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I had my sights set on a Surface Pro for a long time and am nearly at the point of affording one, but lo and behold there's a slew of stories about poor hardware reliability in the entire Surface line. Now what?

What draws me to the Surface is the color accuracy of the display and excellent input devices. The display is supposedly the most color accurate of any comparable mobile device, which is attractive for my photography hobby. The keyboard was pleasant to type on and felt the most like a real keyboard. The trackpad seemed to work better than any other Windows device (compared to Apple, my gold stanard for trackpads). The input devices are important to me. I used a MacBook for a few years and haven't been able to use anything else until I tested a Surface Pro.

What I didn't like about the Surface Pro was the fact that I could get more than 8 GB of RAM without spending an extra $1k on an i7 processor. I'd ideally want 16GB RAM to keep the system future-proof to some extent.

My needs are a color-accurate screen, and as close to flawless trackpad and keyboard as one can get. I'd rather this be a Windows machine, but should I be looking at Apple? Somewhere in the $1,000-$1,500 range. I don't need the fastest thing out there, since I maintain a good desktop machine for the real heavy loads. The Dell XPS 15 has a great screen and specs, but it's too expensive, and much more laptop than I need. I'd be happy with an i3 or i5 CPU and a 13" screen. Any suggestions are welcomed.

FireGryphon wrote:

Somewhere in the $1,000-$1,500 range. I don't need the fastest thing out there, since I maintain a good desktop machine for the real heavy loads. The Dell XPS 15 has a great screen and specs, but it's too expensive, and much more laptop than I need. I'd be happy with an i3 or i5 CPU and a 13" screen. Any suggestions are welcomed.

In that case, have you looked at the Dell XPS 13? Configurations with an FHD display are below your budget cap, or you can add a QHD and hit the $1500 point. Alternately, the Latitude 7280 is far more customizable and probably a bit sturdier than the XPS.

Maybe?:

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Yoga-15-6 ... B072M22XK8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0DVS-PIFGM

..and unlike the video, it's 4k - which will need that 1050.

Two observations:

-You want the i7 8550U or better, which is the quad core, and you want 16GB of RAM- the RAM would be the one thing that I wouldn't compromise on, ever, 16GB minimum, and for the 13" consumer class, that's also the max
-You don't want the high-res panel, scaling still more or less sucks, and worse, the high-res panels suck battery life (really)

And if you don't get a 2-in-1, don't bother with the touchscreen- but do look at 2-in-1's!

Also note that the 13" models are typically expensive because these are Ultrabooks, i.e., the XPS, Envy, Zenbook, Yoga etc. lines, while the Inspiron/Pavilion/etc. lines are not, and are thicker, heavier, and of a lower level of build quality. You pay to play to get power in a small, high quality package.

Personally, I went from an XPS13 laptop with the high-res touchscreen, on which I've set to 1/4 resolution to avoid scaling issues and disabled touch in the UEFI, that had a dual-core. Outstanding piece of kit, but the dual-core chugged in Lightroom, battery life was less than expected (and wanted), and without the ability to fold, the touchscreen was relegated to being an annoyance (quite literally, because of the stupid thin bezels).

I went to an ASUS Q325UAR, a Best Buy special, that is a 2-in-1, 1080p, with the quad-core. Overall I'm pretty impressed with it as well and only miss the backlit keys that the Best Buy model doesn't get.

Except that it's currently out of commission due to a Secure Boot issue, the cause of which I have no knowledge on, and the solution to baffling. But with respect to the hardware itself, I'm quite happy. I was able to get a live Linux instance running off of a USB drive so I know that the hardware is good, so it was probably some Windows update that borked the trust relationship between the UEFI and the Bitlockered Windows 10 install.


That said, Best Buy does have most of these in their larger stores, and you can search online and see demo availability in your area, so I highly recommend seeing these things in person if you can. You can usually correlate the Best Buy models with the mass-market ones pretty closely with a bit of research too.

The only unmentioned option that comes to mind is the HP Spectre x360 (15" 4K version). The Dell XPS series is also worth considering, but the Surface lineup still has the best screens in terms of color accuracy, gamut, black levels, etc. Microsoft put a lot of effort into screen quality and calibration to compete with Apple.

Airmantharp wrote:

-You don't want the high-res panel, scaling still more or less sucks, and worse, the high-res panels suck battery life (really)

OP stated he does photography. Media creation is the one example where you DO want to consider a high-res panel or a nice external monitor.

Duct Tape Dude wrote:

The only unmentioned option that comes to mind is the HP Spectre x360 (15" 4K version). The Dell XPS series is also worth considering, but the Surface lineup still has the best screens in terms of color accuracy, gamut, black levels, etc. Microsoft put a lot of effort into screen quality and calibration to compete with Apple.

Airmantharp wrote:

-You don't want the high-res panel, scaling still more or less sucks, and worse, the high-res panels suck battery life (really)

OP stated he does photography. Media creation is the one example where you DO want to consider a high-res panel or a nice external monitor.

4K certainly makes sense for photography, but I'm still not convinced it's worth it at 13" unless you have exceptionally good vision. Would probably be better off with a 1080 main screen and get a large size external for detailed photo work.

K-L-Waster wrote:

4K certainly makes sense for photography, but I'm still not convinced it's worth it at 13" unless you have exceptionally good vision. Would probably be better off with a 1080 main screen and get a large size external for detailed photo work.

Fair point. I think I'd opt for the same setup-- energy-sipping while mobile and a solid external monitor for pro work.

I don't know how good its color accuracy is (or if the trackpad is any good), but the specs look good (still a low voltage processor) for the price ($850 on sale)

http://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-envy-x360-15-bp152nr

HP ENVY x360 15.6" Laptop
15.6" 1920x1080 Full HD IPS Display
Intel Core i7-8550U Processor
16GB RAM
1TB 7200 RPM Hard Drive
128GB PCIe NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive SSD
Intel UHD Graphics 620
Dual Band WiFi 802.11ac (2x2) + Bluetooth 4.2
Backlit Keyboard
Bang & Olufsen dual speakers
3-Cell 55.8 WHr Battery
Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
Weight: 4.75lbs
Ports:
1x USB 3.1 Type-C
2x USB 3.1
1x HDMI

Edit: the link would be helpful!

If you dont want to go the MacBook Pro route our graphic designers here at my work are using the Lenovo Flex5; 7th Gen i7, IPS screen @ 3840x2160 its a sweet looking machine.

Duct Tape Dude wrote:

Airmantharp wrote:

-You don't want the high-res panel, scaling still more or less sucks, and worse, the high-res panels suck battery life (really)

OP stated he does photography. Media creation is the one example where you DO want to consider a high-res panel or a nice external monitor.

..and higher res. panels in laptops tend to have better attributes in general - like color and contrast (w/ OLED's being an exception). And I looked for larger panel OLED's at a reasonable price and didn't find anything worth mentioning (..though I could have missed something).


ie. in this case you *do* want a 4k panel (..generally).

Thanks fellas, I appreciate the recommendations. Reading through gives me some new questions:

1. How can you tell if a given display panel is calibrated (or can be calibrated) accurately in the sRGB color space?
2. Are the higher-res screens necessarily better at color reproduction, or are some of the standard HD 1080p panels accurate?
3. Is there a reliable, TR-quality site that reviews monitors with respect to color quality?
4. There are very few i5-based devices that can be configured with 16 GB RAM, but they do exist. Is this because of artificial segmentation or is there a reason why 16 GB RAM is too much for an i5?

1. You have to test the panel yourself. That's the only way to know.
2. Nope. They can be better or worse.
3. TFTCentral is one, but they're not big on laptops. You'll have to search for reviews of the specific models that you're interested in (or the series of models) to see how they test in terms of color space, color accuracy, and uniformity.
4. Dunno. Don't really care either- you want 16GB of RAM, period, and you want the quad core i7 if you can get it.

If you're worried about color, you need to be calibrating your monitor, and the only real reason to worry about real monitor color accuracy is if you're printing, and if you're doing reproduction work you'll worry about color accuracy on the camera (which is far easier). Also don't buy a printer. Go to a real print shop and use their printer profiles.


[I'm not against 4k/high-res panels in general, just those that push the DPI limits too far on laptops running Windows are a no-go for me as scaling is still too goofy]

FireGryphon wrote:

4. There are very few i5-based devices that can be configured with 16 GB RAM, but they do exist. Is this because of artificial segmentation or is there a reason why 16 GB RAM is too much for an i5?

Product price-point segmentation, and also, in Ultrabook land it's common for everything except the M.2 hard drive and the WiFi/BT card to be soldered to the system board. To support 16GB the higher-spec model probably includes 8GB soldered down and one 8GB SO-DIMM, whereas the lower-spec model may not even have an SO-DIMM slot available, just the bare solder pads where one could exist. Depends on the model, but the handful of newer laptops I've had open were variations on that theme.

Airmantharp wrote:

4. Dunno. Don't really care either- you want 16GB of RAM, period, and you want the quad core i7 if you can get it.

If you're worried about color, you need to be calibrating your monitor, and the only real reason to worry about real monitor color accuracy is if you're printing, and if you're doing reproduction work you'll worry about color accuracy on the camera (which is far easier). Also don't buy a printer. Go to a real print shop and use their printer profiles.


[I'm not against 4k/high-res panels in general, just those that push the DPI limits too far on laptops running Windows are a no-go for me as scaling is still too goofy]

I mostly agree here. I disagree with the i7 part AS LONG AS you get an 8th gen i5 (the ones with 4 "real" cores - a 7th gen i7 would also be good, obviously). It'll be good enough for what you wanna do and you'll save some skrilla while you're at it. As far as color goes I agree with most of what Air has said. I would just find something that ships with a dE between 1-3 (maybe 4 if you're not too picky - you can find some sites with dE's of laptops they have reviewed but obviously not every screen is going to be the same) and leave it at that.

IMO here are a few you should be looking at given your constraints. Not necessarily in any order.

Spectre x360 13t/15t (my brother has one with an 8th gen i5 + 16GB and it is really great)
XPS 13/15
Macbook Pro (maybe a refurb to get you closer to your desired price?)
Surface Book 1 or 2 (again, maybe a refurb because they're hella $$$$$)

Less sure about these...
Maybe a Zenbook?

Totally agree about the high-res panels. Like 'em in some places, but Windows is still absolutely atrocious with scaling. macOS on the other hand does an OK job there.

-it should also be noted that there are going to be some designs out there than accept another sodimm. So perhaps an 8gb unit upgraded with a 16gb? (..the video I posted to actually mentions this.)

DancinJack wrote:

Totally agree about the high-res panels. Like 'em in some places, but Windows is still absolutely atrocious with scaling..

True.

FireGryphon wrote:

1. How can you tell if a given display panel is calibrated (or can be calibrated) accurately in the sRGB color space?

2. Are the higher-res screens necessarily better at color reproduction, or are some of the standard HD 1080p panels accurate?

Get a cheap color calibrator if you are that concerned - note that performance does tend to "drift" over time, so what's accurate after calibration might not be so in a few months. Other than that:
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing ... r-monitor/


Though dependent of the picture; higher bit depth + greater number of pixels = greater color combinations. This doesn't mean it's calibrated, it just means that it has the potential to provide greater color accuracy.

Alienware 13 R3 with OLED display. You can't hope for better color accuracy than an OLED.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Alienware ... 508.0.html

Check their display impressions. Just reading that almost tempts me to sell my kidney.

CScottG wrote:

-it should also be noted that there are going to be some designs out there than accept another sodimm. So perhaps an 8gb unit upgraded with a 16gb? (..the video I posted to actually mentions this.)

In the Ultrabook class, mostly not. They're mostly soldered units with the drive (M.2 NVMe or M.2 SATA) being changeable and that's it.

DancinJack wrote:

I mostly agree here. I disagree with the i7 part AS LONG AS you get an 8th gen i5 (the ones with 4 "real" cores - a 7th gen i7 would also be good, obviously).

These are still dual-core/quad-thread CPUs. I have one, an i7 7500U, it's great as a desktop machine, and it has no grunt for photographic work. The i7 8550U is significantly more capable here, partially because it has four cores and eight threads, and partially because Intel got sustained speeds up and device makers got them running cooler. I've actually seen mine hit 4.0GHz on all four cores while chewing through an HDR merge or rendering files out etc.

I waited to see what the new MacBook Pro would look like last week, but there's no new one yet. Bummer. The MBP still has the best trackpad and a great screen, but the keyboard is now inferior (both in reported reliability and in my own experience using it). Double bummer. The 'new' Surface Pro isn't any great shake, either. It has the best screen bar none, but only has one USB 3 port, and there's no customization like there used to be, so I can't select a less expensive i5 CPU with 16 GB RAM. The 'new' Dell XPS 13 looks good. Its screen is good, and I can customize the CPU and RAM. I have to find one in a store so I can check out the keyboard and trackpad, but those are probably passable. Is there a catch to Dell these days, or is this XPS 13 really a winner?

The points about the UHD screen at 13" are well taken. I probably don't need all of that pixel density. I'm concerned that 1,080 vertical pixels is too short for me to work comfortably, especially after getting used to the spacious 1,200 vertical pixels on my beautiful Dell 2407. No matter how much of a power draw the UHD screen is I need it to overcome the inadequate 16:9 aspect ratio. This may be the biggest failing of the XPS 13. Is scaling that bad? When does the scaling issue come up? How does it show itself?

The odd duck out is the Alienware 13. It seems a little nuts to get a gaming laptop for best color accuracy, but the thing has the specs I like. It's the only laptop I could find with an OLED screen, is customizable, has lots of ports, and has a great price. The downsides are that it is heavy, large, and has terrible battery life. Does anyone here have one of these?