MacBook Pro alternative

clv101 · 1 Oct 2009 at 08:59

15" MacBook Pros are great. But at ~£1200 aren't at all cheap. Now that Windows 7 is a fairly nice OS I'm considering a Windows machine instead.

Are there ANY Windows laptops under £1000 which have comparable performance, built quality, battery, ergonomics as the MacBook Pro?

bigredshark · 1 Oct 2009 at 09:12

clv101 said:
15" MacBook Pros are great. But at ~£1200 aren't at all cheap. Now that Windows 7 is a fairly nice OS I'm considering a Windows machine instead.

Are there ANY Windows laptops under £1000 which have comparable performance, built quality, battery, ergonomics as the MacBook Pro?

Interesting question for the mac forum - I'd point you in the direction of Dell's Latitude business machines which are nicely put together - I have a E4300 from work and it's a nice laptop. That said it's simply not as sturdy as a unibody macbook (pro).

It's worth looking at thinkpads for build quality (if not aesthetics) though I've less regard for them as Lenovo rather than IBM but they're still good machines.

Sony I've no time for personally but might be worth a look if you want to chance their build quality and support...

- Basic answer though, there's very little available which combines all the pluses of the macbook pros. HP Envy laptops will when they arrive (and they look very good) but they are more expensive still...

FreeStream · 1 Oct 2009 at 10:30

Short answer - no.
Long answer... noo

Nothing i've seen comes anywhere close.

Performance, yes, everything combined? No.

Edit: and Certainly not battery life... yet

peter_hutson · 1 Oct 2009 at 10:33

When picking a laptop I put a lot of emphasis on the quality of the warrantyl (turn around time, etc). I went through a similar search to yourself recently and I ended up buying a mac again, not because it was a significantly better machine, but becuase I was confident int hem fixing any problems. In my opinion this is one of the reason Apple have quite a high apparent premium.

In the past I have found ACER and Sony to be truely shocking when it comes to repairs. Dell have been a mixed bag and IBM (pre leovo days) excellent. My experiences are quite a few years old. But it's something you might want t factor in.

Cheers

JAMAL · 1 Oct 2009 at 11:11

Hp Voodoo's?

bigredshark · 1 Oct 2009 at 11:38

JAMAL said:
Hp Voodoo's?

Laptop wise the only one I know of as still available is the Envy and it's both very expensive and very underpowered. The new HP Envy range are promising but are again more expensive than an equivalent macbook pro.

JAMAL · 1 Oct 2009 at 12:18

bigredshark said:
Laptop wise the only one I know of as still available is the Envy and it's both very expensive and very underpowered. The new HP Envy range are promising but are again more expensive than an equivalent macbook pro.

Sorry i meant envy

Kainz · 1 Oct 2009 at 12:19

I'd point you to apple's refurb store. The machines there are much cheaper and equal in quality if not better than retail ones due to a more stringent QA process.