Have you ever used Microsoft OneNote? It's the best note taking software there is, even for Mac.
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When I played with the Surface book, I wanted to ask if it was made of cast iron because it felt heavy and sturdy.
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Done with MacBooks - Any good Windows replacement?
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Have you ever used Microsoft OneNote? It's the best note taking software there is, even for Mac.
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When I played with the Surface book, I wanted to ask if it was made of cast iron because it felt heavy and sturdy.
Yes I've had a ton of sync errors with OneNote when using iOS devices especially. And once a OneNote page has errors, it's almost impossible to fix without recreating a new page with all the notes again or even an entire notebook. So, so annoying.
It's frustrating to me because I have an office365 subscription and I really wanted OneNote to work for me. But it just lets me down too often so I gave up. It got to the point where I dreaded having to update a note because I feared the sync would fail and mean I'd have to start over again.
My issues with onenote seem to affect a very limited number of people though, so it's probably fine for most people. I find simplenote works flawlessly for me and I like that it runs on everything including Linux if I ever wanted it.
Your information is outdated. The PC industry has caught up with Apple. The Razer Blade 14" is smaller, faster, and cheaper than the MBP. You might not find much that are better, but you will find a lot of laptops that are just as good and a heck of a lot cheaper.
This sounds familiar.
Over a year ago or so I had that issue on my SP3. It was a syncing issue, and you had to turn it to local saves only to fix it.
I sold the surface pro 3, and bought a surface book sometime later.
I haven't had the issue since, so you may want to test the updated version again if you haven't in awhile.
Also maybe turn saves to local only if it remains.
Also, I used ubuntu with the dell xps 13, and it worked perfect out of the box. Battery life was 8-9 hours with dual boot.
I'm lucky to get 5 hours on my 15" retina, and that has sleep issues. My 11" air has sleep issues too, and gets 4 hours battery life on ubuntu.
But I'm just using virtual box on my surface book and have no complaints.
The new Linux bash shell on windows 10 is amazing too.
I prefer Google Keep for my personal notes (fast and easy) and OneNote for work related notes (detailed and numerous).
I second that, I have a XPS 13 (SkyLake Model) and its works fantastic. All day battery life, screen is fantastic.
What about the Thinkpad P70 or P50 Workstation ?
http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/p-series/p70/#SYSTEM
Plenty of options for the Creative Pro users.
**Choice
Up to 64Gb of DDR4 RAM
Core i7 options
Or
Xeon E3 options
NVIDIA Quadro Options
4K Screen upto 17"
Storage (SSD): RAID 512GB SSD PCIe-NVMe ( multiple drives )
Warranty: Think 3 Year On-site
http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkpad/p-series/p70/#SYSTEM
Plenty of options for the Creative Pro users.
**Choice
Up to 64Gb of DDR4 RAM
Core i7 options
Or
Xeon E3 options
NVIDIA Quadro Options
4K Screen upto 17"
Storage (SSD): RAID 512GB SSD PCIe-NVMe ( multiple drives )
Warranty: Think 3 Year On-site
Attachments
Why not the Dell XPS?
If you're looking for high end workstations, there's Dell Precision and HP Zbook Studio G3. XPS is configured for you. Precision lets you configure.
Basic specs:
- Xeon processor
- 32 GB RAM
- 1 or 2 SSD
- USB 3 Ports
- Thunderbolt Port USB Type C
- HDMI
- SD Card slot
- 4K 100% Adobe RGB screen
- Quadro graphics card
- Released late 2015
- 2kg
The only downside is the battery life at 6 hours even when you upgrade the battery.
Here is my research on the topic
XPS 13 (kabylake) : Is good but has various issues like coil whine. There was a post by a Dell rep that, they are doing a revision 3 of this XPS 13 by end of the year (but he couldn't confirm ETA), which should solve this with a new motherboard
XPS 15: Tons of issues, do not touch this until the refresh with Kabylake and/or the new Pascal series GPU's in my opinion
HP Spectre 13 (kabylake): Not out yet in UK, but looks promising, the only big issue I can see is apparently it isn't a Precision trackpad
Alienware 13: A new Alienware 13 should be coming soon with an OLED screen, could be good.
Razer Blade 2016: It runs too hot and noisy
Razer Blade Stealth: Almost considered it, but the bezels are just too big for my liking. Just way too big...
Surface Pro 4: Outdated ports and low battey life (in my opinion), wait for Surface Pro 5
SurfaceBook: Too expensive for a 15w CPU computer in my view. The new MacBooks sport 28/45w CPU's (13" and 15" respectively).
There were a few other ASUS/Lenovo options which I have omitted, but I tried to keep it to the main ones I was actually considering getting.
XPS 13 (kabylake) : Is good but has various issues like coil whine. There was a post by a Dell rep that, they are doing a revision 3 of this XPS 13 by end of the year (but he couldn't confirm ETA), which should solve this with a new motherboard
XPS 15: Tons of issues, do not touch this until the refresh with Kabylake and/or the new Pascal series GPU's in my opinion
HP Spectre 13 (kabylake): Not out yet in UK, but looks promising, the only big issue I can see is apparently it isn't a Precision trackpad
Alienware 13: A new Alienware 13 should be coming soon with an OLED screen, could be good.
Razer Blade 2016: It runs too hot and noisy
Razer Blade Stealth: Almost considered it, but the bezels are just too big for my liking. Just way too big...
Surface Pro 4: Outdated ports and low battey life (in my opinion), wait for Surface Pro 5
SurfaceBook: Too expensive for a 15w CPU computer in my view. The new MacBooks sport 28/45w CPU's (13" and 15" respectively).
There were a few other ASUS/Lenovo options which I have omitted, but I tried to keep it to the main ones I was actually considering getting.
It's the usual candidates:
Razer Blade (Stealth)
Razer Blade Pro - if you can stomach $ 3.699 and absolutely need a beefy GTX 1080 in your laptop
Surfacebook i7 - I would wait for reviews and see if Microsoft has been able to fix all the software problems
Surface Pro 4 - same as Surfacebook i7
Razer Blade (Stealth)
Razer Blade Pro - if you can stomach $ 3.699 and absolutely need a beefy GTX 1080 in your laptop
Surfacebook i7 - I would wait for reviews and see if Microsoft has been able to fix all the software problems
Surface Pro 4 - same as Surfacebook i7
I wanted MacOS over Windows ten years ago, and made the switch then. I got locked into the ecosystem and loved it for a long time. Now, I think I might be ready to make the switch back. PC hardware is just more useful (It has the ports and top-end specs), and Mac and iOS software is just not so superior anymore to the alternatives. Windows 10 is pretty solid; I know there will still be things I don't like about it, but I use it on my work VM every day and have no major issues. iTunes is a disaster; it somehow went from bad to worse. Music on iOS is a disaster; it somehow went from great to barely useable. And, now Google is selling their own hardware for Android, so it has an appeal it never had before. As hard as a transition that may be, at least the phone has useable ports. I think I'm really done with Apple. I still like my Time Capsule and Apple TV. I will keep my iPad Air for a while; it's still a rock solid accessory to my computer.
Thanks, by the way, to everyone that pointed out Razer. I think the New Razer Blade Stealth with Razer Core may be the solution to both my computer and gaming machine needs, which have been totally separate to-date.
I waited and waited and waited for the MPB update, as my mid-2010 MBP had the Kernel Panic problem and Apple would not cover it under warranty. So much for Apple having superior quality...so, a few months ago, I caved in and got the XPS 15.
I can honestly say I have had zero issues. I also read some reports regarding XPS problems, but have not experienced any myself, and they seem to be a thing of the past, with very few recent users complaining.
Windows 10 works flawlessly. Whereas I witnessed more and more bugs in OSX over the years, Windows has definitely improved the last 2-3 years. I love OSX, but it is a wash in daily use for what I'm doing, which is basically everything from working (Office suite), photography (Photoshop, LR), browsing and watching movies etc. etc.
Trackpad on the XPS is close enough to the Mac trackpad that I don't mind the difference. If I could choose, I would like more travel on the keyboard, but I guess that's how things are evolving, with rMB and MBP seemingly having very little travel as well.
And the screen of the XPS 15 is just beautiful. Plently of light, 100% Adobe RGB, 4k resolution out of the box. And close to no bezel.
I can honestly say I have had zero issues. I also read some reports regarding XPS problems, but have not experienced any myself, and they seem to be a thing of the past, with very few recent users complaining.
Windows 10 works flawlessly. Whereas I witnessed more and more bugs in OSX over the years, Windows has definitely improved the last 2-3 years. I love OSX, but it is a wash in daily use for what I'm doing, which is basically everything from working (Office suite), photography (Photoshop, LR), browsing and watching movies etc. etc.
Trackpad on the XPS is close enough to the Mac trackpad that I don't mind the difference. If I could choose, I would like more travel on the keyboard, but I guess that's how things are evolving, with rMB and MBP seemingly having very little travel as well.
And the screen of the XPS 15 is just beautiful. Plently of light, 100% Adobe RGB, 4k resolution out of the box. And close to no bezel.
We've been an all-mac shop since 2008 (MBPs, Mac Pro, a 5k iMac), but I was getting sick of waiting for the new 15", so for giggles I decided to experiment with the XPS 15. Bought a refurb off eBay with the 4k screen, then stuck 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD into it -- the whole shooting match was about $1,500, give or take.
Windows 10 is OK. For the most part it "just works" and you don't notice it when you're using cross-platform apps. I've had no BSODs and none of the funkiness of past versions.
The one thing Windows absolutely stinks at is scaling for high-DPI screens. MS left the work of converting the software to hi-res screens up to the developers of each app -- which has had uneven results. The UI of many apps is microscopic at 4k. Even photoshop still doesn't get it right. I'm certain that will work itself out as more Windows machines ship with very high DPI screens. But coming from the Mac that was a shock.
On the whole the XPS 15 is a nice machine, particularly for the price. The serviceability is the real kicker though -- it took about 5 minutes total to install the new RAM and SSD. Apple has seemingly gone in the other direction for the sake of thinness, a decision I think a lot of pro users disagree with. YMMV.
Don't forget that the Razer Pro is just a hair under 8 pounds. That's fully 2x the weight of a new 15" MBP.
I'd ordered the top new MBP right after the introduction, but the overall price ($3K after taxes) and all the whining here was enough to send me looking at other options.
I looked at the Razer Blade and Pro, XPS 15, and a couple others.
I very quickly learned that Apple's pricing, while painful, isn't insane for a 15" high-DPI screen, discrete graphics, and a single TB3 port (plus all the other normal ports on the Win machines)
It sure looks like there are a ton of options in the 13" Ultrabook market, where you could save some real money and end up with roughly similar performance, though an awful lot of those machines are running 15W processors, which just aren't going to knock anyone's socks off. XPS 13 seems like a solid competitor for the 13 MBP, if you want to go that way.
But in the 15" market, there seems to be a wide divide between cheap-ass, poorly built, bulky, low-battery-life, low-DPI screen machines, and very nice, high-end, very pricey machines that are either similarly priced with the new MBP, or where their obvious shortcomings don't appear to make up for the cost savings.
My final take-away was that if Dell can get their act together with the XPS 15's reliability, it could be an acceptable alternative on a price/performance basis. The Razer Blade is a good 14" alternative, but you're not saving a penny vs. a 13" MBP, and not all that much vs. a 15" MBP, which is a substantial upgrade on everything but GPU.
Long story short, if I'm paying over $1500 for a laptop, it's got to come with TREMENDOUS confidence that it'll be a great machine from day one, and continue to be great for many years.
None of the Windows machines left me confident that they'd offer me the kind of experience I've gotten from MacBooks for decades now - they've each and every one been fantastic machines until they finally move on or die after 6+ years.
So, I'm just biting my tongue on the cost issue, and look forward to my new MBP arriving in a couple weeks.
(Currently writing this on a 2010 17" MBP that's been upgraded to an SSD, and shows no signs of dying. I'm only moving on because it simply can NOT cope with 4K video.)
I'd ordered the top new MBP right after the introduction, but the overall price ($3K after taxes) and all the whining here was enough to send me looking at other options.
I looked at the Razer Blade and Pro, XPS 15, and a couple others.
I very quickly learned that Apple's pricing, while painful, isn't insane for a 15" high-DPI screen, discrete graphics, and a single TB3 port (plus all the other normal ports on the Win machines)
It sure looks like there are a ton of options in the 13" Ultrabook market, where you could save some real money and end up with roughly similar performance, though an awful lot of those machines are running 15W processors, which just aren't going to knock anyone's socks off. XPS 13 seems like a solid competitor for the 13 MBP, if you want to go that way.
But in the 15" market, there seems to be a wide divide between cheap-ass, poorly built, bulky, low-battery-life, low-DPI screen machines, and very nice, high-end, very pricey machines that are either similarly priced with the new MBP, or where their obvious shortcomings don't appear to make up for the cost savings.
My final take-away was that if Dell can get their act together with the XPS 15's reliability, it could be an acceptable alternative on a price/performance basis. The Razer Blade is a good 14" alternative, but you're not saving a penny vs. a 13" MBP, and not all that much vs. a 15" MBP, which is a substantial upgrade on everything but GPU.
Long story short, if I'm paying over $1500 for a laptop, it's got to come with TREMENDOUS confidence that it'll be a great machine from day one, and continue to be great for many years.
None of the Windows machines left me confident that they'd offer me the kind of experience I've gotten from MacBooks for decades now - they've each and every one been fantastic machines until they finally move on or die after 6+ years.
So, I'm just biting my tongue on the cost issue, and look forward to my new MBP arriving in a couple weeks.
(Currently writing this on a 2010 17" MBP that's been upgraded to an SSD, and shows no signs of dying. I'm only moving on because it simply can NOT cope with 4K video.)
I went in BestBuy today to see if they had any of the new Mac Books; at least hoping they had the low end one with function keys as I wanted to see the screen and try out the new keyboard. All they had were the old models, so I wandered over to the HP table and played with the new Spectres. Very impressive. Thin, bright colorful screen with the latest Kabylake processors. You didn't need to use the trackpad as everything worked with touch. I found that much easier to navigate through menus, make selections and of course play a game of Solitaire.
I've wondered about the practicality of the Touchbar and glancing at it to make a selection and then looking back up at the screen. It seem to me that will get old fast. But, keeping my eyes on the screen with Spectre and touching the selections just seemed much better and more intuitive. The keyboard is much, much better than the Macbook that I compared it to. It's been a long time since I've used a Windows machine, but after playing with these and seeing the high quality and value, I think I'm ready to make the switch.
The i5 Kabylake with 8gb ram and 256 mb SSD, 13.3"screen was $1,050. The one with 16 gb ram, 512 mb SSD, and an i7 processor I think was $1,299.
I've wondered about the practicality of the Touchbar and glancing at it to make a selection and then looking back up at the screen. It seem to me that will get old fast. But, keeping my eyes on the screen with Spectre and touching the selections just seemed much better and more intuitive. The keyboard is much, much better than the Macbook that I compared it to. It's been a long time since I've used a Windows machine, but after playing with these and seeing the high quality and value, I think I'm ready to make the switch.
The i5 Kabylake with 8gb ram and 256 mb SSD, 13.3"screen was $1,050. The one with 16 gb ram, 512 mb SSD, and an i7 processor I think was $1,299.
+1 on the newest razor blade 14". I'm on the fence whether to jump ship as well but I'm extremely invested in the apple ecosystem and enjoy their longterm support. The razor blade is ridiculously powerful, decently slim, and priced well...a tough decision...