The laptop spec manufacturers just can't hit

[Hulk]

13" to 14" IPS matte, 1080p display (prefer non touch but touch is okay)
Haswell CPU with HD5000 or higher graphics
1" thick or thinner
Under 4lbs
Holds a standard size laptop drive
8GB RAM or more

 

[crashtestdummy]

The closest you can get to what you're describing is a Macbook Pro Retina. I don't believe (could be wrong) that it uses a 2.5" drive, but everything else is spot on.

 

[Hulk]

The closest you can get to what you're describing is a Macbook Pro Retina. I don't believe (could be wrong) that it uses a 2.5" drive, but everything else is spot on.

You are absolutely correct. Apple seems to "get it" but unfortunately I'm a PC guy and don't won't to get into the whole bootcamp thing. But they make some fine devices and luckily drive the PC industry to build better products in an effort to compete.

I'm looking at the new Acer S7, Sony Vaio Pro, Lenovo 440p, and a few others but my old Dell Inspiron 620m with a C2D T7200 and SSD upgrade is still doing the job for me so I think I'm going to hold out. Broadwell's graphics should be powerful enough even at the new GT2 level to take care of my OpenCL compute requirements, which is for Sony Vegas Pro 12.

 

[crashtestdummy]

You are absolutely correct. Apple seems to "get it" but unfortunately I'm a PC guy and don't won't to get into the whole bootcamp thing. But they make some fine devices and luckily drive the PC industry to build better products in an effort to compete.

I'm looking at the new Acer S7, Sony Vaio Pro, Lenovo 440p, and a few others but my old Dell Inspiron 620m with a C2D T7200 and SSD upgrade is still doing the job for me so I think I'm going to hold out. Broadwell's graphics should be powerful enough even at the new GT2 level to take care of my OpenCL compute requirements, which is for Sony Vegas Pro 12.

The S7 and Vaio Pro are both 15W processors, while the T440P uses a 37-47W chip. What do you plan to use this computer for? You hint at OpenCL. Does that compute performance really need to be in laptop form?

 

[Hulk]

The S7 and Vaio Pro are both 15W processors, while the T440P uses a 37-47W chip. What do you plan to use this computer for? You hint at OpenCL. Does that compute performance really need to be in laptop form?

I meant T440s. From time to time I do some video editing on the road and need the OpenCL of the iGPU. Believe it or not the HD4400/4600 does a really good job with timeline preview in Vegas Pro 12. Of course HD5000 or higher with 40 compute units would be much better.

 

[crashtestdummy]

I meant T440s. From time to time I do some video editing on the road and need the OpenCL of the iGPU. Believe it or not the HD4400/4600 does a really good job with timeline preview in Vegas Pro 12. Of course HD5000 or higher with 40 compute units would be much better.

I'm out of my depth a little here, but you may want to double check whether the HD5000 is much of an advantage with the 15W chips. At least with gaming, you end up so limited in terms of overall power usage that you don't gain much, despite the large increase in compute units. I don't know if that's the same with video processing. The story is also likely different on a 28W chip with iris pro like the Retina 13.

 

[Hulk]

I'm out of my depth a little here, but you may want to double check whether the HD5000 is much of an advantage with the 15W chips. At least with gaming, you end up so limited in terms of overall power usage that you don't gain much, despite the large increase in compute units. I don't know if that's the same with video processing. The story is also likely different on a 28W chip with iris pro like the Retina 13.

GT3 shows huge gains in preview and assembly of the timeline and therefore render over GT2. Not perfect scaling of course but about a 68% improvement.

 

[arandomguy]

Some options that are close to your requirements -

Asus UX302
Clevo W730SU

Also there options using stronger discrete graphics, just not the better Intel IGP, like the Acer Travelmate P645.

 

[marcplante]

Dell xps line, properly specced? Lenovo t440s,

 

[Kassem]

I've been looking for the same thing. Heard rumors that Apple purchased many of the CPUs you and I are looking for.

 

[marcplante]

Also the Dell 7000 line.

 

[996GT2]

Dell Precision M3800 seems to hit most of the specs you want. It's 15.6", but it's about the same size as a 15" rMBP and weighs less.

15.6" 3200x1800 display
4.15 lbs
i7 with Quadro K1100M GPU
0.71 inch thickness

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m3800-workstation/pd

 

[Infohawk]

Dell xps line, properly specced?

I haven't seen an XPS 13 with more than a 4400.

 

[Kassem]

Dell Precision M3800 seems to hit most of the specs you want. It's 15.6", but it's about the same size as a 15" rMBP and weighs less.

15.6" 3200x1800 display
4.15 lbs
i7 with Quadro K1100M GPU
0.71 inch thickness

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m3800-workstation/pd

Those look really nice. The base model at 1799 seems like a great deal, but why am I forced into a 500gb SSD? If I could get anything else the price would look SO much better.

edit// solid state *hybrid.. now i see

 

[Accord99]

Those look really nice. The base model at 1799 seems like a great deal, but why am I forced into a 500gb SSD? If I could get anything else the price would look SO much better.

You could also look into its twin, the new XPS 15 with Touch.

 

[Hulk]

I've been looking for the same thing. Heard rumors that Apple purchased many of the CPUs you and I are looking for.

That makes a lot of sense when you consider the fact that Apple was the one pushing Intel for a higher powered iGPU. They probably made a deal to buy a huge amount of them to make the fab cost effective for Intel.

 

[gorcorps]

You are absolutely correct. Apple seems to "get it" but unfortunately I'm a PC guy and don't won't to get into the whole bootcamp thing. But they make some fine devices and luckily drive the PC industry to build better products in an effort to compete.

I'm looking at the new Acer S7, Sony Vaio Pro, Lenovo 440p, and a few others but my old Dell Inspiron 620m with a C2D T7200 and SSD upgrade is still doing the job for me so I think I'm going to hold out. Broadwell's graphics should be powerful enough even at the new GT2 level to take care of my OpenCL compute requirements, which is for Sony Vegas Pro 12.

If you never intend to use it as an OSX machine, why not just completely reformat and run 100% windows? Hardware wise it's everything you want at a price lower than the MBPs have been in a long time.

 

[Hulk]

If you never intend to use it as an OSX machine, why not just completely reformat and run 100% windows? Hardware wise it's everything you want at a price lower than the MBPs have been in a long time.

I didn't realize it was that straightforward. So I can just wipe the disk and load Windows 8? No restrictions or workarounds to deal with?

 

[gorcorps]

I didn't realize it was that straightforward. So I can just wipe the disk and load Windows 8? No restrictions or workarounds to deal with?

I just poked around and most people recommend shrinking the osx partition down as much as possible, then installing windows on the rest of it. The reason for it is for firmware updates that are released through apples system.

Somebody else should confirm 100%, but there's nothing stopping you from running Windows only on that machine. The only thing I don't know about us how the touchpad will work in Windows.