Has apple insider gone mental? This is the worse matchup, one is brand new and one is a whole generation ago. 7th gen cpu vs 8th gen’s latest? When comparing cpu’s This is like putting a 2019 corvette up against a 1999. You can justify this with cost all you want, it is still ludicrous.
Apple Insider is doing what every other consumer does. I.e. At a certain price point: What is the best value?
This focus on value what allowed Dell to surpass almost everyone in the PC business. They single handily killed off Gateway, and sent companies like IBM running for the hills (selling PCs).
When you buy a MacBook, the expectations is you get value from the quality of components and longevity of the machine. The reality for many is they’re better off buying a Windows machine now, with the full knowledge that they’ll probably need to replace it with another while the MacBook is still going strong.
When you buy a premium car is it worth it? What about a premium washing machine? All these comparisons are worth discussing. There is no universal right answer...
My biggest complaint about Apple is their pricing. I find value in the iPhone & iPad product lines, but I don’t own a Mac. As much as I dislike Windows 10, I don’t own a Mac. I’m not sure I’ll ever own a Mac... because of price/value.
The business case (enterprise) for MacBooks (as I see it) is stronger than for “personal” machines. We’re talking about the cost for IT support factored in. Personally, I can do everything myself so there is no cost saving.
Would I recommend a MacBook to others? Sure. In the right situation. I can see value in a computer noob taking a MacBook to college, where Apple Stores are located everywhere for support.
You don't buy a Mac for the hardware. You buy it for the OS and the ecosystem -- which is why they cost more. Those things cost Apple money that they pass on to you in the selling price.
I've never minded paying 30-35% more for a comparable Mac. For that 30-35% you get a much nicer design, reliability, premium build materials, Mac OS, long software support cycle of 6 years+ and good resale value that usually ends up recovering most of the additional outlay.
But the new MacBook family design traits remove a lot of those advantages. You no longer get a long term reliable machine, resale value will certainly take a hit as people understandably will be nervous of buying these machines out of warranty due to the many issues that they have. From keyboards to speakers, logic board failures to port issues, the problems of the generation are everywhere, and in large reported numbers.
I love Apple, I've been an avid apple user for 13 years since I bought my first Mac mini and fell in love with Mac OS X, but these new MacBooks have really shook my faith in Apple and their quality control. I'm not sure if I should sell my MacBook Pro now whilst it is in warranty and seek out a model from 2015 or not, or get the extended warranty and hold on until they release a new design that is actually fit for purpose.
Mac hardware has mastered sleek design (mostly thin & light). But, unless you compare it to junk like HP, it has never been top of the line for "reliability or premium build materials" - and "nicer design" depends on what your objectives are.
For "reliability or premium build materials" - and (arguably) "nicer design" Lenovo has walked all over them. But, it doesn't have either MacOS or the Apple ecosystem.
Mac hardware only shines if you compare it against junk from HP, Dell, Gateway, etc....
I'll stick to what I said: Nobody buys Macs for the hardware -- it's all about the software (OS) and Apple's ecosystem.
Seems like a “broodje aap” (utter nonsense). Apples build quality is superb, look at the motherboards and integration of all components. Also, Apple designs almost everything from the super alu casing to the motherboards and fan system. I don’t think a “dozenschuiver” (don’t know the English equivalent) has the incentive or the motivation (let alone the money) to produce something equally good as Apple. Maybe they have some nice designs from IBM somewhere on the shelve, that could be the case.
When you compare across the spectrum of users, Apple's laptops are definitely lot more reliable comparing to Windows. IBM said the support cost for MACs are lot lower than Windows machines.
In this article, performance wise, compare the same processors inside than different Gen(7th vs 8th) and dual vs quad core.
Okay, you forgot what the article was about. They took similarly priced hardware and compared them. The Windows box won, period. The last paragraph said that the new MacBook Pro would likely keep up but it is now considerably more expensive than the the Razer they tested. According to a significant number of users here and elsewhere ALL that counts is performance vs price and in that comparison Apple hardware is overpriced and underperforming trash. We’re not talking about macOS or the experience or anything else. We’re talking bang for buck and Apple loses big time.
The whole narrative for Apple has changed recently. Now it’s about price and price alone. All the analysts, all the blogs (including AI), all the critics, all the trolls, have zeroed in on price as the be-all-end-all of value. This competition review proves the point. Dollar for dollar of performance, Apple hardware sucks and always has. To the new breed of Apple critics the concept of premium prices for premium hardware is anathema. They’re all made in the same factory and contain the same third party components as everybody else. So price is the only scale by which to make a judgement now. Apple has no reason to exist in this new world. Neither does BMW, or Tesla, or Cuisinart, or Hermes, or Rolex, or Gucci, or Coach, or Calphlon for that matter.
Lkrupp always keeping it real. Love your post. I think like some here I’m going back to iMore. AI is becoming C|NET slowly. Look I’m not rolling in money by any stretch but give me Apple’s experience over windows any day. I’m getting tired of this political, what the analyst are saying, gloom and doom centric crap. But hey AI has to make a profit I guess so have at it.
.... Unfortunately, the 13-inch Non-Touch bar MacBook Pro lags behind both in performance and value. ...
I would disagree. Or more specifically, I don't think that Apples and Apples are being compared (no pun intended!).
That is, comparing price matched hardware, the Apple hardware will ALWAYS lose.
The Apple product can't win because: A very big chunk of the price of an iOS or MacOS device is the cost of the operating system, ancillary software and Apple's ecosystem -- which I would guess is probably about a third of the total cost of the machine. (Other hardware vendors buy a far cheaper OS and simply don't have an ecosystem to speak of).
Or, to put it yet another way: Theoretically, you could buy a Mac and install Windows over top of MacOS and run it as Windows machine. But, would ANYBODY do that? No! That would be incredibly stupid! They buy it for the OS and Apple's ecosystem, not the hardware.
Perhaps a more fair hardware comparison would be to compare a Mac to a Windows machine that cost, say, 2/3's as much as the Mac? Say: a $1,000 Windows machine to a $1,500 Mac? Now, that might be a fair comparison.
What are you talking about? When you buy a windows computer, the cost of Windows and the windows ‘ecosystem’ (whatever that may be) are included. The OS may not be programmed by the same company, but the cost of the OS is still included in the machine. As far as other software goes, the vast majority of the software included with a Mac can also be obtained for free for a windows machine.
If you want to argure that OS X is a better OS and therefore worth more, you can, but that is strictly personal opinion and depended on your use. For other people, using OS X may be worth less. To arbitrarily argue that “Mac’s get to cost 50% more” when you make any comparison just because they’re your favorite brand is BS if you ask me. When I look at buying a product, I look at what it does for me vs how much it costs. You can argue that OS X is more reliable and trouble free and is therefore worth paying for, but that has nothing to do with development or ecosystem costs.
What am I taking about when I say that MacOS and Apple's ecosystem add about a third (my estimate) to the price of a Mac?
No, I am not talking about their relative value to the end user. I am talking about cost to produce.
First: Windows machines simply don't have an ecosystem behind them so there is no cost there. They come with some bloatware, but that's about it. If you don't know what Apple's ecosystem is, you're in the wrong forum.
Second: MacOS and Windows are both OS's and cost about the same to produce and maintain. But their cost per machine is vastly different. For example: Assume both cost $1million to develop. Then assume Microsoft sells a million copies -- that $1 per machine. But, if Apple sells only 100,000 copies, that's $10 per machine. (while the actual numbers are hypotethical, the ratio is not)
MS doesn’t sell Windows; people even sued to prevent it from contaminating the machines they bought.
macplusplus said: Because that "staff" know how they will be ridiculed if they put the battery benchmark in the article. The battery life is most probably two hours or so, because a gaming laptop is expected to be used mostly plugged in. That one is a laptop for teens, who want it to carry their games alongside when hanging out with friends. Teens like that brand's flashy keyboards and mice too.
Right on the money: it's specifically intended for gaming, so it isn't really a very good comparison to begin with. For example, how many people working in a typical corporate office that use PCs are going to be given a Razer Blade Stealth as their working laptop? I doubt that ever happens. They would get a PC model that was specifically intended for use as a working PC, not a gaming PC.
I notice there is no battery life comparison - because no one is interested in that feature these days...
Because that "staff" know how they will be ridiculed if they put the battery benchmark in the article. The battery life is most probably two hours or so, because a gaming laptop is expected to be used mostly plugged in. That one is a laptop for teens, who want it to carry their games alongside when hanging out with friends. Teens like that brand's flashy keyboards and mice too.
This comparison is at least useful for pointing out that 13" notebooks can and should have discrete GPUs, and the arguments that 13" Macbook Pros don't have the necessary power or cooling capacity has been nonsense for nearly 15 years.
That is, comparing price matched hardware, the Apple hardware will ALWAYS lose.
The Apple product can't win because: A very big chunk of the price of an iOS or MacOS device is the cost of the operating system, ancillary software and Apple's ecosystem -- which I would guess is probably about a third of the total cost of the machine. (Other hardware vendors buy a far cheaper OS and simply don't have an ecosystem to speak of).
I don’t agree. A few years back, the MacBook Air was $100 cheaper than the closest PC knockoff - an Asus Zen book. The MacBook Air had only 2 USB 3 ports compared to the 4 on the Zen book, but as I told my friend - you didn’t need 4. The trackpad really works. The Bluetooth really works - so no silly corded mouse or silly mouse dongle.
But that was when Apple was making money like crazy even when trying to court PC switchers.
Now they price things like they don’t care.
Also, a good OS doesn’t have to be the most expensive - sometimes it’s actually the cheapest. The reason being if it is good - it will sell in volume, and it’s cost will be amortized over more units. If it is good, it is structured well and easy to maintain, so the cost of finding and fixing bugs is less.
Example of a really good OS dominating and being the cheapest? In server environments: Linux.
Yes, Linux is darn near unusable for common folk. But macOS is probably the largest Unix distribution on PCs. Surely they have enough users to amortize the cost?
AppleInsider picked an aluminum unibody PC with a comparable display, so you can’t accuse the compared item of “cheaping out” on those major components. Yet the Razor gives much better performance in every test, and costs $400 less. And Razor isn’t a charity - they need to make profit to stay alive - probably more than Apple needs to.
macplusplus said: Because that "staff" know how they will be ridiculed if they put the battery benchmark in the article. The battery life is most probably two hours or so, because a gaming laptop is expected to be used mostly plugged in. That one is a laptop for teens, who want it to carry their games alongside when hanging out with friends. Teens like that brand's flashy keyboards and mice too.
Right on the money: it's specifically intended for gaming, so it isn't really a very good comparison to begin with. For example, how many people working in a typical corporate office that use PCs are going to be given a Razer Blade Stealth as their working laptop? I doubt that ever happens. They would get a PC model that was specifically intended for use as a working PC, not a gaming PC.
The HP Spectre probably would have been a better comparison. It's in the ultrabook class, like the MacBook Pro and, at least on paper, is a much better proposition.
£1599 gets you Intel 8th Gen Core i7, 4K Display which is touch/pen enabled, 16GB Ram, 1TB SSD, supports USB C/Thunderbolt and USB A and even has 3 years warranty included.
£1599 for the Mac, well it gets you the old 2017 model with 8GB Ram, 7th Gen CPU, 256GB SSD and one year warranty, plus £50 back in your pocket.
So, this new Windoze “gaming” rig is still outperformed by the new iPad Pro, and Apple’s A12X Bionic, in several tests. I think the Razor Blade should be put up against the new Pad Pro in benchmark tests.
.... Unfortunately, the 13-inch Non-Touch bar MacBook Pro lags behind both in performance and value. ...
I would disagree. Or more specifically, I don't think that Apples and Apples are being compared (no pun intended!).
That is, comparing price matched hardware, the Apple hardware will ALWAYS lose.
The Apple product can't win because: A very big chunk of the price of an iOS or MacOS device is the cost of the operating system, ancillary software and Apple's ecosystem -- which I would guess is probably about a third of the total cost of the machine. (Other hardware vendors buy a far cheaper OS and simply don't have an ecosystem to speak of).
Or, to put it yet another way: Theoretically, you could buy a Mac and install Windows over top of MacOS and run it as Windows machine. But, would ANYBODY do that? No! That would be incredibly stupid! They buy it for the OS and Apple's ecosystem, not the hardware.
Perhaps a more fair hardware comparison would be to compare a Mac to a Windows machine that cost, say, 2/3's as much as the Mac? Say: a $1,000 Windows machine to a $1,500 Mac? Now, that might be a fair comparison.
What are you talking about? When you buy a windows computer, the cost of Windows and the windows ‘ecosystem’ (whatever that may be) are included. The OS may not be programmed by the same company, but the cost of the OS is still included in the machine. As far as other software goes, the vast majority of the software included with a Mac can also be obtained for free for a windows machine.
If you want to argure that OS X is a better OS and therefore worth more, you can, but that is strictly personal opinion and depended on your use. For other people, using OS X may be worth less. To arbitrarily argue that “Mac’s get to cost 50% more” when you make any comparison just because they’re your favorite brand is BS if you ask me. When I look at buying a product, I look at what it does for me vs how much it costs. You can argue that OS X is more reliable and trouble free and is therefore worth paying for, but that has nothing to do with development or ecosystem costs.
What am I taking about when I say that MacOS and Apple's ecosystem add about a third (my estimate) to the price of a Mac?
No, I am not talking about their relative value to the end user. I am talking about cost to produce.
First: Windows machines simply don't have an ecosystem behind them so there is no cost there. They come with some bloatware, but that's about it. If you don't know what Apple's ecosystem is, you're in the wrong forum.
Second: MacOS and Windows are both OS's and cost about the same to produce and maintain. But their cost per machine is vastly different. For example: Assume both cost $1million to develop. Then assume Microsoft sells a million copies -- that $1 per machine. But, if Apple sells only 100,000 copies, that's $10 per machine. (while the actual numbers are hypotethical, the ratio is not)
MS doesn’t sell Windows; people even sued to prevent it from contaminating the machines they bought.
Microsoft doesn't sell Windows? I wonder how it got on all those PCs? It must be Google's fault.
macplusplus said: Because that "staff" know how they will be ridiculed if they put the battery benchmark in the article. The battery life is most probably two hours or so, because a gaming laptop is expected to be used mostly plugged in. That one is a laptop for teens, who want it to carry their games alongside when hanging out with friends. Teens like that brand's flashy keyboards and mice too.
Right on the money: it's specifically intended for gaming, so it isn't really a very good comparison to begin with. For example, how many people working in a typical corporate office that use PCs are going to be given a Razer Blade Stealth as their working laptop? I doubt that ever happens. They would get a PC model that was specifically intended for use as a working PC, not a gaming PC.
The article doesn't even mention the low-res 1080p display of that mid-range model. Moving less pixels than the Retina display of MBP it can barely compete despite the boost from the discrete GeForce MX150. The Macbook Pro moves twice as much pixels as that gamers' machine: compare 2560x1600 to 1920x1080. And it does that without the boost from a discrete GPU.
macplusplus said: Because that "staff" know how they will be ridiculed if they put the battery benchmark in the article. The battery life is most probably two hours or so, because a gaming laptop is expected to be used mostly plugged in. That one is a laptop for teens, who want it to carry their games alongside when hanging out with friends. Teens like that brand's flashy keyboards and mice too.
Right on the money: it's specifically intended for gaming, so it isn't really a very good comparison to begin with. For example, how many people working in a typical corporate office that use PCs are going to be given a Razer Blade Stealth as their working laptop? I doubt that ever happens. They would get a PC model that was specifically intended for use as a working PC, not a gaming PC.
That's true. But then, not many get a MacBook Pro either. Apple doesn't spend much time marketing or designing for the corporate/enterprise market anymore. I wish they would.
Weirdly, a Macintosh was my first computer in the office - mostly because with MacWrite, Postscript and Laser Printers they could get rid of all the non-executive secretaries. But I haven't seen an Apple computer in a corporation since.
macplusplus said: Because that "staff" know how they will be ridiculed if they put the battery benchmark in the article. The battery life is most probably two hours or so, because a gaming laptop is expected to be used mostly plugged in. That one is a laptop for teens, who want it to carry their games alongside when hanging out with friends. Teens like that brand's flashy keyboards and mice too.
Right on the money: it's specifically intended for gaming, so it isn't really a very good comparison to begin with. For example, how many people working in a typical corporate office that use PCs are going to be given a Razer Blade Stealth as their working laptop? I doubt that ever happens. They would get a PC model that was specifically intended for use as a working PC, not a gaming PC.
That's true. But then, not many get a MacBook Pro either. Apple doesn't spend much time marketing or designing for the corporate/enterprise market anymore. I wish they would.
macplusplus said: Because that "staff" know how they will be ridiculed if they put the battery benchmark in the article. The battery life is most probably two hours or so, because a gaming laptop is expected to be used mostly plugged in. That one is a laptop for teens, who want it to carry their games alongside when hanging out with friends. Teens like that brand's flashy keyboards and mice too.
Right on the money: it's specifically intended for gaming, so it isn't really a very good comparison to begin with. For example, how many people working in a typical corporate office that use PCs are going to be given a Razer Blade Stealth as their working laptop? I doubt that ever happens. They would get a PC model that was specifically intended for use as a working PC, not a gaming PC.
The article doesn't even mention the low-res 1080p display of that mid-range model. Moving less pixels than the Retina display of MBP it can barely compete despite the boost from the discrete GeForce MX150. The Macbook Pro moves twice as much pixels as that gamers' machine: compare 2560x1600 to 1920x1080. And it does that without the boost from a discrete GPU.
I'm not sure what you mean by "barely compete", the graphics tests are all running at the same resolution. The native display resolution doesn't change that.
The NVIDIA GPU with CUDA is also useful for compute workloads, something none of these benchmarks highlight.
That is, comparing price matched hardware, the Apple hardware will ALWAYS lose.
The Apple product can't win because: A very big chunk of the price of an iOS or MacOS device is the cost of the operating system, ancillary software and Apple's ecosystem -- which I would guess is probably about a third of the total cost of the machine. (Other hardware vendors buy a far cheaper OS and simply don't have an ecosystem to speak of).
I don’t agree. A few years back, the MacBook Air was $100 cheaper than the closest PC knockoff - an Asus Zen book. The MacBook Air had only 2 USB 3 ports compared to the 4 on the Zen book, but as I told my friend - you didn’t need 4. The trackpad really works. The Bluetooth really works - so no silly corded mouse or silly mouse dongle.
But that was when Apple was making money like crazy even when trying to court PC switchers.
Now they price things like they don’t care.
Also, a good OS doesn’t have to be the most expensive - sometimes it’s actually the cheapest. The reason being if it is good - it will sell in volume, and it’s cost will be amortized over more units. If it is good, it is structured well and easy to maintain, so the cost of finding and fixing bugs is less.
Example of a really good OS dominating and being the cheapest? In server environments: Linux.
Yes, Linux is darn near unusable for common folk. But macOS is probably the largest Unix distribution on PCs. Surely they have enough users to amortize the cost?
AppleInsider picked an aluminum unibody PC with a comparable display, so you can’t accuse the compared item of “cheaping out” on those major components. Yet the Razor gives much better performance in every test, and costs $400 less. And Razor isn’t a charity - they need to make profit to stay alive - probably more than Apple needs to.
I agree.
But, it's not the (total) cost of the OS that matters to the selling price of the machine. It's the unit cost (the cost per machine). And, on that basis, Windows costs less than 1/10th that of MacOS because Mac's have less than 10% of the laptop & desktop market.
(Well, in all honesty, it's probably not 10% because Windows is more expensive in total to build because they have to design and build for a very large and varied population -- as opposed to Apple who can target their hardware exclusively.)
But, in addtiion to the OS, as I mentioned, you also have to take into account the cost of Apple's ecosystem which Windows PCs simply don't have. Basically all they have is bloatware.
It's mystifying that you'd deliberately compare a 2019 anything to a previous generation MacBook.
Why d'you do that? How is the story not tainted from the very headline?
Worse yet, you ding Apple on value, but as a publication, you derive half of your income on promo ads where you ‘unearth’ huge discounts, especially on previous-generation gear. So at the very least, price out the MBP at the price you'd buy it for yourselves (at a great discount, with no sales tax to 48 states).
This sounds like a Razer-sponsored post masquerading as a review. I thought only 9-to-5 did those.
macplusplus said: Because that "staff" know how they will be ridiculed if they put the battery benchmark in the article. The battery life is most probably two hours or so, because a gaming laptop is expected to be used mostly plugged in. That one is a laptop for teens, who want it to carry their games alongside when hanging out with friends. Teens like that brand's flashy keyboards and mice too.
Right on the money: it's specifically intended for gaming, so it isn't really a very good comparison to begin with. For example, how many people working in a typical corporate office that use PCs are going to be given a Razer Blade Stealth as their working laptop? I doubt that ever happens. They would get a PC model that was specifically intended for use as a working PC, not a gaming PC.
The article doesn't even mention the low-res 1080p display of that mid-range model. Moving less pixels than the Retina display of MBP it can barely compete despite the boost from the discrete GeForce MX150. The Macbook Pro moves twice as much pixels as that gamers' machine: compare 2560x1600 to 1920x1080. And it does that without the boost from a discrete GPU.
I'm not sure what you mean by "barely compete", the graphics tests are all running at the same resolution. The native display resolution doesn't change that.
The NVIDIA GPU with CUDA is also useful for compute workloads, something none of these benchmarks highlight.
The native display resolution DOES change the performance in real world usage. Yet the MBP (of last year) performs better than the Razer (of this year) considering that it doesn't have the discrete GPU. 31075 OpenCL without the discrete GPU versus 47516 with GeForce MX150 means that MBP performs even better.
That must be a new trend, comparing a machine with discrete GPU to a machine without one...
And whatever benchmarks say, the inclusion of a discrete GPU affects the thermal balance and battery life, all other specs being equal. And those are not equal in that comparison, there is a huge difference in display resolutions.
macplusplus said: Because that "staff" know how they will be ridiculed if they put the battery benchmark in the article. The battery life is most probably two hours or so, because a gaming laptop is expected to be used mostly plugged in. That one is a laptop for teens, who want it to carry their games alongside when hanging out with friends. Teens like that brand's flashy keyboards and mice too.
Right on the money: it's specifically intended for gaming, so it isn't really a very good comparison to begin with. For example, how many people working in a typical corporate office that use PCs are going to be given a Razer Blade Stealth as their working laptop? I doubt that ever happens. They would get a PC model that was specifically intended for use as a working PC, not a gaming PC.
The HP Spectre probably would have been a better comparison. It's in the ultrabook class, like the MacBook Pro and, at least on paper, is a much better proposition.
£1599 gets you Intel 8th Gen Core i7, 4K Display which is touch/pen enabled, 16GB Ram, 1TB SSD, supports USB C/Thunderbolt and USB A and even has 3 years warranty included -- and typical HP junk.
£1599 for the Mac, well it gets you the old 2017 model with 8GB Ram, 7th Gen CPU, 256GB SSD and one year warranty, plus £50 back in your pocket - and Apple level quality, the MacOS and Apple Ecosystem.
macplusplus said: Because that "staff" know how they will be ridiculed if they put the battery benchmark in the article. The battery life is most probably two hours or so, because a gaming laptop is expected to be used mostly plugged in. That one is a laptop for teens, who want it to carry their games alongside when hanging out with friends. Teens like that brand's flashy keyboards and mice too.
Right on the money: it's specifically intended for gaming, so it isn't really a very good comparison to begin with. For example, how many people working in a typical corporate office that use PCs are going to be given a Razer Blade Stealth as their working laptop? I doubt that ever happens. They would get a PC model that was specifically intended for use as a working PC, not a gaming PC.
The article doesn't even mention the low-res 1080p display of that mid-range model. Moving less pixels than the Retina display of MBP it can barely compete despite the boost from the discrete GeForce MX150. The Macbook Pro moves twice as much pixels as that gamers' machine: compare 2560x1600 to 1920x1080. And it does that without the boost from a discrete GPU.
I'm not sure what you mean by "barely compete", the graphics tests are all running at the same resolution. The native display resolution doesn't change that.
The NVIDIA GPU with CUDA is also useful for compute workloads, something none of these benchmarks highlight.
The native display resolution DOES change the performance in real world usage. Yet the MBP performs better than the Razer considering that it doesn't have the discrete GPU. 31075 OpenCL without the discrete GPU versus 47516 with GeForce MX150 means that MBP performs even better.
That must be a new trend, comparing a machine with discrete GPU to a machine without one...
And whatever benchmarks say, the inclusion of a discrete GPU affects the thermal balance and battery life, all other specs being equal. And those are not equal in that comparison, there is a huge difference in display resolutions.
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Real world applications have no problem scaling to a defined resolution regardless of the native resolution.
An OpenCL benchmark doesn't care what the resolution is. The workload is still the same on both machines.
And again, another compute benchmark that doesn't include CUDA, a major plus of having an NVIDA GPU.
macplusplus said: Because that "staff" know how they will be ridiculed if they put the battery benchmark in the article. The battery life is most probably two hours or so, because a gaming laptop is expected to be used mostly plugged in. That one is a laptop for teens, who want it to carry their games alongside when hanging out with friends. Teens like that brand's flashy keyboards and mice too.
Right on the money: it's specifically intended for gaming, so it isn't really a very good comparison to begin with. For example, how many people working in a typical corporate office that use PCs are going to be given a Razer Blade Stealth as their working laptop? I doubt that ever happens. They would get a PC model that was specifically intended for use as a working PC, not a gaming PC.
The article doesn't even mention the low-res 1080p display of that mid-range model. Moving less pixels than the Retina display of MBP it can barely compete despite the boost from the discrete GeForce MX150. The Macbook Pro moves twice as much pixels as that gamers' machine: compare 2560x1600 to 1920x1080. And it does that without the boost from a discrete GPU.
I'm not sure what you mean by "barely compete", the graphics tests are all running at the same resolution. The native display resolution doesn't change that.
The NVIDIA GPU with CUDA is also useful for compute workloads, something none of these benchmarks highlight.
The native display resolution DOES change the performance in real world usage. Yet the MBP performs better than the Razer considering that it doesn't have the discrete GPU. 31075 OpenCL without the discrete GPU versus 47516 with GeForce MX150 means that MBP performs even better.
That must be a new trend, comparing a machine with discrete GPU to a machine without one...
And whatever benchmarks say, the inclusion of a discrete GPU affects the thermal balance and battery life, all other specs being equal. And those are not equal in that comparison, there is a huge difference in display resolutions.
You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Real world applications have no problem scaling to a defined resolution regardless of the native resolution.
An OpenCL benchmark doesn't care what the resolution is. The workload is still the same on both machines.
And again, another compute benchmark that doesn't include CUDA, a major plus of having an NVIDA GPU.
You have absolutely no idea what resolution is.
If real world applications have no problem scaling to a defined resolution then why games provide different resolution settings and why people adjust those settings to get the max FPS? Lower the render resolution to 800x600 you get the max FPS but horrible graphics. Mapping that rendered image to the display is of course no problem, what is problem is the render resolution, i.e. the internal graphics port onto which the applications draw, this is where the GPU enters into play. A render resolution of 2560x1600 creates twice as much load on the GPU than a 1920x1080 resolution. On a machine with 1080p display like that one, choosing a game resolution of 2560x1600 is stupid, because the extra detail provided by that resolution will not be visible on 1080p display, would require an external monitor. If the main display is internal, the game will default to 1080p rendering and everything will run smoothly !.. We have Retina displays on our Macbooks for a reason: on a Retina display photos, videos, drawings and text appear with the crispest details the analog retina cells in our eyes can resolve. With 1080p you cannot get that graphics quality. Retina display is first, everything else is built on that.
Comments
Apples build quality is superb, look at the motherboards and integration of all components. Also, Apple designs almost everything from the super alu casing to the motherboards and fan system. I don’t think a “dozenschuiver” (don’t know the English equivalent) has the incentive or the motivation (let alone the money) to produce something equally good as Apple. Maybe they have some nice designs from IBM somewhere on the shelve, that could be the case.
MS doesn’t sell Windows; people even sued to prevent it from contaminating the machines they bought.
Razer Blade Stealth (i7-8565U, GeForce MX150)
- WiFi battery test: 9 hours 31 min
- Load test: 2 hours 11 min
Apple MacBook Pro 13 (Mid 2017, i5, without Touch Bar)
- WiFi battery test: 11 hours 23 min
- Load test: 1 hours 18 min
But that was when Apple was making money like crazy even when trying to court PC switchers.
Now they price things like they don’t care.
Also, a good OS doesn’t have to be the most expensive - sometimes it’s actually the cheapest. The reason being if it is good - it will sell in volume, and it’s cost will be amortized over more units. If it is good, it is structured well and easy to maintain, so the cost of finding and fixing bugs is less.
Example of a really good OS dominating and being the cheapest? In server environments: Linux.
Yes, Linux is darn near unusable for common folk. But macOS is probably the largest Unix distribution on PCs. Surely they have enough users to amortize the cost?
AppleInsider picked an aluminum unibody PC with a comparable display, so you can’t accuse the compared item of “cheaping out” on those major components. Yet the Razor gives much better performance in every test, and costs $400 less. And Razor isn’t a charity - they need to make profit to stay alive - probably more than Apple needs to.
£1599 gets you Intel 8th Gen Core i7, 4K Display which is touch/pen enabled, 16GB Ram, 1TB SSD, supports USB C/Thunderbolt and USB A and even has 3 years warranty included.
£1599 for the Mac, well it gets you the old 2017 model with 8GB Ram, 7th Gen CPU, 256GB SSD and one year warranty, plus £50 back in your pocket.
Weirdly, a Macintosh was my first computer in the office - mostly because with MacWrite, Postscript and Laser Printers they could get rid of all the non-executive secretaries. But I haven't seen an Apple computer in a corporation since.
The NVIDIA GPU with CUDA is also useful for compute workloads, something none of these benchmarks highlight.
(Well, in all honesty, it's probably not 10% because Windows is more expensive in total to build because they have to design and build for a very large and varied population -- as opposed to Apple who can target their hardware exclusively.)
But, in addtiion to the OS, as I mentioned, you also have to take into account the cost of Apple's ecosystem which Windows PCs simply don't have. Basically all they have is bloatware.
That must be a new trend, comparing a machine with discrete GPU to a machine without one...
And whatever benchmarks say, the inclusion of a discrete GPU affects the thermal balance and battery life, all other specs being equal. And those are not equal in that comparison, there is a huge difference in display resolutions.
Real world applications have no problem scaling to a defined resolution regardless of the native resolution.
An OpenCL benchmark doesn't care what the resolution is. The workload is still the same on both machines.
And again, another compute benchmark that doesn't include CUDA, a major plus of having an NVIDA GPU.
If real world applications have no problem scaling to a defined resolution then why games provide different resolution settings and why people adjust those settings to get the max FPS? Lower the render resolution to 800x600 you get the max FPS but horrible graphics. Mapping that rendered image to the display is of course no problem, what is problem is the render resolution, i.e. the internal graphics port onto which the applications draw, this is where the GPU enters into play. A render resolution of 2560x1600 creates twice as much load on the GPU than a 1920x1080 resolution. On a machine with 1080p display like that one, choosing a game resolution of 2560x1600 is stupid, because the extra detail provided by that resolution will not be visible on 1080p display, would require an external monitor. If the main display is internal, the game will default to 1080p rendering and everything will run smoothly !.. We have Retina displays on our Macbooks for a reason: on a Retina display photos, videos, drawings and text appear with the crispest details the analog retina cells in our eyes can resolve. With 1080p you cannot get that graphics quality. Retina display is first, everything else is built on that.