People think that because the high-end PC gear can't compete right now on price, design, longevity, toughness, etc.
For instance, this laptop can't manage to hit the MacBook Pro price point, and it's in a plastic case, as opposed to a single-piece slab of aluminum. Which do you think will hold up better? Who would you rather deal with for warranty repairs and replacement? Which company is more likely to still be alive at the end of the machine's life?
I have to add a comment that personally I dislike Apple's aluminum slab design. I have friends with MacBooks who's legs are red from the heat transfer after it's been on their (insert irony here...) lap. Also I have never had a problem with a well designed "plastic" cased laptop standing up. The Thinkpad is generally considered one of the the toughest laptops around and it's in a plastic case.
The following are some of the changes that have been made to the ThinkPad line:
Added Magnesium-alloy chassis roll cage to reduce motherboard flex caused by holding the laptop one handed on a corner.
Added Magnesium-alloy lid roll cage for a sturdier lid while replacing the lid material from magnesium-alloy to plastic for better wireless signal reception.[12]
Added Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic to 15 in (380 mm) ThinkPad Models.*
I'm a fan of the aluminum body. My Macbook Pro is 4 years old and it's a tank. You're right though, it does get pretty hot, but most high-end laptops do. I burned the graphics card out of my old plastic Fujitsu many years ago playing video games. Heat's just the price you pay to have the current fastest hardware.
I use a laptop cooler on my desk and lapdesk on the couch.
Edit: ooh - feel the downvotes! Go to apple.com and count the number of mentions of 'notebooks' vs. the number of mentions of 'laptops'. The only place you really see the word 'laptop' is in quotes in the customer success stories.
The 17" MBP has a quad-core processor, a 60% larger battery, an optical drive, a vertical resolution of 1200 instead of 1080, a 500GB 7200RPM drive instead of 320GB for the Razer, and still weighs 5% less than the Razer.
On the other hand, the Razer will offer a much better GPU and will be $150 cheaper than the high-end MPB 17".
It's hard to compare machines built for such different specs, but I'd say the $150 premium on the MBP is more than justified.
GPU becomes a lot more important if you are going to be using the laptop for gaming.
Ultimately they serve two different needs and therefore two different markets. For one person the Macbook is a no-brainer, but for someone else, the Razer laptop is a better choice.
I understand that. It's obvious, and it's also not the point. The point is that Razer made so many sacrifices to specialize this laptop that they ought to be able to undercut the MacBook Pro by a lot more than $150.
The use of a dual-core CPU instead of a quad-core CPU should cover most of the cost of the GPU upgrade, which means that either Razer's trying to make a lot more profit per machine than Apple's flagship laptop, or Razer's getting screwed on the cost of a bunch of commodity components.
Relevant to what argument? To what use case? What is a gaming PC? What is a gaming laptop? What are the use cases for each?
I would liken the gaming PC to an audiophile hi-fi setup, almost no one expects it to fit in a messenger bag and run off a battery. For the connoisseur, no portable setup will fulfill all of their needs, and in all likelihood, they'll have setups to cater to each use case. But what if you can have a machine that's ultra-portable, but could also be docked to a setup that allows for high frame rate/high res gameplay? Some people already do this on laptops with express card bridges to external PCI-E sockets. Works pretty well. Here's an example of one such build, although I've seen better:
I agree that they are too different to directly compare.
For me, the real $150 premium that makes the MacBook Pro justified is the fact that it runs OS X. For hardcore gamers, that's not really a plus. Also, the optical drive is a "meh" at best.
Hold better against what? Parachute drops? I have a laptop with a plastic case and I take on trips and use it at home, never had anything happen to it when I was thinking "man, I wish this thing was built out of a single-piece slab of aluminum to hold up better"
> Who would you rather deal with for warranty repairs and replacement?
A company that is passionate about their customers...?
> Which company is more likely to still be alive at the end of the machine's life?
What does that matter. I'll just review whatever else is new and suitable for me and buy that (It could be a different company).
> and it's in a plastic case, as opposed to a single-piece slab of aluminum.
My Lenovo T400 has taken a lot of abuse, and it's still kicking.
> Who would you rather deal with for warranty repairs and replacement?
In the PC world, each manufacturer contracts this sort of thing out. Apple does it in-house, sure, but that's not how it works outside that ecosystem. I've had no problems dealing with the Lenovo warranty people, and it's fairly likely that it would be the exact same people.
> Which company is more likely to still be alive at the end of the machine's life?
I don't need them to be alive at the end of the machine's life. I just need them to live through (or insure) the manufacturer warranty; then, I can just get any repairs directly or do them myself.
I would be very surprised if this laptop manages to bankrupt Razer within the term of the warranty, even if they did bet the company on this thing.
For instance, this laptop can't manage to hit the MacBook Pro price point, and it's in a plastic case, as opposed to a single-piece slab of aluminum. Which do you think will hold up better? Who would you rather deal with for warranty repairs and replacement? Which company is more likely to still be alive at the end of the machine's life?