<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 24px;" class="">Hi Stephen!</p><blockquote type="cite" class=""><pre class="western">And what about 4K? I would hope to keep any new laptop I buy going
for at least the 8 years I got out of the GT70, so does that mean I
should be getting one with a 4K screen? Or at least one that can do
4K on its HDMI port? Currently, I do not have any 4K screens, and TV
here in New Zealand is only 1080i. And I do not do Netflix or other
subscription TV that has a 4K option. So deinterlacing is very
important, but 4K not so much yet.</pre></blockquote><div style="margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 27.600000381469727px;" class="">I tend to look ahead when making purchases; maybe you don’t have 4K now, New Zealand broadcast services don’t offer 4K, but probably eventually will. I’d lean towards getting the 4K option, unless priced out of range. Can’t swap graphic cards in laptops nearly as easily like one can in desktops.</div><pre class="western"><blockquote type="cite" class=""><pre class="western">I am thinking that 17" is overkill and 15" is probably fine, but 17"
has worked well for when we are away on holiday and two people are
watching at the same time.</pre></blockquote></pre><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 24px;" class="">If you want a happy vacation (and life) stick with the 17” screen! :) Plus you’re getting older and will appreciate the slightly larger display (easier to see without reaching for the reading glasses).</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 24px;" class="">One thing that soured me on AMD in my last desktop build was skimping on the heatsink. The “AMD approved” heatsink/fan combo that came with the CPU was barely adequate for cooling under near-idle conditions. Doing normal backups caused overheating to the point of shutdown. Due to this issue I found AMD expects people to chuck their supplied unit in favour of a bigger/proper coolers when building a system. AMD also is geared towards gamers while Intel (forgot the term but what I’d considered ‘work’). So makes me wonder if they “cheat” on desktop units if the same issue with laptops? Not intended a slam on AMD, but more ‘use the proper tool’, plus a couple of factoids I was not aware of at the time I made my purchase.</p></blockquote></div><br class=""><div class="">In order to seamlessly drain all your money apple make very nice hardware.</div><div class="">I've got a macbook pro and thanks to John Hoyt's hard work myth runs quite nicely. I do not know about their arm architecture (which all new macs are), perhaps he would give an answer.</div><div class="">Apart from myth I mostly use multiple VMs (running linux) using Parallels. Parallels has disk io of near native 2500 MB/s whereas VirtualBox does 700MB/s. Their touch pad is the first and only one that I prefer to a mouse.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">To compare say rendering the same video on an (intel nuc, 2 core) i3 and the mac (6 core i7) using shotcut i3:24min mac:4min</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I'm sold, but apple are a real pain (think Bill Gates was a borg, ha) so if you can avoid the money traps, and live with their anal hastles eg System Integrity Protection, that is a very nice laptop, with a really nice trackpad (try doing right-press and drag. mac:2 finger press and drag)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">You did ask for opinions <grin></div><div class="">James</div></body></html>