Alternatives to dissapointed Mac users

[wobbled]

Definitely stick with thinkpads, they're the best alternatives for sure.

I'm currently saving up for a Thinkpad P50 with a 4k screen, 64GB RAM, and Hyperthreaded quad core i7. Pretty beastly machine but they're by no means cheap.

Why do you need 64GB RAM?

Remoting in to multiple servers and using multiple VM's takes its toll.

[Hypersphere]

I remember when I bought my first computer system. I actually went to a retail store. I wanted to upgrade the basic system to a total of 640 kB of RAM with an AST "six pack". That's 640 KILOBYTES, NOT megabytes or Gigabytes. The sales guy tried to discourage me. He asked incredulously, "What on earth are you going to do with all that memory?"

[Ray]

That's how I think about modern OS'es. On my 10 year old laptop, which I still use quite some, linux booting into X uses about 190MiB. When I boot into windows7 it feels like the OS + anti-virus is about to use most of my 2GiB Ram from time to time.

[face]

Sorry, wasn't meant to be sarcastic, I was honestly interested.

I remember when I bought my first computer system. I actually went to a retail store. I wanted to upgrade the basic system to a total of 640 kB of RAM with an AST "six pack". That's 640 KILOBYTES, NOT megabytes or Gigabytes. The sales guy tried to discourage me. He asked incredulously, "What on earth are you going to do with all that memory?"

Haha, yeah I remember that kind of stuff too. While in third class, we had to deliver a homework on a floppy disk. I looked down on it, saw that it had 3.5MB and thought "What the hell does anybody do with 3.5MB". Of course, digital photo etc wasn't that common for us at this time.


Concerning the notebooks: I just realised, that Lenovo is always releasing their new X-series at the CES. And thats in January. So since the models they sell atm all have less cohones than my MBP (but of course they are half a kg lighter, that's perfectly allright!) I am going to wait the two months.

[vivalarevolución]

Do the Lenovo X-series Carbon still come with soldered on RAM? I just read a review of the 3rd generation and that was the case.

EDIT: nevermind, I got off my figurative lazy ass and learned that the RAM is soldered down. To make such thin form factors, I guess there has to be some tradeoffs.

[infodroid]

VAIO are still making great laptops after the spin-off from Sony. The VAIO Z is the pro version, while the VAIO S is more durable and has more ports. But I don't think they are available in Europe.

http://us.vaio.com/

[Thumper]

Do the Lenovo X-series Carbon still come with soldered on RAM? I just read a review of the 3rd generation and that was the case.

EDIT: nevermind, I got off my figurative lazy ass and learned that the RAM is soldered down. To make such thin form factors, I guess there has to be some tradeoffs.

Yeah, but if you think about it, why would you need to upgrade in the next 5 years? If you buy 16GB now it'll hold for long. I have 16GB in my desktop and never really used it since 6 years or so.

[fohat]

I remember when I bought my first computer system.

I wanted to upgrade the basic system to a total of 640 kB of RAM with an AST "six pack".

My story is that I took a computer course in the early 1980s, we mostly used (shared) Apple IIs.

One day, one of the teachers came in and said that he had ordered a new system (probably an IBM XT at about $4K) with 384K of RAM.

One of the other teachers, a recent immigrant from Russia, said "Three-hundred and eighty-four K of RAM! That is obscene!"

[vivalarevolución]

Do the Lenovo X-series Carbon still come with soldered on RAM? I just read a review of the 3rd generation and that was the case.

EDIT: nevermind, I got off my figurative lazy ass and learned that the RAM is soldered down. To make such thin form factors, I guess there has to be some tradeoffs.

Yeah, but if you think about it, why would you need to upgrade in the next 5 years? If you buy 16GB now it'll hold for long. I have 16GB in my desktop and never really used it since 6 years or so.

16GB is plenty, I've never gone beyond 9 or 10 GB. But I like to buy the low RAM models and upgrade them myself to save a few bucks.

[Ace]

Have you looked at the MS Surface Book?

$$$

[chuckdee]

Have you looked at the MS Surface Book?

$$$

Or a Surface Pro. You brought $$$ in it, perhaps if you could tell your budget...

[Phenix]

this is a interesting disussion!
Tough I wonder, with eg the the X Carbon:
How is the battery life?
I got a MSI laptop gjfted last year, and while its powerful, battery sucks hard: WLAN: 1.5-2h, w/o maybe 3h on Windows7 64bit - I dont know what I can do about it. Used OneNote mainly with it.

Therefore, I got a IPadPro for on the go: note taking, documents, college write-downs, surfing... occasionally games.. which is a step-up battery-wise (WLAN+BT 10h) but a downgrade for productivity programs like Word, excel..

Is there a viable alternative for this kind of use? sure, Surface jumps to ones mind - tough Im unsure if its worth looking at more closely, some say its superb, others dont.

[chuckdee]

That's the same for everything.

Therefore, I got a IPadPro for on the go: note taking, documents, college write-downs, surfing... occasionally games.. which is a step-up battery-wise (WLAN+BT 10h) but a downgrade for productivity programs like Word, excel..

Is there a viable alternative for this kind of use? sure, Surface jumps to ones mind - tough Im unsure if its worth looking at more closely, some say its superb, others dont.

That's the same with everything, I think, even the iPad Pro.

From actual use, and from being on a Surface User Group and a couple of Surface boards:
(1) It works a lot better than my iPad Pro in non tablet situations. I was very much going off what others said, when I got it, but the experience is a far cry from that.
(2) the Ipad pro is better as a tablet. But this is just because of applications. There aren't as many third party applications that are specifically for the surface pro, and I contribute this to the fact that it *is* a full windows machine, and people wrongly assume that their desktop app will serve the purpose. There is OneNote, and it is a very good tablet app, and makes just the note-taking experience pretty much the same (though the paid apple pen is better than the included surface pen). But consumers want choices- at least I do.
(3) the iPad Pro has a better battery life. I find that the surface pro 4 battery life has not been a limiting factor to me, though it's not up to question that you will have a better battery life with the iPad Pro (6 vs 10 hours?)
(4) as the Surface Pro 4 has been out longer, you can find them for a better price point than the indicated prices. I got my surface pro 4 (i5/4GB/128GB) for $500 in this manner.
(5) you can add storage to the Surface Pro 4 ad hoc, which means that you can just go with the lowest configuration on storage, then purchase a microsd card to expand it. My $500 machine came with 128GB, but I added a 256 SD Card for a lot less than it would have taken me to get more storage.
(6) I have had zero problems with the hardware over the year and a half that I've had it. I know that's anecdotal, but I'm also a member of a surface user group, and several surface forums. I don't really see a higher hardware failure rate as some have intuited. It's anecdotal, but no more than the studies, IMO.

I'll end with this comparison, which I think is written in a fair and impartial manner:
https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/micr ... s-ipad-pro

And my final statement: Go with what you think will work for you, and don't listen to the hype from either side. It's how I ended up with an iPad Pro that I didn't really make full use of, but that's just me. It's a great device- it just didn't fit me, and the Surface Pro 4 did.

[Phenix]

attery life has not been a limiting factor to me, though it's not up to question that you will have a better battery life with the iPad Pro (6 vs 10 hours?)
(.

Thanks for your opinion!
My main reason to get the ipadPro was the good price at that time (in relation, Apple isn’t cheap), and it sounded (and looked like it will perform well). After reading some reviews (serious, reading reviews is damn dangerous, variety is good, but at some point it sucks comparing ) I got it.

Did you tried DUAL OS? Heard it is possible get win and android or Linux to work.
How well does the touch work out in comparison to the IPAD? I guess it’s more limited, as programs aren’t built around touch.
Do you happen To have problems using the surface pen for handwriting? I am not an artist, so if handwriting works I’m fine.

[Phenix]

Missed to say: OneNote is indeed awesome. On desktops. On tablet / named Ipad, it isn’t for me, Features are lacking..

[chuckdee]

attery life has not been a limiting factor to me, though it's not up to question that you will have a better battery life with the iPad Pro (6 vs 10 hours?)
(.

Thanks for your opinion!
My main reason to get the ipadPro was the good price at that time (in relation, Apple isn’t cheap), and it sounded (and looked like it will perform well). After reading some reviews (serious, reading reviews is damn dangerous, variety is good, but at some point it sucks comparing ) I got it.

Did you tried DUAL OS? Heard it is possible get win and android or Linux to work.
How well does the touch work out in comparison to the IPAD? I guess it’s more limited, as programs aren’t built around touch.
Do you happen To have problems using the surface pen for handwriting? I am not an artist, so if handwriting works I’m fine.

I haven't tried dual OS on my Surface, so I can't speak to that. It's just Windows 10, so didn't really feel the need to do so. I haven't had any problems with the Surface Pen for handwriting. I use touch, but you're right- there's not much support in other apps for touch/pen. So since the apps aren't created for touch, depending on interface it can be a bit fiddly to touch in the right area. I wish there were more apps that supported the Surface as a tablet, but there's a real missing link there from what I've seen.

Missed to say: OneNote is indeed awesome. On desktops. On tablet / named Ipad, it isn’t for me, Features are lacking..

Yes, using OneNote on the iPad was a bit of a let down. There was an app that I'd use (Outline (http://outline.ws)) to bridge that lack, but it was disappointing overall, and they'd started to go their own way, rather than be a front end for OneNote for the iPad.

In the end, even now, I use livescribe quite a bit to bridge the note-taking paradigm. What I've found is that nothing is as satisfying as pen on paper, and that lets me do it, and now sync it to my devices and integrate what I've written into OneNote/Evernote.

[Phenix]

attery life has not been a limiting factor to me, though it's not up to question that you will have a better battery life with the iPad Pro (6 vs 10 hours?)
(.

Thanks for your opinion!
My main reason to get the ipadPro was the good price at that time (in relation, Apple isn’t cheap), and it sounded (and looked like it will perform well). After reading some reviews (serious, reading reviews is damn dangerous, variety is good, but at some point it sucks comparing ) I got it.

Did you tried DUAL OS? Heard it is possible get win and android or Linux to work.
How well does the touch work out in comparison to the IPAD? I guess it’s more limited, as programs aren’t built around touch.
Do you happen To have problems using the surface pen for handwriting? I am not an artist, so if handwriting works I’m fine.

I haven't tried dual OS on my Surface, so I can't speak to that. It's just Windows 10, so didn't really feel the need to do so. I haven't had any problems with the Surface Pen for handwriting. I use touch, but you're right- there's not much support in other apps for touch/pen. So since the apps aren't created for touch, depending on interface it can be a bit fiddly to touch in the right area. I wish there were more apps that supported the Surface as a tablet, but there's a real missing link there from what I've seen.

Missed to say: OneNote is indeed awesome. On desktops. On tablet / named Ipad, it isn’t for me, Features are lacking..

Yes, using OneNote on the iPad was a bit of a let down. There was an app that I'd use (Outline (http://outline.ws)) to bridge that lack, but it was disappointing overall, and they'd started to go their own way, rather than be a front end for OneNote for the iPad.

In the end, even now, I use livescribe quite a bit to bridge the note-taking paradigm. What I've found is that nothing is as satisfying as pen on paper, and that lets me do it, and now sync it to my devices and integrate what I've written into OneNote/Evernote.

i will look into livescribe then. using a good fountain pen is indeed a fantastic feel - for quick notes I love the namiki capless.

[Phenix]

@chuckdee

How is your experience with the Surface for ONLY notetaking _ so say 100% brightness and WLAN/BT disabled?
Just curious what you say about it..

@OP
did you decided on a laptop? or are you waiting for now?

[chuckdee]

Never worked with it at all with WLAN/BT disabled, so I really can't say anything.