Apple innovated a lot with laptops, but laptop features/design seem to have gone stale (i.e., there don't seem to be a lot of major laptop innovations from Apple lately).
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New Razer Blade Stealth vs. Apple's MacBooks
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He said "well over 10 years," and not everyone here is old. Surprise.
Short answer: yeah, unfortunately, DPI scaling is still a mess on Windows.
Long answer:
Since Windows 95 (98?), there has been a slider to set text scaling, and these days, it tends to offer fractional options like 100%, 125%, 200%, 250%. Starting with Windows 8.1, this scale can also differ between displays, so you can have an external display with a different scaling (which these days tends to be a common set up — your laptop is at 200% or more, but your external display is not). And yet… in practice, it doesn't work well. They keep making improvements, keep giving third-party developers more tools, keep iterating, but… it's still a bit of a mess.
Apple started out a similar path during the era of 10.4 Tiger, and let developers play with that. But even in 10.5 Leopard, this feature didn't look ready for prime time. There were numerous visual glitches that boiled down to: scaling a UI to arbitrary sizes sounds like a simple math problem, but really isn't. And it sounds like a cool feature, but is it that useful?
This bold approach of allowing arbitrary fractional scale factors was eventually abandoned in favor of only allowing integer factors. Your UI is 1x, 2x (such as on Retina Macs), 3x (such as on the iPhone 6 Plus). That's it. This is much, much simpler to accomplish, as all you have to do when scaling bitmap graphics is turn one pixel into a 2x2 grid or 3x3 grid of pixels.
Microsoft keeps trying to do the hard thing. Meanwhile, Apple has accomplished the easier thing. To the user, Apple's approach looks great, and Microsoft's just… doesn't. It's a bolder, more comprehensive approach, but it solves a problem that arguably isn't all that useful to solve, at the cost of a mediocre real-world experience.
If you just look at paper specs, yes. However every Razer super thin laptop I’ve seen is a piece of crap with the cooling system. It immediately throttles under the slightest load — and I’m talking about proper throttling, way more extreme than any Apple portable, because it just can’t handle the hardware.
Also the aftersales support (in the UK at least) is hopelessly shoddy. I can’t understate how bad it is.
I’m saying this because many people who are looking to get out of the MacOS ecosystem see these machines with price/performance, and think they’re getting a steal. Within weeks, if not days, they wish they stuck with a MacBook.
There are plenty of great Windows alternatives. Please believe me when I say that Razer laptops are not one of them.
Yet there is. Hacintosh. Not for the faint of heart as it gets technical but works great.
https://www.tonymacx86.com
if you have a Ryzen system ---> https://amd-osx.com With AMD I successfully done it. Its easier with intel supposedly.
LOL, what are you talking about. Every single computer in Apple's lineup thermal throttles. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!
That hasn't been the case in 4 or 5 years with touchpads depending on what manufacturer you go with.
But I still use a mouse if I can no matter how good any touchpad is.
It's a gaming oriented laptop. What OS would you recommend for games?
And the not picking Apple because of hardware made me laugh. Since most people picked Apple computers for their hardware and reliability in the past.
Simple example. I have 2015 rmbp connected to a 1080p display. Browsing safari with 15 pages open does nothing to it. When I connect a much better speced thinkpad and run same 15 pages in chrome or edge it turns all fans full speed in less than a minute.
Adblock on in all casses.
Specs aren’t everything.
Adblock on in all casses.
Specs aren’t everything.
The article sneakily avoids mentioning that the Razer runs Windows,...! No way I'm getting that one. Why is it even on here? Apples and oranges. I want my 5 minutes back...
Nice. I usually get these kind of reviews from Linus's largely gaming-oriented channel which isn't great when I'm really looking for possible Hackintosh laptop alternatives. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to stay with Apple but don't want to pay 2k for bling like touch-bars and super-thin IO-depleted products - so its going to be either a temporary hackintosh or a permanent linux switch next year. This video helps.
I'm not a huge fan of the new Macbook Pros, but I've grown so used to iMessage integration, answering calls, AirDrop, and the other continuity features that the burden of switching for me is too high.
There is probably no awesome design or amazing specs that can overcome that. When my fully loaded 2013 Macbook Air won't cut it anymore, I'll get another Mac. I'm 98% sure of that.
There is probably no awesome design or amazing specs that can overcome that. When my fully loaded 2013 Macbook Air won't cut it anymore, I'll get another Mac. I'm 98% sure of that.
I have 2015 rmbp which I purchased almost on day one and it’s still going strong and will do so for at least 2-3 years. When you take that into consideration the price isn’t that high. As a matter of fact it’s pretty cheap.
Exactly. It's about the OS.
Heck, I've built 3 PCs in the last few years, and they all run MacOS as a primary OS.
I agree. I actually think most people are buying overkill today. For 95% of users, any Mac with USB 3.0 and 802.11AC, with maxed out RAM and a large SSD, will be fine.
In 2016, I purchased 2x 11" 2013 Macbook Airs with 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD for my wife and me for a total of about $800. Each had less than 50 cycles on their respective batteries. They're still plenty quick. But for the screens really starting to show their age, I wouldn't be tempted to upgrade.
It can? I take the "Memory: 16GB dual-channel (fixed)" to mean that it's soldered and can't be upgraded at all.
I also don't believe Core-U CPUs support 64 GB.
everything I've read about razor indicates they are the type of company that wants to be your best friend until they have your money than they kick you to the curb and wont even talk to you its like you are dead to them once they have your money. honestly I would much rather own a IBM/Lenovo if I was going to use windows. They have fantastic keyboards and build quality plus their prices have been really competitive recently.
While Apple has almost always had great hardware, and still does, I do wonder if they will ever considering getting out of the computer hardware business and just selling macOS. I know many will dismiss this out of hand (they tried it before and failed), things change and strategies change and I don't see this is as outside the realm of possibilities.
And while most people consider Apple a "hardware" company, and they are...sorta. What's really provided the value that keeps most people hanging on...is the software...the OS.
And while most people consider Apple a "hardware" company, and they are...sorta. What's really provided the value that keeps most people hanging on...is the software...the OS.