Macbook Pro or Lenovo or something else entirely?

July 25, 2015 3:21 AM

I need a new, powerfulish laptop, and I'm finding myself confused by the options. The consensus in previous AskMe's seems to be either Macbook or Lenovo, but I am wondering if there are newer options that I am not considering. I probably need this spelled out to me as if I am a not particularly bright child.

I need the laptop primarily for work, but it would be a bonus if it could handle running modern games at a decent resolution without completely losing its shit. There doesn't seem to be much difference in price between similarly specced Lenovos and Macbook Pros, and the reviews I have read of the newer Lenovos are not uniformly glowing. I am wondering if I would get more bang for buck if I considered other options. Alternatively if there is a good reason to go with one or the other please let me know.

Factors in rough order of importance:

- It will primarily be used for Autocad, Photoshop, Sketchup, 3DsMax etc, so needs to be beefy enough to handle graphic intensive work.
- Needs to be able to run an external monitor for the above reasons
- No smaller than 15"
- I do need it to be a laptop as I don't currently have space for a dedicated workstation, plus I need it to be portable for working remotely on occasion
- I'm not going to be able to afford replace it in the near future, so it has to be sturdy and future proof enough for use for at least a few years
- I currently have a 2010 Macbook Pro that is showing its age but have had Windows machines in the past. I have no particular love affair with either operating system
- I am lazy and would prefer not to have to go through a lot of hassle to secure the damn thing. We don't visit shady websites or install pirated software, however it's been a couple of years since I had to worry about Windows security so I have no idea how onerous or expensive it is now
- Looks are a very distant priority
- I've had Toshiba and HP laptops in the past and hate hate hated the overheating, clunky, lying bits of crap
- I am in Australia so everything costs roughly 3 x as much as it should

Thank you!

posted by arha to Technology (13 answers total)

As a dedicated windows pc person I consider the Lenovo Thinkpad series as the best laptops I have used. If money is a not a big issue then the new line looks fantastic, the whole dual battery thing is a winner for me. I would personally avoid touchscreen laptops, as I think you are wasting your money (put the extra cost towards a tablet or better specs). The new super hi-res screens are also nice, but perhaps unnecessary. 1080p is fine at the moment, though it might start to look a bit dated in a year or two.

External monitor is going to be a more expensive job for a mac.

The whole security issue in windows is a smokescreen designed to sell more anti virus software. If you keep up to date with your software updates and run a good spyware program (like Spyware Search and Destroy) you shouldn't have any issues. I have been running windows pcs since the 1990s and the only serious virus issue I ever had was caused by my own stupidity loading a dodgy program I downloaded.

As for your Australia location... have you ever bought from ebay? There are some amazing deals, especially on laptops that are reaching a year in age. You can probably get a refurbished year old laptop with a long warranty shipped to Aus for half the price of a new one with vaguely better specs.
posted by 0bvious at 4:08 AM on July 25, 2015

Because of the wide range of lines and constant refreshes, I've found that quality is dependent on both the year and model of that specific brand. For example, Lenovo is switching back from touch sensitive fn keys that they introduced for 2 years because they just didn't work. You'll have to do a bit more research and see what people say about the specific model and year refresh.

I only have first-hand experience with Lenovo workstations and MBPs over the last few years so I can't provide advice to other reliable models.

If you are planning on using bootcamp on your mac, keep in mind that Apple usually only provides an initial release for drivers and support. For example, my old 2011 MBP is still using video drivers from 2013 because newer ones from AMD are not compatible. Also, if you have a discrete graphics card, it will always be on in Windows rather than switching to the integrated GPU when loads are low. This seriously affects battery life.

I usually advise that if you need it now, just buy it as technology always changes. If you can wait until Sept for PCs and Oct for Apple (possibly but also could be Spring 2016), Intel's Skylake, which is a new architecture, will supposedly bring a lot of updates that will future-proof you better than the current selection.
posted by palionex at 4:12 AM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Great food for thought, thank you.

To clarify a couple of things I should have included in the original post.

I need this laptop before September (highly seasonal work and spring is peak season).

I am very confused as to the hundred different flavours of Thinkpad on offer, and what would be best suited to my needs. So if someone has specific directions that would be very much appreciated.

Ebay is an interesting option I had not considered. Looking into it but I would really prefer to outlay more now and not have to go through this again next year.
posted by arha at 5:04 AM on July 25, 2015

You don't say how much you're willing to spend, but I bought a Dell XPS15 last year after much research, and absolutely love it. IMHO, Lenovo quality has gone way down in the past 2 or 3 years, and Dell has gotten its shit together. The screen on it is absolutely gorgeous, it's relatively thin and light for a full-size laptop, and it's done every thing graphical that I've thrown at it with no issues (though I am not a heavy gamer - I do play Minecraft, do some video work, and lots of Photoshop/InDesign).
Make sure to get the SSD model, though - having the spinning disk takes away some performance, even with the hybrid disk. I got mine from Costco.com, don't know if that's an option in .au.
posted by jferg at 6:38 AM on July 25, 2015 [1 favorite]

One caveat with Lenovo (and many other laptops) is that they sometimes have funky bios - I can't put ubuntu on my Lenovo ideapad because the process is just too involved and may even be impossible and I'm an IT guy and used to do this kind of thing for fun (it is no longer fun). Look for linux compatibility if you want to ensure flexibility.
posted by srboisvert at 7:22 AM on July 25, 2015 [3 favorites]

I'm a MacBook Pro person as long as the software you want will run on it I don't think you can beat a MacBook Pro with a Retina display (which is gorgeous). I'm still out on the whole single adapter thing with the new ones. I'm a programmer and this thing is and has been solid as a rock, and having access to the Genius Bar/Apple Store makes IT Support easy.

I can't speak to the Australian price thing but this "External monitor is going to be a more expensive job for a mac." isn't true a Mac can use any PC monitor. I use a Dell monitor with mine.
posted by bitdamaged at 7:58 AM on July 25, 2015 [5 favorites]

I've used Thinkpads as my primary work machine for better than 15 years. We've tried brief flirtations with other things but keep coming back to the Thinkpads because they are reliable, user serviceable (and have great manuals), and a decent after-sales/warranty program. About a year ago we standardized on the 14" T440s which seem similar build quality to the T60 series, some of which we still use ten years on. Our power users (GIS and Matlab, mostly) are on the 15" T540p systems and they seem similarly satisfied.

We've also had Dells, HPs and Toshibas for various other stupid reasons involving procurement limitations and single vendor hardware. Dells are ok-ish, HPs and Toshiba are not.
posted by bonehead at 8:02 AM on July 25, 2015

The thing is that Thinkpads are amazing, near-bombproof and very well supported. I recently bought a Thinkpad X1 Carbon to replace a 7-year-old T500 which is still going strong (I just wanted more portability and better battery life). I briefly investigated Dells and other options before settling on the X1, but they just don't have the build quality or the same robust support (same-day repair service! Accidental damage coverage!)

Plus, with Lenovo you know your critical data is going to be fully backed up in the cloud by the Chinese government.

I kid because I love, but the US gov't doesn't use 'em for this precise reason.
posted by killdevil at 9:49 AM on July 25, 2015

I bought a Lenovo G510 a year or so back. The trackpad isn't very responsive, the strip along the edge facing you is sharp and routinely makes my wrists hurt, a key fell off the keyboard after a couple of months and then the rest of the keyboard stopped working so I had to ship this piece of crap back to the manufacturer just to get the keyboard fixed. The tech support is just bad. I should say that I work from home and it's not like I was subjecting the damn thing to heavy wear and tear. It's also just heavy enough to feel bulky and uncomfortable.

Reviewers on Amazon had complained about some of these things, but the reviews were good overall so I thought it'd be fine. It was not. It supposedly has some pretty good brains in it for the price, but when I use graphic-heavy programs it really whirrs and whines. After I bought it I heard some people say the business-class Lenovos are good, but the consumer models are crap. I don't know about that, but I can say that this consumer model is pretty awful.

Also, just recently the little G510 logo sticker next to the pad has started to leak this gross toxic glue goo that never ever drives. It's like this machine hates me, or it's possessed.

Not a fan, would not buy again.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:54 PM on July 25, 2015

1) I hear that Thinkpads are basically of a different class than other Lenovo laptops. Don't necessarily apply what you hear about Thinkpads to the Yoga or the Ideapad or whatever.

2) I like my T420 but the screen is not very good and this is a known issue. It is not even as good as the one on my old Thinkpad R61 from 2007.

3) I had a reasonably good experience buying used on Ebay - basically, if you're buying a new enough Thinkpad, sometimes you can find ones that are still under warranty, particularly if there was an extended 2 or 3 year business warranty--not uncommon since these are often off-lease machines from some company. Not sure how the warranty plays out in Australia, though. But basically, if you can find or get the machine's serial number, you can enter it into the Lenovo website's customer service page to find out what the warranty is and how much time is left on it.
posted by needs more cowbell at 3:05 PM on July 25, 2015

Not sure anyone in here is raving about Macs, so let me -- I have an Air that's served me perfectly for three years (one keyboard issue, went into an Apple store, they fixed it in ten minutes). Great specs, great operating system, but the best recommendation I have is that all my (computer science academic) colleagues use them.
posted by katrielalex at 3:46 PM on July 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

Do not make the mistake that Ursula Hitler did and assume that because it is called a Thinkpad it will be a good laptop. It will likely have a better keyboard than most no matter which line, but if it is not a T or X, you are gambling. If it is a T or X you will almost certainly get a damn good laptop, perhaps with some minor inconveniences depending on which year it is.

The high end HPs are almost up to the same build quality standard, but I still prefer a T series Thinkpad.

Another thing you must be aware of when buying Thinkpads is that if you are paying list or near list price you are getting taken for a ride. They commonly have no-strings sales at 30-40% off, and corporate discounts are ridiculously easy to find that get you deep discount pricing all the time.

There are other good Windows laptops out there, but the problem is finding them. Even if you stick to a particular range with HP or Dell there is major variation in build quality and engineering from year to year. This means that someone saying that the 2014 Elitebooks are well built, have good thermal management, and are generally a good buy, the 2015 may well not be, and vice versa. I honestly have never figured out how they manage to do that.

Oh, and eBay is a really good option these days. CPU and GPU improvements have been coming slowly, so a year or two old Haswell laptop will have 90% of this year's performance at much less than 90% of the price. Lenovo's warranty program is a godsend for eBay specials, too. If the particular unit is still in warranty they will fix almost anything that is wrong with it and you can extend the factory 1 year to 3 for the same price it would have been when the laptop was originally purchased. You can buy an extension even if it is out of warranty, but it's almost twice the price. Done well, this can get you a great laptop for half the price of buying new and get you a longer warranty to boot.

Speaking of the warranty, one of my favorite things about the Lenovo warranty is that if you are comfortable diagnosing the issue and replacing the broken part yourself they are perfectly happy to overnight it to you and let you do it. And as alluded to above, their maintenance manuals are detailed enough that it is easy to get a sense of whether or not you'd want to do it yourself and provide explicit enough instruction that anyone handy with a screwdriver can be successful at self-repair. It has been more hit and miss for me in that regard with HP, both with the manuals and them sending me a part rather than me sending them a laptop, or even believing my diagnosis, for that matter.

I'm not sure if it is still the case, but as of a couple of years ago, they paid shipping both ways for warranty service. Last time I had to ship something back they even paid for pickup service. Someone came to my door to take away the broken part. The standard warranty also entitled you to drop-off service if they had an authorized repair facility nearby. There are many fewer than there used to be when it was IBM, though. In the olden days, every IBM service center stocked common parts and offered repair service, and those things were freaking everywhere so that they could support the 4 hour service contracts on big iron.
posted by wierdo at 7:48 PM on July 25, 2015 [2 favorites]

Do not make the mistake that Ursula Hitler did and assume that because it is called a Thinkpad it will be a good laptop.

In my defense, it was not a hasty decision to buy this model. I researched endlessly and posted a couple of Asks here. Of the options in my price range, this Lenovo really looked like my best bet. There were many good reviews and a handful of very negative reviews, but pretty much all of the complaints turned out to be true for my laptop. They matched up very closely with the things other people were griping about. There were also a number of new problems seemingly specific to this machine.

If you buy the consumer models and there is a problem while it's still under warranty, Lenovo will ask you to ship the computer to them to fix it. If it's a business class machine there are probably local Lenovo places where you can get a quick fix, but consumer class goes through the mail across the country.

I can't say your Lenovo will be as crappy as this one. But I researched the hell out of this before I bought, heard Lenovo was great... and the thing turned out to be a lemon.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:14 AM on July 26, 2015