Windows notebook with hardware to rival Macs

Kealoha

Hey,

My laptop of 4 years died--not sure what the cause is yet, but I pretty much need a new one anyway. Surprisingly, my parents offered to buy me a replacement. They're willing to shell out the cash for a MacBook Pro, and I want a Mac, sure, but I dont want them to spend the cash.

The main reason I like Macs is for their sturdiness and portability. My last laptop had the shittiest battery life imaginable. So I want something with OK power (I don't game anymore, so really, something that can run at least 2 Adobe CS4 apps at once is a good way of judging) and good battery life. Note: I don't plan to have good battery life while using CS4.

I don't want a netbook, either, just because this is my sole PC, and I do a lot of writing (and designing) so that's not really a desirable option.

Price limit is $1,000. Are there any stellar windows laptops out there that I'm unaware of? I plan on upgrading to Win 7 asap, too, if that matters at all, though at this point I doubt it does.

TLDR: Looking for a windows Laptop, $1,000 limit, OK performance, not too huge, with good battery life.

Bionic Monkey

For $1000, you can easily get a solid laptop that will have the power and battery life you need.

Since you plan on upgrading to Win 7 anyway (very good for stability), Dell's are offering free upgrades to Win 7 when you buy one right now. Don't know about other brands, but it wouldn't surprise me.

What size screen do you need?

illig

if you need sturdy, go for a Lenovo... won't be pretty, but it will be solid

Crashtard

I just went to Tiger Direct and the first thing I see is this Gateway for $579. I don't know what sort of horsepower it takes to run CS4, but I would imagine that a core 2 duo and 4GB RAM would do it right? I have a gateway similar to that and I've had zero problems at all with it. The one I linked also has a 6 cell battery, so it should have decent battery life too.

admanb

Look at Lenovo and Asus. Those two get the best ratings for reliability and tech support (after Apple.)

theclam

admanb wrote: »

Look at Lenovo and Asus. Those two get the best ratings for reliability and tech support (after Apple.)

Whenever Consumer Reports reviews computers, Lenovo and Apple are in a class by themselves in terms of support/reliability, well above everyone else.

Wulf

Yeah, as a non-Apple alternative, Lenovo is pretty classy.

Kealoha

Alright guys, I'll check out Lenovo's stuff. Sorry-- I posted this last night from the library after doing some studying, haven't been on a computer til now. Something oddly liberating about it, but still very inconvenient.

SeñorAmor

I have a Lenovo T61.

I like it better than my other computers.

shadydentist

I would just like to point out the absurdity of this thread title, as Macs pretty much share the same internals as everyone else.

wunderbar

shadydentist wrote: »

I would just like to point out the absurdity of this thread title, as Macs pretty much share the same internals as everyone else.

I don't think he's talking so much about internals as he is the general durability/asthetics/battery life of the Mac computers.

The 13" MBP that I have is by far the sturdiest laptop I have ever used, but there are some fairly sturday Windows PCs, especially in the lenovo line. I really do get the 7 hours of battery life with my MBP, and that's a bit harder to find on the windows side, but not impossible.

Basically, it can be done, you just have to look. As mentioned, Lenovo is not the prettiest on the market, but the durability of their computers is second to none.

Kealoha

shadydentist wrote: »

I would just like to point out the absurdity of this thread title, as Macs pretty much share the same internals as everyone else.

The only thing that seems to be kind of uncommon is the battery life on a pretty powerful laptop. For instance, I can't really find a Lenovo laptop with anything other than integrated graphics that has an option of a 9-cell battery, so it's pretty much limited to 3 hours. Whereas a MacBook Pro can (supposedly) get up to 6. This is really the only concern I've got.

Wezoin

In terms of sturdiness in a windows laptop, the Voodoo Envy is the top, but it starts at $1700 cause its made of Carbon Fibre. The main thing to look for is that its a professional level laptop - Lenovo, etc make laptops that aren't great looking but which last a long time.

RenegadeSilence

Well I bought I bought a laptop from the Dell XPS line that was spec'd better than the Macbook Pro of the time for $1000 and it came with a 3 year warranty. All I did when I got it was reformat it to remove the bloatware. Haven't had any problems so far and I've had it a little over a year.

When I was looking at the lenovos the price wasn't really comparable to the hardware, integrated graphics etc.

Also if you want to extend the life of your battery for whatever laptop you get make sure you drain the battery to 0 at least once every month.

vonPoonBurGer

RenegadeSilence wrote: »

Also if you want to extend the life of your battery for whatever laptop you get make sure you drain the battery to 0 at least once every month.

This won't increase the lifespan of the battery, and in fact may even reduce it by adding extra discharge cycles. HP recommends a bunch of things to maximize modern lithium battery lifespan, and periodic full discharges aren't one of them. Dell specifically states it doesn't help. The "full discharge" was necessary for old nickel-based batteries to avoid the "battery memory" effect, but it's mostly a non-issue for modern batteries.