I recently started a consulting and contracting LLC. I already have a gig lined up so I wanted a desktop and laptop for business use, separate from my personal stuff. So I went on a hunt to get a laptop and desktop. I thought you guys may want to see what I decided on (maybe not though). I wanted to have a decent Windows desktop and a decent laptop for use with a VPN. Here are the systems I considered with some detailed notes,

What did I decide on?

For a desktop, I was tempted by the machines above but in the end I went with the Intel NUC. It's super small and relatively inexpensive. It also consumes very little power which is great because I can leave it on all the time without worrying about my electric bill. I also happened to have an extra m2 250GB ssd laying around so I only needed to get 16 GB of memory which is super cheap. It's a very nice system. I would recommend it for anyone who wants something low powered and inexpensive.

For a laptop, well, that's complicated. I kept coming back to the UX305 but I really liked the idea of a more capable system with a touchscreen so I went with the Spectre x360. That was a massive mistake. It looks and feels great, I mean really great, macbook quality great, but it has a few major issues. One, it crashes constantly. I kept having to shut down IE and Chrome because it hated the touch interface. Two, it felt heavier than I thought it would, which is not a big problem but I wish it was lighter. Three, the trackpad is pretty shit. Yes, it works better than some previous windows trackpads I've used but it's still nowhere near as good as a mac trackpad. Four, and the big one, there is a massive flaw with the touchscreen. When I play videos, say on giantbomb, and I scroll using the touchscreen, if you scroll over a video, the video stops and the system doesn't react consistently. It will always stop or play the video, but it won't always scroll. It's not an issue for links or images, only for video (at least so far). This was annoying and I figured if this was a problem that I found with maybe 15 minutes of use, I couldn't trust it, and I returned it.

So, I went with my default choice and got the Apple Macbook. It's not as capable but it's extremely light and has an amazing trackpad. I was worried about the new "butterfly" keys but I'm pretty much used to it after only a couple hours of use.

I came away with one basic understanding, and that's whenever I hear great things about windows laptops, I know to be automatically weary. I have never had a flawless experience with a windows based laptop. Usually, the major problem is with the trackpad. I know, some people say "just use a mouse", which is ridiculous because I don't want to have to use a mouse and I don't want to struggle with a trackpad. And this isn't coming from someone who is at all a Mac fanboy as I've had linux machines, I have windows desktops, I have an Android phone, etc. In fact, my favorite OS is probably Linux (Linux Mint is pretty great). I've tried all of the "best" windows laptops out there in the past, including the new XPS 13 which supposedly has a great trackpad. Well, it didn't.

But anyways, these are my findings. Maybe I'll get irritated at the Macbook performance at some point down the road, I'll update this with impressions in a couple weeks.

I'm writing this on a Dell Laptop, the trackpad doesn't bother me, but apple trackpads do because they always have they thing where you have to click the mousepad to do like a right-click, which I find annoying, but to each their own.

I think you made the right choice though, if you just want to carry something around and have it work a macbook is a solid choice. My laptop has grown all sorts of weird little quirks as it ages, but friends who have older macbooks seem to have little trouble even after years. Thats what I think about with my iphone. I don't want android even if it is more open because I just need my phone to work, not do anything out of the ordinary, and IOS seems like the most consistent phone OS out there . But mac desktops have always seemed silly to me, especially since professionals often buy them.

An imac or one of those can shaped mac computers can be sleek and powerful. But unless you dualboot with windows you'll always lack the software/hardware options of a PC. And if you do dualboot the sleek/no hassle nature of the mac goes out the window. Why not buy a powerful PC for cheaper and get whatever you want on it? That way whatever happens in your job you can adapt and not be pinned to apple's more limited software catalog and the inability to upgrade each piece of hardware.

Like why are people who do photo/video editing stuff always using macs? Whats the advantage over a much cheaper but equally power PC with the same software?? I don't understand it, but then I don't do alot of digital arts stuff so it's not for me to know.

The new force trackpad is amazing because you barely have to press for it to click. Also, you could always set two finger tap to right click which is what I do.

The 5K screen makes sense for video editors because the idea is that 4k lines of resolution is for video while the other 1k is for menus. Otherwise, I'm not sure why we need it.