Buying a personal laptop
My current personal laptop is over 10 years old—a mid-range Lenovo gaming laptop. It has served me well, especially after upgrading it with a solid-state drive, but lately, its battery lasts a solid 15 minutes doing absolutely nothing, and its age is definitely starting to show. For many of my personal use cases, especially web browsing, basic home office tasks, and media consumption, I have an M1 iPad Pro that is more than sufficient. However, there are times when I’ve found myself wanting a decently powerful laptop for hobby projects or occasional gaming. I came to the decision that I would buy a new personal laptop this year. I’ll share some of my research notes here—may they help others looking to buy a laptop too!
My High-Level Requirements
For the basics—web browsing, media consumption, word processing, and spreadsheets—pretty much any laptop at this point will pass with flying colors. It’s with some of my other requirements that options become harder to narrow down.
Now, onto the hobby side of things. Firstly, I enjoy light photo and video editing, whether for invitations for my son’s birthday parties or fun short videos with my wife. I also have a goal of recording videos for YouTube or similar, based on some content in this very blog and more. While this is still doable on most laptops these days, I am impatient and would definitely want the whole process—from design to export—to be decently fast. I don’t spend a ton of time on hobbies, so waiting for processes to run can be extra aggravating.
Secondly, software engineering hobby projects. I love tinkering with new tech, dabbling in home automation, and delving into the world of artificial intelligence. Depending on the scenario, high performance may be needed here again, but memory is probably even more important. I tend to run things in VMs or lots of containers and would appreciate having a decently high amount of RAM.
Now, onto gaming. I love gaming, but in recent years, I’ve spent far less time doing so. Realistically, it’s hard to justify this as a main concern for a laptop. However, having it be more accessible than my desktop PC may lower the barrier to getting back into gaming!
Lastly, portability. As alluded to in the previous paragraph, while I still have a desktop PC (another 10+ year-old relic at this point), I would love to be able to use this new machine pretty much anywhere in the house—on the couch, in bed, on the patio, at the coffee shop—wherever!
Delving Into My Options
So, I need something portable, meaning a laptop, with decent battery life. It doesn’t have to last a whole day, but it should provide decent performance for at least a few hours. Speaking of performance, it needs to have enough CPU and GPU horsepower, along with sufficient memory, to make working on my hobbies feel fast, seamless, and fun. Optionally, the ability to play games would be a huge plus. I’m going to ignore price at the moment, except that the comparison of options should be roughly in the same price range to see what kind of value I can get. Ultimately, I’ve boiled my options down to a Windows gaming laptop or a MacBook Pro!
I’ve broken down the pros and cons of each below to give insight into my thinking:
MacBook Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Good performance on battery—can work more flexibly, even in bed | Storage and RAM options cost a crazy amount more |
| Good battery life even while working | Gaming is virtually non-existent on Macs, especially considering the great Steam library I already have |
| Great for software development—large community usage and great tools | Would feel the need to buy an iPhone and other Apple ecosystem products (watch, AirPods) to get the most benefit out of MacBook features |
| Great for creative work—video editing, photo editing, etc. | |
| Decent for AI/machine learning on laptops—a learning goal of mine | |
| Excellent build quality, longevity, and resale value | |
| Good customer support, especially in South Africa | |
| Overwhelmingly positive reviews for the recent M-series MacBooks |
Windows Gaming Laptop Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Generally higher storage and RAM (typically double for the same price) | Terrible battery life |
| Can play pretty much any game | Performance is terrible on battery—for most demanding use cases, it would need to be plugged in |
| Wouldn’t feel the need to buy an iPhone, watch, etc. | Generally lower build quality or quality control issues for the brands/SKUs available in South Africa |
| Great for software development—having worked on Windows laptops my entire career, I know they do a great job | Support and warranties are generally not as great in South Africa |
| Great for creative work—video editing, photo editing, etc. | The models or spec of models I want are not typically available in South Africa—especially higher RAM options |
| Decent for machine learning—would need a higher-spec’d GPU with sufficient VRAM, aka a high-cost laptop | Lower resale value in South Africa compared to MacBooks |
| Can easily run Linux distros in VMs/WSL |
Going by the above tables, the only thing holding me back from deciding on a MacBook is gaming. However, there’s a lot to be said about familiarity as well—I’ve used Windows machines for pretty much my whole life, and while they have their fair share of issues, I know how to use them effectively and am highly familiar with the tools available.
Upcoming Considerations
AMD has recently launched its Strix Halo APU, and it’s showing very promising performance results in initial offerings, but no proper laptops featuring it have launched as of the time of writing this post. NVIDIA is also building an APU that could prove very interesting in the laptop space, but it’s too early to tell. Especially with AMD, though, it looks like there is finally more competition in the laptop space against the MacBook Pro.
Conclusion—or Not
So—I haven’t decided yet. On the whole, I’m definitely leaning ever so slightly toward the MacBook Pro option, but I only plan to “pull the trigger” on this later this year. I’ll keep an eye on developments in the laptop hardware space and be sure to research any advancements that arise. I’ll also be sure to post a follow-up on my decision and, most importantly, why.