@tinhillterror in all honesty, it comes down to what you want it to do, how much you like your current system and whether you want to pay through the nose for a name.
My son was Apple, Apple, Apple all the way, still has a MacBook Air, although spends the majority of his screen time on a Windows 10 based gaming machine. Had top of range iPhone, cost me $1400+ dollars to replace the iPhone that replaced the iPhone and loved it, right up until he purchased a Samsung 8 Note with Android after dropping his iPhone for the umpteenth time and it refusing to work. Swears he will never go back to iPhones again and was blown away by the Samsung. Even now, being at Uni, he does most of his study on his gaming PC.
Apple used to lead the way in lots of areas, particularly imagery processing and picture taking (iPhone), but like always competitors catch up. And Apple is slowly starting to see the same issues with viruses as Windows which used to be its main point of difference.
Couldn’t tell you how effective it is, other than I haven’t had malware since WD came out, with Win7. (Mind you I’d only had it once prior to that, and that was my own stupid mistake).
As I said above, time to replace all our laptops, which is 8x. My needs are simple, just email and rest of MS Office and BBlitz.
However we get common unit with docking stations so everything is flexible with office and lab.
So highest use is CAD and Instrument programs. We have HP 15.6 screen, Windows 7 at present. Looking at HP and Lenovo for price, but some want ASUS.
I have no idea, but will make decision this week for Tax reasons ie before June 30.
So want fastest processor, largest screen, lightest, massive storage, at the best price. Went to JBHiFi and looked but too much to choose from and “sales” assistants had no idea.
Any computer places in Melbourne you would recommend.
These are two big things, though.
CAD (full 3D??) is pretty spec-hungry. Need big screen/s, accompanying video card, and probably big RAM
Instrumentation software can be finicky and stupid with upgrades. My office we have to keep a Win7, 32bit box with serial ports, just cos.
It’s quite possible you’re not the person best placed to make this decision… get the nerds who use CAD & instrumentation software the hardest to write out a spec list. Marry the two up, and then go to market.
The docks might also be compatible across the company’s ranges?? Not sure.
Im with hap, if you’re doing 3d cad the software developers usually have an approved/recommended list of video cards. And you’ll need shed loads of ram as well.
He has however said they are looking at replacing laptops, so the CAD use may not be too intense, at least not at high end desktop levels. Depending on the age of his current laptops, the newest generation ones may be far more powerful and more than capable of doing the work he requires without necessarily adding bells and whistles. I would also consider monitors for those doing the CAD work as a 30" screen or there about would be an improvement on most laptops. I do agree though that SSD, RAM and a good quality mobile graphics card are just as important as an upgrade to the processor. The best suggestion here was talk to his tech guys and see what specs they think they need going forward.
In my experience, “one size fits all” is normally wrong when anyone’s doing anything technical.
We had our IT fuckholes replace all the laptops with computers that can’t talk to the gadgets we need to talk to, with versions of windows incompatible with proprietary software we actually need to use.
A list of nifty features as long as your arm, brilliant for mid level managers, customer service & accounts etc, but we all have to keep hold of an old clunker as well.
Such “portable”.
99% of the problem is working out the specs required. Once you have that, the rest is trivial.