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The high end of the PC laptop spectrum has been neglected for years. I guess the market is just too small to care about. I have no idea where they're taking the
by dangrossman 13y ago
The high end of the PC laptop spectrum has been neglected for years. I guess the market is just too small to care about. I have no idea where they're taking their profits if they're pushing down on the low-end prices too.
I've been looking for a new laptop for over 2 years, and nobody's been selling anything worthy of replacing what I'm already using, which was built in 2010. For a few brief months that year, HP made a wonderful MBP clone (magnesium alloy case, 1600x900 14" screen with edge-to-edge glass, SSD, etc). Soon after, that product line turned into the same plastic 1366x768 crap everyone else was selling, and that's been what's filled store shelves ever since. Meanwhile, my 2010 laptop is starting to fall apart, with dead pixels, an overheating GPU and lost battery capacity.
I am looking forward to buying an ASUS UX301 this November to replace it. That's the first and only Ultrabook-class laptop I've seen since 2010 that'll actually be an "upgrade" without buying some thick "gaming" monstrosity. It'll have a Haswell i7-4558U, which comes with the Intel HD 5100 graphics, the first Intel integrated graphics chip to outmatch the 3-year-old Radeon in my current laptop. Plus 8GB RAM, 512GB of RAID-0 SSD, an all metal and glass case and up to 9 hours of battery life. Assuming this PC in that configuration actually makes it to market.
What's amazing to me is that this many months after Haswell parts started showing up in stores, that one ASUS laptop is still the only announced product by any name-brand manufacturer with the i7-4558U/HD 5100 parts. Every other new/"refreshed" laptop that'll be in stores this holiday season will either have an integrated GPU incapable of playing games well on the higher resolution screens they ship with, or give up its thickness and battery life for a discrete GPU.
- npalli 13y agoI 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-workstation http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/campaigns/precision-m3800...
- jelled 13y agoI 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.
- dangrossman 13y agoUX302 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.
- whichdan 13y agoAssuming the 5100 can handle 2560x1440, I'm guessing it's so benchmarks show higher FPS averages due to the lower resolution.
- jelled 13y agoThat is a bummer.
- vidarh 13y agoPresumably 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.
- stusmall 13y agoWhy not load a MBP with your preferred OS? I get not being an OSX guy but whats wrong with the hardware?
- aspensmonster 13y agoThe price tag.
- derefr 13y agoIsn'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.
- pedalpete 13y agoThe 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.
- jmpeax 13y agoHave you considered a MBP and installing windows on it?
- purplerails 13y agoDitto. 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/ http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/t-series/t440/
- voltagex_ 13y ago>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.
- marcocampos 13y agoThere is also a 1080p screen option coming in the next few months.
- miga 13y agoThey didn't even put indicative weight on the web page yet...
- eikenberry 13y agoI'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 https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/galu1
- dangrossman 13y agoThe 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.
- eikenberry 13y agoWell 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.
- galaktor 13y agoI 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).
- epsylon 13y agoLenovo 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)
- qdog 13y agoJust 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.
- malnourish 13y agoI am extremely satisfied with my Lenovo y560p. If I buy a new laptop it will either be a surface pro or a mba however.
- sidmitra 13y agoI've been consistently buying the Dell XPS 15" range. http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-15-l521x/pd?oc=dncwx18bw7&model_id=xps-15-l521x 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.
- null_ptr 13y agoGross, glossy screen that reflects light sources back in your eyes. Why do people put up with this crap?
- dangrossman 13y agoNot 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.
- sidmitra 13y agoI 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)
- berntb 13y agoGood 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 :-)
- brdrak 13y ago> RAID-0 do you really need that extra bit of performance to justify increased risk of loosing data and inconvenience of a rebuild?
- dangrossman 13y agoIt'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.
- Derbasti 13y agoRAID-0 still breaks if either disk breaks, thus doubling your potential for failure.
- dangrossman 13y agoThat'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.
- miga 13y agoI 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?
- dangrossman 13y agoThe 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.
- miga 13y agoWhat about laptops that glow neon white apples? :-)
- chubot 13y agoThe 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.
- makomk 13y agoIt'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.
- yareally 13y agohttp://www.asus.com/Eee_Box_PCs/ 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.
- veemjeem 13y agoThose 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/ID-309 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.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- eliasmacpherson 13y agoCan you critique the Dell Zino HD - I was under the impression it competed well against mac mini - particularly on price.
- josephagoss 13y agoWhats wrong with buying an Apple laptop and sticking Windows on it?
- dangrossman 13y agoAmong other things, the lack of a touchscreen. It's something you think is silly until you have it.
- TsiCClawOfLight 13y agoI, for one, would want linux, and that's a pain on MBP. So I stick with Lenovo and hope for the best.
- qwerta 13y agoDesktops 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.
- nfoz 13y agoThis market segment has always been neglected. Silver is the new black is the new beige.
- com2kid 13y agoAsus 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.