenovo. They last longer, are easier to upgrade, and you can still download the service manuals for free from the manufacturer if you are so inclined. And to top it all off they have pointing devices that are usable instead of ones that get in the way of productivity, which Apple certainly can't claim.

Re:Lenovo.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

The W line has some 2880x1620 15.5" IPS models.

Re:Lenovo.

[immaterial]

You prefer the clit mouse to a multitouch trackpad?

Re:Lenovo.

[WaffleMonster]

T420s owner here. Sure, it's got all the processing power of a MBP and a robust chassis, but the battery life, audio and screen quality are all terrible.

A T410 got me 12hrs of use on an intl flight with 9-cell battery and ultra-bay lipoly. While I don't care enough about audio to comment the screens are all TN only very lately has Lenovo transitioned to IPS for T-series.

My problem recently with Lenovo and T-series they effectively killed it off in recent iterations by "Appleizing" it. Slimming it down, getting rid of the ultrabay replacing with an internal non-removable battery. I use my ultra bay heavily for archiving to DVD, second battery on long trips and as a sata tray for a second HDD drive for RAID 1 mirror. It could be worse they could have glossy screens but latest iteration of T series is dead to me and this makes me really sad.

Re:Lenovo.

[SlashdotOgre]

I have owned several T (& W for work) series Thinkpads starting with the IBM T21. I am very satisfied with them, and I plan to replace my current T400 next year with a T440. I have ran Linux pretty much exclusively on the T line (early Fedora Cores and eventually Gentoo since 2004 on the T21, exclusively Gentoo now), and because they use mostly Intel parts, I have never had much trouble getting everything to work.

The features that keep me coming back are:
Availability of decent resolution (1440x900) matte displays
The ultrabay (can be used for an optical drive, second battery, or second disk drive)
The build quality and user replaceable parts.

I got my current laptop from their outlet as a lease return. It didn't include Windows (actually shipped with Free DOS). I immediately bumped the RAM to 8GB, added a SSD, put the original HDD in the ultra bay, and it's been going strong ever since. I have had to replace the keyboard (spilled some aged vinegar on one it), but other than that no problems. I am only thinking of replacing it next year to move to a quicker processor and more RAM.

The system is a little bulky, but the build is quite solid. Mine has taken a couple 1.5 ft. coffee table to floor drops thanks to my dog, and it's kept on ticking. I know they also make a slim line T440s and even an ultrabook (T440u) version although that might require giving up some features like the Macbook Pro.

Re:Lenovo.

[jellomizer]

No a Chrome pixel is 1x1. Duh!

Re:Lenovo.

[mrchaotica]

1920x1080 is not an uncommon android phone resolution. At at 5" just about perfect.

As a Nexus 5 owner, I think 1920x1080 on a 5" screen is gratuitous and unnecessary. IMO, you need at least 7" (or maybe even larger) to "need" it.

Re:Lenovo.

[AliasMarlowe]

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.

Yep. And there were 1920x1200 displays as well, giving 16:10. Actually, I'm writing this on a 9½ year old laptop with 1920x1200 pixels on its built-in 17" screen (it's a Sony Vaio VGN-A117S). It runs fine with Xubuntu, and if its replacement lasts as long, it will be a bargain. I had planned on upgrading to something with more pixels, but some years ago all the laptops - other than a few linux-hostile Macs - went to fewer pixels. Luckily, that looks like changing again, although I'll wait a bit for the price to drop before getting one with 3200x1800 pixels. Even 16:9 is acceptable with enough vertical pixels, avoiding the shortscreen consequences of full HD.

Incidentally, we still have a 20" 1600x1200 display on one of the desktops. It was bought in the last century and has been used daily, often for several hours; it's in perfect working order and a real joy to use. The other desktop has a pair of full HD screens. Turning one sideways gives a narrow screen for viewing A4 pages, while in regular orientation, they're an annoyance even for editing photos. They're going to get replaced by something more useful...

Re:Lenovo.

[Teun]

You are a sissy.

I routinely have a T430s and a W520 in the same bag and even a good looking Stewardess can put it in the overhead bin ;)

Re:Lenovo.

[damn_registrars]

You prefer the clit mouse to a multitouch trackpad?

Yes, I do. I can move that with my finger without moving my hands from the keyboard. Furthermore, I never move it by accident with my thumbs or wrist when they are resting at the bottom of the keyboard. I can also push it once and get as far across the screen as I need with whatever resolution I need. I cannot say the same about any touchpad ever made.

Re:Lenovo.

[angel'o'sphere]

Macs are noi Linux hostile. Either you keep OS X and just apt get your linux programs or you insert a CD/DVD and install your flavour of Linux.

Re:Lenovo.

[sixsixtysix]

especially considering that quite a few still ship at 1366x 768. in fact, a quick perusing of newegg's 1919 laptops, 583 were 1366x768, with 372 being higher. only 15 were higher than 1080p.

Re:Lenovo.

[Dr Max]

depends what you do with the computer. If your browsing for pictures of cats then the trackpad is the way to go, if your writing code, the nipple mouse kicks ass because your hands never have to leave the home row.

Worst MacBook EVER

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a MacBook air a year ago. The first one exploded to blew my hand off. The next one killed my dog. It wouldn't run DR-DOS at all. The wifi screwed up and sterilized my nuts.

Overall I was left with a really bad feeling about all Apple products, which obviously must all have similar defects. Anecdotes by unverifiable semi-anonymous internet posters prove that to be true.

Cost vs. Benefits

[QuantumBeep]

I like having a slim laptop (mine's a non-Apple ultrabook, but same build tradeoffs). The specs are adequate, it's fairly cheap, and failure rates are acceptably low.

I'm not firmly against the end of upgradability/repairability for laptops. It was always kinda spotty anyway.

Re:Cost vs. Benefits

[KonoWatakushi]

Fused glass display is fine. It is the soldered in RAM, proprietary SSD, and glued in battery that are totally unacceptable. Ordinarily, I'd double the RAM in a year for a pittance, but now Apple forces you to pay a hefty premium for a limited amount of RAM up front, obsoleting the machine that much sooner. Replacement SSDs are available eventually, but with few options at high cost. Finally, who wants to take/send in their machine for battery service every two years? Batteries are consumables, and shouldn't be glued in anymore than a toner cartridge.

Re:Cost vs. Benefits

[tlhIngan]

I'm skeptical about repairability, at least home repairability -- but as long as the cost of, and demand for, RAM and disk continue on their current trajectories, buying what you need now and upgrading over time makes a lot more sense than buying now for your needs two or three years down the road.

Well, even the retinas have a removable SSD so that can be upgraded quite easily.

Memory, not so much - by the time "a few years later" comes around, memory can be hard to find especially in the denser modules as everyone migrated to the new memory standard. If you buy the laptop that's using cutting edge memory, then yes, it makes sense to wait (e.g., DDR4). But if' it's using mainstream memory modules (e.g., DDR3) then buying now means not having to hunt for it when DDR5 is mainstream and DDR3 is now horrendously expensive. (Try finding DDR modules that are denser than 1GB per DIMM for any reasonable price. Even DDR2 - I have a laptop that's got 4GB of RAM, to upgrade it to 8 requires spending serious money. Even back when it came out it was expensive, and it's not much cheaper now years later).

Batteries are controversial - you get people claiming one thing and another, but the sad reality is, save business laptops, 99.99% of consumers don't not replace the battery at all. Once it dies, it's dead and sits there in the battery bay while the PC may still be in use. Sure they could re-cell them or buy a new battery or whatever (though new is iffy - given the speed of which new models come out). but most people don't give a damn or care.

Re:Cost vs. Benefits

[cdwiegand]

Soldered in RAM is so NOT STANDARD. Before my current job, I worked for almost 6 years at a place where, if we could afford it, we got Lenovo Thinkpads. I could upgrade every single one's memory. Shoot, even my MBP (pre-Retina) can be upgraded. My old Acer laptop, Gateway, shoot even the old Toshiba one (1998?) could all have memory upgraded. Soldered in RAM may be standard in smart phones and tablets, but not laptops.

Cannot upgrade or repair?

[h4rr4r]

If I can fix sealed phones surely this laptop is repairable.

This sounds like hyperbole. Ungluing a battery is not impossible. If the ram goes, sure you are out a mobo, but that is pretty normal for ultrabooks. Either you want it small or you want it easy to repair.

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.

Re:Cannot upgrade or repair?

[Jethro]

It's not just about being repairable.

With previous generation Apple laptops, I could put all the money into the machine with the best CPU and pay extra for the hires matte screen, and just get 4gigs of RAM and the cheapest, slowest HDD they had.

Then I could pay an extra $100 to upgrade it to 16gb of RAM on my own (rather than pay Apple an extra $400 or $600 or whatever) and buy and install my own 1tb harddrive or my own SSD or whatever, again, for a fraction of what Apple charge for that. And, to be clear, that'd be my plan no matter what laptop I bought. Always has been. Every laptop manufacturer charges those insane prices for extra RAM or better HDDs.

With the RAM (and harddrive!) soldered on, you can't do that anymore.

It's not just about fixing broken stuff. It's about getting a better deal and potentially saving hundreds of dollars to get a phenomenally better computer.

Re:Cannot upgrade or repair?

[BobMcD]

You keep saying 'self respecting slashdotter' like this means a single, measurable thing. Some IT people are hardware types and some are software types and a small handful are both. They are called 'silos'. Look it up.

Also, among that few who 'like' to work on hardware, many of those are wise enough not to stretch their comfort zones - due to bad experiences, just like the one you replied to above.

As a 'self respecting slashdotter', you really ought to know this.

You like Apple and feel like the repair issue isn't a thing. Fine. That's your opinion. How's about letting the other folks express theirs without replying to every. single. post?

Re:Cannot upgrade or repair?

[Jethro]

It's a different subject, but it's really one of the big problems the OP and I are running into with buying new Apple hardware.

Re:Cannot upgrade or repair?

[Jethro]

First, I don't think I'm the norm in computer usage at all. Not even close. That doesn't mean I don't have a point of view, and it doesn't mean I can't be sad that my preferred hardware platform is changed in ways I don't like. Again, I'm just expressing my opinion on the matter, I'm not trying to make you agree to it. There is absolutely no need for you to get upset or jump into profanity...

Now, as to your points:

1. I can get 16GB of RAM for US$140 (which google tells me is NZD170). And that's a full 16. If I was just upgrading form 8gb it'd be half that. I've just saved about USD$200.
2. You are correct and I was wrong about the SSD not being replacable. However, the new MBP do not use a standard SSD, and the availability and type they use are limited and more expensive than standard ones.
3. I am looking at the Apple store website right now. The non-retina MBP are only available in 13", which is not an option I can use.

Re:Cannot upgrade or repair?

[Kagato]

First, Ultrabooks are not all that much cheaper than the real Mac Book Air. Often they are just as much, if not more expensive when they try to copy the all metal case. There's a bit more of a delta in price on the larger 15" Mac Book Pro, but the windows machine is still going to be thicker and heavier. Once you start comparing truly comparable hardware the premium is pretty small. This is especially true once you start comparing all metal case laptops.

Want to save money, go with plastic. Resale value on a plastic laptop is pretty abysmal. The hinges are prone to cosmetic cracks and the finish gets pronounced wear patterns.

You also need to take into account with mac you're getting a free productivity suite, free OS upgrades, and you don't waste the first few hours of ownership removing a ton of bloatware and crippleware. Add that to the resale value and it makes fiscal sense to me.

Re:Cannot upgrade or repair?

[Jesus_666]

I don't want it small. Apple does but I'm perfectly fine with the old MBP's size and weight. It's a price I gladly payed for being able to upgrade the RAM and storage myself and for not being forced to use a comparatively tiny, yet expensive SSD. For me, Apple notebooks are great becuse of their build quality and because I like OS X (although it's gotten less enjoyable since Lion). I don't need a razor-thin design object, I need a reliable notebook that is known to run some flavor of Unix well.

Of course that doesn't make me part of Apple's core demographic but until the retina MBPs showed up choosing a notebook was a no-brainer: Just get a reasonable MBP and upgrade the HDD and RAM for a fraction of what Apple charges. Now I need to buy their RAM at twice the merket rate, the storage is only upgradable for the more expensive models and even then a terabyte costs an order of magnitude more than an HDD of comparable size. (No, not all of us value speed over cost.) Also, no matte screens, no optical drive, no native Ethernet and no microphone jack.

Apple hardware has gotten too expensive for me while losing features I use and adding nothing I value. I'm disappointed by that since I used to really like their notebook lineup.

Next Version?

[jythie]

Since I have a really slow upgrade cycle, I am mostly just holding out hope that Apple releases a more maintainable MBP again sometime over the next few years. I found my 2006 MBP to be surprisingly maintainable, with parts easy to get and swap out, but nothing was glued in place. Every once in a while I poke around to see if there are any others that I like but so far not much luck.

Re: Next Version?

[gnasher719]

Computers are taking queues from cell phones and becoming cheap, commodity, throw-away items.

Calling them "throw-away" items is stupid. There is unrepairable; that's throw-away. There's user repairable, which in practice means I have to fix it in my family. And there's the huge and growing middle ground where you have to pay someone to repair it.

Things like glued-in batteries are easy to replace if you work at a place that has the right tools.

If Your Laptop Needs Upgrades, is it good enough?

[BoRegardless]

I will make the argument these devices are mostly tools and professional quality ones should be ordered loaded with CPU & RAM that works on the factory warranty & the hard drives can still be easily changed out. Our time is worth a decent amount of $s per hour, after all, and we do NOT have unlimited time.

A professional laptop recently seems to retain its usefulness for at least 3 years, so these laptops remain functional for a long enough time to justify ordering them loaded with options to make our life and work easier.

If it were me, System and eOS Luna

[wjcofkc]

If I had the money, I would go with a 17.3" Bonobo Extreme from System 76 - It's beefy as is and you can crack it right open for upgrades. The display is very nice, however I really don't know if it goes so far as to meet your Retina requirement. My first order of business would be to wipe out the hard drive and install elementary OS Luna - if you've never used it I promise you will fall in love pretty damn quick. I used Macs exclusively from 2005 until two or three months ago when I gave up OS X for a full migration to eOS after getting hooked on it - something I would have otherwise never believed possible.

Welcome to the disposable world.

[deviated_prevert]

Apple has realized that making serviceable devices is a dead end when the processor hardware is good enough to be future proof. And their solution is the same solution many sectors of the economy face. Our automobiles are disposable consumer oriented devices, our kitchen appliances are as well, washing machines, you name it all service and repair departments are being down graded to expedite product end life.

Obsolescence is not just planned it has become a manufacturing industry mantra. With essentially slave labour doing the recycling of these goods, either that or illegal at sea dumping operations turning over the used goods we are headed down a technical path to environmental and consumer driven stupidity!

Asus

[Virtucon]

Asus still makes some great laptops but I still miss 1200P res!

Re:Asus

[David_Hart]

Asus still makes some great laptops but I still miss 1200P res!

I too like Asus laptops and tablets and have had a good experience and good reliability with them.

However, every time that I post about how good Asus laptops are today, there tend to be a number of post saying just how bad they are. I can only guess that most of those who hate Asus had older models. Asus had a lot of crap in the past, but they have improved the quality of their products by quite a bit.

Nature Of the Beast

[Kagato]

As far as the RAM, meh. It's not windows, there's not a lot of cases when you would upgrade the RAM for OSX.

Battery on the other hand is a real issue. Yeah, the "new batteries" aren't supposed to have recharge issues, but PC makers have been using that line for over a decade.

It's not like Apple spends it time having a Seance to talk to Steve's ghost just to figure out how to piss people off. You want an ultra-thin notebook and you're going to sacrifice serviceability. You look at windows based ultrabooks and the serviceability is better than Apple, but not by that much. It's still a hassle to fit a battery into that space and an even bigger hassle to replace the battery. You start making the laptop more modular and a few things will happen. 1) You'll compromise on size and weight. 2) You start getting flex issues issues in the case (like it or not the glue on apple products has more to do with durability and case flex than it does with repairs). It become even more pronounced with plastic cases. 3) You end up with design compromises that make the overall experience horrid.

So where does that leave the IT professional? Well, if it's for work there's likely a service contract. The glue is the problem for some guy at the referb factory. For home? Either put up with it/get applecare contract, or hackintosh one of the cheaper ultrabooks out there and live with what that entails.

Re:15 asus rogs..

[gl4ss]

and oh.. I guess the question wasn't for me since I wasn't exactly a fan of the pre-retina macbook pro... I did have one for a while though, even if it was from the period when they practically just renamed macbooks as macbook pro's(I mean fuck, there was nothing pro about it, no extra connectors, no extra nothing, 1280 crap screen, crappy gpu.. 2011 model).

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.

My problem...

[Jethro]

I'm in the same boat as you. I have the same year MBP as you, but I have the 15" and I went out of my way to get a matte screen on it. And THOSE are no longer available, which is MY biggest problem. Those retina screens are all glossy.

I could almost live with the non-upgradable stuff.

Here's my problem, though.

I need OS X. And no other laptop will give me that.

Now technically the apps I use can be run on Windows, too, but I am NOT using Windows as my daily driver. Sure, I can get a Lenovo or Alienware (both of which have matte screen options) and dual-boot, but I don't want to do that. I often leave Photoshop open for days (or weeks!) while working on stuff, while I do other things. I do not want to have to shuffle.

So, for me, the choice is really no choice at all. Apple have kind of taken away some features we've become used to, but I am a little bit tied to the platform.

Re:Let me help the rest of the slashdot userbase

[Jethro]

I have to comment on the "price premium" thing.

Last time I upgraded my laptop (from a macbook pro to another macbook pro) I really wanted to ditch the platform. I was not happy with the direction Apple was going - they had not made things as unupgradable as they are now, but it was obviously heading this way).

So I did a whole lot of research.

And there was NO OTHER LAPTOP that came even close for the same price. NONE.

PC laptops for the same price range had i5 CPUs rather than the Mac's i7. They had much lower resolution screens, and NONE had a matte screen (which at the time was still available on Macs). I could get the cheapest RAM and HDD because I was going to upgrade them myself anyway. The high-end MBP was just a superiour laptop. It cost more than non-apple laptops, but it was actually BETTER than them, too.

Just buy a refurb/used MBP

[mveloso]

My i7 MBP with hard drive and DVD is chugging away, and will chug away forever - or as close to forever as possible.

If you need the old ones they're still on Apple's refurb/clearance page. The only thing you can't get is the widescreen glossy display, which most people hated (though I have one and it's great).

this is the equation

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Small
Cheap
Easy to repair
Pick two.

Re:Artificially Expensive Storage

[AvitarX]

As a professional with a MBP I completely disagree.

I use Windows, and my work isn't graphics, but the performance of the SSD is well worth the trade off.

1) the SSD has more storage than the laptop I replaced.
2) with USB 3, and thunderbolt, I can get gret performance from an external drive, bonus if it's SSD
3) I ALWAYS carried 2 external drives that I sync daily, I rapidly outgrow the built in storage anyway doing my work (ever since they started not needing external power, before then I used to use the computer and an external, and hope projects didn't get too big).

I don't know any professionals that are accustomed to using the internal hard drive of a laptop for storage.

Not System 76, Eurocom, PCSEX but CLEVO

[Arkh89]

Clevo is the barebone manufacturer behind System 76, Eurocom, PC-SEX, Malibal, Xotic, Deviltech, and others...
http://www.clevo.com.tw/en/products/index.asp
They don't come with all the software layers you can have on Asus, Dell & co and you can upgrade them to your needs..

Re:MBPr user

[bughunter]

This is why, when the 15" MBP-Retina was announced in 2012, as I was preparing to replace my late 2006 15" MBP, I immediately went to Apple's online store and bought a refurb late 2011 17" MPB. Although the battery isn't "user replaceable" the older MBP is still at least serviceable by a tech skilled user. The new ones aren't. And for that reason it may very well be the last Apple laptop I purchase. Regrettably.

Jobs is no longer CEO (again) and Apple is losing its edge (again).

way cheaper to upgrade them yourself

[Chirs]

Have you *seen* how much Apple/Dell/IBM etc want for RAM? They're charging double (or more) what it costs to get the equivalent stuff elsewhere.

I can save a hundred bucks getting 16GB of RAM from elsewhere, it's absolutely worth the 10 minutes of my time spent ordering and installing it.

Similarly, if I want 5GHz wifi but the manufacturer doesn't offer it in the specific model I want, it's only about $25 to buy a wifi card and minutes to install it...assuming the machine uses standard parts.

need to also compare down-market

[Chirs]

The main issue is that Apple doesn't have a product in the low end of the market.

So yes, if you're shopping in the upper end of the market and you want all the features they offer, then they're good.

However, if all you want is a basic machine for surfing the web, watching videos, writing emails, and doing basic office documents, then Apple is way more expensive because it's overkill for the purpose. I can find a crappy Acer with 6GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive for under $300. The bottom-end Macbook is $1000.

Re:Most notebooks are not really upgradeable

[SengirV]

define "service" it. There is no way to upgrade the RAM, as that is soldered in. The Battery is glued in, and I don't know of anyone who sells a replacement. And the SSD has a proprietary connection - OWC is the only outfit I see that offers the ability to upgrade the prior generation's SSD(for a markup of course). But so far, no one is offering a way to upgrade the new generation of MBP's SSD. You see, apple reworked it again to make it even LESS upgradable.

That is why I have the last generation 15" cMBP, and I intend to keep this thing for as long as humanly possible - In hopes that Apple comes to it's senses with respect to not charging way more than the normal Apple Tax amount, for a laptop that satisfies a demanding user. If they don't, I'll be looking for alternatives to the MBP as well.

Re:"AN Lenovo"?

[Drethon]

Looks more like he started to type "an e-430" and realized people might not realize it was a Lenovo. Problably didn't think the sensitivities of grammar nazis were important enough to fix the typo either. Personally I prefer clarity over correctness and "an Lenovo e-430" is more clear than "an e-430" is correct...

Re:What you are looking for

[MysteriousPreacher]

It's also a lot less expensive than a MBP

It certainly looks it.