Apple Macpro or Lenovo?

Lleucu

I have a Lenovo G550, 4 years old but running slow despite regular cleaning, 4gb of ram. I am going to replace it.

I have my eyes on a MacBook Pro 2.6GHz Dual-core Intel i5 with Retina Display, 8 gb of Ram, refurbished from Apple at £849. The other option is a Lenovo but they are nearly as expensive. Either way I will have to upgrade my MS Office because Outlook 2003 is no longer supported and is a bit cranky. What is stopping me apart from the cost?

1. I have a huge archive of emails for work, going back to 2003 when I became self employed that I want to transfer. It worries me slightly trying to do this.

2. I have have a huge number of Word and Excel files eg all my accounts.

3.If I don't sign up with the new Office how can I communicate with customers? Most of the documents I send are password protected. They are all on various versions of Word.

4. I have found search facilities in Windows 7 brilliant, I only need to think of one or two words or names and bingo, its all there.

5.At the moment, I have not paid a technician to sort me out for 4 years, by following the advice on these pages, I have sorted out most problems. Moving to Apple is a big change. I also have an ipad but do not like the feeling of being monitored and controlled.

6. I am concerned about security too. I keep all my email address book locally and have stuck with the Blackberry because it is the only way to sync via USB. I have friends who have managed to put their professional contacts on Facebook on Linkin with complaints resulting to the regulator. You might think they are exceptionally stupid but it only takes 1 press on the Yes button.

I suppose writing this email is steering me away from the big leap and towards another trusty Lenovo (I have found it pretty good).

Anne_Marie_2

Have you thought about replacing your hard drive with an SSD? I'm thinking of doing this with my Lenovo, and keeping the original drive, either in a caddy, or as a second HD on the laptop by removing the optical drive, as I can't remember the last time I used it.

Lleucu

that is a good idea. I suppose I want a faster machine this one is really slow and 8gb seems sensible.

Tropez

As above, you may find that swapping the HDD out for an SSD solves a lot of the problems (although I'd also be inclined, if the machine supports it, to upgrade to 8GB RAM as well).

You may need to check with Lenovo about whether the machine can support any potential upgrades as some users on their forums have reported various issues when swapping out the HDD for an SSD due to some peculiarities in Lenovo's BIOS. Most people don't seem to have a problem though so it may be limited to specific machines.

Crucial offer a free service that will scan your laptop and recommend supported upgrades to memory and storage. Obviously, they'll only recommend Crucial products but when they do recommend it they do guarantee compatibility (you may need to update your BIOS though just to be safe).

http://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/systemscanner

Assuming it is supported, and since you appear to be doing mostly office type work on the system, I'd be inclined to upgrade to an SSD (128GB or 256GB), upgrade the RAM and then purchase an external HDD or NAS for storage. That lot can be done a lot cheaper than the Mac you've been looking at. Seagate and Western Digital both offer NAS (Network Attached Storage) which you connect to your router, and permit access of your files from outside your network so that you're not without them when you're out of the house (providing you have an Internet connection of some sorts).

Anne_Marie_2

Lleucu wrote: »

that is a good idea. I suppose I want a faster machine this one is really slow and 8gb seems sensible.

According to the specs, you certainly should be able to upgrade RAM to 8GB.
http://shop.lenovo.com/ISS_Static/WW/EMEA/merchandising/pdf/en/G550%20Consumer_DS_24NOV09.pdf

Fightsback

Do you maintain a back up of your laptop, i.e. back up to another disk ?

I know it may seem a stupid question but you will not believe the amount of people who don't. If not make this your first priority and get a back up drive.

Lleucu

Crucial says no updates possible to the system.

agrinnall

Which Lenovo are you looking at buying? Should you really be comparing the cost with the cost of a new Mac rather than a refurb?

I personally wouldn't switch to a Mac. As it happens I've recently bought a Yoga 2 Pro and I've got used to Windows 8.1 pretty quickly, having been solidly the 7 camp for the last few years.

Transferring data, including emails, was easy enough, you should be able to find instructions for how to transfer for your email client online.

I did have to fork out for Office 2013, although I was able to get 4 years of 365 through my university account. You'll probably find it quite different to 2003, it's been through quite a few changes since then, but you will get used to it eventually.

I wouldn't put any contacts on FB, and I'm not keen on LinkedIn. I have my contacts in Google and they sync with my android phone and tablet, although I'm still a little concerned about security and the possibility of my details becoming more widely available, but not to the point of obsessing about it.

Lleucu

Thanks.

This Lenovo http://www.johnlewis.com/store/lenovo-z50-75-laptop-amd-fx-8gb-ram-1tb-8gb-sshd-r7-m260-2gb-graphics-15-6-fhd/p1756529?navAction=jump or similar. The Lenovo is just under £500 compared with £849 for the Mac. The Office 365 is around £70 for a year for either option. I am currently on Office 2003 for Outlook/Access and 2007 for Word, Excel and PP.

On the point of security, many professionals esp those in regulated professions refuse to keep their contacts online despite the convenience, you only need to look at Facebook invitations on email that I have seen on Hotmail (do you know X variety) to see how insecure an address book can be, hence the use of an old Bberry which can sync locally.

Tropez

Lleucu wrote: »

Thanks.

This Lenovo http://www.johnlewis.com/store/lenovo-z50-75-laptop-amd-fx-8gb-ram-1tb-8gb-sshd-r7-m260-2gb-graphics-15-6-fhd/p1756529?navAction=jump or similar. The Lenovo is just under £500 compared with £849 for the Mac. The Office 365 is around £70 for a year for either option. I am currently on Office 2003 for Outlook/Access and 2007 for Word, Excel and PP.

On the point of security, many professionals esp those in regulated professions refuse to keep their contacts online despite the convenience, you only need to look at Facebook invitations on email that I have seen on Hotmail (do you know X variety) to see how insecure an address book can be, hence the use of an old Bberry which can sync locally.

I have the Lenovo Z50-70 and it is a decent system. It is different to the one you link in that mine has a dual-core Core i7-4510U CPU and a GeForce 840M but is otherwise the same.

The SSHD will make an improvement to boot times and a handful of applications you use on a regular basis. The Lenovo will come with some pointless bloatware that you can remove.

The main complaint I had with it was that the keyboard wasn't particularly brilliant. I found that the keyboard didn't give you much feedback and it was easy at first to miss keystrokes. Over time though I have got used to it and that rarely happens now.

Unless I have misunderstood what tasks you use your laptop for, from the money saving perspective, I'd say that Lenovo makes more financial sense than the MacBook and I know that my Z50-70 can be upgraded to an SSD and to 16GB RAM (although I doubt such would ever be necessary). I use one of the several third party addons for Windows 8.1 to make it function and look more like 7 and XP.

The screen is very nice and clear - although there is an issue, not with Lenovo, but with some Windows 8.1 applications on high DPI screens with text appearing blurry. I'd say this occurs a small percentage of the time and not in Microsoft applications like Office but it is still something you may wish to be aware of. You can change the DPI in Windows but I haven't bothered.

As for the Crucial scan, it doesn't mean that you can't upgrade your current system to an SSD or 8GB RAM, it just means Crucial themselves have nothing they can guarantee compatibility with so you'd have to press Lenovo for answers if you wanted to go down that route.

sinizterguy

I would go with the Macbook.

Iincreasing RAM and replacing with an SSD will improve speed. Question is how much are you willing to spend on doing that ? Your computer is already 4 years old.

If it comes up to a third of the cost of buying a newer laptop, I would buy the new one.

The Retina screens are absolutely fantastic.

This is my personal opinion.