When comparing MacBook vs Eluktronics N850HP6, the Slant community recommends Eluktronics N850HP6 for most people. In the question“What are the best laptops around $1500?” Eluktronics N850HP6 is ranked 6th while MacBook is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Eluktronics N850HP6 is:
Not many laptops come with a GTX 1060 and a 7th gen i7 CPU for this price. The GPU and CPU, coupled with the 8GB of RAM make for some great gaming performance. It's able to play most games (even resource-hungry ones) on high/ultra at 1080p and almost never go below 30FPS.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Extremely portable
The laptop weighs just 2 pounds and is 13.1 mm thin. It's one of the thinnest and lightest laptops on the market and it's extremely portable and easy to carry around.
Pro macOS is developer-friendly
macOS is based on XNU (Darwin) kernel, it's a certified Unix and arguably a lot more developer friendly than Windows. Development for Unix is native on macOS.
There's a large selection of great development tools available for macOS. 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 macOS and iOS software, for free.
You can also install Homebrew, an extremely useful package manager.
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 visual arts.
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 there's virtually no lag or stutter when using the trackpad.
Pro Decent battery life
The battery lasts around 7h30m of continuous web browsing which is about average for this class of laptops. Where this laptop's battery truly shines though is under heavy stress where it manages to last an impressive 2h35m under a total stress test (maxed out brightness and processor usage - circumstances that you are likely never going to encounter in the real world).
Pro Completely silent operation
Thanks to the Core M processor (which doesn't require a fan) and the SSD storage, there are no moving parts the in MacBook. It will operate in complete silence.
Pro Very good speakers
The speakers, found above the keyboard produce loud and clear sound with minimal to no distortion whatsoever. They can be used for both listening to music and watching movies with no problem at all.
Pro Decent keyboard
Pro Available in 4 colors
The laptop is available in space gray, gold, silver and rose gold (pink) finishes.
Pro Great performance for the price
Not many laptops come with a GTX 1060 and a 7th gen i7 CPU for this price. The GPU and CPU, coupled with the 8GB of RAM make for some great gaming performance. It's able to play most games (even resource-hungry ones) on high/ultra at 1080p and almost never go below 30FPS.
Pro Has a simple design, making it possible to use on various environments without standing out
Most gaming laptops have over-the-top designs with bright colours and LED lights. The N850HP6 however, has a brushed plastic chassis, coloured grey all over. It's simple and can be used in work environments too without standing out as a gaming laptop.
Pro The display is very suitable for outdoors use
The 1080p display has an anti-glare coating and is bright enough to be used outside during the day without having any issues with glare.
Pro The screen is good enough for gaming
While nothing extraordinary, the 15" display offers good enough performance for most gaming needs. It's got a FullHD resolution and decent colour coverage, covering 65% of the sRGB colour gamut.
Cons
Con Not very powerful
With an Intel Core M processor, the Macbook isn't a serious development laptop. While it will get the job done for lighter tasks, it will struggle with heavier jobs.
Con Non-free software
Apple doesn't release the source code for most of their software & firmware. This makes it significantly more difficult to customize, automate tasks, and verify security.
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.
Con Premium price for not-so-premium hardware
Macbooks are one of the most expensive computers for the hardware they have. Mac is the most expensive UX to buy, as the price has low relationship to how good the hardware is and, instead, is related to how the whole experience from opening the box, to the physical shop, to the cloud and sync services they have.
Con Too fragile, compared to the competitors
Can barely handle liquid, breaks easily with bumping and, at a premium price, has the largest probability of something just breaking without apparent reason.
Con Very expensive (official) repairs
Fixing any problem with a Macbook through the official means is a very expensive investment. Usually, any problem that happens means replacing most of the laptop for 80% of the price, even if the problem can be solved by replacing a 5$ transistor or a 15$ chip or even bypassing with a 1$ wire.
Con Rather low build quality
This laptop uses a pre-made Clevo chassis, which unfortunately does not have a very high build quality. The chassis is made entirely of plastic, which feels a bit cheap and there's a little flex on the screen frame; nothing to worry about but it's something you wouldn't find in most laptops this price range.