My laptop broke and I need a new one. I’m basically looking for a “FIRE guide to purchase a laptop”.
I thought a general thread for optimizing this purchase might be of interest. So here are a couple of questions I stumbled upon, everyone welcome to add others.
What are good general resources for choosing a new one? Notebook / Laptop Reviews and News - NotebookCheck.net looks like a somewhat systematic expert review site.
But there would also be merit in having reviews from people who actually use it, but they seem to be dispersed all over the internet.
Is a laptop more than the sum of its parts?
For example, if I read a thoroughly tested review on laptop X with processor Y, will the same laptop with the slightly worse processor Z perform a.) about the same b.) slightly worse c.) a lot worse.
I know it all depends on what you care about and what you want to use the laptop for but it’s confusing me.
How much should I pay?
Let’s say I find CHF 800 laptops now that do everything I want them to do. There are still some considerations that might move me to buy the CHF 1400 laptop instead like durability, long-lastingess (“Will the laptop still be able to do things I want it to do today in 2 years?”) or changing circumstances (“Maybe in 1 year I will have different requirements for a laptop that only the more expensive one can meet?”).
But there’s also the trap of wanting the shiny new laptop and using ‘reasons’ to justify the expense.
Where to buy?
Until now I’ve only ever bought electronics via “toppreise.ch” → “cheapest trustable source” (usually digitec, microspot or physical stores). But there are possible other ways?
You can get manufacture store discounts, employee benefits stores, student discounts, etc.
You could also buy electronics abroad (and either change the keyboard or get used to it).
Hope those questions are reasonably well posed. I’m obviously not an expert but I hope that others are neither and could also benefit from some mustachian guide to a laptop purchase
My old laptop was a low-level thinkpad E450 (or something).
First went the keyboard and replacing it was more expensive than adding an external keyboard so I did this instead.
Then it suddenly didn’t turn on anymore. I opened the back and looked for any sign of damage/corrosion but couldn’t find anything.
Next stop would have been to go to a repair shop but not worth it anymore for a laptop that has already many smaller issues (bad build quality + not very squeamish handling on my part + 4 years of heavy use).
Really hesitant because of the learning curve and general lack of knowledge of what I might no longer be able to do. But I’ve spent the evening reading articles about it!
Do you think that the MB Air and MB Pro with the M1 processor would both be as durable as you suggest? I’ve hear bad things about the old Intel MB Airs overheating and have no idea if they are even built to last [Edit: Seems that they are built pretty much the same]. The MacBook Pro would be a bit expensive for me atm, but still worth considering. (Cool thing is that I can get “15% off” through projektneptun.ch, which is not really true but still 110.- cheaper for e.g. the MB Air.)
There isn’t a great learning curve. I’ve shown and recommended Macs to Non-Techies and maybe showed them the OS for an hour or so - they could easily figure out things on their own after that.
The question - if any - is more about what you could do on Windows that you may not be able to (easily) do on a Mac.
They throttle down after longer periods of high CPU load. There’s no widespread reports of them becoming damaged to my knowledge (unlike, probably, some earlier generation MacBook Pro models).
With regard to thermals, the M1 CPU MacBooks are in a league of its own anyway, compared to previous Intel chips. They run much cooler in everyday use.
May be off topic as the first author mentionned to buy a new laptop.
But why buy new when second hand works so well and is so cheap respective to the quality of the box. Auctionline Benno shop
I personally care a lot about repairability, so Macbooks are not an option for me. To evaluate how well the different models can be repaired, I look at ifixit.com.
You could also buy electronics abroad (and either change the keyboard or get used to it).
For years, I did this with used ThinkPads from Germany. Great selection on ebay.de, good prices, good condition etc. However, two things have cooled me off recently.
The replacement Swiss keyboards that I find aren’t always genuine parts, which poses a number of problems.
The secondary market proposed by digitec makes it easier to just buy new or used and resell it on digitec when it’s time to move on.
I usually disagree with @Patron but here our opinions align. I buy a new Macbook Pro every 7 years or so. Best option for performance and battery durability in my opinion.
I need a new laptop and am really interested by @Patron , @san_francisco and @MrCheese comments about IMac reliability coming in a mustachian forum! All my life I’ve used Windows, here are my main reasons why I hadn’t considered risking the jump to Apple. Would you have any thoughts on the following?:
I want to keep using office 365 which includes onedrive and ms apps which I am familiar with from work and can open them at work, and (for example) not get error messages about conversion or compatability of file types if they were created on iMac. Any experience how well that works?
I am unfmailiar with the logic of the Apple filing system and scared of making the jump and not liking it. I have an iPhone and I want my photos backed up automatically. After hours reading up on potential solutions I couldn’t figure out a reliable integration to MS Onedrive and in frustration bought Apple icloud - so I have onedrive and icloud. The integration of icloud from Apple into windows is pretty terrible. It dumps all photos in one folder which takes ages to load on my laptop. And when I try to look online at icloud it only gives me thumbnail view of photos, not list view. I assumed this is the Apple “dumbed down” approach but it makes it impossible to sort through 1000s of photos by date
In summary I am fed up having crap product experience with windows pcs but am scared to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Perhaps I should go to the Apple store and ask them to show me a demo on the above points
Regards other products: We had ASUS laptops with high end processors the past 6 years and which kept dropping wifi since the start and have been slow to start up since 4 years. We just bought a Dell, it wouldn’t power on so had to be sent back under warranty but which meant 6 weeks without laptop. Now it keeps giving the blue screen of death. At work we have HP elitebooks, they are great when they work but reliability is terrible and they are also giving issues with blue screen of death
I can totally understand your frustration! I’ve been doing the same last year for the iPhone from my GF. From my point of view, Apple is intentionally slowing down the integration. Also, when to clean up her iCloud (because it was full - I think she doesn’t have a paid plan), I ran from one error to the next one. I simply couldn’t back up all files from iCloud to an external disk in one shot. Had to restart her WIN laptop several times, even tried different version of iCloud etc. Gosh, just writing about it makes me freaking angry again…
In general (from my point of view): Apple works pretty flawless in their own ecosystem. E.g. if you have an iPhone, iPad and iMac (Macbook whatever), it’s pretty easy and even a non-technical person can do it. As soon as you want to do something out of the box (e.g. sharing files with Android or WIN), it gets tricky. Apple is pretty good at hiding things from the user, which is ok as long as everything works. If it doesn’t - be prepared for some serious frustration. Please note that this is coming from someone who’s not using Apple at all, so my views might be biased.
From that I heard from friends (also working in IT): Macs have a better quality than normal WIN laptops, but also for Macs the quality has declined over the last years. Still, if you can use your Macbook for 5 years vs. 2 years for WIN, it’s still better in terms of budget.
Regarding WIN laptops: I had HP elitebooks at work some years ago. They worked pretty well without any problems. Nowadays, I’m using Thinkpads. Qualitywise, they also declined a lot from older days. I still have an IBM T30 here, and this thing is just rock-stable. You could hammer a nail into the wall with it. Still running btw with a low spec Linux system. If you decide to buy Thinkpads, you need to be aware of the models. Because Thinkpad is a well-known name, Lenovo also introduced cheaper Thinkpad models (e.g. models E + L). Don’t buy those! Personally, I really like the X1. It’s really lightweight and has medium specs. Other than that, you can go for model T (business) and model P (mobile workstation). I have one big customer who uses the Yoga series for all employees (also pretty robust). Just prepare yourself to almost pay the same price for P/T/X/Yoga models as for the Macbook (Pro).
1 - Even given the fact that some applications (Visio, Publisher) are Windows-only. Office has never been 100% the same on Mac or Windows in look, feel and functionality of the common applications. But Microsoft seems to have unified the look, feel and functionality over time. They do use the same file format.
But there may be some corner cases. If you are a power user of any application, and especially if you depend on optional add-ins/scripts/plug-ins outside of the app’s core functionality, you may want to check for compatibility.
2 - As soon as someone mention the words “photos” and “folder” in the same sentence, there’s a great likelihood that they won’t be happy with Apple’s Photo’s App. Apple’s “Photos workflow” just isn’t meant to expose folders to the user. While you can have albums within the Photos app, which work quite similar to folders (though one photo can be part of multiple albums) and these folders can be exported, it’s often not what these people expect.
3 - Apple’s notebook quality has not declined over the last years.
Anyone who says so must have a short memory or not have used Apple’s computers for long.
“Apple is declining” or also “This wouldn’t have happened under Jobs” are common and recurring tropes among Apple fans and regular occurrences in the respective online communities discussing Apple’s products and announcements.
Their “butterfly” keyboard design introduced in 2015 was controversial in terms of keystroke feel and relatively prone to small particles getting beyond the keycaps. Which, by the way, aren’t replacable individually. They have rectified this by moving everything to a more traditional scissor switch mechanism, a transition they completed last year.
Other than that, I absolutely don’t think the quality has declined. They’ve had certain issues, among them mechanical issues or overheating issues (especially with dedicated GPU chips) on some models ten years ago, just as they did twenty years ago. I wouldn’t expect overheating on their M1 chip, that’s used in form factors (tablets) that are even thinner and smaller than iMacs or notebooks.
Never have bought Mac and probably won’t ever do it. I plan 5 years of active everyday use for a newly bought laptop and, except for one laptop that died after less than 2 years because of my mistake, it worked so far. Now I have 3rd laptop on a 5+ years cycle, two previous are still around and occasionally used, although the 10+ years old one (assembled by a small company) is terribly outdated. Two last ones were from HP, the previous one was one of the cheapest available at the moment, but worked well for almost 7 years. The current one is more of a high end.
My thoughts about it are following: like with all things, it is rather how you handle it. If a laptop has a defect, it will most probably die in less than one year. If it has no inherent problems, it will work until outdated if handled properly.
Do you consider to look at the Microsoft Surface products ? They are like Macbook in quality and design
I had experienced the two product when I was a student. I took my first MacBook Pro in 2009 and used it during my Bachelor. Good quality, easy to use, and never had any problem with the autonomy. However, in 2014, I was looking for something thiner than my 15’’ MacBook Pro and I’ve considered the Microsoft Surface Pro 4.
My old MacBook Pro is used by my father now, I’ve changed the battery and the drive to put an SSD, it was like new back in 2014.
I still have my Surface Pro 4, but the autonomy drop drastically after 5 years of intense used (Master, CAS, and other professional project).
You should consider the Microsoft Surface products if you want to stay with Windows
I had for years Apple laptops.The OS is great. But they are forcing the usage of the last version of the OS for consumers and developers (as for Windows).
In my opinion, it is more durable to have good hardware and Linux. There are replacement software that do the job, but on some cases you have to look under the hood.
I have currently a seven years old laptop. I’m using it for working and for the moment, it works well without slownesses nor any issues.
Sidenotes:
I will never use a computer with windows. I can’t stand it.
I like osx, but there are too many components that you cannot change anymore. In laptops, common and easy upgrades are to change the HDD, Ram & battery. For commercial purposes, this is now hard or impossible. As long as it is the case, I will never buy again an Apple laptop.
I moved from Windows to Apple in 2012 when my Windows 7 PC died and the dreadful Windows 8 was my only Microsoft option.
The only “learning curve” is finding new software when there is no macOS version. I quickly found replacements for everything, though. And I’m sure there’s some Subreddit where you could ask if you really can’t find anything. But everything else is really easy.
Exactly.
And if you are a techie, there’s enough for you to play around with. macOS is based on Unix, so you have a shell and all its goodies available. For example, I use rsync to backup some of my data. And you can install a 3rd party package manager like Homebrew. Or you can install Xcode, Apple’s software development environment, and have for example Python automatically available.
Now, one negative thing that I must mention: Bugs.
In the past few years, the quality of Apple software has been deteriorating more and more. While the hardware is indeed excellent, I always wait before installing new OS releases, to give Apple a chance to fix the worst of the newly introduced bugs. Just see the article below, for example, on all the problems that iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 are causing. It’s sad to see that following a new OS release there are enough bugs to fill an entire article! I hope Apple gets a grip on software quality in the future.
It’s funny, because I talked about it recently with a friend who has been using Mac / iPad / iPhone for a long time already. He bought the current iPad (I think), and he told me that the quality (haptics) is cheaper than his old iPad 1 or 2 (I don’t really remember, because I don’t care that much about Apple devices )
He also told me that his old iMac (bought in 2008 or 2009, I think) was much better qualitywise. But of course, this is more Chinese whispers because I didn’t own any Apple device myself.
That’s what I used to say about Apple I’m still not convinced. Regarding WIN: I didn’t use WIN for my private laptops / computers for almost 15 years. I have to use it now due to work, but I’m actually quite happy with it. Yes, Linux and good hardware is great, but it’s still not fully usable in a business environment (not talking about servers here, just clients). Plus I have other things to than spending hours to find out why program XYZ is not working as expected.
Thinkpad E is a budget range with corners cut everywhere, you got what you paid for. Shoot for X / X1 models, they are top notch, best of what lenovo offers
That’s a professional refurbisher/resaler charging a hefty premium in exchange for readily available and tested stock. Tutti/ricardo offers will be certainly cheaper
USB C is relatively new, accordingly those models will cost you quite a bit more. If you are looking for a “FIRE way” just get a f’ adapter.
I know what the E-series are… that’s why I wrote “low-level”.
Anecdotally friends with high-end thinkpads had issues with manufacturing mistakes (flickering screen, misaligned screen hinges) that needed replacement on arrival.
Annoying to have to take care of this and be left without a laptop for weeks during the repair.
(But afterwards they were satisfied with the devices.)
What’s an “f’ adapter”?
Obviously you can deal with not having USB-C. But many people have new devices with USB-C they bought because of the higher speed and want to connect to their laptop.
Sounds like a downside.
but private at home I switched to Chromebooks. Never going back again to windows, pure linux or MacOS.
What I like about chromebooks:
Battery life is great, they more or less instantly power on/off
5 years software support
low prices
basically unhackable and incredibly safe
lots of things run fast (internet browsing, youtube, netflix etc)
can easily double as android tablets since they run androids app. This is cool for instance for netflix, where the android app let you download movies for offline viewing. Cool as well when you have kids - you simply give them your chromebook to be used as android tablets
you can install linux to run more professional software
it updates frequently every few weeks with lots of nice things improving the experience
What I don’t like:
GPU power is not existant - this is really a browinsg/office kind of device
installing of professional software via linux is not so easy
If somebody is doing lightweight office tasks, internet browsing and streaming, I will always suggest a Chromebook.
Of course if you just need to do some more professional or “real work” this will not do.
but the combination of safety, price and speed is quite unbeatable on a chromebook.
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I’m still not convinced. Regarding WIN: I didn’t use WIN for my private laptops / computers for almost 15 years. I have to use it now due to work, but I’m actually quite happy with it. Yes, Linux and good hardware is great, but it’s still not fully usable in a business environment (not talking about servers here, just clients). Plus I have other things to than spending hours to find out why program XYZ is not working as expected.