Slant community chat on Discourse| 10 Recommended Products | Recommendations | CPU | RAM | Storage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 Dell XPS 15· · · | 9 | 0 | Intel Core i3-7100H /// Intel Core i5-7300HQ /// Intel Core i7-7700HQ | 8 / 16 / 32GB DDR4 at 2400MHz | 500GB HDD + 32GB Flash /// 1TB HDD + 32GB Flash /// 256/512GB/1TB PCIe SSD |
| #2 Apple MacBook Pro· · · | 9 | 0 | 2.0/2.9 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 | 8/16GB | 256GB/512GB SSD |
| #3 Dell Precision M5510· · · | 9 | 0 | Intel Xeon E3 - 1505Mv5 /// Intel i7 - 6820 HQ /// Intel i7 - 6700 HQ /// Intel i5 - 6440 HQ /// Intel i5 - 6300 HQ | – | – |
| #4 Razer Blade Pro· · · | 1 | 0 | Intel Core i7-6700HQ | 32GB | Up to 2TB SSD |
| #5 HP Omen 17· · · | 1 | 0 | – | 8GB/16GB | 512GB SSD + 2TB HDD |
| #6 Origin PC EON17-SLX· · · | 1 | 0 | Intel Core i3/i5/i7 | 16GB-64GB | Up to 2TB SSD |
Pro Optional password-free-sign-in via a fingerprint reader
For an additional $25 it’s possible to enjoy a password-free-sign-in by having a fingerprint reader. It will keep your laptop safe while still providing convenient access to it.
Pro Can run most modern games
Being an excellent all-rounder, it can be used as a gaming laptop for games that are not exceptionally demanding, like Overwatch or Dota 2. Unless you’re using the cheapest model, you can expect a reasonable 60 frames per second for almost all modern games, provided that you’re willing to lower the...
Pro Amazing display
Two display choices are available for the XPS 15, an Ultra HD touchscreen or a Full HD non-touch screen. Both screens have a very wide array of colors as they cover approximately 100% of sRGB color space. The viewing angle is around 170 degrees. However, at 45 degrees, slight color change can be...
Con Palmrest collects sweat
The palm rest is made from carbon fiber which attracts fingerprints and sweat. After some time it gets kind of unpleasant to touch and needs to be cleaned.
Con Audible coil whine
Coil whine can be heard when it’s generally quiet and the fans are not running. Audible when the laptop is connected to the power supply. The manufacturers have acknowledged it as a problem and, if possible, will push out an update which should eliminate it. Until then, it’s still a gripe.
Con Awkward webcam location
The webcam is located under the screen instead of on top. It means that your face will be shown from a lower angle which can seem a bit weird. It also means that your fingers can partially obstruct the webcam while you’re typing.
Pro Good battery life
The battery drains in about 9 hours of typical use.
Pro Very portable
The latest Macbook Pro has a trimmed down design compared to predecessors. It's 0.61 inches (15.5 mm) thick and and weighs 4.02 pounds. It's thinner than Macbook Air even.
Con RAM is soldered in
A crippling, unmitigated rip-off which prevents you from upgrading the internal RAM.
Con You need dongles or a dock to connect USB-A devices
There are no USB-A ports, so you'll need a dongle or a dock to use things like webcams.
Pro Small and lightweight for a workstation
It is surprisingly small and lightweight for being a workstation-type laptop. With the weight ranging from 1.8kg to 2kg and with the dimensions of 35.8 x 23.5 x 1.7 cm, it really is a portable workstation laptop.
Con Premium pricing
The price seems a bit steep for what you’re getting.
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.
Pro One of the best displays on the market
The Razer Blade Pro has easily one of the best touchscreen displays that can be found in any laptop. The colors look accurate and vivid, as it covers 185% of the sRGB color gamut. Brightness goes beyond the industry average and can provide a very bright picture. The screen also supports NVIDIA G-Sy...
Con No 802.11ac support
The wireless network card does not support 802.11ac, a wireless standard with significant improvements over the previous 802.11n standard.
Con 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.
Pro Standard, non-flashy look
This laptop is great for those who dislike the overly-gimmicky look that other gaming laptops go for. It doesn’t have big, stylized ventilation holes or dedicated gaming buttons or switches. The keyboard only has a plain red LED backlight, with no customization. The only outward indication that it...
Pro Great display
The display is capable of producing 173% of the sRGB color space and has very good viewing angles. If calibrated, the laptop can be used for color sensitive work.
Con Has issues with cooling
Due to its narrow ventilation holes, the cooling fans need to spin faster in order to cool the laptop down. It can become so hot that it may become uncomfortable to touch the laptop, though the performance doesn’t suffer and doesn’t cause noticeable thermal throttling.
Con Comes in only one color option
The laptop comes in only one color option without the possibility to order a different one.
Pro Comes with top-tier hardware
This laptop comes with the absolute top-tier hardware. Even the base model is more powerful than the vast majority of the laptops you can buy today and will allow you to play nearly every game in 4K.
Pro Has one of the largest arrays of ports on the market
This laptop offers one of the widest variety of connections seen on a laptop. It has an HDMI and two Mini DisplayPort connections, for multi-monitor set-ups. There are five high-speed USB 3.0 ports, two new USB-C ports and an SD card slot. It even has two LAN ports with the ability to control the p...
Con Not portable at all
The laptop isn’t built for those who need portability. A large portable bag and some muscle will be needed to carry it around. Weighing almost 5kg and being more than 4,5cm thick, it's one of the biggest laptops there is. Even the power adapter is twice as large comparing to a non-gamer laptops...
Con The build quality of the body is not as good as the price suggests
Other than the backplate of the lid, which is metal, the rest of the body is made of plastic, which is mostly fine for a budget laptop but for this price a material of higher quality would be expected.
Pro The trackpad provides an overall great feeling of control
The trackpad has a brushed-plastic design which offers a grippier feel to it. This helps reduce inaccurate clicks and gives the user an overall comfortable feeling of control when using it.
Pro Extremely customizable keyboard backlighting
Through the use of MSI's proprietary software (which comes bundled with the laptop), the user can configure the keyboard backlighting however they see fit. For example it can be configured to respond to in-game events such as making the backlighting red when low on health or blinking green when...
Con The speakers should be better for this price
The speakers are decent at best. They are pretty small and do a good job when watching movies or TV, but start showing some problems when listening to music for long periods of time.
Con Low battery life
Battery life on the GE62VR is average at best. It's rather low when gaming (no more than 1.5 hours), which is to be expected. But even when doing simple tasks such as browsing the web and watching videos, the battery will not last more than 3 hours.
Pro Excellent trackpad
The MacBook has a large 4.4 x 2.7-inch Force Touch trackpad with a Taptic Engine that delivers haptic feedback whenever the user taps on it to give them the impression that they are actually clicking on it. It also supports gestures and multi-finger swiping. The accuracy is almost perfect and the...
Pro Amazing display
Everything about the display is very good - from its high resolution (2304x1440) to the brightness (325 nitts), uniform brightness distribution (90%), and high contrast ratio (1000:1) with over 95% of the sRGB spectrum. Overall, a great display which will come in handy for people who work with visu...
Con It's a bit hard to get used to the keyboard
The keys are pretty shallow, with a travel length of just 0.5mm. They still provide good feedback and the writing experience itself is not bad, but it's just a bit hard getting used to, especially if you are coming from a laptop that's not a MacBook.
Con Connecting more than one thing requires a hub
The laptop comes with a single USB-C port that's used for charging as well as any other peripherals or external storage devices. Connecting more than one thing at a time requires using a USB hub.
Pro Best key travel and activation force for a chiclet style keyboard
Once you've typed on this, you can't go back to other laptop keyboard, especially in low-light when you engage the backlighting for it.
Con Cumbersome and heavy, with middling battery life
Everything in life is a trade-off; here performance comes at the expense of weight and battery longevity.
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.
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.
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 Apple prevents you from easily repairing or upgrading a MacBook Pro.
Con You need dongles or a dock to connect USB-A devices
There are no USB-A ports, so you'll need a dongle or a dock to use things like webcams.
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