Alternative to Macbook Pro 2011

[EMA747]

Can anyone recommend me a windows based laptop that is about the same spec/power as the 15.4'' Macbook Pro 2011? My budget would be probably £850-£1000.

The other alternative is I spend around £800 building a desktop and get a cheap laptop for backup of photos and video when on the road.

 

[arad85]

You need a laptop based on an i7-2630QM to be equivalent to a MBP 2011. The best deals I could find (I've just bought one...) are:

• Acer 5750 (limited to 1366x768 screen) but has a variety of options with/without extra graphics GPU. Expect to pay £580-£700 depending on configuration
• Asus N53SV with 1920x1080 screen. They are popular so most places are often out of stock. Expect to pay £850ish
• Dell LX502x. Build your own from ~£700. Better 1080p screen than the Asus. I paid £930 delivered but that was with 1080p screen, 8G memory, 750G HDD, uprated wifi and backlit keyboard. Prices very weekly.

If you're building a desktop, the i7-2600K plus a P67/Z68 based mobo plus 16G memory will set you back between £500 (if you reuse everything from a previous PC build) to £1000 if you buy good PSU, case, SSD and HDD plus peripherals. As to performance, an overclocked desktop is about 1.8x as quick as an i7-2630QM laptop. Whether you notice that in reality is moot as the i7-2630QM based laptop is fast as a fast thing... and that's speaking as someone who has an overclocked i7-2600K based desktop and i7-2630QM based laptop

You pays yer money and takes yer choice..........

 

[mishra]

As for the desktop, choice of 16GB is I think a step a little too far. I know memory is cheap nowadays, but having anything above 8 GB is hardly noticeable in performance. Having said that I do not render any 3D or run any other extremely heavy memory applications. Bet saving money on 8GB and spending it on a decent Power Supply will benefit you much more

What is your main use of the laptop/desktop?

 

[arad85]

As for the desktop, choice of 16GB is I think a step a little too far. I know memory is cheap nowadays, but having anything above 8 GB is hardly noticeable in performance. Having said that I do not render any 3D or run any other extremely heavy memory applications. Bet saving money on 8GB and spending it on a decent Power Supply will benefit you much more

Win7 uses any spare memory as filesystem cache. On my desktop, I regularly use 5-8G fro main processes. The other 8G is used as a disk cache. No idea how much of a difference it makes in reality, but it is used....