Asus came out with a thinner laptop and more hubs than Apple just did. It still amazes me how Apple is second in everything and yet gets all the attention claiming they just came out with something new.
Anyway, the Zenbook might be an option.
As for me, I very much enjoy my Acer S7 Ultrabook. Got it for reduced price and it is a lovely machine.
I can't help but point out that your cat loves you so much it is trying to send you a message to stay away from Apple products. If you want to buy a laptop with a 480p camera, please buy apple's newest laptop. :stongue:
Dykes_on_Jay
I bought a Lenovo laptop 2 weeks ago. Nothing but problems. Exchanged it for another one, nothing but problems. I just bought it for the big screen, but think pad. More like chink pad. Taking it back this week, and will go to HK to buy something better. They are all Chinese made, but stay away from Chinese designed models aka lenovo chink pads.
OrangestO
quote:
Originally posted by sensorium
I can't help but point out that your cat loves you so much it is trying to send you a message to stay away from Apple products.
:haha:
DJ RANN
interesting. I'd heard that some recent Lenovo models were having problems but they'd had a decent rep over the last few years so I thought they were one of the better makes.
@sensorium - do you mean more ports (instead of more hubs)?
The zenbook is a good laptop but they have some major flaws.
1, There is a screen issue where yellows are not displayed correctly. Probably not a deal breaker for some, but for anyone working with graphics it's a complete non-starter.
2, The higher end zenbook with the QHD display (basically the same as a retina) are only $100 less than the macbook. It's a touch screen which is a big pro, but then again, if I'm spending that money, it better be ing perfect in terms of colours and it aint.
3, Battery life is 4-5 hours max just web surfing and people are saying they get as low as 3 hours for anything intensive. That's .
I still think the zenbook would be worth it and if battery life is it an issue then you could slap and SSD in there which should help a little, but then again, you're now above the cost of a macbook :nervous:
sensorium
Yeah, I've heard of the color issues. From what I gathered, is was probably just poor factory calibration.
All laptops have cons though, which is why I rely more on the custom built PC I have than the laptop. I understand the portability issue for some people out there but truth be told, for anything power or work intensive, it is way more effective to have something custom built which can be upgraded in the future. That's a big con for Apple because they make it horribly hard or impossible for users to upgrade.
Jon_Snow
No one upgrades a laptop. After around 5 years you move on.
DJ RANN
Apparently though it's not just a calibration issue; they put out a fix and it only solves it to about 70%. Probably not a big deal but it seems like such a up when the screen is mean to be super hi res and quality.
I hear you about laptops but that's really an apples to oranges comparison; desktops are always going to be superior as laptops are always a design and engineering compromise. I've actually come across a few laptops that are desktop spec (20" screens, full i7's, same spec etc) for guys that do GIS but they were so big it would be like trying to carry around an imac.
I don't need skinny or light, but I just wish there was decent sized laptops that didn't compromise the performance. It doesn't need the fancy case or even incredible screen, I just want good performance.
Apple have made that specific decision regarding upgrading. There's always been a rule of thumb with them which was: Buy the highest spec one you can afford at the time of purchase. All they're doing is forcing the issue now.
In fairness, I've had the same imac since 2008, I maxed out the RAM and honestly, it's never stuttered nor have I needed more and I have thrown everything at it, including pretty intense audio projects (logic/protools). INly upgrade I did was $80 of RAM and an $200 SSD so nearly 7 years from a computer that cost me less than $1300 total = damn good value in my book.
meriter
quote:
Originally posted by DJ RANN
In fairness, I've had the same imac since 2008, I maxed out the RAM and honestly, it's never stuttered nor have I needed more and I have thrown everything at it, including pretty intense audio projects (logic/protools). INly upgrade I did was $80 of RAM and an $200 SSD so nearly 7 years from a computer that cost me less than $1300 total = damn good value in my book.
Hear this kind of thing all the time. Really I don't understand the obsession with getting the latest and greatest especially for music production, I mean unless you are editing video or doing 3D stuff older machines should be just fine
DJ RANN
quote:
Originally posted by meriter
Hear this kind of thing all the time. Really I don't understand the obsession with getting the latest and greatest especially for music production, I mean unless you are editing video or doing 3D stuff older machines should be just fine
You know Meriter, you're right - I think it's actually still a remnant of the days when software was demanding more than hardware could give, like back in the pentium 4 vs AMD days.
It was a case back then of needing the most processing power and RAM you could possibly lay your hands on becuase you would reach a bottleneck with one or the other when doing audio.
It's not really that relevant now for the average producer as two main things happened; The first was that software became more efficient. The major daws got better (and put in more effort as it was a consideration factor for a consumer) in terms of efficiency and using available system resources. Even OS's got more efficient which in turn helped the DAW makers get more from the system.
Secondly, hardware manufacturers focused on the entire chain of data passthrough, so even through we've seen far less increase jumps in processor power, things like motherboard buss speeds, RAM speed, HardDrive speeds and busses have increased massively and that resulted in far more powerful machines than we had 10 years ago. SSD's have made a huge difference, as has RAM speed.
Also, DAW's don't really do much more than they did say 7 years ago, yet average benchmarks of overall computer performance have literally doubled, meaning we have far better machines to do only marginally more resource intense fucntions, then combine that with the first point above and really, you just don't need processing power like you used to.
The only time my 7 year old Imac gets crunch is when using tons of instances of a particular CPU or RAM hungry instrument, but even then it's rare.
I can never bring myself to buy a buy a dell again. Tons of bloatware, and when you format it, they will give you any help or info for drivers or bios etc. You're on your own. They also solder the ram now and the top model although high spec is $1899. The mid range model that this review is about is around the same price as the Mac Book models. It's only the i3 entry level one that is below $1000.
I'm seriously considering a Zenbook if there is a definitive fix for the screen issue.
