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UE Boom
Better than a MacBook Pro? For WAY Cheaper...
Tuesday, February 03, 2015
Right, I've been slacking when it comes to my lovely little blog and I majorly apologise yet again. But this is something that I just HAD to blog about. I have been telling quite a lot of people about this purchase of mine because to be honest, I think a fair few of you will love me for it (unless you just want a mac because its a mac and not for legit tech spec reasons).
The two model laptops that I will be comparing are the HP Envy 17" j141na (£849.95) and the MacBook Pro with Retina Display (£1,999).
Lets touch the surface of this laptop, quite literally- starting with the design of it. It looks really similar to a mac- except its boasting with a 17.5 inch screen. ITS BEAUTIFUL. Considering the MacBook Pro only has a 15.4 inch screen maximum, this wins for me already. Another thing that persuaded me was the fact that the HP has a matte finish screen. There's nothing worse than an annoying reflection stopping you from seeing what you're doing- The Mac has a glossy finish. Yes the Mac has Retina Display and a 2880x1880pixel screen, but the HP is just as adequate with 1920x1080pixel HD Brightview LED Screen with Backlit display which means its anti-glare and still has perfect picture quality.
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The next thing that I want to mention will be something that you have probably noticed- the beats by dre logo on the laptop. This is because it has quad speakers with a built in subwoofer. It also features Beats Audio to give you highly optimised sound. Laptop speakers are never anything to rant and rave about, which is why I use my EU Boom* for music & films, but these speakers don't sound like a tin can like most laptops. I don't know much about MacBook Pro speakers but I know that they are just standard stereo speakers.
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Due to the laptop being wider than the MacBook Pro, it also features a full size keyboard, which I prefer as I hate using the number keys along the top, so much easier when the numbers are all in one area. Both laptops feature 802.11ac Wireless networking, so their WiFi capabilities are equal. The same as they both have bluetooth connectivity- which is great when it comes to connecting my EU Boom*- I love having no cables so thank goodness I don't have to connect via the headphone connection.
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Time to move onto the exciting bits- the processor and the graphics card! This is the info you need to know if you're using the laptop for more than just watching a film or browsing twitter. So the processor in both laptops is a Quad Core Intel Core i7. The Turbo Boost on the HP is 2.5GHz to 3.5GHz , which is only slightly less compared to the Mac with a 2.3GHz to 3.7GHz and at an additional £150 cost you can have it boosted to 4GHz (which personally seems like quite a hefty price tag for the sake of that little bit extra when you can have slightly less, and save yourself over £1000.
The Graphics card in the HP is a NVIDIA GeForce 840m 2GB, the MacBook Pro Graphics card is the same, but the 750m. Which basically means that they are the same, just the HP Graphics card is newer than the Mac one. (If you're a gamer or just want to know more you can look way further into proper specs of each graphics cards and comparisons). But the point I want to make is that for the same processor and graphics card, the Macbook is more than double the price.
Performance-wise, the HP is incredibly fast, I can't compare the two exactly as I don't own a Mac, but I certainly know that this runs at exceptional speeds. Upgrading from my previous laptop- a Dell, makse me breathe a huge sigh of relief. Photoshop used to lag even just moving the cursor across the screen. Photoshop opens in 3-4 seconds (yes I counted ha!) on the HP. Which is astounding to me as Photshop is frequently used in my line of work. So any other photographers, designers etc will love it.
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I personally have always preferred Windows operating systems, as this is what I was bought up as a child around. Some people prefer Mac OS. I think its down to personal preference and I won't force an opinion upon people regarding operating systems. But regarding the operating system of the HP- It is running Windows 8.1- which is a hell of a lot better than Windows Vista that I was running on my old PC. (what an absolute nightmare that system was). So this has created ease of access like you wouldn't believe, especially with the apps menu. All the things I use the most on one page. Yay.
The HP also has fingerprint technology, you can use your fingerprint to login instead of a password. I myself have only got around to setting up a pin to log in- but maybe the fingerprint will be something i'll look into in the future.
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MEMORY MEMORY MEMORY! The HP has a whopping 12GB of ram- t w e l v e. I think the most I've ever had in a laptop is 4GB, so this is impressive. The Mac has an even larger 16GB of ram.. I personally won't need to use 16GB of ram, ever. So for me to buy a Mac purely for this reason would be incredibly silly. So this again, is a decision you need to make when debating the two.
The HP also has a 1TB hardrive, the Mac has a 512GB hardrive which is configurable to 1TB which means you have to upgrade the small hardrive to a larger one- which is the ridiculous price of £400. WHO WOULD DO THAT? when you can buy an external hardrive for a tiny fraction of that, you would just be silly to upgrade to that. HP wins for me hardrive-wise.
Can I also just add that for those of you still stuck in CD & DVD ages (this is me putting my hand up in the air with the DVD thing) that the Mac doesn't even have a CD DVD drive. The HP does- its a CD DVD Re Write drive that supports BlueRay too. Another victory for HP.
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Various connections on the HP include HDMI, 4 USB, Ethernet and SD Card reader ports, the same as the Mac, aswell as front facing webcams & microphones. So in this aspect they are pretty equal- these are standard things you need on a laptop though so this was an obvious one.
The final thing is weight and size, which is obviously going to be different. The Mac weighs 2.02kg's, the HP weighs 2.8kg's- this is understandable considering the HP has an extra 1.6inches on the screen. The size of the mac is 35.89 x 24.71 x1.8 cm compared to the HP that is 41.6 x 27.44 x 3.06 cm. The HP is obviously larger so if size is an issue and you want it to be more compact, then hey- just buy the HP Envy 15" instead of the 17" like I have. Mine will be sitting on my desk most of the time plugged in so size isn't an issue for myself. Coming back to me having it plugged in, the battery life of the HP is up to 4hours 30 mins, whereas the Mac is up to 8 hours- almost double. Which is great for those always on the go.
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Now is the time for you to make the big decision after considering all of these points, I personally felt like buying a Macbook Pro would have been silly in terms of money. I feel like I'm getting a laptop that is just as impressive for more than half of the price. Which I am incredibly happy about, there's nothing I hate more than being ripped off and that's how I would have felt if I had spent £1 shy of £2000 on a piece of technology. I can sleep better knowing I researched this before I bought it.
I hope this has helped some of you before taking the plunge! Happy shopping :)
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2 comments
Wow this has made me feel quite differently about laptops/Mac books in general. Research is key! Thanks Abi..
ReplyDeleteHow has the laptop been for you so far, seeing as you've had it for sometime now, so you would have a little bit more of an informative response to this question... This post was really helpful, as I'm looking into buying a new laptop for my second year of uni.
ReplyDelete