Do any of the laptop manufacturers come close to Apple?


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Hi,

It's my mums 50th birthday soon, and my nan is looking to get her a laptop. I'm a firm believer that for your average user, the actual technical specs don't mean anything (with the exception of maybe an SSD drive) and pretty much any laptop on the market right now will do what she needs it to.

So that brings us to the actual build quality - IMO the most important part of buying a laptop by far is that it feels nice. That it isn't too heavy, that it doesn't feel bulky on your lap, that it doesn't get ridiculously hot, that it has a nice trackpad (not those tiny ones with two buttons at the bottom), a nice keyboard, and a nice screen.

Now here's the problem - can I get something like that for around ?500? Disregarding the spec for a moment, is there anything out there that feels nice to use for that kind of money? My nan would probably go higher if needed (maybe even to MBP/MBA levels) but I think that'd be unfair to get her to spend that much on something.

Thanks :)

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Well before this turns into a flame war, I'm assuming by "close to Apple" you are referring to a nice aluminum or metal chassis, correct? If so, you probably won't find one in that price range. I think some of the Ultrabooks out there have aluminum enclosures, but again, out of that price range.

Take a look at the Lenovo line. They make arguably the best built PCs on the market.

And from my personal opinion, stay away from Dell. They make some of the worst. But again, that's just my opinion.

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yea there are a bunch that are close to apple, some are assembled only a few feet away from each other

other then that i dont think your going to find a Mac anything for around 500 ( exception basic models of the Mac Mini and they start @ 600 )

*Edit- im with majority of the others in the thread as far as what to get

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Yeah guys, please avoid turning this thread into a flamewar - there are other threads for debating.

500 pounds is about 790-ish CAD, which is about the average cost of laptops today. Generally speaking the consumer laptops priced at this range will cut corners at something - materials, screen resolution, size, battery, etc - to reach that price point. Ultrabooks similar to the Macbook Air would be your best bet if you want something similar to a Macbook.

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Some Sony's come close, especially the Z - but it's also close in terms of pricing :p Still a brilliant option (with great and huge touchpads) is the Vaio S series. But still quite a bit more than ?500.

I think you can't expect Apple-like build quality (and style) for ?500. And oh yeah, avoid those AMD APU's at all cost. They are cheap but couple those with a cheap HDD (not an SSD) and you have a machine that literally feels slow while surfing the web.

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Are you kidding? All major laptop manufacturers exceed Apple and the OS of course. If you just mean MacBook Air, then things get a little more interesting but still far great choice and versatility on the PC side. Apple does one thing better - the trackpad and its gestures. But then I am not personally fond of button-less trackpad design.

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Yeah for ?500 you'd gonna struggle to find something of "good" build quality (aluminium body etc..) but yeah Lenovo probably have the best build quality on the market but they don't look very night in my opinion.

HP's Envy range is meant to have good build quality and probably just in your price rage...might have to push is a bit....other than that try and go for Business ranges...always better build quality than home ones.

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I think you can exceed the 500 cap if you tell your mother that it is a computer for long-term use (ex- more than 5 years). Then she can spend the money on a Macbook Air with an external hard disk or even the Retina Macbook Pro (13" rMBP expected for october release). :)

People spend a lot of time on computers... It is an important investment that you can't deny.

You wouldn't buy a cheap refrigerator for long-term use, would you?

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. Apple does one thing better - the trackpad and its gestures. But then I am not personally fond of button-less trackpad design.

off topic - i use a program called TwoFingerScroll , its pretty cool, enables alot of the gestures found on the multi-touch macs

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/35065/how-to-enable-macbook-style-two-finger-scrolling-on-windows-laptops/

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Did you seriously just recommend a vostro (Dell's budget line) in with a thinkpad?

IIRC, Vostro was Dell's business class notebooks. They are better made than the Inspirons.

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I recently bought a laptop from comet for ?350 not too heavy feels very smooth and has a great screen imo.

http://www.comet.co.uk/p/Laptops/buy-SAMSUNG-NP355V5C-A05UK-Laptop/668638

Your going to have to double your budget to get apple aluminium finish. As above the Samsung feel pretty good but would also suggest you look at Sony. I would just say go your local stores and have some hands on time. Have you considered an tablet i.e. iPad2 very easy to use and no servicing or management required on part of your nan, mine loves hes and it's simplicity.

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IIRC, Vostro was Dell's business class notebooks. They are better made than the Inspirons.

Yup. I've had mine for 2 years now, and it's definitely held together better than my girlfriend's inspiron (which is held together by hello kitty duct tape currently :p)

In all seriousness though, they're Dell's non-enterprise business end laptops, and in the 18 months that I've owned it the worst that happened was I dropped a brick on it and dented the lid. So I guess if you plan on dropping bricks on them, they're no good... but I wouldn't consider anything besides a Panosonic Tough Book in that case :D

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IIRC, Vostro was Dell's business class notebooks. They are better made than the Inspirons.

Vostro is the small business/budget line of notebooks, Latitude is the regular business class notebooks. I would put the Latitude up there with Thinkpad, but not the Vostro. You get what you pay for.

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The samsung series 7 and series 9 laptops and the hp envy ultrabooks are nice (got my sister a 15.6" envy ultrabook for college last week and it feels really nice).

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