Posted on 04/20/2018 11:52:18 AM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie
Good laptops complete tasks faster; great laptops make you faster. On the strength of world-class business systems like the X1 Carbon, which helps you get more done, and elegant consumer laptops like the Yoga 920, which lasts all-day long, Lenovo has won Laptop Mag's Best and Worst Brand ratings for the second year in a row.
Apple, the former champion, dropped all the way to seventh place in the rankings, which are scored based on innovation, design, support / warranty, value and selection and, most of all, product quality. HP and Dell placed second and third while Acer, Asus, Microsoft, Razer, MSI and Samsung took up the other positions.
Lenovo has a well-deserved reputation as the king of productivity. With their focus on long battery life and great usability, Lenovo's best laptops, especially its ThinkPads, take away some of the annoying friction that prevents you from completing your tasks. Using one is like upgrading your hands and brain from a Core i5 to a Core i7.
Take for example, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon (6th Gen), the only laptop to earn a perfect 5-star score from Laptop Mag in the past year. The X1 Carbon's best-in-class, responsive keyboard makes it feel like you've got a partner pushing your weary fingers back up as you type. If you're like me (and still love pointing sticks), you can use the TrackPoint to navigate around the desktop, without lifting your hands off of the keyboard in order to tap the touchpad.
You don't have to waste time whipping out dongles either as the X1 Carbon is one of the few super-thin laptops that still has full-size USB ports. And, with over 11 hours of endurance and fast-charging, you don't need to waste time sitting by the outlet.
But people cannot live on productivity alone. Lenovo also earned high marks for the gorgeous Yoga 920 2-in-1 with its iconic watchband hinge and 10-hour battery life and the Legion Y920 gaming laptop, which offers powerful performance and a mechanical keyboard. In all, Lenovo notebooks received 10 Laptop Mag Editor's Choice awards, 3 more than their nearest competitor.
Of course, Lenovo isn't the only PC vendor that makes great laptops. Every manufacturer, even last-place Samsung, has its bright spots. HP nearly overtook Lenovo, because of fantastic, highly-rated products like the Envy 13t, which sports a keyboard that can compete with any ThinkPad's, and the beautiful Spectre x360. Dell has the best consumer laptop in the XPS 13 and the top gaming rig in the Alienware 17.
On the other end of the spectrum from Lenovo, Apple continues dropping in the ranks because the MacBook-maker seems to have stopped caring about notebook usability. With the exception of the very-outdated MacBook Air, all of Apple's current laptops have flat butterfly-style keyboards and Thunderbolt 3 / USB Type-C connectors as their only ports. So, in order to use a modern-day MacBook (Air excluded), you have to be willing to pay well over $1,000 in order to have an inferior typing experience and carry a bag full of dongles.
Considering that MacBooks, especially the Pros, have always targeted creative professionals, Apple has shown utter disregard for its core audience. If you're a professional video editor or 3D animator, do you really want to be unable to use the USB Flash drive a colleague just handed you? Do you want to type slower and with less comfort? And, by the way, you won't be able to actually edit video in 4K, because none of the MacBooks is available with a 3840 x 2160 resolution display.
When it comes to design, Apple has been phoning it in (and holding it wrong) for years now. Today's MacBooks look identical to last year's and nearly identical to any MacBook from the last 8 years or so. And while some people still like silver aluminum (with the occasional touch of gold), the MacBook look is all played out.
In terms of technology, Apple is also stuck in 2010. Even though all the PC-makers are selling 2-in-1s, Tim Cook's company won't even put a touch screen on the MacBook. Instead, his strategy is to get people to buy iPad Pros with keyboards and use them instead of actual laptops.
This is the company that runs a commercial where kids ask "what's a computer," while typing away on their slates. Note to Apple: computers are those silver things you used to care about, but continue to sell.
To be fair, Apple remains the leader in tech support with helpful phone agents, great web resources and a network of stores you can bring your laptop to for service. Lenovo's support is pretty poor, with agents getting a number of Laptop Mag's questions wrong. But what good is support if you don't like your laptop?
To get a MacBook today, you really have to be in love with the macOS operating system and not want to change to Windows. And while there are still plenty of Apple diehards, the company is giving them few reasons to stay.
For internet brousing I can see tablets doing that. My wife’s laptop is an acer where you can fold the screen fully back and it is a touch screen. i.e. it is both pad and laptop.
I still use a desktop. And a smart phone.
You should ping other freepers when you talk about them. You should tell him now. I didn’t us his ID so I an excused.
I have 2 Lenovos as well. One is 2008, with W7 and the only time it “died” was the issue was a faulty hard drive. Replaced in 2016 and never had a problem afterwards.
The second is also the Thinkpad Pro bought in 2012, switched from win 8 to Win 10 (I hate both windows os but what the hell) and its been great. Other than my Toshiba laptop which is my favorite, they’ve been alright...
I’m in your camp. Had a 2011 MBP that went around the world with me sans a glitch.
The little Touch Strip was the last nail in the coffin for the MBP. MacOS will never catch up either. Now Apple is playing the Lock-In game and customers are being played.
I still use a desktop ... but I also still use my flip-phone; that's as smart as I want my phone to be. It can't take pictures and won't receive or send texts ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo
Don’t buy Lenovo!
Heh. I use the text feature quite a bit. Also, my family is scattered all over the country. We use our smart phones for video calls. It’s awesome with the grand kids several states away.
Now back to the Coke vs Pepsi, Ford vs Chevy, Sig vs Glock, Harley vs Triumph pissing matches.
Yes, by all means buy Lenovo!!
Emperor Xi thanks you very much!!
Sorry, but I prefer not to have the Chinese Communist Party able to install spyware directly on to my motherboards...
I am looking at the Macbook Pro line and suspect that I'll buy a refurb 2015 i7. Lots of bang for the buck but ... why can't Apple come out with better hardware?
I listen to a couple of Apple oriented podcasts and am starting to understand their frustration with delicate keyboards, the lack of ports and 4K only on external monitors. Not one of my family has bought a 2017 Macbook Pro.
Not that the Apple OS software has been without flaw. High Sierra and the new Apple file system needed more testing before release.
So if I can retrain myself on Linux, that may just do until Apple delivers a hardware upgrade that makes it worth spending the $$$ needed to get a top flight Macbook Pro.
That’s what people get for purchasing PCs and laptops with pre-installed software and not changing it. Every computer that I have purchased (when I didn’t build it myself) has always been scrubbed clean, then had its OS re-installed with the options I want and the drivers I need. It helps delay the software bloat issues for quite some time.
Touch screens are an unmitigated disaster for any work machine other than those used by physicians and meter-readers.
I use both Macs and Pc's. I have a Mac mini as my primary desktop. I have a Dell 2 in 1 laptop I use for travel and trying to stay current with Windows 10. I hardly ever use the touch screen on the Dell laptop. It comes in handy every once in awhile, but then you have to clean the screen after getting finger prints all over it..
Meh. Get Linux for free - I’d go with Mint or Xubuntu - and let the Win v. Apple woes behind.
I’m with you on Lenovo, but I’m a Dell guy and their XPS laptops are the bomb. Pricey but excellent. Apple has two problems, MacOS, and inflexibility. Apple has few configurations because MacOS is so outdated. For example, a single menu at the top of the screen swapped out for each app. That’s stone aged shit.
I just turned mine off. More trouble than it’s worth.
In addition...for me anyway, a touch screen is like a dog’s Dew Claw, just cut the damn thing off.
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