Hi all,
I'm an avid computer purchaser. In the past 5 years I've bought 2 desktops, and 6 laptops. Let me explain:
C - Dell XPS 8700 - i7 4790 - 8GB - GTX 1050 - $700 - 4 years old
B - HP Pavilion 360 - Pentium 4GB - $399 - 3 years old
X - Lenovo - A4-???? - 4GB - $399 - Gave to my niece, but she didn't like it so I gave it to my brother.
B - Lenovo - A9-8520 - 8GB - $399 - Collecting dust but will probably go to my sister
X - Lenovo High-End - i5 8250U - 8GB - $499 (Gave to my mom as her laptop was an old A6-3600 Toshiba from wow.... 8 years ago?)
X - Lenovo - Ryzen 2500U - 8GB - $499 (Gave to my niece as she needed a new computer for school and her drawing)
C - Asus - Ryzen 3500U - 6GB (now 20GB) - $499 (my current laptop for memory intensive tasks - development)
C - MacBook Air 2015 - 4GB 11" - $179 - Used - Battery life is amazing still! - Primary laptop due to battery life.
C = currently used most often
B = backups
X = Given away
The main reason I didn't like the Lenovo with the A9 is the screen resolution of 1366x768. Tough to use that. I should have returned it.
The Pavilion was neat at the time with the pen/drawing feature. I ended up putting in an SSD to make it go quicker so that helps a lot. Again, no very powerful but a great backup and since it has decent battery, I use it in a pinch.
Lenovo High-End, I bought it because of the 1920x1080 screen, but I knew my mom's laptop was seriously aging. I gave it to her, but she rarely gets on her computer anymore since she has an iPad now.
The Lenovo Ryzen 2500U was my primary PC for a long time. It had a 1920x1080 screen, but again my niece needed something for her drawing and school work.
Asus Ryzen 3500U - amazing machine, pretty dang fast (keeps up with my desktop 8700 quite well in CPU performance, due to 4 cores 8 threads). However, battery life is terrible. Barely 2 hours before it has to be plugged in.
MBA 2015 - amazing, fast, 128GB so storage is meh, but I can still do some Angular development with it.
So now we get to wanting another laptop. My main things are:
1) Battery life - this I never thought would be an issue for me, but wow, my most powerful laptop (Asus) can't even last a full 2 hours some days? I'll probably do a refresh on the PC tonight since there's a few issues with a couple drivers.
2) RAM - 8GB isn't enough any more. If I can upgrade it, great! BTO, eh.... not so sure, but willing to purchase that way.
3) CPU - AMD's 4000 series is really keeping things interesting. Intel's 10th Gen is falling behind against the 4000 series, but not all 10th Gen have been released, and I'm still waiting to see the GPU performance.
Now I bought a MacBook Pro about 2 years ago. I hated hated hated the keyboard. It was horrible! I returned it. This is about the time stagelight gate and butterfly dust issues were occurring.
I'm considering the following:
Gaming Laptop - bad battery life, but generally more powerful and easily upgradeable.
Macbook Air - Seems expensive for the hardware, but battery life still sounds amazing.
Macbook Pro - best all around, but internals are a bit out-dated. $1299 for the basic and not even 16GB of RAM or a dedicated GPU?
Other considerations:
Used MBA or MBP with at least 16GB of RAM - issue here is depending on year, it could cost an arm and a leg for out-dated technology. Then it may not get updates anymore depending on the next OS release.
Microsoft Surface - I actually hate these devices. Microsoft really screwed them up considering you have to buy the keyboard separately for some. So you buy a... tablet that you attach a keyboard + trackpad on later? They're not that comfortable either.
System76 laptop - Seems expensive, but for what you get, still reasonable.
Final Consideration:
Wait for ARM Macs - Last time I got a new Mac, they went from PPC to Intel. I wasn't happy. My iBook only lasted about 2 OS iterations 10.4 and 10.5 before it was given up on.
I do a lot of development. Visual Studio C#, Web technologies, etc. I'm getting more OS agnostic in my development overall.
What would you consider/do?
I'm an avid computer purchaser. In the past 5 years I've bought 2 desktops, and 6 laptops. Let me explain:
C - Dell XPS 8700 - i7 4790 - 8GB - GTX 1050 - $700 - 4 years old
B - HP Pavilion 360 - Pentium 4GB - $399 - 3 years old
X - Lenovo - A4-???? - 4GB - $399 - Gave to my niece, but she didn't like it so I gave it to my brother.
B - Lenovo - A9-8520 - 8GB - $399 - Collecting dust but will probably go to my sister
X - Lenovo High-End - i5 8250U - 8GB - $499 (Gave to my mom as her laptop was an old A6-3600 Toshiba from wow.... 8 years ago?)
X - Lenovo - Ryzen 2500U - 8GB - $499 (Gave to my niece as she needed a new computer for school and her drawing)
C - Asus - Ryzen 3500U - 6GB (now 20GB) - $499 (my current laptop for memory intensive tasks - development)
C - MacBook Air 2015 - 4GB 11" - $179 - Used - Battery life is amazing still! - Primary laptop due to battery life.
C = currently used most often
B = backups
X = Given away
The main reason I didn't like the Lenovo with the A9 is the screen resolution of 1366x768. Tough to use that. I should have returned it.
The Pavilion was neat at the time with the pen/drawing feature. I ended up putting in an SSD to make it go quicker so that helps a lot. Again, no very powerful but a great backup and since it has decent battery, I use it in a pinch.
Lenovo High-End, I bought it because of the 1920x1080 screen, but I knew my mom's laptop was seriously aging. I gave it to her, but she rarely gets on her computer anymore since she has an iPad now.
The Lenovo Ryzen 2500U was my primary PC for a long time. It had a 1920x1080 screen, but again my niece needed something for her drawing and school work.
Asus Ryzen 3500U - amazing machine, pretty dang fast (keeps up with my desktop 8700 quite well in CPU performance, due to 4 cores 8 threads). However, battery life is terrible. Barely 2 hours before it has to be plugged in.
MBA 2015 - amazing, fast, 128GB so storage is meh, but I can still do some Angular development with it.
So now we get to wanting another laptop. My main things are:
1) Battery life - this I never thought would be an issue for me, but wow, my most powerful laptop (Asus) can't even last a full 2 hours some days? I'll probably do a refresh on the PC tonight since there's a few issues with a couple drivers.
2) RAM - 8GB isn't enough any more. If I can upgrade it, great! BTO, eh.... not so sure, but willing to purchase that way.
3) CPU - AMD's 4000 series is really keeping things interesting. Intel's 10th Gen is falling behind against the 4000 series, but not all 10th Gen have been released, and I'm still waiting to see the GPU performance.
Now I bought a MacBook Pro about 2 years ago. I hated hated hated the keyboard. It was horrible! I returned it. This is about the time stagelight gate and butterfly dust issues were occurring.
I'm considering the following:
Gaming Laptop - bad battery life, but generally more powerful and easily upgradeable.
Macbook Air - Seems expensive for the hardware, but battery life still sounds amazing.
Macbook Pro - best all around, but internals are a bit out-dated. $1299 for the basic and not even 16GB of RAM or a dedicated GPU?
Other considerations:
Used MBA or MBP with at least 16GB of RAM - issue here is depending on year, it could cost an arm and a leg for out-dated technology. Then it may not get updates anymore depending on the next OS release.
Microsoft Surface - I actually hate these devices. Microsoft really screwed them up considering you have to buy the keyboard separately for some. So you buy a... tablet that you attach a keyboard + trackpad on later? They're not that comfortable either.
System76 laptop - Seems expensive, but for what you get, still reasonable.
Final Consideration:
Wait for ARM Macs - Last time I got a new Mac, they went from PPC to Intel. I wasn't happy. My iBook only lasted about 2 OS iterations 10.4 and 10.5 before it was given up on.
I do a lot of development. Visual Studio C#, Web technologies, etc. I'm getting more OS agnostic in my development overall.
What would you consider/do?
