Laptop + Tablet? Advice

Situation: it’s time to buy a new laptop and possibly (my first) tablet. Currently I’m using a MacBook Pro, but it’s my employer’s and I’m switching jobs, so… I need my own stuff. I’m not up on what’s available, so, yea, help me out here eh?

Thoughts. First, I gotta have a laptop, and games circa 2012 or earlier should play well. More is always better for performance, but I really do use it as a laptop… sitting in bed playing games/watching movies, working in coffee shops, etc, so I’d like something with reasonable performance but I also want it to fit in bed (<=15”) and not wake up the person beside me or catch the bed on fire. The MacBook was great for this, and for a bit I was set on getting another, just because the physical experience factor is so nice. But even with Bootcamp/Parallels I never bother to play my Windows-only games, and anyway a MacBook with a Nvidia card is a whopping $2600. I’d also though about MacBook Air + Steam streaming, but again I really do use it as a laptop, and game in multiple locations.

My thought was perhaps I could get a decent tablet for the email/movies/web stuff on the couch, AND a 13 or 15” Windows laptop for games. Then the laptop is my “real computer”, with me grabbing the tablet (and the keyboard/weight disappearing) when I don’t need the horsepower. I can read through specs as well as anyone, but I’m curious about the form factor… it’s so incredibly satisfying to type and play on a MacBook. There’s no flex at all when I’m typing or playing and the noise is very minimal. Sitting in bed playing TF2 is just as comfortable as a proper keyboard/monitor/mouse. My previous machine (ASUS circa 2011) was much better on paper in terms of spec/cost, but much less satisfying to use.

I’m thinking an Android tablet just because the cost is less and I’m not really plugged into either ecosystem. Decent form-factor, decent battery life, decent user experience… iPads are nice, and I can afford that, but I’m not asking much of my machine. The interface should be pleasant and snappy. Nexus 7? Or is the iPad really that much better of an experience? I dunno.

Suggestions? Do the convertible laptops work well? The idea of having one box that lets me flip the keyboard out of the way is really appealing, even with the tablet side being heavy/thick. Should I just ditch the idea of a tablet and drop the extra money into a better laptop?

Budget is flexible, but under $2K would be nice. I’ll order probably in late July. What would you buy in this situation?

Razer Blade 14" would be a perfect match for you...

If you go Mac, I would pair it with an iPad as there are some real nice updates coming that will allow OSX and iOS to play together better.

If you go Windows (which IMO you should for games) then an Android tablet would well suit your needs. Android is robust enough now that there is more or less parity with iPads. I would go with. a more vanilla so like the Nexus you mentioned. Android is even better if you're at all in the Google ecosystem.

TheGameguru wrote:

Razer Blade 14" would be a perfect match for you...

Yea, the more I read about it the more convinced I become. It looks like two models are currently available: the 2013 (@ 1600x900) and the 2014 (@ super-high resolution).

In terms of spec/cost, the 2013 seems like the right choice, but I see a few reviews bemoaning the quality of the screen. Do you own one of these? Is it that big a deal? I admit the Mac's Retina has spoiled me here.

The 2014 has a lower battery life, higher cost and I'm afraid might result in a different problem: the resolution is extremely high, much higher than Windows applications are typically geared for. Plus I'd have to drop the resolution below native to get games to run well enough anyway.... and it's glossy, which is not really my preference.

Staats wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Razer Blade 14" would be a perfect match for you...

Yea, the more I read about it the more convinced I become. It looks like two models are currently available: the 2013 (@ 1600x900) and the 2014 (@ super-high resolution).

In terms of spec/cost, the 2013 seems like the right choice, but I see a few reviews bemoaning the quality of the screen. Do you own one of these? Is it that big a deal? I admit the Mac's Retina has spoiled me here.

The 2014 has a lower battery life, higher cost and I'm afraid might result in a different problem: the resolution is extremely high, much higher than Windows applications are typically geared for. Plus I'd have to drop the resolution below native to get games to run well enough anyway.... and it's glossy, which is not really my preference.

I own/owned both.. The 2013 model has a sub par quality screen for it's price.. it's not terrible think TN like qualities in terms of viewing angles, brightness and color fidelity. The 2014 has a far higher quality screen more along the lines of the Retina Displays on the MacBook Pro's... and yes many Windows applications struggle at its resolution since its not common yet on the PC side.. Windows 8 itself is fine..as are many of the Microsoft applications..but other apps like Dropbox are not (thankfully you don't have to live very long in the DropBox app itself).

The good news on the gaming side is that the resolution scales perfectly down to 1600x900 so you don't get any of the blurriness running games at an LCD's non-native resolution. My assumption is Razer knew this and thus selected that panel and resolution. Additionally that resolution matches up nicely with the GPU so games I've tested so far have run really well.

Certainly not a Razer specific issue.. no current mobile GPU can really push the pixels that the "retina" laptops are currently at...so that will be a problem no matter what brand/model you go with.. Even an Alienware M18x with Dual GPU's will probably struggle at 4K or near 4K resolution.

the resolution is extremely high

Well, you can do integer scaling; that is, run it at quarter-res, 1/2 in each direction. You will still get some blurriness in most titles, but it's not as bad as with non-integer scaling. I'm not entirely sure why things are a little blurry, because you'd expect every pixel to map to exactly four, but my suspicion is that Windows is trying to do LCD subpixel smoothing on pixels that aren't there.

It's not super-objectionable or anything, but running at native res is definitely nicer. Because of the LCD subpixels, you in essence get triple the horizontal resolution, which is a very big deal for text clarity. (Horizontal resolution is more important than vertical, mostly because we read from side to side.)

My monitor is 2560x1600, and I have long, long experience with running at 1280x800. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that it's not quite as nice in that mode as a native 1280x800 monitor would be. It's good, but it's visibly not native resolution.

Now, I suppose it's possible that the monitor's lack of a native scaler could be the issue; I deliberately bought a panel without one, to cut down lag after my horrendous 2405FPW. But both AMD and NVidia scalers have never been able to drive this screen at 1280x800 while making it look as sharp as it should.

Besides, the whole idea of putting that many pixels in a laptop, at least from a gaming standpoint, is kind of silly. It can take 400 to 600 watts of desktop GPUs to drive that kind of resolution well, and a 30 watt laptop GPU just is NOT going to cut it. If you're going to be gaming at quarter res, then you're losing a lot of the reason to have the finer pixels to begin with.

Further, with Windows not being resolution-independent, you'll end up with constant scaling problems. Either everything is very, very small, or you force fonts larger, and not all programs deal with that properly. It's mostly okay, but there's constant little polish problems when you crank fonts up, especially when you have to crank them up a long way, which you would on a tiny screen with so very many pixels.

I think you'll be happier if you stick with a 1920x1080 or 1200 screen, either 15" or 17". What specific laptop to buy, I don't know, but you'll probably prefer that resolution and form factor.

If gaming isn't a major focus, then the high res screen makes more sense, but given what you're saying so far, I'm not sure that's a good fit.

Well, my concern is not so much the resolution during gaming, because I know my eyes can't really tell the difference when the image is moving (and as you note, games scale pretty well at that resolution anyway). The Macbook forces me to scale every game I play and I really, really can't tell.

It's more how well things Windows 8 scales up normal day-to-day applications when the desktop resolution is set super high... I would say my one reservation with 1600x900 is I've grown accustomed to using a MacBook to browse the web, write code, etc, and here it's really, really nice to have clean scaling at a high resolution. Playing with the resolution now, anything outside of native is a big drop in clarity, but native looks soooo good.

In some sense I wonder if I'm not overthinking it. Outside of work, I use a computer to (1) browse the web, (2) listen to music, (3) watch TV, (4) play games, (5)... other stuff?. In that order. If I buy a 10" high res tablet, I suspect I'll see little reason to even pull out the laptop apart from gaming.

Honestly, if it wasn't for Steam sales and the occasional desire for a personal software project, I'm not sure I'd even have a traditional PC anymore. Which is a very weird feeling.

I have a Dell XPS-12 convertible.

I wouldn't like to testify to its gaming chops - I play a lot of GOG.com stuff on it - but it handles Civ V and XCOM no problem.

It works really well for a browser/reader/gaming tablet for me.

Have you considered the soon-to-be-released Surface Pro 3? It has a similarly hiDPI display as the 15.4" Retina Macbook Pro--216 PPI vs. Apple's 220.

Moggy wrote:

I have a Dell XPS-12 convertible.

I wouldn't like to testify to its gaming chops - I play a lot of GOG.com stuff on it - but it handles Civ V and XCOM no problem.

It works really well for a browser/reader/gaming tablet for me.

As much as I enjoy the Dell Venue Pro 8 that I have, it's puzzling that they offer to bundle one with the XPS-12, which itself converts to a tablet.

"My thought was perhaps I could get a decent tablet for the email/movies/web stuff on the couch, AND a 13 or 15” Windows laptop for games."

I did this exact thing and love it. I have a nexus 10 for the quick stuff and when I want to game remotely I got a custom cyberpower design but with a 17" screen. It is semi portable, but allows me to game away from my man cave and hang with the family upstairs.

I think for your budget you should be able to get a nice setup. Only suggestion I have is if you get the 2 devices, make sure you get pieces that are intended for their use. Get a gaming laptop that has some decent stats so you aren't disappointed and get a tablet that allows you to handle your daily loads easily.

Kurrelgyre wrote:

Have you considered the soon-to-be-released Surface Pro 3? It has a similarly hiDPI display as the 15.4" Retina Macbook Pro--216 PPI vs. Apple's 220.

I did consider this, but it's just too much of a tweener... not enough laptop for games, too much for something I check email on. I can see a definite user for it, but that person isn't me.

tundra wrote:

I did this exact thing and love it. I have a nexus 10 for the quick stuff and when I want to game remotely I got a custom cyberpower design but with a 17" screen. It is semi portable, but allows me to game away from my man cave and hang with the family upstairs.

Yea, that's what it's come down to. I haven't had, or even wanted, the man cave for many years, going with the one laptop for everything solution. But I spend about half my personal computing time doing stuff that just requires a screen, really, and for some tasks it's cumbersome. I also no longer feel compelled to be forever with a laptop... be nice to make TV/email/travel time smoother than digging out a full-size laptop....

Anyway, cost be damned, the new 14" Razor is the laptop. More on a tablet? I'd grab a Nexus 10 if it wasn't 2 damn years old tech; I prefer Google deal with the software/updating but I'm open to other options (Wifi only). Nexus 7 is newer, but smaller than 10 seems too small.