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Study Names MacBook Pro 'Best Performing Windows Laptop'

By - Source: CNet | B 45 comments

A clean install is the key.

Buying a computer is a big purchase, so it stands to reason that most of us spend quite a bit of time thinking about the best solution in the world. Still, even if you did spend quite a bit of time thinking about which is the best Windows laptop, it's unlikely you would have come up with the MacBook Pro as your answer.

According to CNet, the MacBook Pro came out ahead of offerings from Dell, Acer, and Lenovo in a recent study by Soluto. Soluto was looking for the best performing Windows laptop and performed "frustration analytics" on popular makes of PCs to find the answer. The computers were then scored based on a combination of crashes, hangs, BSoDs, and boot and background processes.

Apple's 13-inch 2012 MacBook Pro scored 1.05, with the PC in second, Acer's E1-571, scoring 1.12. Dell's XPS13 came in third with a score of 1.28. CNet quotes Soluto as saying a "main factor" in the MacBook Pro's metrics is the fact that "every Windows installation on it is clean." Because other PC manufacturers have a tendency to bundle new computers with a lot of pre-installed software, the installs aren't as clean, which means the competition is a bit unfair. Soluto reasons that this should be something of a wake up call to other manufacturers.

"With PC manufacturers loading so much crapware on new laptops, this is a bit of an unfair competition," Soluto said. "But, on the other hand, PC makers should look at this data and aspire to ship PCs that perform just as well as a cleanly installed MacBook Pro."

What's interesting is that while the mid-2012 13-inch MacBook Pro placed first, the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display placed sixth, with a score of 2.51. That's still four places ahead of Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon, but quite a ways away from the 13-inch MacBook Pro's prestigious spot of first place.

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Top Comments
  • 23 Hide
    TheMadFapper , April 25, 2013 12:17 PM
    I make all of my family and friends do a clean install upon receiving any new computer from a manufacturer. The crap that comes on them is just ridiculous, and sometimes even dangerous.
  • 18 Hide
    NeeKo , April 25, 2013 12:09 PM
    Common sense Names MacBook Pro 'Overpriced Windows Laptop' .
    Move on, nothing to see here.
  • 14 Hide
    osamabinrobot , April 25, 2013 12:16 PM
    haha as if i give a hoot what cnet thinks
Other Comments
    Display all 45 comments.
  • 18 Hide
    NeeKo , April 25, 2013 12:09 PM
    Common sense Names MacBook Pro 'Overpriced Windows Laptop' .
    Move on, nothing to see here.
  • 1 Hide
    NeeKo , April 25, 2013 12:12 PM
    I failed and cant edit, goodbye :p  .
  • 0 Hide
    weierstrass , April 25, 2013 12:14 PM
    Now also consider the high resolution display and MAC OS compatibility :) 
  • 14 Hide
    osamabinrobot , April 25, 2013 12:16 PM
    haha as if i give a hoot what cnet thinks
  • 23 Hide
    TheMadFapper , April 25, 2013 12:17 PM
    I make all of my family and friends do a clean install upon receiving any new computer from a manufacturer. The crap that comes on them is just ridiculous, and sometimes even dangerous.
  • 2 Hide
    belardo , April 25, 2013 12:19 PM
    Lenovo doesn't pile the garbage on their computers... even their consumer line.
  • 5 Hide
    ubercake , April 25, 2013 12:19 PM
    I'm pretty sure Apple patented studies regarding the 'Best Performing Windows Laptop' sometime last year or thereabouts.
  • -9 Hide
    festerovic , April 25, 2013 12:22 PM
    Hah! Validation. I got laughed at when I suggested MBPs for executive laptop orders...even when I said "rip the Mac OS off it, and run windows!"
  • 9 Hide
    Immoral Medic , April 25, 2013 12:24 PM
    So just reformat the Windows machines. Seems unfair to judge a clean install of windows to a machine with tons of crap installed on it. The mac was setup to win this study clearly. Whoever did this study is ridiculous for not using a base for all the systems benchmarked. Also, this article doesn't state anything about price points or the customization of any of the systems. I'm guessing they maxed out the macbook pro and got the lowest Windows customizations of the systems if we are looking at his previous "mistake". I can't trust anything like this...
  • 4 Hide
    ubercake , April 25, 2013 12:26 PM
    Quote:
    haha as if i give a hoot what cnet thinks


    True. As we forget about CNET more and more, they have to come up with garbage to keep themselves in the news. It's their version of a sex tape.
  • 1 Hide
    Dakota Flores , April 25, 2013 12:26 PM
    i feel this is bad science, if the mac gets fresh install all of them should
  • 2 Hide
    tlg , April 25, 2013 12:27 PM
    I own a 2010 macbookpro 15" and my friend owns a toshiba laptop from the same year with same specs, same 15" and both are also 1600x900. All I can tell u is he has been playing WoW and Dota 2 etc with much higher FPS than me. I ca no more than 10fps in WoW raids and he gets more than 40. Why? cause macbookpro has no proper cooling and half year after owning it its cooked lol. Jumps at nearly 100c within the minute and ofc throttling hard after that lol. naturally i got my laptop free from a contest, im not stupid enough to pay 2200euro (the price back then) for a 1000 euro worth normal laptop. Also, how about comparing laptops after doing a fresh install to get rid of the bloatware of all these companies, you "experts" at CNET? They mention that the other laptops are loosing due to bloatware lol. How obvious it can be that this review was written by people who receive money from Apple..
  • 0 Hide
    andystanley , April 25, 2013 12:33 PM
    "According to CNet"
    ^theres the problem right there
  • 4 Hide
    j2j663 , April 25, 2013 12:37 PM
    This is completely stupid. Anyone who can get a clean install of windows onto a mac is clearly going to do a clean install onto any other machine they purchase as well.
    The average consumer that has to live with the crapware that comes on windows laptops doesn't have a clue how to get windows onto a mac.
  • 0 Hide
    shin0bi272 , April 25, 2013 12:37 PM
    * study sponsored by Tim Cook
    LOL
  • 0 Hide
    shoelessinsight , April 25, 2013 12:39 PM
    I get what they're going for here, and I'm all in favor of any push to get PC manufacturers to install less crapware on their computers. However, it is an odd comparison, as the study assumes the PC users aren't tech savvy enough to install Windows fresh, but that the Mac users are. Given that this is meant to be an "Out of the box" test, Macbooks really shouldn't have been included. But perhaps this is meant for those Mac users that have Windows installed at the Apple store?

    I always do fresh Windows installs on any laptop I purchase. From that perspective, my Macbook Pro was by far the worst laptop I've ever owned. The drivers were less mature or feature rich than most PC equivalents, and they ate relatively large amounts of CPU time for no particularly good reason. Optimizing things at a BIOS/EFI level wasn't really an option either.

    Beyond the day-to-day frustrations, that machine had several hardware problems after the first year (CD drive, keyboard, LCD screen, track pad). All my Apple friends, that swear by their Macbooks, also have all had problems with almost all of their computers within one or two years. But their solution is just to buy the latest model every year.

    Quote:
    Hah! Validation. I got laughed at when I suggested MBPs for executive laptop orders...even when I said "rip the Mac OS off it, and run windows!"

    Or you could just do a fresh install on some actual PCs and get the best of both worlds at half the price?
  • 0 Hide
    TheBigTroll , April 25, 2013 12:42 PM
    my favourite example of crapware: norton anti-virus trial edition. uninstall it? please download uninstaller
  • 1 Hide
    nlreynolds80 , April 25, 2013 12:45 PM
    It's because of PC manufacturers' tendency to laden their machines down with "crapware" that Mac users really even have a claim of greater stability. A properly built PC with a clean install of Windows is rock-solid.
  • 0 Hide
    the1kingbob , April 25, 2013 12:51 PM
    This isn't common sense at all. They compared an OEM install to a clean install. Duh the Mac performs well it is a fresh/clean install of windows (which is even more money on top of the apple tax). It must be great buying something and having to spend more money to make it useful, they could have done the same for the other computers with fresh retail versions of windows.
    Not trying to make a pun, but any time apple is included in a review they are generally comparing apples to oranges. If you compare fresh retail windows on one machine to another machine then it must be the same exact version. I wonder if they even considered 64bit and 32bit..... This is why it came from cnet and not toms.
  • 0 Hide
    warezme , April 25, 2013 1:03 PM
    Loading up PC's with crapware has been a huge issue for all new machines for a long time. Of course a fresh install with nothing but what you need is going to perform better and be much more stable. To add insult to injury manufactures like Dell don't want to help you with tech support if you did a clean install. I have an Alienware m17x and they refused to help with an issue becuase I had done a clean install which is standard procedure for me. They told me I would have to install the factory image. I told them to go frak themselves among other things. I have learned to keep a factory image on an spare drive and when I call tech support I put that in. I know when an issue is related to hardware and not software.
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