What are the best laptops for casual use with a 4K display?

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Dec 6, 2019

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4 Options Considered

Best laptops for casual use with a 4K display	Price	Weight	RAM
75 Dell XPS 15	$1499	2kg (4.44 lbs)	8 / 16 / 32GB DDR4 at 2400MHz
60 Apple MacBook Pro	$1,299	3.02lbs	8/16GB
-- Razer Blade Pro	$3,999	7.8 lbs / 3.5kg	32GB
-- HP Spectre x360 15t	$1399	2.89 lb	8GB

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score 13 · Answer 1

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score 12 · Answer 2

Apple MacBook Pro

Top Con

It's hard to switch if you're a PC user

Macs have different keyboard layout, shortcuts, and hotkeys than PC. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight

The latest MacBook Pro has a trimmed down design compared to predecessors. It's 0.61 inches (15.5 mm) thick and weighs 4.02 pounds. It's even thinner than MacBook Air. See More

Specs

Weight:3.02lbs

RAM:8/16GB

GPU: Intel Iris Graphics 540/550

Ports:2/4 Thunderbolt 3 Ports, Headphone jack

See All Specs

Top Con

It's expensive

Compared to other ultrabooks such as the Dell XPS 13, the MacBook Pro is very expensive. For the latest (as of July 2017) MacBook Pro and Dell XPS 13 with dual-core i5 Processor, 8GB RAM, 256 SSD, the prices are $1.1k for the Dell XPS 13 and $1.5k for the MacBook Pro. See More

Top Pro

Smooth display quality

Top Con

Glossy screen

Apple has deleted the matte-screen option from its lineup, an unfortunate decision that reduces the usability of the computers and means you get less work done. You won't realize how much time you spend moving your head around to get reflections off whatever you're trying to see until you switch to a matte screen. Those "deep blacks" and "rich colors" that you were supposed to get from a glossy screen are not present since they're buried behind a sheen of reflection under all lighting conditions. See More

Top Pro

Long battery life

Battery lasts up to 9 hours. See More

Top Con

No Ethernet or FireWire ports

An adapter is required to transfer data over FireWire or connect to the Internet using an Ethernet cable. See More

Top Pro

Has tools for many activities pre-installed

Video and audio editing, photo collections, music playing, rich text editor, calendar and mail - all preinstalled apps are of good quality See More

Top Con

The keyboard has a unique feel and some people may need some time to get used to it

The keyboard on the MacBook is unique and some people may not like the way the keys feel to press or not having physical function keys. See More

Top Pro

Great performance

The MacBook Pro offers great performance both for day-to-day stuff and more niche graphic-related activities. The latest model also has had an update in hardware specs where both the CPU and GPU have been upgraded to their respective latest generations. The 16GB to 32GB help with performance as well and the SSD speeds are unmatched in the laptop market which also helps with general performance. See More

Top Con

Hard to repair or upgrade the hardware

The battery and other components are glued in, and the battery blocks access to other parts. The battery will wear out eventually, and the fact that it's glued in means that you cannot easily repair or upgrade a MacBook Pro. See More

Top Pro

Amazing build quality

The MacBook Pro has an all-aluminum body that looks great and is sturdy enough that worries of accidentally damaging are mostly alleviated. It has a robust lid, well-spaced back-lit keyboard with speakers on each side of the keyboard and an excellent button-less trackpad. See More

Top Pro

Good customer support

Apple offers support over the phone worldwide, provides support in Apple retail stores and authorized resellers and has community forums where users can help users. See More

Top Pro

Fantastic display

The MacBook Pro has a sharp, color accurate 2560 x 1600 IPS display. It's bright at 500 nits, has great viewing angles (viewable at up to 178 degrees) and capable of displaying 87.3% of sRGB color gamut. See More

Top Pro

The default macOS is relatively developer friendly since it's a Unix

OSX is based on XNU (Darwin) kernel, it's certified Unix and arguably a lot more developer friendly than Windows. Development for Unix is native on OS X. There's a large selection of great development tools available for OSX. The operating system itself comes bundled with a powerful terminal emulator, called Terminal. Additionally, Apple provides tools, like Xcode, an IDE that contains a comprehensive collection of tools for developing OSX and iOS software, for free. See More

Top Pro

Can run up to 3 external monitors and output 4K

With 2 Thunderbolt (DisplayPort) plugs and 1 HDMI, MBP can run up to 3 external monitors and output 4K over HDMI. See More

Top Pro

Both the hardware and software are designed in-house

Both the operating system and the hardware are designed by Apple and are made to be as compatible as possible from the get-go. Any drawback that the hardware might have compared to competitors, is made up by the great compatibility between the hardware and OS. Furthermore, because Apple controls the hardware that goes inside their laptops, they can be sure that every OS release will be fully compatible even with their older hardware, ensuring software compatibility for many years after the laptop is released. See More

Top Pro

One of the best trackpads around

The Macbooks are renowned for having the best trackpad out of any laptop. It has full gesture support, you can configure in the software how much pressure you want before it physically clicks and the finger tracking is perfect. See More

Top Pro

Plenty of RAM for multitasking

The MacBook Pro has up to 16 GB of RAM. That much RAM is perfect for running IDEs, emulators, and virtual machines. See More

Top Pro

One of the best SSDs that can be found on a laptop

With read speeds at 3.1Gbps and write speeds at around 4.7Gbps, the SSD used in the MacBook Pro is the best in the market by far. This doesn't just mean opening/saving files is quicker, but it also has a pretty huge impact on general application performance. See More

Top Pro

The OS is exceptionally easy to use

Macbooks are famous for working out of the box. The default operating system (macOS) is also exceptionally easy to use even for people who have never used it before. Most people will not need to customize or change anything since all the apps work perfectly as it is. The people who like to customize things and tinker with their systems will also find it pretty easy to do, considering the fact that macOS is a Unix and allows varying degrees of control to users. See More

Top Pro

Great keyboard

The 2017 MacBook uses the second generation of the "butterfly" keyboards first introduced in 2015. They feel different to use than most laptop keyboards as they are very shallow, but most people report really enjoying the keyboard after getting used to it. See More

See All

score 6 · Answer 3

Razer Blade Pro

Top Pro

Great gaming performance

Razer has equipped this laptop with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 and one of the fastest mobile processors you can buy today. It can run almost any modern game in 4K resolution in high or maximum settings at upwards of 30 FPS. See More

Top Con

You may need some time to getting used to the position of the touchpad

The touchpad is located on the right side of the keyboard, and can take some time to get used to. See More

Specs

Weight:7.8 lbs / 3.5kg

RAM:32GB

GPU:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080

CPU:Intel Core i7-6700HQ

See All Specs

Top Pro

Highly portable

At 22mm thin, this is the thinnest laptop that has the NVIDIA GeForce 1080 and one of the thinnest gaming laptops overall. See More

Top Pro

Customizable RGB keyboard backlight

The keyboard’s RGB backlight can display 16.8 million colors on each key and the touchpad border. The included Synapse software lets you program the lights with different patterns and color profiles and is shareable to other Razer devices. See More

See All

score 3 · Answer 4

HP Spectre x360 15t

Top Pro

Long battery life

For simple activities such as web browsing and editing files, the HP Spectre clocks in at around 11 hours of autonomous battery life. See More

Top Con

Can easily trap heat and overheat

The extremely thin chassis is a drawback as far as heat management goes. Even a relatively simple activity like streaming HD videos will overheat the laptop and put the internal heat at about 105 degrees Fahrenheit which is 10 degrees higher than the 95 degrees "comfortable" threshold. See More

Specs

Weight:2.89 lb

RAM:8GB

GPU:Intel Graphics 620

CPU:8th Generation Intel Core i7

See All Specs

Top Pro

Great design

The HP Spectre x360 has an all-aluminum body that gives it a very premium feel. The edges are all smooth and polished which provide a great highlight accent to the laptop. See More

See All

What are the best laptops for casual use with a 4K display?

4 Options Considered

Dell XPS 15

My Recommendation for Dell XPS 15

My Recommendation for Dell XPS 15

RAM and SSD are replaceable by the user

Battery not easily replaceable

Great 4K display

No 2.5" SATA possible

Apple MacBook Pro

My Recommendation for Apple MacBook Pro

My Recommendation for Apple MacBook Pro

It's hard to switch if you're a PC user

Lightweight

It's expensive

Smooth display quality

Glossy screen

Long battery life

No Ethernet or FireWire ports

Has tools for many activities pre-installed

The keyboard has a unique feel and some people may need some time to get used to it

Great performance

Hard to repair or upgrade the hardware

Amazing build quality

Good customer support

Fantastic display

The default macOS is relatively developer friendly since it's a Unix

Can run up to 3 external monitors and output 4K

Both the hardware and software are designed in-house

One of the best trackpads around

Plenty of RAM for multitasking

One of the best SSDs that can be found on a laptop

The OS is exceptionally easy to use

Great keyboard

Razer Blade Pro

My Recommendation for Razer Blade Pro

My Recommendation for Razer Blade Pro

Great gaming performance

You may need some time to getting used to the position of the touchpad

Highly portable

Customizable RGB keyboard backlight

HP Spectre x360 15t

My Recommendation for HP Spectre x360 15t

My Recommendation for HP Spectre x360 15t

Long battery life

Can easily trap heat and overheat

Great design

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