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Could the Best Windows 10 Laptop Be a Mac?

dkatana writes: Now that Windows 10 is finally out there many people are looking for the best laptop with the power to make the new OS shine. The sweet spot appears to be in $900-$1500 machines from Dell, Asus and HP. But Apple, the company that has been fighting Windows for ever, has other options for Windows 10: the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. According to InformationWeek there are many reasons to consider purchasing a MacBook as the next Windows machine, including design, reliability, performance, battery life, display quality and better keyboard. Also MacBooks have a higher resell value, retaining up to 50% of their price after five years.

21 of 435 comments (clear)

  1. Yes - known for years. by pubwvj · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yes, the Best Windows machines are Macs. This has been the case for a looong time. Not only are they less expensive for the lifetime of ownership, longer lives, more powerful, more fully featured but as a bonus you get to use the MacOSX and better integration with iOS. Total win.

    1. Re:Yes - known for years. by real+gumby · · Score: 5, Funny

      I have mod points but don't know how to use them in this case: Funny? Insightful? Informative? Flamebait? It's like an all-in-one post!

    2. Re:Yes - known for years. by war4peace · · Score: 5, Funny

      When in doubt, +1 Funny.

      --
      ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
    3. Re:Yes - known for years. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      And, as a bonus, I can finally move up in hipster rank from "Outsider" to "Posuer."

    4. Re:Yes - known for years. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Like Apple or not, they've done a fair amount to force notebooks to be as good as they are today: very high resolution IPS panels, thinness, aluminum bodies, etc. I will ding Apple for seemingly starting the widescreen fad.

      The only real competitor were the IBM ThinkPads but since those have been sold to Lenovo, Apple is about the only computer make who is capable of creating a decent notebook computer without just blatantly ripping off someone else's design.

      Consider the Dark Ages of notebooks just a few short years ago. Crap from Dell and the others were sporting 1024x768 resolutions on crap LCD displays and were thick, heavy pieces of garbage. My ThinkPad T43 from 2004 had a 1400x1050 IPS panel and 5 years later, outside of CPU, the enterprise class machines actually had worse specifications!

    5. Re:Yes - known for years. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      You still have a long way to go, young padawan:

      Level 0 -- Outsider
      Level 1 -- Poseur
      Level 2 -- Johnny Come Lately
      Level 3 -- Mainstream Trend Follower
      Level 4 -- Whatever, dude
      Level 5 -- Tolerated
      Level 6 -- Hipster
      Level 7 -- Douchebag
      Level 8 -- Pretentious Douchebag
      Level 9 -- Uber Douchebag
      Level 10 -- Shia Labeouf

    6. Re: Yes - known for years. by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 4, Informative

      And that Dell XPS 13 2015 will cost a pretty penny, as soon as you deck it out to similar specs, if you even can.

      Ahh, no...

      The Dell is $800 feature complete with a nice Core i3. What does the MacBook have? Core M. Not even close. It is also $1,300, more than 50% more expensive.

      The only thing the MacBook has is 256GB of SSD storage, to the XPS 13's 128GB. Otherwise the XPS 13 is a better machine. A 13.3" 1080p display, very light and tons of battery life.

      Why anyone would buy the MacBook, other than to look "cool", is beyond me. You can buy three of the XPS 13 for less than the cost of 2 MacBooks.

    7. Re: Yes - known for years. by unami · · Score: 4, Informative

      aah no, $ 1300 gets you a macbook pro with an i5 - comparable to the xps 13 9343 from dell with the same cpu, ram & ssd capacity, sold for the same price. the dell is a little smaller, but got a lot of brittle carbon fibre, the mbp has more ports (hdmi & 2x thunderbolt/mini display port), a more than 50% larger battery, slightly lower screen resolution, but a faster gpu to go with it. so it's at least a tie with the mbp being the faster, but slightly bigger & heavier machine. i'd go for the macbook, because it also got mag-safe, osx and a better touchpad. but if you're a windows user, the windows keyboard of the dell is something to consider.

    8. Re:Yes - known for years. by maccodemonkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Uhhhh what? You're spec'ing a sub notebook against a 15" notebook. Of course the sub notebook is not going to be configurable into the same range, and is going to get very expensive.

      If you're comparing against a 15" Lenovo, you want to compare against the 15" Macbook Pro, which is the equivalent.

  2. Mac has a firewall... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 4, Interesting
    .... so that might be beneficial if this is correct: A Traffic Analysis of Windows 10

    Some Czech guy did a traffic analysis of data produced by Windows 10, and released his findings the other day. His primary thesis was that Windows 10 acts more like a terminal than an operating system -- because of the extent of the "cloud" integration, a large portion of the OS functions are almost dependent on remote (Microsoft's) servers. The amount of collected information, even with strict privacy settings, is quite alarming. ... All text typed on the keyboard is stored in temporary files, and sent (once per 30 mins) to:...

  3. Re:Could someone ELI5 how Macbooks retain value? by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There was a time I understood this during the PPC era of mac, but now that macs run on commodity, non specialized CISC based x86, I have no idea why they retain their value. A lot of PC makers are starting to make machines that look *almost* as nice as a MBP. My HP Envy Beats laptops have a nice aluminum case.

    One reason is that they've poured a lot of effort into materials design, visual design, and industrial design, and have been doing so for years. We laugh at the Toilet Seat, the Cube, and various other goofy flops they've had in their history, but it demonstrates a) just how far back their design efforts go, and b) just how much they've learned since. A lot of other companies are getting into this now, but Apple has a pretty big head start, and they're not showing any signs of abandoning this practice any time soon.

    --

    Obliteracy: Words with explosions

  4. Instead of advertising for Apple and Microsoft, by LichtSpektren · · Score: 5, Insightful

    why not advertise for System76 and other companies that sell good hardware with Linux pre-installed?

  5. What about touch interfaces? by mamono · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are no MacBooks with touch screens (and unlikely to be one any time soon). All newer Windows versions are so heavily touch-oriented I don't see how the TFA could be true. Even with a keyboard and mouse attached, the touch interface has it's advantages. I often find myself occasionally trying to use my finger to navigate a non-touch laptop and then remember "oh yeah, no touch interface".

  6. Better keyboard?! What. by Sowelu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I cringe every time I have to use a Mac keyboard. They're awful. In what universe are they better? They're usually not even full keyboards. The one I'm stuck with at work doesn't even have pgup/pgdn, not even with the fn key. There's holes where you could put them near the arrow keys, too, like a sane laptop, but nooo.

    Okay, I like the extra bucky bit, but that's an OS thing and it isn't worth the price of "nothing on a macintosh has accelerator keys".

  7. Re:meh, keep OS X on your macbook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I hope your job doesn't require any reading comprehension skills.

  8. Re:No Trackpoint = Bad Windows Laptop by HornWumpus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    'Up to' is a weasel phrase. Like 'some scientists believe', anything qualified by this is sure to be pure BS.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  9. Re:And how much do they pay for slashvertisements? by Adriax · · Score: 4, Funny

    Apple.
    Microsoft employs weasels in their marketing department, not car dealers.

    "Now see here son. Not only is this here Macbook the purdiest thang this side of the Mississippi, but it's also a real investment in your future. You buy this and I guarantee you'll get atleast half your money back when you trade up in 5 years. Guaranteed.
    Can't say that about any of those other clunkers out there. They lose 95% of their value as soon as you get one. Might as well be pissing your money down the drain. Pardon my french."

    --
    I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
  10. Re:Could someone ELI5 how Macbooks retain value? by Farmer+Tim · · Score: 3, Informative

    Incorrect: Apples also have a model number, it's printed in small type on the back/underside along with the power requirements and FCC compliance statement, and looks like A####. For example, I'm typing this on a model A1416, punch that into google and you'll see exactly what I'm using without even having to leave the search result page.

    --
    Blank until /. makes another boneheaded UI decision.
  11. Wrong by Luthair · · Score: 5, Informative

    They do not last any longer than any business class hardware, they are no faster than any other laptop (I guess other than a pcie SSD which really doesn't translate into noteable improvements)

    As someone who has spent the last 5-years using macbooks with windows installed for work there are massive downsides. The keyboards are awful (bad layout and bad feel), they run very hot, and the battery life is poor. Both the last two points are Apples fault for disabling various power CPU states and using a proprietary GPU switching solution which they do not provide a driver for leaving Windows with access only to the integrated GPU.

    If you're a Windows user you should not by Apple unless you absolutely need to have access to OSX, and even then you should consider a Windows laptop and a mac mini which combined will probably cost less.

  12. Re:And how much do they pay for slashvertisements? by plasm4 · · Score: 5, Informative

    My apple notebook is nearly 5 years old and the same model has sold recently on eBay for roughly 50% of what I paid. It's not bullshit.

  13. Re: And how much do they pay for slashvertisements by Redbehrend · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sold my ASUS laptop that was 4 years old for 60% of what I paid. Hate to break it to apple people but you buy a good enough machine it or the parts will be worth something later, not just apple.