In Search of Great Hardware to Match Great Software
Listen really closely, and you can hear the cries of Windows laptop users.
Windows 10 is truly great, but it doesn’t put an end to the affliction caused by inferior screens, carpal-tunnel-inducing trackpads, Tupperware-like plastic, short-lived batteries, crippling preloaded software…. I could go on.
So where the heck is the great laptop to get rid of these remaining frustrations once and for all? That highly portable machine that Windows 10 seems tailor-made for—one that has a great design, keyboard and trackpad, performance and battery with like Acer Aspire 4745 AC Adapter, Acer Aspire 5251 AC Adapter, Acer Aspire One 751h AC Adapter, Acer Aspire 5252 AC Adapter, Acer Aspire One 532h AC Adapter, Acer Aspire 5920 AC Adapter, Acer ADP-120ZB BB AC Adapter, Acer SADP-65KB AC Adapter, Acer Aspire One ZG5 AC Adapter, Acer Aspire AS1410 AC Adapter, Acer Timeline AS4810T AC Adapter, Acer ADP-90CD BB AC Adapterlife.
A tall order, sure, but my MacBook Air seems to do it all—even when running Windows 10. Yes, Apple’s MacBooks handle Windows 10 better than most current laptops made by HP, Acer, ACEIY 0.00 % ▲Asus, Lenovo and the rest. Of course, buying an Apple laptop to run Windows isn’t practical—or affordable. (If you do want to try Windows 10 on your Mac, however, here’s my guide to get it running.)
So, in preparation for the coming school year, I spent the past few weeks testing 16 different Windows 10 machines across three distinct price categories. And somehow lived to tell the tale.
Hardware to complement Windows 10 is clearly being held back for Intel INTC -1.93 % ▼’s upcoming processor refresh and the holiday shopping season. Laptop makers need more time with the operating system—recovering from the zig-zag of Windows 8 to Windows 10 requires more retooling and new features require improved hardware.
Yet amongst the Jenga stack of laptops, I did find a few that come close to greatness, ones I can recommend to those in need of a laptop right now.
Multimedia Mavens: $1,400 and Up
Best suited for gamers and multimedia fanatics, there is no shortage of Windows laptops over $1,400 with high-end dedicated graphics options and even 4K displays (screens with four times the resolution of 1080p HD).
Images and video looked incredible on the $1,800 15-inch Asus Zenbook Pro UX501 that I tested. With 16GB of RAM and 512GB of solid-state storage, it was by far the fastest machine of the bunch. But all that power and those pixels require you to plug in an AC adapter the size of a Rice-A-Roni box every four hours. They may be the best argument yet for investing in a desktop setup.