ISO a RELIABLE laptop fall 2023
September 8, 2023 4:42 PM Subscribe
Quality issues are apparent with every brand. Every laptop I’ve owned has been a lemon despite a reasonable amount of research. Please recommend something I won’t regret!
MacBooks with the M2 chip, I’m reading, have a heat issue -> having to throttle (so what’s the point of the super fast chip?) Have had bad experiences with mid-range consumer laptops from HP, Dell, Asus, and Acer. My MBP had a cracked keyboard. HP 360, fan was out of control and three fixes under warranty didn’t take. The Dell I got at Best Buy (whatever was on sale) was just slow AF. Can’t even remember the issues with the other laptops, but not one thing has just worked.
Just ordered a Lenovo T14s 2nd Gen AMD (Ryzen 7) and only after they slapped a shipping label on it did I read about the many BIOS issues it has when running Windows. I don’t know enough to battle the BIOS issues on a daily basis. (Will return it.) Read about different issues with Intel processors for that model, do I want to acquaint myself with all the possible issues, no, do I want another lemon, no also.
Like is there a thing that costs under 1300 CAD that will simply work. For copyediting and music production. (Hence I need 16GB/512 and probably 10 core CPU, don’t care about GPU or any other features really, whatsoever, other than it just needs to not give me headaches and just work.)
MacBooks with the M2 chip, I’m reading, have a heat issue -> having to throttle (so what’s the point of the super fast chip?) Have had bad experiences with mid-range consumer laptops from HP, Dell, Asus, and Acer. My MBP had a cracked keyboard. HP 360, fan was out of control and three fixes under warranty didn’t take. The Dell I got at Best Buy (whatever was on sale) was just slow AF. Can’t even remember the issues with the other laptops, but not one thing has just worked.
Just ordered a Lenovo T14s 2nd Gen AMD (Ryzen 7) and only after they slapped a shipping label on it did I read about the many BIOS issues it has when running Windows. I don’t know enough to battle the BIOS issues on a daily basis. (Will return it.) Read about different issues with Intel processors for that model, do I want to acquaint myself with all the possible issues, no, do I want another lemon, no also.
Like is there a thing that costs under 1300 CAD that will simply work. For copyediting and music production. (Hence I need 16GB/512 and probably 10 core CPU, don’t care about GPU or any other features really, whatsoever, other than it just needs to not give me headaches and just work.)
What apps are you using for copyediting and music production? That would go a long way towards recommendations that meet your needs. Apple laptops are generally not lemons, these days, and their performance well outclasses anything with a desktop Intel chip.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:57 PM on September 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:57 PM on September 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I have a MacBook Air (M2, 16GB, 512MB) and have had zero issues with it so far. But it will not be under 1,300 CAD. More like $2,100 for the specs you want.
The "issues" with the M2 chip throttle are only when folks do things like "Let me export 1,000 45mp images in Lightroom" Yeah, the Air is not going to be the best for steady state cpu intensive work. Get a Mac Studio for that sort of workload.
But general web browsing, copy editing, zoom meetings, editing photos in Lightroom? The Air is great, lightweight, and my go to recommendation unless you do a lot of video editing or software development and need the RAM supported by the Pro.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 5:02 PM on September 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
The "issues" with the M2 chip throttle are only when folks do things like "Let me export 1,000 45mp images in Lightroom" Yeah, the Air is not going to be the best for steady state cpu intensive work. Get a Mac Studio for that sort of workload.
But general web browsing, copy editing, zoom meetings, editing photos in Lightroom? The Air is great, lightweight, and my go to recommendation unless you do a lot of video editing or software development and need the RAM supported by the Pro.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 5:02 PM on September 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
The nature of mass production is that occasional lemons of anything will exist, and the nature of internet reviews is that you will hear about them more than the many, many laptops of the same model that aren't lemons. It does sound like you've had bad luck in the past, which I'm sorry to hear! Macbooks (ideally refurbished from the Apple Store, with AppleCare coverage) are a classic recommendation for A Laptop That Just Works for good reason IME, and the AppleCare+ is comprehensive for any repairs that you might need during the coverage period. Will not come in under 1300 CAD, though.
posted by btfreek at 5:29 PM on September 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by btfreek at 5:29 PM on September 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
The M1 Macbook airs are still available new and in that price range. I'm still loving mine from 2020 and feel like it has held up the best of any laptop since the 2013 MBPs. I'm a software developer so I make decent use of it.
posted by miscbuff at 6:16 PM on September 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by miscbuff at 6:16 PM on September 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
TLDR: portability: x1 carbon for $$$ or base Mac air for $$. Otherwise your Thinkpad on order is likely going to be decent.
I'm another software developer who likes to push CAD and rendering and handbrake and GarageBand and whatever on the base M1 air. zero issues. I recently exported all my kids garage band projects - some with like 200 tracks. effortless.
Right now for work I've got a Dell Latitude 17 development monster that is 8 months old, the spouse has a Dell XPS, and we both prefer using the older Mac air. My work machine gets properly hot just sitting on a VPN. And windows just feels janky with it trying to both be an online client/ O365 and also be a full desktop.
We also have a 9th gem Lenovo x1 carbon that I actually spent a bunch of my own money on. It is a dream and is the kids primary machine. Before that we had/have a T series thinkpad that was a big horse of a machine that never quit. Great keyboard. Proper materials. Totally dependable.
posted by zenon at 9:14 PM on September 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm another software developer who likes to push CAD and rendering and handbrake and GarageBand and whatever on the base M1 air. zero issues. I recently exported all my kids garage band projects - some with like 200 tracks. effortless.
Right now for work I've got a Dell Latitude 17 development monster that is 8 months old, the spouse has a Dell XPS, and we both prefer using the older Mac air. My work machine gets properly hot just sitting on a VPN. And windows just feels janky with it trying to both be an online client/ O365 and also be a full desktop.
We also have a 9th gem Lenovo x1 carbon that I actually spent a bunch of my own money on. It is a dream and is the kids primary machine. Before that we had/have a T series thinkpad that was a big horse of a machine that never quit. Great keyboard. Proper materials. Totally dependable.
posted by zenon at 9:14 PM on September 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
The BIOS issued I've suffered over the course of a few years and a couple of different, very high-end models of under-warranty Lenovo workstation laptops involve the TrackPoint. If you don't use that, you'll likely be fine. If that is your main mode of input, then the odds are you're going to encounter seemingly unsolvable problems up the wazoo. And before you ask, no, Lenovo doesn't really have a fix for it even though the problem has been occurring for years, and yes, it is related to BIOS updates, although there could be other factors involved, but they aren't hardware ones (despite what Lenovo will try to tell you).
posted by sardonyx at 10:03 PM on September 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by sardonyx at 10:03 PM on September 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
How much money are you willing to spend, and how physically abusive are you toward your laptops? 1300 canuck bucks are low-end semi-pro, and high-end bargain laptops, as that's 951 $USD as of today. You can probably get a slightly older Dell XPS 13 for that price. (pick the 16 GB one)
posted by kschang at 11:27 PM on September 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by kschang at 11:27 PM on September 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
MacBooks with the M2 chip, I’m reading, have a heat issue
You can find a synthetic benchmark that will get to the point of throttling if you run it long enough, but practically speaking, in most scenarios they don't have a heat issue at all. I recommend reading Jason Snell's Six Colors review of the M2 MacBook Air, which specifically tries to find and test a use case where the lack of active cooling in the MacBook Air could be a problem. After finding a proxy for such a use case (looping Cinebench for more than ten minutes) Snell writes "it seems to take extraordinary workloads to get it to slow down" and then concludes:
Money where my mouth is: I'm posting this from an M2 MacBook Air we bought in December of last year. I configured it with 16 GB RAM (because web browsers are terrible and we multitask a lot), 512 GB storage (because of the storage speed issue), and the cheaper 8 GPU core option instead of the 10 GPU core version. I don't game on it or do music production, but I don't think I've ever even felt it get hot, let alone hot enough to throttle the CPU. I would recommend this configuration to anybody.
posted by fedward at 10:10 AM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
You can find a synthetic benchmark that will get to the point of throttling if you run it long enough, but practically speaking, in most scenarios they don't have a heat issue at all. I recommend reading Jason Snell's Six Colors review of the M2 MacBook Air, which specifically tries to find and test a use case where the lack of active cooling in the MacBook Air could be a problem. After finding a proxy for such a use case (looping Cinebench for more than ten minutes) Snell writes "it seems to take extraordinary workloads to get it to slow down" and then concludes:
If you’re concerned about using a fanless computer to do your heavy-duty work, you might want to consider buying a MacBook Pro instead. I don’t recommend the 13-inch model, but the 14- and 16-inch ones are great, and in addition to having cooling systems, their processors are much better suited to those jobs than the MacBook Air’s is. But that said, I need to point out that unless you are doing jobs with extended, extreme workloads—and the bar for “extreme” is much higher than it was even a couple of years ago—the MacBook Air will serve you just fine. I could do my entire job—including the video and audio processing—from an M2 MacBook Air with no problem.The biggest practical drawback of the M2 MacBook Air is that there's no upgrade path for it at all. Everything is soldered on the logic board, but this is true across Apple's entire MacBook line. You get whatever you pay for up front, and that's it. If you end up needing more RAM or storage than you thought you needed when you bought it, you'll need to buy a new computer.
Money where my mouth is: I'm posting this from an M2 MacBook Air we bought in December of last year. I configured it with 16 GB RAM (because web browsers are terrible and we multitask a lot), 512 GB storage (because of the storage speed issue), and the cheaper 8 GPU core option instead of the 10 GPU core version. I don't game on it or do music production, but I don't think I've ever even felt it get hot, let alone hot enough to throttle the CPU. I would recommend this configuration to anybody.
posted by fedward at 10:10 AM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
Also not to get too chatfiltery but I think there's a couple different groups of people who have converged on the "OMG heat" criticism of the M2, each blowing it out for a different reason:
(1) haters seizing on a perceived flaw, because that's what they do;
(2) CPU-heads who are disappointed that the M2 was only 20% better (at best) than the M1 had been, where the M1 had been a huge leap over its Intel predecessors. These people are looking for a specific manufacturing process improvement that is now expected with the M3. That link goes into some detail about how the new process will be better (in short, smaller transistors consume less electric power and generate less heat, which allows longer battery life and/or more processing power crammed into the same amount of space).
Since the two groups have complaints that at least rhyme, the overall effect is to amplify the criticism of the M2. Meanwhile even the reviewers who go looking for reasons not to recommend the M2 MacBook Air come away saying that the criticism is overblown. Sure, if you know your workload is going to tax the CPU for extended periods, or if you need enhanced support for external displays, then the 14- or 16-inch MacBook Pro models with active cooling could be better for you. But chances are that most people will never need that extra power.
posted by fedward at 10:44 AM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
(1) haters seizing on a perceived flaw, because that's what they do;
(2) CPU-heads who are disappointed that the M2 was only 20% better (at best) than the M1 had been, where the M1 had been a huge leap over its Intel predecessors. These people are looking for a specific manufacturing process improvement that is now expected with the M3. That link goes into some detail about how the new process will be better (in short, smaller transistors consume less electric power and generate less heat, which allows longer battery life and/or more processing power crammed into the same amount of space).
Since the two groups have complaints that at least rhyme, the overall effect is to amplify the criticism of the M2. Meanwhile even the reviewers who go looking for reasons not to recommend the M2 MacBook Air come away saying that the criticism is overblown. Sure, if you know your workload is going to tax the CPU for extended periods, or if you need enhanced support for external displays, then the 14- or 16-inch MacBook Pro models with active cooling could be better for you. But chances are that most people will never need that extra power.
posted by fedward at 10:44 AM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
I haven't heard about the M2 MacBook problems, but I find it hard to believe. I have a 2020 M1 MacBook Air and love it more than any laptop I've had in the past (checks notes) 30 years. I should have gotten 16GB of memory instead of 8, but it really hasn't been a problem. And it never heats up.
posted by lhauser at 12:05 PM on September 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by lhauser at 12:05 PM on September 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have an M2 MBPro and it is a fabulous computer. I also have a 13" M1 MBPro from work and it is a fabulous computer that is also quite portable.
They both can run 20-40 Chrome tabs, Slack, Zoom, Tableau, Excel, VSCode, Acrobat, Rstudio, SPSS, anaconda, and After effects, all at once, without ever even seeming to notice. I don't use third party plugins but Logic Pro doesn't even come close to the inefficiency that is Chrome or Final Cut, and it handles those without noticeable heat. The M2 does run a little hotter if I hit it with things like photoprocessing, but it's also a lot faster.
You should be able to get an M1 MBpro for just a little over your budget, and that's what I'd recommend at this point. All the windows laptops I've touched lately are much more lemony, other than Lenovo. But a windows machine that can touch the ARM macs for most tasks is going to hit thw same price range with worse fit and finish.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:34 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
They both can run 20-40 Chrome tabs, Slack, Zoom, Tableau, Excel, VSCode, Acrobat, Rstudio, SPSS, anaconda, and After effects, all at once, without ever even seeming to notice. I don't use third party plugins but Logic Pro doesn't even come close to the inefficiency that is Chrome or Final Cut, and it handles those without noticeable heat. The M2 does run a little hotter if I hit it with things like photoprocessing, but it's also a lot faster.
You should be able to get an M1 MBpro for just a little over your budget, and that's what I'd recommend at this point. All the windows laptops I've touched lately are much more lemony, other than Lenovo. But a windows machine that can touch the ARM macs for most tasks is going to hit thw same price range with worse fit and finish.
posted by aspersioncast at 1:34 PM on September 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
It doesn't have the build quality of Apple, but Framework laptops have replaceable (and up gradable) components if something breaks.
That being said, I think you are looking for an Apple laptop.
posted by oceano at 2:17 PM on September 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
That being said, I think you are looking for an Apple laptop.
posted by oceano at 2:17 PM on September 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm pretty happy with my M1 Air with 8 GB, though it's easy to fill up 512 GB of SSD. I think the decision on 8/16 GB depends on your specific software mix.
I had a few kernel panics at first, but recent OS updates seem to have fixed that. Also some occasional charging issues when I use non-Apple chargers. It's easy to collect gunk under the keyboard, but maybe that's on me -- and you can get a cover for it.
posted by credulous at 3:10 PM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I had a few kernel panics at first, but recent OS updates seem to have fixed that. Also some occasional charging issues when I use non-Apple chargers. It's easy to collect gunk under the keyboard, but maybe that's on me -- and you can get a cover for it.
posted by credulous at 3:10 PM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
So - I have a Lenovo T14s, provided by my work - and frankly - it has been great. (Intel i7)
Sure - there have been BIOS updates, but it runs Windows 10 "for business purposes' just fine. Note, I don't use the USB-C, nor do I do any gaming of video/audio editing. To me, it is a perfectly cromulent laptop - plus, I like the fact that it still connects into the docking station that I got for a different model Lenovo from a different client from 3-years ago.
posted by rozcakj at 6:52 AM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Sure - there have been BIOS updates, but it runs Windows 10 "for business purposes' just fine. Note, I don't use the USB-C, nor do I do any gaming of video/audio editing. To me, it is a perfectly cromulent laptop - plus, I like the fact that it still connects into the docking station that I got for a different model Lenovo from a different client from 3-years ago.
posted by rozcakj at 6:52 AM on September 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: In retrospect, it’s obvious that what I wanted was impossible for that price. I got a refurbed m1 Mac air with 512/16. 1700ish including tax and apple care, ouch!
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:09 PM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:09 PM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]
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I honestly think a lot of problems people report are outliers or people attempting to break the thing. I haven't read anything about the BIOS issues on the Lenovo but I wouldn't be surprised if there were edge cases there too.
FWIW. I have kind of an absurd number of MacBooks for various reasons and have never seen issues with any of them, including the issues that everyone had with the butterfly keyboard (but man, I HATED the feel of those things). I think the video crapped out on one of them after 5 years of use but every other one I've had has been handed down to friends and family who continued to use them for years.
My advice: If you want a Mac and don't do long CPU intensive work, buy an Air and don't worry about it.
posted by mikesch at 4:53 PM on September 8, 2023 [5 favorites]