Laptop recommendations

[shakalaka]

Didn't want to derail the Apple thread but as some of you may have read it on there, my MacBook Pro of 3 years just decided to die the other day.

Apple says it would be $850 to fix as they need to replace the logic board. Was going to just buy a new MacBook Air or Pro until I got to thinking. I am kinda annoyed with Apple for this whole stupid fiasco due to which I'll lose all my data and I gotta pay almost the cost of a new one to get the old one working. In 3 years that thing was used very little and still shows as brand new.

Also since I have to currently carry two devices the Mac and Durface Pro 7 for work, I am thinking of just getting a nicer Windows laptop instead and then I can get rid of my Surface Pro 7 as it's more or less new and I got it for work. I have other iMacs at home so that's fine too.

Leaning towards purchasing a Samsung Galaxy Flex as a one device to keep. Does anyone have an any experience with those? For that price range of $2K, is there anything else that's better out there? I do light computing, nothing crazy like hard-core games, video or photo editing etc.

[The_Rural_Juror]

The Apple M1 chips are savage enough to park on top of anything you toss at it.

[rage2]

As much as you’re annoyed with the situation, 3 months ago prior to M1 I would’ve steered you to an XPS13. But I can’t. The M1 is that much of a game changer. I’m using the m1 air like a laptop. Unplugged, with battery life left at the end of the day while blowing away the surface pro and MacBook Pro intel in speed. I don’t remember the last time being able to use a laptop like a laptop, unplugged, without having to look around for a power adapter at some point in the day. And it’s $1200.

Yea it sucks you’re losing your data since you can’t even remove the Hdd out of your MBP since it’s soldered in and most likely encrypted if you’re on a newer macOS, next time around make sure you have a solid backup solution.

[taemo]

+1 on M1, I might get the 2nd gen next year but if needed a new one, it would be my recommendation as well.

have you tried contacting a local apple repair shot to see if they can do anything?

[rage2]

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+1 on M1, I might get the 2nd gen next year but if needed a new one, it would be my recommendation as well.

have you tried contacting a local apple repair shot to see if they can do anything?

A logic board replacement replaces the ssd that’s soldered on. Coupled with the fact that it probably had encryption enabled, that data is as good as gone. Apple doesn’t exactly make repairs easy at all.

[shakalaka]

Man freaking Apple. Every time I try to leave it, it pulls me back in lol. But I am going to hold steadfast this time. Let's say Apple is not an option - what's the next best bet? I did buy the Samsung Galaxy Flex book but it won't come in for a while and I can always return it if I don't like it. In addition to being annoyed with Apple, the other factor also is that I am hoping to go down to one device as opposed to two. For work I have to have a Windows PC and that's why I got the Surface Pro 7 in the first place. With a one proper windows laptop, I can then get rid of the Surface Pro 7 and not worry about carrying two.

For speed, I am sure M1 is great and all that but honestly for a typical user that only does regular day to day tasks like word processing, internet browsing, Youtube videos and Netflix every now and then - does it really matter? The Samsung I picked is the 512Gb, 15.6" version with 16GB RAM. I am thinking I am not going to think it's slow or slower than Mac. I never had any issues with the speed on my 2016 MBP and if I got for the new MBA or MBP, I am going to get stuck with keeping the Surface Pro 7 as well.

Now for data on my old Mac, the data recovery service from US that Apple reffered me to, quoted me $700US to $2900US range to recover the data. In short: fuck that. I found this video when researching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb19xM4egzQ and their site lead me to this product: https://store.appledollars.com/colle...2014-2015-2016

So I was thinking of giving that a shot as DIY since the MBP is dead anyway, I don't care if it gets further fucked up. If I can recover data and delete it from there, I can sell the thing for parts, otherwise I will have to hold on to it in perpetuity so as to not risk leaking all my data.

[taemo]

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A logic board replacement replaces the ssd that’s soldered on. Coupled with the fact that it probably had encryption enabled, that data is as good as gone. Apple doesn’t exactly make repairs easy at all.

ah yes, totally forgot that mid 2015 everything is soldered on now, bummer.

[rage2]

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Man freaking Apple. Every time I try to leave it, it pulls me back in lol. But I am going to hold steadfast this time. Let's say Apple is not an option - what's the next best bet? I did buy the Samsung Galaxy Flex book but it won't come in for a while and I can always return it if I don't like it. In addition to being annoyed with Apple, the other factor also is that I am hoping to go down to one device as opposed to two. For work I have to have a Windows PC and that's why I got the Surface Pro 7 in the first place. With a one proper windows laptop, I can then get rid of the Surface Pro 7 and not worry about carrying two.

For speed, I am sure M1 is great and all that but honestly for a typical user that only does regular day to day tasks like word processing, internet browsing, Youtube videos and Netflix every now and then - does it really matter? The Samsung I picked is the 512Gb, 15.6" version with 16GB RAM. I am thinking I am not going to think it's slow or slower than Mac. I never had any issues with the speed on my 2016 MBP and if I got for the new MBA or MBP, I am going to get stuck with keeping the Surface Pro 7 as well.

Now for data on my old Mac, the data recovery service from US that Apple reffered me to, quoted me $700US to $2900US range to recover the data. In short: fuck that. I found this video when researching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb19xM4egzQ and their site lead me to this product: https://store.appledollars.com/colle...2014-2015-2016

So I was thinking of giving that a shot as DIY since the MBP is dead anyway, I don't care if it gets further fucked up. If I can recover data and delete it from there, I can sell the thing for parts, otherwise I will have to hold on to it in perpetuity so as to not risk leaking all my data.

If Apple is out of the question, XPS13 is by far the best windows laptop I’ve used. Even better than the surface book.

Does M1 make a difference in day to day? Absolutely. Web browsing is a lot faster. I have a couple of web apps where I used to have to wait as it renders a table of options. It’s instant on the M1. All the client side processing stuff to make a web page work is just faster. Word processing, probably nothing significant there, google sheets, excel, with large sheets and pivots and graphs fly on the M1. Huge difference there. So ya, in my day to day, it’s a big difference.

Finally on data recovery, do you remember if you enabled encryption? What OS were you on? Your only real hope is if encryption was disabled, otherwise you’re going to spend a lot of money on recovery with firms that can extract the keys, or diagnose exactly what broke on the logic board and resurrect the laptop preserving the keys on the working parts.

[taemo]

At this point if the data is really important on the old laptop I would just fork the $850 repair cost, wipe and resell afterwards or trade it in with Apple.

And start planning for a backup/cloud solution on his next laptop.

Your MBP is still probably worth around 1000-1200 in the used market depending on specs.

[sabad66]

For Windows i would +1 XPS13 or XPS15. I have the very first year of this generation of XPS13 back from 2014 and it's still going strong.

[shakalaka]

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If Apple is out of the question, XPS13 is by far the best windows laptop I’ve used. Even better than the surface book.

Does M1 make a difference in day to day? Absolutely. Web browsing is a lot faster. I have a couple of web apps where I used to have to wait as it renders a table of options. It’s instant on the M1. All the client side processing stuff to make a web page work is just faster. Word processing, probably nothing significant there, google sheets, excel, with large sheets and pivots and graphs fly on the M1. Huge difference there. So ya, in my day to day, it’s a big difference.

Finally on data recovery, do you remember if you enabled encryption? What OS were you on? Your only real hope is if encryption was disabled, otherwise you’re going to spend a lot of money on recovery with firms that can extract the keys, or diagnose exactly what broke on the logic board and resurrect the laptop preserving the keys on the working parts.

IF Apple was still an option - would you say the new MBA (basic - 8GB with 256GB HD) or MBP (basic w/ same options) is the way to go? What would best compete with Galaxy Flex with 16Gb RAM and i7 essentially? I noticed MBA is showing available at Market Mall Apple store now even though wasn't until yesterday and since I was trying to get that first - I am confused again. While it would be nice to go down to one device having using Mac for over past 10 years, it's going to be a change for sure. All my passwords, banking details etc were saved in Safari, so if I don't get another Mac, I will have to figure out a way to delete everything as I wouldn't save that on my home iMac.

On my MBP it was the latest OS Big Sur - I don't recall anything about the encryption. Spending $700US plus I am not going to do so the only option would be that DIY thing I posted.

[killramos]

What do you use your computer for if bouncing between windows and Mac is even a serious consideration?

Internet browsing and word?

Fwiw if you don’t backup your windows computer you would still be similarly fucked. Security is getting far more intense these days.

[rage2]

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IF Apple was still an option - would you say the new MBA (basic - 8GB with 256GB HD) or MBP (basic w/ same options) is the way to go? What would best compete with Galaxy Flex with 16Gb RAM and i7 essentially? I noticed MBA is showing available at Market Mall Apple store now even though wasn't until yesterday and since I was trying to get that first - I am confused again. While it would be nice to go down to one device having using Mac for over past 10 years, it's going to be a change for sure. All my passwords, banking details etc were saved in Safari, so if I don't get another Mac, I will have to figure out a way to delete everything as I wouldn't save that on my home iMac.

On my MBP it was the latest OS Big Sur - I don't recall anything about the encryption. Spending $700US plus I am not going to do so the only option would be that DIY thing I posted.

After using the MBA 8gb base throughout the holidays, I wouldn't even bother with the MBP. No Touch Bar and no fan makes the MBA an even better machine than the MBP. Bonus is 30% or so cheaper.

[The_Rural_Juror]

Linus clocked the MBP at just over 20 hours of battery life while the XPS13 was something like the 12 with the MBA slightly longer but around the same time.

I would still do MBA being fanless.

[rage2]

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Linus clocked the MBP at just over 20 hours of battery life while the XPS13 was something like the 12 with the MBA slightly longer but around the same time.

I would still do MBA being fanless.

The battery life in reviews are always laughable. It's usually how much I can stretch battery life by doing as little as possible. Real world is nowhere close.

Example, MBP x86 was rated at something like 11 hours, while the M1 was rated at 15 hours for the Air, and 16 hours for the Pro. Throw some real world use in there (in my case, Zoom, iMovie, web apps such as Google Apps) and it'll never hit that. The impact to x86 laptops from real world usage are quite dramatic, example, I was never able to get more than 3.5 hours of battery life of my MBP x86 with running just Zoom calls, even though it's rated at 11 hours of battery life. Thats a massive drop in actual battery life. The M1's last way longer. I had a 3 hour zoom dinner with the family on the MBA M1, and after 2 hours it only dropped 20% battery. End of the dinner it dropped 27%. I could do 10 hours zoom calls if I wanted to and still have battery left. The real world use battery life drop against rated is much less on the M1's.

That's the story that's really missing on the M1's. I can do real work for an entire day, unplugged, at full speed without throttling and still have battery left at the end of the day. I have never been able to do that with any x86 laptop.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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I can do real work for an entire day, unplugged, at full speed without throttling and still have battery left at the end of the day. I have never been able to do that with any x86 laptop.

Lots of X86 laptops can do this, just not the ones still running 6 year old Intel architecture.

[The_Rural_Juror]

Linus actually left all the laptops on at the same time, doing the same nothing.

[shakalaka]

So reading all these rave reviews on the Mac's has me double guessing my decision of ordering the Samsung Galaxy Flex. So I am thinking of canceling that and going for MacBook Air.

Is it worth the extra $250 to upgrade the ram to 16gb or I should be fine with the basic 8GB air? @rage2

Nvm if I upgrade RAM then it's not available for pickup right away. So I think 8gb will have to do and for my menial tasks I imagine that'll be fine.

[killramos]

What do you even use the computer for?

You don’t need nearly as much ram for internet pornography as you might think.

All things said, I don’t think I could want a laptop less than I want a Samsung galaxy flex.

[rage2]

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Lots of X86 laptops can do this, just not the ones still running 6 year old Intel architecture.

Cool. Let me know when I can get XPS13 or Surface Laptop 13" with a non Intel processor haha.

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So reading all these rave reviews on the Mac's has me double guessing my decision of ordering the Samsung Galaxy Flex. So I am thinking of canceling that and going for MacBook Air.

Is it worth the extra $250 to upgrade the ram to 16gb or I should be fine with the basic 8GB air? @rage2

Nvm if I upgrade RAM then it's not available for pickup right away. So I think 8gb will have to do and for my menial tasks I imagine that'll be fine.

For the shit I do, 8gb was surprisingly fine. For the shit you do, I can't see you needing more than 8gb.