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.
“Hate to say I told you so...”
Whatever you or the author have to say has little to do with whether or not Apple laptops do well. They remain extremely popular with developers and creative types for a variety of reasons. Many folk also think that Thinkpad quality is nowhere near what it used to be these days.
The nitpicking around only having USB-C ports is silly. Apple is leading the way as usual, and there are compact all-in-one solutions that provide all the legacy ports you could want with very little hassle. Docks as well.
Editing 4K video on a 15” or less screen is also a straw man argument. Any serious work will be done on a much larger display...which is easily done with a MacBook Pro and an external monitor.
I personally think Apple took a wrong turn with the Touchbar, which it’ll likely address soon enough. Apple could also use a higher end “Pro” laptop with 32 GB of ECC RAM and a Xeon processor. All that said, though, Apple gets an awful lot of things right...
By the way, I’ve come to prefer the short-throw keyboards, they definitely reduce typing fatigue - and they’re quiet.
Hillary got a lot of Vote’s too. Doesn’t mean her time wasn’t past.
The fact they came in 7th was the interesting part.
I have one that’s 6 or 7 years old and apart from the failed battery, works just fine.
I can’t speak to the quality of the current crop of Apple laptops, but in the Windows world, Panasonic Toughbooks are in a class of their own, far exceeding the durability, build quality, reliability, support and servicing of any other vendor, including Lenovo.
I’ve heard they are rugged. Big and Ugly too, but there is plenty of room for ginormous battery(don’t know if they have one or not). If you had to go out and drive around Oil Wells, be a Cop, or a Game Warden, it would be tops.
Windows is a disaster. If I can run OSX on the Lenovo, maybe—otherwise, no.
Yes.
The T/W/P series are usually maintenance friendly while X/Carbons are less so.
Unlike Apple, they give the public full disassembly instructions (aka Hardware Maintenance Manuals), parts access, and a very permissive warranty (non-Lenovo parts are fine if they don’t cause a defect).
An unintended side effect of such openness is creation of custom models. Some are just screen or CPU upgrades, while others refit newer generation mainboards to refresh older models - with Lenovo or self-made parts.
I own a couple of models that have been customized this way - one with a newer generation mainboard and another with an upgraded screen. They fit well enough to pass as stock.
I recently bought a new laptop, because my just 2-year old Lenovo laptop, which I purchased directly from the manufacturer, would start to randomly power off.
I’ll never buy another Lenovo laptop again.
Me too. Nothing against Apple overall though, iphone still the best by far.
Just want to make sure this is clear: Apples suck.
I guess I will just keep using the one I have.
Is Harley/Triumph a thing? Harley/bmw maybe....but Triumph? Do they still make those? (Just kidding...I am a diehard BMW adventure bike guy.)
I go with Toshiba/HP. Does what I want it to do, runs the software I need, and dont have to deal with possible Chinese stealware. JMO.
Laptops, and Phones are at two ends of the spectrum.
Their Laptops are living off their Phone reputation. You get .75% of the equipment, at 150% the cost.
Wife’s MacBook is on its last legs, we’re not sure what we are going to do.
At home, I run Windows 10 Pro on an iMac using VMWare Fusion. It seems more stable in a virtual machine than on a dedicated computer.
Does anybody know of a good Windows 10 app or script to turn off all the spying at once?
Can someone recommend a decent desktop for under $200?
I have windows 7 on mine and it works great for tying into different rtus and PLCs in the field. Scada, bristol, roclink, fischer etc. Battery seems to hold up for what I need.
Tom’s Hardware used to have unbiased reviews. After it was bought out, it will promote anyone who gives it advertising dollars. Even the reputable Anantech sold itself. There are still good review sites and more crop up occasionally. That is a topic for another thread. Apple laptops in seventh place? ROLF
Lenovo used to be IBM, before IBM wanted out of the desktop/laptop business.
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