What are people rocking for laptops these days?

[killramos]

Well I *think* I need a new laptop sometime in the next few months. Ordinarily I would just straight away go with a Macbook pro, that's what my last main laptop was and it was a great machine for the 6-7 years I used it as my primary computer. But fuck spending 3-3500 dollars on the new ones.

I picked up a surface pro 4 last year and its alright. But I think its too small, buggy, and anemic to really be used seriously. I bought it as a toy and that's really all it has been good for for me. It replaced an iPad for me and on that front it has been great.

Anyways I am thinking of something in a standard 15 inch form factor. It doesn't need to be an ultrabook but it needs to be light enough to carry day to day. Considering i lugged a 2008 macbook around for 4 years of school I don't see any modern full sized laptop being a problem in that department. I do need it to be an actual laptop, a tablet is not going to fit the bill. If I have a laptop I will probably play games on it but that's my main consideration.

What I have currently thought of:

2016 Razer Blade - $2,500

This is a "fuck it laptops are expensive so i might as well get something capable and nice looking if I am going to drop real money" choice for me. Have heard fantastic things from reviews, but mixed reports on reliability? I need this thing to work every time i press the power button so that concerns me. I like Razer shit because I am a tool.

MSI GS63VR - $2,200

Similar spec's to the Razer but for a few bills less money. I know nothing about MSI though but have heard good things? Bonus points its available here in town so I can physically see it before buying and don't have to have it shipped.

2016 Macbook Pro - ~3,400

In the list because I like and they are good machines them despite the negatives, price is for spec's I want with an Edu discount. Still fucking expensive. One bonus is i can TB into my iMac to use the bigger screen if necessary.

....

That's it, when it comes to computers I only "know" two things Mac's and Gaming ( i realize that is a confusing combination ).

Anyhow enough about me, what are all of your guy's opinions on mobile computers?

TL: Dr

School me on laptop options 2016 edition.

[NoPulp]

Not the person to recommend computers, but you should have started this thread before black friday! My work spent their tech budget on BF and we saved like a grand off each of our laptops we needed lol.

Wait until Boxing Day to see if anything interesting goes on sale?

[nobb]

I know you said 15", but this Inspiron 13 on sale for $1k really caught my eye:

http://forums.redflagdeals.com/dell-...-1079-2061727/

I'm in the same boat, was pretty much hoping to get a decent laptop with those specs but I wouldnt mind paying a bit more for a better built ultrabook (like the XPS 13).

[EK 2.0]

I'm still using a 2011 MBP

Which I recently upgraded to a 1TB SSD and 16GB of RAM...and BOOM I have what seems like a brand new machine. All for about 500ish with deals from Memory Express.

Now I should state that my needs for a Laptop is super basic...web surfing, iTunes, youtube...

Versus shelling out for a new machine that I wouldn't need the crazy new specs for.

[taemo]

I also had an SP4 and sold it in October as I wasn't using it much and not a big fan of the keyboard cover.

However, if I were to buy a laptop and I might next year, I would consider the XPS13, 15 if I want a big laptop.
Asus Zenbook would be a 2nd choice.

[blitz]

I just got a Lenovo P40 on BF, loving it so far and it's beautifully made.

[RealJimmyJames]

Not a laptop expert, but what is better about those $2500+ laptops compared to something like this Asus Zenbook for just under two grand?
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX60709

[taemo]

Originally posted by blitz
I just got a Lenovo P40 on BF, loving it so far and it's beautifully made.

is that what you use for editing your photos now, how small and light is it compared to your old mac?

looks great and I like how it can turn into a tablet, although it's something i wouldnt be using often.

[KPHMPH]

I wanted a MacBook Pro because my old one wa getting weathered. I needed up buying the large IPad Pro for a touch over $1200 with a nice keyboard. Pretty happy and don't think I neeed anymore than that!

[Mitsu3000gt]

The Lenovo Black Friday deals were the best Laptop deals I've seen in a pretty long time. Maybe they will do it again for Boxing Day. I picked up (for a friend) a 15.6" with 256GB PCI-E NVME SSD, 7th generation Core i7 CPU 3.5Ghz, 16GB of DDR4 Ram, Geforce 960M 2GB descrete graphics, Windows 10, all the usual other goodies and a full HD IPS anti-glare Screen for $700. Pretty hard to beat that IMHO, and extremely similar specs to the $3,000+ Macbook Pro which is a giant ripoff.

I'm still using my 2012 Asus Zenbook and it continues to be flawless. Cold boots in ~2 seconds into windows and is as fast and reliable as the day I got it. Fantastic keyboard/trackpad, full aluminium build, and has one of the hardest things to find on any laptop - a matte IPS screen. Only complaint is that 4GB of ram is a little light now 4 years later in 2016. Got it for $599 or something (originally $1200 or so) back when Memory Express' one-day-deals were actually decent and not utterly laughable as they are now. A friend of mine uses the exact same laptop for work, it's pretty beat up nowadays (physically), but is running like the day he got it as well. My brother has one as well and it's still great.

Unless you want an all out gaming laptop, I'd be looking at Dell's XPS line, Asus Zenbooks, and variety of Lenovo offerings. Those companies aren't nailing you nearly as hard for the exchange rates either.

Originally posted by RealJimmyJames
Not a laptop expert, but what is better about those $2500+ laptops compared to something like this Asus Zenbook for just under two grand?
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX60709

Nothing really. That laptop you linked to is a beast. The only reason the MBP is $3000+ is because it says apple on it and because they use a straight up USD/CAD exchange rate to determine Canadian MSRPs, and then never put them on sale. All kinds of electronics have been getting similarly ridiculous price bumps over the last 6-12 months.

At the end of the day most computer / laptops have similar configurations of the same or very similar hardware. Finding a combination with the most value in a package you like is really all there is to consider.

[The_Penguin]

In my experience (and I have a LOT) Dell Latitude, and Lenovo are my top picks based on reliability and support.

[Zhariak]

Rocking a fully loaded Lenovo X1 Carbon (3rd gen) with built in LTE... Absolutely friggin love it.

Sold a client a fully loaded 4th gen today, should be showing up in the coming weeks, I'm jealous! lol

[max_boost]

you guys are ballers for laptops lol i just bought a cheap $500 asus f555l haha

[Buster]

I have my year old XPS13 and it's been a great machine. I think Dell really hit a homerun with it.

[Gman.45]

I still use laptops a lot, even with the iPads/etc we have. I used a Razer Blade for a couple years, but upgraded to a 1070 MSI GT72, I wanted a 1080 but none were available. As much as I'm an Asus fanboi for MB, LCDs, and so on, their laptops I dislike, mainly due to the keyboard. I've been told this is no big deal, but since the KB is the thing you use the most with a laptop, I strongly disagree. And the Asus KB is shit. The MSI laptops aren't perfect, but their kb are far superior. The rest of the machine is decent, 1080p good looking screen, RGB, m.2 drive, etc. It took me a bit to clear out all the crap I didn't want installed, but now it boots and works as I want it to, a clean, portable gaming machine.

I can run anything I've tried so far on my new laptop, it isn't as fast as my desktops, but they never are. For $2500 I'm happy with the MSI, and will stick with it for another year or two until the next shiny new thing comes along. For me that'll be a 4k screen powered by whatever comes next after Pascal, hopefully HBM2 powered graphics cards in a 17" case.

Power used to be my major concern, but with the improvements in portable power sources, and some airliners/bus/places you use a laptop/etc having power/usb connections, it's become less of an issue for me. Even economy class in many cases have hook ups for a laptop now.

The Razer Blade Pro looks great too, even though I'm generally not a fan of Razer, these are nice. 17" 4k with a 1080, the only down size is the odd keyboard setup, trackpad on the right in place of the numpad, dumb IMO, but other than that, the hardware and slimness make it a good pick IMO for a traveler stuck on planes a lot, as the screen for media playback is fantastic. In fact the next size Razer down with the 1060 and smaller screen might be better for frequent flying, as I find the 17" to be pretty big for tray tables in economy, flying biz/1st class it hasn't been an issue, but I don't always get to do that.

[ZenOps]

$200 Dell Inspiron 14

Swapped out to 8GB ram and added $28 Sandisk Ultra Fit 128GB as a swapfile scratch disk and extra storage.

Because it doesn't touch games more demanding than Civilization IV or FTL, because a laptop will always be a crippled experience compared to a desktop where you need 150 to 200 watts just to run the videocard.

[sabad66]

Originally posted by Buster
I have my year old XPS13 and it's been a great machine. I think Dell really hit a homerun with it.

I have the first gen from 2015 and it's still going strong. Best part is the tiny bevel around the screen. Makes it look very sleek and refined. Should be a lot cheaper than the options you listed so far

Buy it at the MS store with Microsoft Complete and you're good to go for warranty too.

[killramos]

Thanks guys, some good options in here. Gunna check out the XPS 15 as well, only thing is the GTX 960m is a bit anemic compared to the 1060's that the competition has. All for a very similar price. Overall might be worth it for such a great package though.

Using an iPad is not an option, needs to be a real computer. Otherwise I would just deal with the surface TBH.

I guess at the end of the day I just want a very capable laptop with enough horsepower to be useful for the long term. Just need to figure out the right mixture of specs, form factor, price.

How are many of these brands for the typical Windows bloat ware? Easy enough to restore to nice vanilla settings? It was one of the big pluses of the surface.

[Seth1968]

Hi Kill

Despite the hype, the specs don't matter much unless you're doing some high end video editing or gaming. Other factors such as screen size/type, hdd or ssd, hdmi, etc, are more important.

As far as bloatware goes, I don't uninstall it, as uninstalling anything is a risk. There are exceptions of course for other types of programs. I prefer to just disable the bloatware from running via task manager.

[carson blocks]

I've got an MSI GT72 2QE Dominator Pro. It's almost a year and a half old now and I've had no problems, and no regrets spending the extra on a machine with good specs.