If it was YOUR money, what would you purchase?

Abz Hussain · 24 Nov 2015 at 16:25

A 6 month used 2015 retina macbook pro with 6 months warranty, pristine condition with 2 x thunderbolt adapters.
OR
A brand new skylake 6200U HP Spectre x360.
Both around £800.

Disco_P · 24 Nov 2015 at 17:10

That really depends on what I want.

If I had £800 to spend on a laptop I would probably spend about £250 on a 2nd hand lenovo x220 as it caters to my needs. But that isn't relevant to your decision.

FloppyPoppy · 24 Nov 2015 at 18:08

Disco_P said:
That really depends on what I want.

If I had £800 to spend on a laptop I would probably spend about £250 on a 2nd hand lenovo x220 as it caters to my needs. But that isn't relevant to your decision.

This it all comes down to YOUR usage and what you want from the device. If it was my money I would get neither of them as both of them would be no use to me. But if for instance I needed to run some Mac software I would have course take the apple.

SteveM74 · 24 Nov 2015 at 19:55

I have the 2015 MBP 15" (with 16GB RAM and a GT750) and I love it for work.
It's great for development and general usage (though MS Office still sucks on the Mac, lacking many major features)

It's *ok* for games - either native Mac (for supports games) or under boot camp - play anything that's more than a year or two old with no problems - I've also played newer games like Talos Principle and Game of Thrones fine, even Elite Dangerous played reasonably well (if very hot!)
Graphically intense games like Dark Souls 2 really struggled - also anything that can't adapt to the high resolution was a challenge. I've played Europa Universalis 4 and Crusader Kings 2 but the text is too small and if you halve the resolution it's a bit chunky.

Actually, you can ignore all that - I've just looked at the specs for the HP and I would DEFINITELY go for the Mac - looks like it's a far more capable and well rounded machine. Unless you REALLY need something that small (and I can carry my MBP open in the palm of one hand) the HP seems like it's much lower spec(!)

What do you actually WANT it for?

Abz Hussain · 25 Nov 2015 at 07:34

Ok. Both of those machines DO what I need to do with a PC. Lets just ASSUME, for the purposes of getting my question answered, that both these machines DO what YOU want them to do for YOU. Which would it be?

linktoinsanity · 25 Nov 2015 at 15:48

Disco_P said:
That really depends on what I want.

If I had £800 to spend on a laptop I would probably spend about £250 on a 2nd hand lenovo x220 as it caters to my needs. But that isn't relevant to your decision.

You can get an X230 for that price and it'll be a little better.

X220s are under the £200- mark.

Your post is valid apart from that thou7gh and I would (and did re an x230) do the same thing.

Disco_P · 26 Nov 2015 at 00:59

linktoinsanity said:
You can get an X230 for that price and it'll be a little better.

X220s are under the £200- mark.

Your post is valid apart from that thou7gh and I would (and did re an x230) do the same thing.

Once you've found a good condition one and upgraded RAM, SSD, screen and battery it can easily run into £250.