Macbook Pro 15 2018 vs ???

[Smrtka]

Hello Everyone,

I am digging trough internet to find a good laptop for productivity.
My gf is a big on the Macbook Pro 15 but she gave me an opportunity to convince her otherwise.
The brief is
15 inch
It needs to be nice looking (aka nice solid material can be plastic if it feels nice, and light so no ultra heavy omen laptops)
it needs to have 4k screen
and it needs some proper power (i7-8750H or better , 16 GB of ram and at least 256GB of ssd )
No gaming, just heavy excel and chrome usage (and by heavy I am talking i7 and 16gb ram heavy)

She is inclined to the MBP is the one to get but I have read loads about thermal throttling on both i7 and i9 versions, that have been mitigated by some patch that actually only down clocks the cpu.

The options I have seen so far is Dell XPS 15 9570 seems to be nice good looking and pretty punchy in therms of specs (and about 600£ cheaper then mbp) but people seems to have issues with sound, keyboard and quite a few other bits.

The other contender is Asus UX550 there is not much reviews around and it seems to have similar body design as the mbp so I am afraid of thermal issues.

I know the logic of powerful machine in sleek solid format is a tough one so if anyone has any suggestions to look at, similar to mbp and pretty punchy that be great.

 

[Smrtka]

Hmm the dell site has super mixed bag of reviews, and one of the issues seems to be sound problem. I have sorted the reviews by the newest and just flickong trough the first 2 sites few people are mentioning the cracling on the audio, issues with wifi disconnecting on its own and BSOD.
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/lap...s-15-9570-laptop/cnx97008?view=configurations

 

[Smrtka]

Whilst I assume huge spreadsheets could take a fair bit of ram, surely it wouldn't be that processor heavy? Surely not enough to really start heating things up? Am I being naive thinking surely an i7 is overkill?

Also, I think Apple already deployed a fix for the throttling.

I have seen the load, when she works on my PC I have i7 4970k oc to 5GHz and she is using 70% with noctua massive cooler. Its the combo of excel and google analytics and loads of tabs open and Project management tools.

They did deploy the fix but from what i have read their fix is to throttle the CPU to 3.3ghz so it doesn't overhear to more then 100C... so not sure if id consider it a "fix"

 

[Smrtka]

Thinkpad X1 Extreme or Thinkpad P1?

I looked into those, the X1 is a possible contender, quite close to the price of the Mac Pro, I will do more research.

That's pretty much "Syntax error" in there.
It's simply impossible to really cool in reality pretty much desktop CPU in true slim and light laptop size.

While undervolting can help to improve continuous load performance, even "mobile workstation" laptops are always balancing between trying to perform and avoid overheating.
And best portability is simply completely incompatible


"Fix" was band aid and plaster.
Because cause was as much inadequately designed/undersized CPU VRM to actually be able to feed CPU:

The problem here is that these are Intel recommended settings for this processor, which assumes that you are able to supply 100W for the steady state. Testing by the OP has revealed that the VRM can supply up to 49W before maxing out.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Throt...improperly-set-VRM-power-limits.318176.0.html​

Though there's still only so much you can do to get desktop CPU working in laptop...

Whilst you are very correct in this scenario I am looking for lesser evil, from all I can see if you under volt the XPS 15 you can get decent clocks with manageable temperature over time, its just there is plague of other issues that people seem to have
like the 1.7 bios, it seem to fix some stuff but the comments below the article says it break others
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-shelves-its-new-XPS-15-9570-BIOS.393561.0.html

That's why I'm looking for a sorted machine and the overheating issue I'd deal with with under volting or not deal with it at all depending hoe bad it is.

 

[Smrtka]

I am now fully looking into the x1 extreme, the issues with xps seems to be serious and this is my one shot to give her good suggestion.
She is happy using windows as long as its good machine, the only issue I struggle with is the fact I cannot fine the x1 anywhere in "showroom" to show her so she can look at and type on the keyboard and so on.
If anyone knows someone in london who has the machine I'd be very grateful.

And in regards of the apple and its warranty, because of the mBP has the issue with the keyboard and it can come at any time, imagine you dropping 2.4k for it just to develop the double ghost touch on the keyboard in 18 months, apple will tell yo to leave and you have a dud for loads of money. Lenovo at least give a good warranty plus I might even consider extra warranty.

 

[Smrtka]

I bought my MBP from John Lewis as they gave a 3 year warranty. Just FYI incase it helps anyone

Well It will be useful when the keyboard gives up, which seems to be extremely common?

Surface Book 2?

Mine is spot on.

Its 200£ on top the x1 for the same spec plus the Microsoft site doesn't show what gpu is in it or what i7 it has or am I blind ?
I've contacted Lenovo they said they have 14 days free return if I dont like it but the P1 Is cheaper with quadro 1000 then the X1 with 1050ti...

 

[Smrtka]

I went for this one

https://www.johnlewis.com/microsoft...ense-display-geforce-gtx-1060-silver/p3414651

I got a price match on it down to £2500 or so. Accessories are expensive. Battery life is great. Docking station works well. I haven't used it much undocked (tablet mode).

Its £500 more then the X1, with and U cpu, I am not sure if this is what I'm looking for here.

 

[Smrtka]

Spectre x360 ticks all the boxes im running the one with the i7 8705g and it's been a superb little machine. Good looking, Light, fast, 4k, thunderbolt's, will genuinely do a full days work on the battery.

Do you not struggle with thermal throttle ? seems to be the issue after a quick google search ? and Few people mention the hinges dont align ?

 

[Smrtka]

No but I did mess around with voltages a little in intels extreme software and it seems to boost up to around 4/4.1 in single threaded stuff and holds nicely at around 3.6/3.7 under all core abuse. The problem with it's performance, partly down to hades canyon design is when you saturate both the GPU and CPU so gaming performance suffers when it should actually be pretty decent, for a productivity machine though it's properly lovely. Hinges on mine are also perfect and its still in perfect shape after a year solid of abuse. The rose gold alloy chassis is also spot on, pair it with the spectre edition rose gold bluetooth mouse and the pen that comes with it and it's perfect for pretty much any situation.

Down side I guess is the price, for the spec you want you are looking at around £1800 I think, that's the 8705g with vega (20cu & 4gb hbm), 16gb ram, 1tb ssd.

It's less then the P1 or x1 at 2k, would something to consider, I will have a look if i can find it some store to have a look how it looks or feels.

At the moment the Lenovo p1 or X1 are the ones I lean towards the most.

 

[Smrtka]

Only confirmed what I was thinking this video