Surface, XPS13, Zenbook?

[kbahus]

My 2006 Macbook has finally reached the end of it's useful life so I have started to shop around for something new. There are a ton of options out there and I just do not know what to do. My goal is something under 1k that I can use for grad school and hopefully have it last as long as my Macbook. I have been readig Amazon reviews and it seems no product line is flawless which concerns me. The other issue is all can find locally to play with is a Surface Pro 3 at Costco. The Surface, Zenbook, and XPS13 seem to get decent review overall But does anyone have real world experience that can share with me? The new Macbook has some weird usb port that sounds terrible so that is out.

Apologies for the typos, typed with my phone since my macbook is not working appropriately.

 

[kojackJKU]

Hmmm tough one. I love the SP3, but the 13" XPS with the new screen and touch is kickass too. For that matter, the zenbooks are awesome as well. The surface has lot of extra features I do like however. Pen, portability, beautiful hardware. Cons are the no expandability like the others. and its expensive for the hardware you get. I have been using my 2 Acer notebooks more lately and I am going to go back to an all acer setup I think. I have had such good luck with them. I think im going t sell off everythingI have now, and get a new 14" touchscreen notebook, a 17" touch screen notebook, a desktop with 27" touchscreen monitor, and 2 switch tablets.

I think acer has the best bang for the buck now.

 

[nwoods]

The MacBook Air has standard USB-3 ports, more powerful CPU/GPU chipset, and fits your price range. The 12" MacBook you referenced is really targeted to highly mobile users, basically an uprated iPad in laptop form.

However, don't underestimate the pervasive use of wifi for all normal connections to external networks, apps, and data. The cloud really is becoming dominant. Personally, I haven't used a USB memory stick in quite awhile. In fact, the only port I have used over the past couple years is USB3 for my CF card reader required from my SLR camera. That could just as easily be an USB-C connection, so only the relatively low power of the CPU in the 12" MacBook would point me towards an Air or MBP

 

[kbahus]

An Air is certainly a strong consideration but I am still a little sour over a 2nd gen MBA that I have that lost a logic board a few years back. Perhaps the newest models are better?

 

[nwoods]

An Air is certainly a strong consideration but I am still a little sour over a 2nd gen MBA that I have that lost a logic board a few years back. Perhaps the newest models are better?

No idea, but there are fewer parts with each iteration. You bring up a good question; are current Apple products going to last as long as what they built 6- 10 years ago? My wife's 2009 15" MacBookPro is still rolling strong, running the latest OS just fine. I've added RAM and an SSD to it, and the speed of the machine is excellent. A few years ago Apple replaced the battery for free, but we've not had any other issues with it at all. However, on the 2012 MacBookPro Retina I am typing this on, I had a the GPU chipset go bad, and Apple had to replace the motherboard. They did it for free, but it was a minor inconvenience because it took about a week. My limited sample data would suggest that quality is diminishing....or I am just unlucky with the GPU thing.

 

[Kiomon]

I have a sp3 and a mbair. The only big downside to the SP3 is that it's not great on your actual lap. The new keyboard does work a lot better in this regard than the previous iterations, but it still can't compete with a real rigid laptop like the air. The SP3 is my preferred computer for actually getting administrative work like OFFICE and outlook done. The Macs I basically use solely for editing and film work. If you are going to work at a real workstation/ hard surface most of the time, I think you will be happy with the sp3. The screen is beautiful, the build quality great. But if you work from your lap mostly, then go mbair.

 

[kojackJKU]

Or save a crap load of money and buy any multitude of windows based notebooks that are cheaper and more powerful than the air.

 

[kbahus]

Really they are all about the same price give or take. The S3P is the most expensive though, but I think the newer S3 would suffice if I go that route saving around $450. The problem is spending $700 on a glorified tablet or spending $700-800 on a full blown laptop. I feel like I should buy a full laptop, but it sure would be amazing to be able to have one device that I could take real hand-written notes on, draw diagrams, and use for lectures and research papers. Then again, I thought I would use my tablet in such a manner but it just does not work well enough for that use. If that new Surface 3 was in the $500 price range with the keyboard and pen it would be in my lap now, but coughing up another $300 for the "extras" is tough when such good laptops are in the same price range.

I found an old Thinkpad X60s to use for the time being and while it is super slow to open any programs and the screen is terrible it is pretty good to type with and the track point thingy is amazing. Taking 6 minutes to open Office is real pain though!

 

[kojackJKU]

Ouch. that is slow. What are the specs on it? hell, my acer timeline 4810t is smoking fast. I put 8gb ram, 120gb SSD and its just as fast as anything out there now. The computer tech in general has slowed tremendously compared to 5-10 years ago. I remember that each generation computer would be almost a double increase in speed. Not so now. I am running two older notebooks and besides not having touchscreen, they are perfect. Keep your Notebook and pick up something like my ASUS vivotab. It does not have the pen, but it has 10" screen, keyboard with extra battery, and USB ports, and it sits on your lap better than the Surface products. They may be a little faster, but in your case, It sounds like that's not a huge issue.

 

[Elapid100]

I use both Macs and Windows. The Surface Pro 3 is a really really good set up and I find that it's perfect for me as a work tablet/laptop and a web browser and social media device.

 

[robert]

I'm using one of the Asus Zenbooks. While I like how thin and compact it is the solid state drive and fanless operation haven't been what I'd hoped. It works fine in air conditioned areas but it runs hot and I've had it overheat with some frequency in the Philippines. You definitely don't want to put it on your lap, especially in shorts. Like a lot of the thinner laptops in the same category, it uses a dongle to connect to an ethernet cable and you're limited on hard drive size and USB ports meaning you'll need to carry extra stuff for it.

 

[zelatore]

You mentioned the XPS. I've been using an older XPS11 as my main computer for the last couple years and although it's still working fine I'm almost ready to dump it basec on the horrible track pad. It's impossible to type on it without randomly bumping the pad with your palm which sets off all sorts of unintended consequences the least of Wichita is accidentally deleting whatever you were just typing. I don't know if the newer versions have improved on this but buyer beware.

 

[kojackJKU]

My Acer's have a button to turn off the trackpad if you hit them a lot. The new xps is awesome tho.

 

[nwoods]

Here is a short article on how a major national contractor is using Surface 3 Pro's in their field workflow:
http://www.bluebeam.com/us/insider/issues/1507/1507-1.asp?src=2106