4 ms·

> If you want a laptop with 16 GB of RAM, HiDPI screen, a discrete GPU and 10 hours of battery life, then there really aren't very many choices. Off the top of

by hguant 10y ago

> If you want a laptop with 16 GB of RAM, HiDPI screen, a discrete GPU and 10 hours of battery life, then there really aren't very many choices. Off the top of my head: Dell XPS 15 has up to 17 hours of battery life, a 4k screen (that can be upgraded to a touchscreen), dedicated Nvidia GPU and up to 32 gigs of Ram The Razor Blade and perpetually on the horizon Razor Blade Pro have QHD or better touchscreens, 16 gigs or more of RAM, and the best line up of dedicated graphics cards you're going to find in a laptop. Oh, and they did reactive/programable touch keyboards without removing core functionality from the device. Can't find specs on battery life at the moment. Plus, mechanical keyboard and glowy lights! And there's the ThinkPad line up which has basically everything under the sun now. Not to mention the Surface Book, which claims 12 hours of battery life, meets your dedicated GPU and RAM needs, and has a killer scree, that supports a some rather interesting input devices. And it can connect to an iPhone 7 without a dongle. There are options out there.

sanswork 10y ago
>Dell XPS 15 has up to 17 hours of battery life, a 4k screen (that can be upgraded to a touchscreen), dedicated Nvidia GPU and up to 32 gigs of Ram Every report I've seen from owners of the 15 says that even the 1080 version struggles to get 6 hours so where did you get 17 hours from?
- jerf 10y ago
  Dell's own self reporting on their website, I presume. I got an XPS15 a couple of months ago and I have no idea what crack Dell smoked to get that number. I don't have a problem with the battery life personally since I'm coming off a very old laptop which has about a 6 minute lifetime, so the 4-5 hours I can get is a breath of fresh air, plus I tweaked the battery to the "mostly plugged in all the time" setting which I think works by lowering the max charge limit to 80%, so most people will probably get more than I do (at least at first). But if you're used to getting 10 hours from an existing system you may be disappointed.
- majormajor 10y ago
  Are you guys seeing 15" MBPs with discrete GPUs really get 10 hours of battery life? I've got one at home and one at work, and moderate usage manages to kill them both in 4 or so hours a lot. Big difference from the 13", which consistently lasts longer for me. That GPU likes to switch on, and that screen is a big hog too.
  - acchow 10y ago
    What are you using that causes the discrete GPU to turn on? Install Gfxcardstatus to find out. I get about 8 hours on my 2 year old 15 rMBP with Safari. Less than 4 hours with Chrome.
    - majormajor 10y ago
      Interesting, haven't tried Safari. Chrome and Firefox are both big big culprits for flipping the GPU on for me.
      - acchow 10y ago
        Safari has improved dramatically in the past couple years. Give it a shot.
      - tqkxzugoaupvwqr 10y ago
        Chrome and Firefox drain batteries really fast. When I use Chrome on my MBP, I have 2 to 4 hours less battery life compared to Safari. Google / the Blink developers really don’t care about draining the battery. It is infuriating because Opera, Vivaldi and other browsers using the Blink engine suffer from the same problem. Safari has come a long way, both in terms of battery savings and usability. I use Safari Technology Preview[1], which is the most up-to-date version of Safari. Apple releases an update every two to four weeks. [1] https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/ https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/
  - sanswork 10y ago
    No, I don't even think 6-7 hours is bad unless I'm flying and even then most seats have plugs these days it's just a pain to have the cables all out. I just noticed the huge disconnect from the 17 hour claim. Between Chrome and Photoshop my GPU seems to be on pretty much all the time on my MBP. I get probably 5-6 hours on it working unplugged(my power cable is usually at my standing desk and some days I'm lazier than normal so I get close to this before standing up again).
- hguant 10y ago
  Pulled it from their website. Should have said 'claims up to' like I did with the Surface Book.
coldtea 10y ago
>Dell XPS 15 has up to 17 hours of battery life, a 4k screen (that can be upgraded to a touchscreen), dedicated Nvidia GPU and up to 32 gigs of Ram I don't see any 32Gig update, either as standard (16GB) or even as a customization option. http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/pd http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/pd As for the battery life, LaptopMag gives: 10:26 for the 1080p XPS 15 and a meagre 6:36 for the 4K screen. I also think the SSD is quite slower, single thunderbolt port (it has 2 USB 3 ports and HDMI), and the touchpad is worse. So there's also that.
cstejerean 10y ago
The fact that the Razor Blade doesn't even advertise the battery life tells me everything I need to know about what I should expect from that line. Also, dell battery life is only decent with the 1080p screen. Everything I heard about the higher resolution touch screen is that it eats battery life (and the 16 GB of RAM on the XPS 13 only comes with the touch screen).
FullyFunctional 10y ago
Thank you for the list, but how is this an alternative? None of those run macOS (not Hackintosh). I'm not being fastidious, but I have an nontrivial software investment in macOS and Windows Any Version is not an alternative. Yes, the new MBP wasn't all we could have hoped for, but I had held out for a very long time and it's the best option I have. EDIT: A actually do also have an XPS 15 w/Ubuntu, but that combination isn't quite a replacement for an MBP.

by hguant 10y ago

sanswork 10y ago

>Dell XPS 15 has up to 17 hours of battery life, a 4k screen (that can be upgraded to a touchscreen), dedicated Nvidia GPU and up to 32 gigs of Ram Every report I've seen from owners of the 15 says that even the 1080 version struggles to get 6 hours so where did you get 17 hours from?

jerf 10y ago
Dell's own self reporting on their website, I presume. I got an XPS15 a couple of months ago and I have no idea what crack Dell smoked to get that number. I don't have a problem with the battery life personally since I'm coming off a very old laptop which has about a 6 minute lifetime, so the 4-5 hours I can get is a breath of fresh air, plus I tweaked the battery to the "mostly plugged in all the time" setting which I think works by lowering the max charge limit to 80%, so most people will probably get more than I do (at least at first). But if you're used to getting 10 hours from an existing system you may be disappointed.
majormajor 10y ago
Are you guys seeing 15" MBPs with discrete GPUs really get 10 hours of battery life? I've got one at home and one at work, and moderate usage manages to kill them both in 4 or so hours a lot. Big difference from the 13", which consistently lasts longer for me. That GPU likes to switch on, and that screen is a big hog too.
- acchow 10y ago
  What are you using that causes the discrete GPU to turn on? Install Gfxcardstatus to find out. I get about 8 hours on my 2 year old 15 rMBP with Safari. Less than 4 hours with Chrome.
  - majormajor 10y ago
    Interesting, haven't tried Safari. Chrome and Firefox are both big big culprits for flipping the GPU on for me.
    - acchow 10y ago
      Safari has improved dramatically in the past couple years. Give it a shot.
    - tqkxzugoaupvwqr 10y ago
      Chrome and Firefox drain batteries really fast. When I use Chrome on my MBP, I have 2 to 4 hours less battery life compared to Safari. Google / the Blink developers really don’t care about draining the battery. It is infuriating because Opera, Vivaldi and other browsers using the Blink engine suffer from the same problem. Safari has come a long way, both in terms of battery savings and usability. I use Safari Technology Preview[1], which is the most up-to-date version of Safari. Apple releases an update every two to four weeks. [1] https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/ https://developer.apple.com/safari/technology-preview/
- sanswork 10y ago
  No, I don't even think 6-7 hours is bad unless I'm flying and even then most seats have plugs these days it's just a pain to have the cables all out. I just noticed the huge disconnect from the 17 hour claim. Between Chrome and Photoshop my GPU seems to be on pretty much all the time on my MBP. I get probably 5-6 hours on it working unplugged(my power cable is usually at my standing desk and some days I'm lazier than normal so I get close to this before standing up again).
hguant 10y ago
Pulled it from their website. Should have said 'claims up to' like I did with the Surface Book.

coldtea 10y ago

>Dell XPS 15 has up to 17 hours of battery life, a 4k screen (that can be upgraded to a touchscreen), dedicated Nvidia GPU and up to 32 gigs of Ram I don't see any 32Gig update, either as standard (16GB) or even as a customization option. http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/pd http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-15-9550-laptop/pd As for the battery life, LaptopMag gives: 10:26 for the 1080p XPS 15 and a meagre 6:36 for the 4K screen. I also think the SSD is quite slower, single thunderbolt port (it has 2 USB 3 ports and HDMI), and the touchpad is worse. So there's also that.

cstejerean 10y ago

The fact that the Razor Blade doesn't even advertise the battery life tells me everything I need to know about what I should expect from that line. Also, dell battery life is only decent with the 1080p screen. Everything I heard about the higher resolution touch screen is that it eats battery life (and the 16 GB of RAM on the XPS 13 only comes with the touch screen).

FullyFunctional 10y ago

Thank you for the list, but how is this an alternative? None of those run macOS (not Hackintosh). I'm not being fastidious, but I have an nontrivial software investment in macOS and Windows Any Version is not an alternative. Yes, the new MBP wasn't all we could have hoped for, but I had held out for a very long time and it's the best option I have. EDIT: A actually do also have an XPS 15 w/Ubuntu, but that combination isn't quite a replacement for an MBP.