Why I Chose a Macbook Pro

As a developer the struggle of choosing a new laptop today is not an easy task, it requires hours upon hours of research followed by comparisons and benchmarks of CPU's and GPU's. I was coming from a Lenovo all in one pc with 4GB of ram and a low end integrated graphics card so this should've been easy right? .. Wrong. Many things come into consideration when buying a new laptop, battery life, weight, screen size, thickness and resolution. I found that I could buy a kick ass gaming laptop for $2000 - 2500 with much better specs than a mac for the same price. Although what the gaming laptops lacked in was everything a Macbook Pro has going for it.

Asus ROG-751 makes an amazing gaming laptop that comes with 24 GB of ram and expandable to 32GB, 4GB dedicated memory using a Nvidia GTX 980M, a processor with great turbo boost clock speed of up to 3.7 Ghz. All of that power under the hood for $2400, rated the best gaming laptop to have in 2015 by various different sites.

The Flip side 

The Asus ROG-751 was rated one of the highest due to it's battery life and not making and excessive amount of noise while doing strenuous tasks or basic tasks like web browsing etc.

Battery Life

• Average life is 4 hours

That means in a 8 hour shift a user would have to fully charge his/her laptop batterytwice to be able to continue working.

Weight

• 8.4 lbs

It's not something I would want to keep lugging around all day long, and no matter where you go you'll need to bring the charger with you making it a 10lb baggage.

Screen Resolution

• 1920 x 1080

HD but for the price it's a low end resolution screen, having a crisp clearer image is ideal for anyone buying a high end piece of technology.

How Bout Them Apples?

After looking at Macbook pro specs vs Windows based gaming laptop I started thinking, why would I ever buy a Mac if I can get more performance per dollar I spend on a Windows. Well performance is a big factor but it isn't everything..I don't see track stars running with high performance shoes without shoe laces, the strings that brings it all together and make it a complete package!

Battery Life

• Average life time is 10 hours

After having bought the laptop I was shocked at how long the battery lasted and how I could leave my house comfortably without the fear of running out of juice.

Weight 

• 4.5 lbs

Practically half of any high end gaming laptop and half of the thickness as well coming in at 3/4 of an inch.

Screen Resolution

• 2880 x 1800

Starting a Macbook Pro for the first time looking at Yosemite national park background with such a high res was amazing, the crisp detail on such a large image is great.

The Show Down

 ~ ~ ~  Rog - 751   vs.   Macbook Pro 2014 ~ ~ ~

Processor:

1.  Rog -751Intel Core i7-4710HQ @ 2.50GHz  ~ Benchmark value(7950)
2. Mac Intel Core i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz  ~ Benchmark value(9215)

Graphics :

1. Rog -751 GeForce GTX 980M 4GB ~ Benchmark value(6517)
2. Mac GeForce GT 750M 2GB ~ Benchmark value(1387)
3. Mac Intel Iris Pro 5200 1.5GB ~ Benchmark value(1200)

RAM:

1. Rog -751 24 GB DDR3
2. Mac 16GB DDR3 

Dimensions:

1. Rog - 751 

• Depth: 12.50 inches
• Width:16.40 inches
•  Height:1.70 inches

1. Mac

• Height: 0.71 inch 
• Width: 14.13 inches 
• Depth: 9.73 inches 
• Weight: 4.49 pounds 

Rating :

1. Rog -751  4.6 stars on BestBuy.com with  20 customer reviews
2. Macbook Pro 4.9 stars on BestBuy.com with 620 customer reviews

Storage :

1. Rog -751 1TB 7200 HDD and 256GB pcie SSD
2. Mac 512GB pcie SSD 

Price:

1. Rog -751 $2324.99
2. Macbook Pro 512GB $2374.99

Conclusion

Coming from a user who has never even touched a mac and always used windows as his environment the transition was easy and there is minimal downtime for getting accustomed to a Mac and it's unique way. The mac experience is refreshing and doesn't just give you a computer it's just the all around package which is the biggest selling point.  

The battery life was one of the major factors in my decision, the reason for having a laptop is to have that portability and not feel chained down to a certain location because of power requirements and I felt like gaming laptops held up their end in terms of high end performance graphically but lacks enormously on the longevity aspect.

Weight was also concerning to me because I didn't want to carry something that wouldn't feel comfortable. MBP is so light that it almost feels natural or as if your not carrying anything at all which is a big selling point for a user who likes to move around in whatever workspace he/she is in.

Overall I think I made the best decision because I took the other key factors into play vs just looking at hardware specs instead of the overall experience. ROG make great laptops that can outperform Macbook Pros but a Macbook pro will be running 2.2X longer, weigh half and have almost twice the pixels per square inch with retina display.

Thanks for reading,

Sean Parsons