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Just getting something above "don't suck" seems extremely hard. I have a Dell Vostro 1510, it was basically the cheapest Dell laptop with available discrete graphics at the time I bought it, haven't had any problems. My wife used it to do CAD stuff, and it was fully worth the $700 or so we paid for it. While not "extreme gaming level", the modern version of this doesn't even appear on the dell website anymore from a quick glance.

I am extremely satisfied with my Lenovo y560p.

If I buy a new laptop it will either be a surface pro or a mba however.

I agree with you 100%. If you're not a Mac guy there seems to be a lack of premium options. When it becomes available I'm going to opt for the UX302 which should have a 2560x1440 screen and a GeForce GT 730M GPU.

UX302 is 1920x1080 with 6GB RAM. UX301 is the one with the 2560x1440 screen. It's a weird pair; they gave the discrete GPU to the one with the lower res screen.

Assuming the 5100 can handle 2560x1440, I'm guessing it's so benchmarks show higher FPS averages due to the lower resolution.

That is a bummer.

Presumably they're assuming most people going for a 2560x1440 screen are buying it for productivity software / readability where most of the software does not need all that much graphics performance.

Why not load a MBP with your preferred OS? I get not being an OSX guy but whats wrong with the hardware?

The price tag.

Isn't that the idea behind the word "premium"? This seems to be very similar to the "we can't find any programmers to hire" chant of Big Business -- nobody can find a decent laptop at the price they're willing to pay. Because the price they're willing to pay is ridiculous and below-cost, especially when all the other laptops are loss-leaders and the premium models make up the difference.

My point was that, if you don't like the operating system and are going to use a different one, why pay a premium for the hardware when you can get substantially better performance for the same price from any of a number of providers? Because the Macbook is sexy and that's worth paying the premium?

Don't get me wrong, the MBP does look nice. And plenty of people are clearly willing to throw lots of money at Apple for both the real and perceived benefits of the premium price. But if performance per dollar is my concern --and I'm forgoing the operating system, one of the "real" benefits IMHO-- numerous other competitors blow Apple out of the water.

"Performance per dollar" is a strange qualifier for a laptop. If you want something small, portable, and powerful, maybe one of those Mac Pro cylinders might suit you when they come out. If you don't (much) care about portability at all, just build something in a mini-ITX case with a handle, and throw it in the boot of your car.

The point of a laptop is good, light, sturdy industrial design, long battery life, and quality interaction features (solid keyboard, responsive touchpad, good webcam, flat SPL curve on speakers, etc.), while optimizing performance given that. That's what you're paying the Apple premium for, not the OS. Those qualities remain when you run Windows on the hardware.

> run Windows on the hardware

Out of the frying pan, into the fire...

You can get a $2,500 MBP, work on it for 3 years, and resell it for $700 or so after. So, that's $1,800 for 3 years, or about $12/week. So the price is reasonable if its something you use to make money or use all the time. Plus, with MBP you get OSX out of the box, plus it runs Linux and Windows, or all 3. Even if OSX is not your cup of tea, it's nice to have OSX available if you like to play with iOS development.

I have a friend who keeps bugging me about how expensive MBPs are. I asked him to find a better laptop for the money. I care about the following, in order: quality of screen, quality of keyboard, tough case, light wight, long betters life, fast hd, fast CPU, good gfx card. So far no results :) I actually kind of wish there was more choice in the high end market. I have seen a few nice ultrabooks, but they cost as much as a Mac, if not more, so what's the point?

The price of everything is reasonable if instead of comparing it against alternatives, you compare it against not buying anything.

For example, $1000 shoes that last 1 year are reasonable when compared to going without shoes - only $3 a day, and you'll save money that you would have to pay to repair damage to your bare feet.

Could you find a better pair of shoes for less than $1000? Where's the gold leaf, and why do they lace up the front rather than snap up the sides? I think not.

My argument is that you can not find a laptop with a nicer screen and keyboard, with good battery life, durable case, light frame, and amazingly fast HD for less money then an rMBP would cost you. And given that's its only $12/week, why not choose the best tool for the job, especially if your job is working on your laptop.

Of course, same arguments can be applied to almost anything, but this thread was about premium laptops. You can't have a premium laptop that's also very cheep.

How about a Lenovo x230? Adding core i7 and 16GB RAM takes the price to USD 1300. Still weights around 3 lbs. http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x230/

Add to that a 250GB SSD and drop the ram to 8GB (for fair comparison) and the price is $1,430. Similar MacBook Air is $1,550. So, for extra $120 you get better screen, much nicer touchpad, light up keyboard, an OPTION to run OSX, and way nicer design.

The X1 Carbon is kind of nice. But same thing applies. Low res screen is a letdown, and by the time you load it up to be comparable to say, rMBP, it's about the same price.

Well, I have observed that boosting your RAM to 16G gives you much better performance because you almost never swap to disk. To get 16GB on a MacBook, you are looking north of $2000.

> Why not load a MBP with your preferred OS?

First, there's the principle of not giving Apple any more money!

Second, Apple's laptops don't have any form of docking so using them in the office is rather cumbersome.

I have a third party dock for my late 2011 MBP and OS X always gets confused when I dock and undock when it's sleeping. It doesn't always detect my monitors (DVI and USB), sometimes the keyboard doesn't wake it up, sometimes it just crashes a black screen. So while the dock itself works pretty well, OS X doesn't feel like it's well tested in that type of scenario.

Apple's emphasis on how it looks over function has always been a double edge sword. The lack of docking station, from both the hardware and software side, was the second most constant push back I received when asking about swapping the Dells out.

With TB ports and the like it could have been worked out to one cable instead of an edge connector, yet they seem to have zero interest in the business.

I have run Windows 7 even as primary at times but in the end went back to a Dell for work put an iMac back on my home desktop.

Because MBP hardware is not good enough. I have had to use a rMBP since April, and it just hate it. I don't care if it's extremely thin if it's running _that_ hot. I have to stick with it as I need to use OSX (what I also dislike), otherwise I'd buy a Dell Venue Pro 11 with an external dock or something like that.

No touchscreen.

Hahaha. You should try it and come back apologize for your ignorance.

Installing Linux with all the customized hardware inside, just get an X screen/GUI is non-trivial, even on old Macs. Check out the Bumblebee Project to get an idea of how painful it is to just leverage the two graphics cards properly. This is not to mention even on Debian Wheezy (stable), you will load without the proper HW-interfacing components to spin up the fan. You can see how that is dangerous for an amateur, and you will know three hours later while configuring when your thighs turn bright red. Not that it happened to me though.

This is just one small thing, go to any Linux distro wiki, how about Debian for example[1] if you cannot tell my bias, and read the MacBook page, then read all the personal blog posts, for old and new Macs and see the pain it takes. Even though it is annoying, I will give them credit as properly the only laptop popular enough to force even barely useable UEFI support. But Macs also half-ass that too.

Seriously, if you are a Mac fan, but like Linux, you will end up in the end saying fuck Apple for all the unintentional pain they inflict on you. But hey, at least they invented cups, so how much can I complain?

[0] https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee

[1] https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Apple/

They didn't invent CUPS, they bought CUPS which was already an established FOSS print server solution.

Really? I stand corrected. Thanks for pointing that out. At work I often say that is the only thing I will praise Apple for.

Now it is back to zero, and I can be the Apple contrarian I yearn to be. :-)

I've been shopping for a decent replacement for my Lenovo x220. Best I've found so far is the System76 Galago. It looks pretty nice with an i7-4750HQ, Intel Iris Pro 5200 GPU, 16G RAM, etc.

https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/galu1

The 5200 GPU and 90W AC adapter were good hints for what a search turned up -- a 4 hour or less battery life despite a big, heavy 52WH battery (compared to 8 hours for a 5100 and smaller battery). This is one of those "gaming monstrosities" I mentioned. For a couple percent speed bump over a 3-year-old 2nd-gen computer, and relatively unappealing styling, I agree with the reviews which seem to be "avoid". I can only imagine how hot it gets that it needs venting around both sides and the entire rear of the case.

Well that's a drag. Guess I'll hold my breath that Lenovo doesn't completely gut their line and comes out with something decent. Though reading a few reviews, that Asus doesn't look to bad.

I have one. Doesn't get hot. CPU clocks down a lot when on battery, so "gaming monstrosity" only more or less valid when on AC. Battery perf in general not great, 3-4 hours in my experience. As a mobile workstation pretty good, only real bummer is that the keyboard is crap - not a good option if you plan to type tons on it (but you might get used to it; I for one just use an external ergonomic keyboard).

Lenovo just released the Ideapad Yoga 2 Pro, for the $1,149 model you get a 13" 3200 x 1800 touch screen display, core i5 haswell, 256Gb SSD and 8Gb of RAM.

They will also release a Thinkpad Yoga in november, with less attractive specs unfortunately - it'll be a 12.5" 1920 x 1080 display. (Which is unfortunate for me since I can't live without a Trackpoint on a laptop and only the Thinkpad model offers it)

Thing is their IdeaPad Yoga isn't an X220 replacement. X220 offers two full-speed cores (2x3.2 GHz) with higher TDP, 16GByte RAM, ExpressCard 54 slot, optional WWAN, matte display, TrackPoint, ThinkVantage system update, replaceable batteries up to 95Wh, yada yada yada.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the X240 to not become an Ultrabook. So far it looks like a downgrade, or at most like Lenovo managed to put in FullHD over a course of two years.

I don't understand systems like this -- much like most of what's been in stores since 2011. It's got a nice, high resolution screen, and the absolute slowest integrated graphics they can match with it. An HD 4400 can barely keep up with its own panel and a small external monitor let alone run a 5-year-old game on it.

For just a little more money they could've put at least an HD 5100 part in it. While the TDP would be higher, the higher-TDP Haswell parts still idle at very low wattages, so when you're not using the extra power they get similar battery life, but it's there when you want it.

The performance difference between the 4400 and 5100 is huge. It's on par with an older discrete Radeon/GeForce chip.

I've been consistently buying the Dell XPS 15" range.

http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-15-l521x/pd?oc=dncwx18bw7&model... 16GB RAM, 512 SSD, 3rd gen i7, NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 640M with 2GB GDDR5 VRAM

I've had i think 3 versions of the same. It's always tried to break the mould in design. They tried funky designer covers in the past. Lately they've been going with the metallic finish of macbooks on the outside(but better in my opinion). On the inside its the black soft touch finish(which feels so much more warm than an MBP). I also own an MBP btw.

The one thing that PC laptops are getting wrong is the battery. The MBP battery outperforms the dell by atleast 2-3 times. But for me that's not an issue, since i work plugged in most of the time.

Also the first thing i do is remove windows and install Linux. The machine boots in like 3 seconds flat. I've not had any issues with drivers or anything.

Gross, glossy screen that reflects light sources back in your eyes. Why do people put up with this crap?

Not working under fluorescent lighting helps. I've never noticed lights reflecting at me from my glossy screens, but I am usually working from home, not in an office building with office lighting.

I have the same problem with MBP, but anyways i usually sit with the light source in front of me, not behind. It's a good idea to do that anyway(although sometimes you may not have a choice i suppose)

Good linux support seems common with Dell these days?

Looks nice, I'll compare that to the Mac competition next year when I change my Latitude e5520.

The Latitude has non-glare FHD screen for less money. (Bought an SSD separately.)

Only built in graphics is a feature; I can't play games :-)

The Asus UX301 is a beautiful machine, but I disagree that the last few years have been barren for the high-end market. My problem is that everybody has just been making copycat machines that look just like Macs.

Have you considered a MBP and installing windows on it?

The whole PC market has been a disaster. It's been like 6 years and PC makers still can't come up with a decent Mac Mini clone! When they do, it's more expensive, and then is discontinued in 18 months.

I think all those years of churning out bland clones made them lose their expertise. They can't execute on something like a Mac Mini or a high end laptop. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it appears that these are difficult problems that take competence.

It's not clear there's enough of a market for a Mac Mini clone unless - like Apple - you can control the entire market to make sure there are no competing desktop machines, SFF or otherwise.

http://www.asus.com/Eee_Box_PCs/

Don't own one, but just linking to give an example that there is a pretty decent looking PC Mac Mini clone out there.

Those boxes are small, but not exactly good looking. There's a plethora of companies releasing these compact form factor PCs. They also all look practically identical.

Newegg has a category specifically for these form factor machines: http://www.newegg.com/Mini-Booksize-Barebone-PCs/SubCategory...

All of these "mac mini" style machines target the low end market. They all have low end processors & video cards. I have yet to see a premium machine like the mac mini that is available in a small form factor.

Can you critique the Dell Zino HD - I was under the impression it competed well against mac mini - particularly on price.

Ditto. I'm waiting for the Haswell machines to come out. I'm considering the Thinkpad T440 or T440s (whichever falls within my budget). It's been previewed, but not available yet. No pricing info. http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/t-series/t440/

>Configure your T440 with an HD+ (1600 x 900 resolution) LCD display with high brightness and enjoy a premium visual experience. For enhanced navigation configure your T440 with 10-point multitouch.

That resolution is a dealbreaker.

There is also a 1080p screen option coming in the next few months.

They didn't even put indicative weight on the web page yet...

I think Dell m3800 might be what you are looking for. Not sure how they will price it though. Specs seem pretty nice.

http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/campaigns/precision-m3800...

Desktops are neglected as well. My i2600K@5GHz is still best CPU I can put into desktop. Other components are stagnating, some are even increasing their value.

I will have to buy server hardware on my next upgrade.

I wouldn't pick integrated graphics card for a "high-end" PC laptop. What about 1.88kg RAZER Blade, with quad core i7 and nVidia 765M, and 512GB SSD?

The 5100 and 5200 integrated GPUs are as fast or faster than some discrete GPUs in previous generations' high-end laptops, which themselves are plenty to play many games at medium-high settings. They're a leap ahead of the old Intel HD 4xxx stuff.

Plus, it looks goofy. I'm not 17 and don't want to carry around a laptop that glows neon green at tech conferences or coffee shops.

What about laptops that glow neon white apples? :-)

Asus sold a 1080p ultrabook last year that had a dedicated graphics chip. It was an amazing machine, that almost no one knew about.

One thing to remember is that you are replacing a MBP with an ultrabook, a more fair comparison is to look at the specs in the Macbook Air, to which many ultrabooks compete in terms of thickness and weight.

> RAID-0

do you really need that extra bit of performance to justify increased risk of loosing data and inconvenience of a rebuild?

It's not something I look for, that's how manufacturers are starting to sell large SSDs in laptops. They're soldered to the motherboard, and doubled up in hardware RAID. It's about wear levelling so that they last, not performance. The failure modes of an SSD aren't the same as spinning disks; RAID 0 is less risky, not more risky AFAIK.

RAID-0 still breaks if either disk breaks, thus doubling your potential for failure.

That's one way of looking at it. Another is that SSDs are just a series of flash memory chips that add up to the capacity you're sold, plus some extra to use when cells go bad.

If you buy a 256GB SSD, you're probably buying 8 32GB chips and a controller.

Here, you're buying 16 instead of 8 chips, but two controllers. So they call it "two drives in RAID-0", but it's very little different from one SSD.

It's not 16 times more likely to fail; I think the annual SSD failure rate is about 30% that of a spinning disk. Even if the double controllers means a double failure rate, it's still statistically more reliable than a single new spinning disk.

This market segment has always been neglected. Silver is the new black is the new beige.

Whats wrong with buying an Apple laptop and sticking Windows on it?

Among other things, the lack of a touchscreen. It's something you think is silly until you have it.

I, for one, would want linux, and that's a pain on MBP. So I stick with Lenovo and hope for the best.