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I am considering buying one of these two laptops for college.
Both are solid options for $1200. The main uses would be for taking notes in class, gaming(mid-heavy), 3d/2d design. Which laptop do you think is better overall? I know that you cant compare apples to oranges(in this case apples to alienwares ), but shouild i go with the power of the m11x, or the clean "macness" of the macbook pro?
Thank You,
~Aaron

Macbook Pro 13"
2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB
250GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm

M11x
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Intel® Core™ i7 640UM (4M Cache, 1.2 GHZ with 2.266 GHz Max Turbo Frequency) - Overclockable
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 800MHz
250GB SATAII 7,200RPM
1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 335M

Anything but a mac (especially base level MBP) if your gaming approaches anywhere near 'heavy'. None of the MBP cards are going to be strong enough (because they're not made for brute force. They sacrifice some power to keep battery + portability useful)

You can definitely beat the 'M11x' for $1200 though. The Lenovo Thinkpads can pack an Nvidia Quadro 880M for ~£1000 for example

Just be wary of battery life when it comes to power/gaming laptops (since you'll want it to last through lectures/classes)

I'm gonna have to disagree there.

Intel 256mb integrated graphics sure isn't anything fancy, but it will handle the web any anything but gaming just fine. However, that's why the pro's also include a 2nd card just for gaming, GeForce GT 330M 256mb(512mb optional). I think it would handle many games just fine, but then again I'd never bother gaming on a 13" laptop.

The M11 is still probably the better laptop for gaming, however, keep in mind that Mac requires less to run the OS than Windows.

With such similar hardware these days, buying a Mac really comes down to whether or not you want OS/X or Windows. If you think you're going to play games a lot, go for the M11, otherwise it's just a personal preference and I'd get a Mac. (plus mac laptops have by far better battery life)


P.S. I think I'm going to start my own computer company called Orange.

When I was choosing a laptop - I had a £700 budget, thinking, "I want to play games & do work". At the time I was stuck between a £700 Acer and a £700 MacBook. In hindsight, I wish I went for the MacBook and later saved for a gaming PC. The Acer had a good run, and could do gaming really well - medium-high on Crysis was pretty cool, but it didn't really have the stability I would have had with the MacBook, and really, playing games at a lower setting wouldn't have been so bad. Now, my laptop doesn't work at all.

Saying that, I mean, if you've got yourself a well built laptop, that won't betray you, then that's good, but I've noticed from hearing other people's woes, laptops for gaming don't always last. The M11x might be really reliable - I don't know what Alienware are like these days (aren't they owned by Dell, just as a note, at times I hear Dell horror stories), maybe somebody can vouch for their reliability? In my family, the only computers that have really lasted have either been a Mac or a Compaq....mind you this is being typed on an 8 year old Packard Bell, but our 9 year old Packard Bell is dead and this system like to BSOD on 3D games now...probably fixable, but I'm not going to bother.


If you're doing design, I can see the advantages of Mac - I know the argument, "you can do it on a Mac, you can do it on a PC", but strangely enough, people prefer design on a Mac than a PC, perhaps down to how the OS is laid out and the manner in which it performs...I can't say I've always had an interface, not even in Photoshop to respond at a crisp speed, it may take a couple of seconds sometimes, even on high-spec. Maybe it's how the the operating system manages memory that makes a Mac more desirable to those folks?

At least, that's my point of view. Personally, if I had the choice again, I would go for the Mac, but then you're not me.

[edit]

Also in hindsight, extended warranties are good things. 1-year isn't long enough for something to go wrong.

I absolutely love my macbook. It isn't great for gaming however. I try to play TF2 for mac and had to lower resolution and such because it just got way too hot and lagged out. I'm hoping they optimize it a bit or something.

Anyway, I love my macbook. I got it for school. I get about 6 hours of life with my screen bright, wifi on streaming videos typing stuff, chatting on IRC. I don't have to hinder anything to get more than 2 hours like the Windows laptops. It is great for me at college.

Neither? I picked up an MSI GX640 for $1100, has an I5 and an HD radeon 5850, absolutely fantastic for gaming(remember gfx is more important than processor when it comes to gaming).

Spread Der fail whale!!!!
ModEdit: Do not spam this sort of thing on the forum.

I like PC's better but I think Mac's OS is nice.

I looked them up and i have found horror stories of both dell and apple customer service, the real question is, which will need the customer service. I think that if i am paying 1200 for laptop, it has to last for a while, if its true that you get what you pay for than it shouldnt matter, right?
~Aaron

Remember that although you may find 50-100 people run into hardware problems online, and about 50 of those have bad customer service experience, this is out of tens of thousands of Apple/Dell customers.

I recently took my Macbook Pro to the Apple Store because my charge brick wouldn't make the connection and charge it anymore. Thank God I had bought the Apple Care (and at a student discount), so I didn't have to pay anything. But since in my Genius Bar appointment comments I listed all the troubleshooting steps I took, the Genius who handled me said, "Oh, looks like we get to skip the stupid stuff," went right on with a hardware test, and ended up handing me a new charge brick and battery. Apparently if your battery fails before 300 cycles, you get a new one.

So I guess if you get the Apple Care, it would be advantageous to abuse your first battery so that you can get a new one a couple of years down the road. No laptop is really safe from hardware failure, it's the nature of the product.