With the holidays approaching fast and the sales that come with it many people will be getting new notebooks this holiday season.  Researching what the best notebooks out there are takes time and we though we could help out by giving you our choices in five different categories of notebooks.  They are gaming, ultraportable, Chromebook, business, and Apple MacBook.  With the latest computer parts in these notebooks it will be certain that they will be able to earn there keep for quite some time.  There are many things to consider when looking for a notebook and budget is a big one.  Most of these choices are going to be in the higher end range since they perform better.

Gaming Notebook: MSI Computer GT72  Dominator Pro with GTX 980M – $2,299

This gaming notebook is the top of the line from MSI, and it does not disappoint.  Equipped with Intel i7-4710HQ, 16GB of DDR3-1600, a 128GB SSD, and a Nvidia GTX 980M 8GB, this will tear through any recent and upcoming game.  The best thing about the GT72 Dominator Pro is that MSI has taken steps to ensure that you can update the graphics down the line when new and better GPUs come out.  This means that the investment made in this computer will last a lot longer than comparable notebooks that are stuck with their graphics for the life of the product. If you are wanting some more speed from the notebook then throw in four identical M.2 SSDs inside and put them in RAID 0 for read/write speeds of up to 1600MB/s.  From experience with MSI’s SuperRAID as it is called I can attest to how massive of an improvement that speeds like this can be, it makes using the notebook just so much more enjoyable.  You can even attach three monitors to the notebook with two mini-displayport and one HDMI outputs.  The keyboard feels like no other notebook keyboard and is made by the gaming company SteelSeries. Bottom line is that if this is in your budget and you are a gamer or even a power user, I have little doubt that you will love this notebook.

Apple Notebook: 15″ 2.5GHz MacBook Pro with Retina display – $2,374.99

There is no denying it, Apple makes good notebooks and they are arguably the best notebooks for running Windows on as well.  The Retina display will allow for better multi-tasking with various windows as the resolution gives lots of screen real estate.  The Retina display will be great for those who edit photos or video as the display will reproduce colors very well. The construction of the MacBook Pro is amazing and the fit and finish are things that other companies could learn a thing or two from.  The choice with the 2.5GHz Intel i7 was made for what would be the most capable and powerful option with a reasonable price.  At Apple you can customize the MacBook Pro with up to a 1TB SSD and a 2.8GHz Intel i7.

Ultraportable Notebook: Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro – $1,382.99

The 2-in-1 Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro is the latest model in the Yoga line and features an amazing watchband style hinge.  The hinge is made up of hundreds of individual pieces that allows the notebook to flex like no other and fold to use it in different positions.  The screen is a high resolution (3200×1800) IPS touchscreen that will reproduce colors very well and look much better than lower quality panels.  If needing something very light, portable, and a long battery life then this notebook should be on your list of ones to check out.  The stylish Yoga 3 Pro is one of the most stunning designs out now and is powered by the brand new Intel Core M processor.

 Chromebook – Toshiba Chromebook 2 1080p $329.99

Chromebooks are a new breed of notebook, and people are really loving them.  Chromebooks generally are affordable, light, and have long battery life making it an easy choice for those who need something portable.  The best thing about this model is likely the 1080p IPS panel that will look much better than panels that are in other models.  Powering the notebook is an Intel Celeron processor, and while not very powerful it will get the job done and sip power giving longer battery life.  The battery should be good for up to 8 hours and 45 minutes.  The audio has been fine-tuned by Skullcandy meaning that it should deliver much nicer sound than the standard Chromebook.  This will be useful if you enjoy listening to streaming music while you surf the web or do work.  The 802.11ac Wi-Fi is blazing fast and will allow you to get better coverage over other Chromebooks.

Business Notebook: Lenovo X1 Carbon – $1,619

When looking for a business notebook it is wise to choose something that is portable and light so you can easily get work done no matter where you are working.  The X1 Carbon also offers great battery life allowing up to 9 hours from a single charge.  Lenovo is the the most used PC maker for businesses and they sure do know what they are doing with its lineup that is geared for productivity.  The keyboard is surprisingly good and has back-lighting making it easier to get work done while on that red-eye to an important meeting or at home in the evening.  The integrated fingerprint reader should help simplify secure login by allowing you to simply swipe a finger over it.  When it comes to a business notebook, choosing Lenovo is a wise choice that millions have made before.

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You heard it right, Microsoft is paying Macbook Air users up to $650 to swap their Macbook Air for a Microsoft Surface Pro 3. This offer is designed to give Apple users cold hard cash to upgrade their 11 or 13″ low-resolution Macbook Air laptops for Microsoft Surface Pro 3’s. If you look at the specs of the Surface Pro 3, it does look much more attractive than the Macbook Air on paper with a higher resolution touch display, active pen, and optional keyboard. However, if you know the resale prices of most Apple products a Macbook Air could probably still fetch north of $650 if its anywhere near 2 years old or younger, so Microsoft is likely targeting an older Macbook Air crowd that is likely experiencing some of the aging issues that most laptops experience. Not to mention, they are probably trying to target the people looking for a more ‘modern’ and unique device.

There are a lot of differences between the Surface Pro 3 and the Macbook air, but the ultimate result is that Microsoft is clearly aiming for a demographic that can afford a Macbook Air and wants to pull them towards their premium offering, the Surface Pro 3. Now, I don’t really know if this strategy is going to necessarily work, but there’s a good chance that a lot of people that have Macbook Airs that were on the fence about it will probably give it a try and likely not take as big of a risk paying full price for a Surface Pro 3. The nice thing about the Surface Pro 3 is that its very thin and very light and it enables some use cases that the Macbook Air simply can’t because of the way that it is designed. Frankly, I’m still a bit surprised that Apple hasn’t released any touch laptops or desktops while their competitors have tons of them (albeit most of them not very good).

As it stands right now, The Surface Pro 3 is one of the premier Windows 8.1 devices out there today and if there’s a device that might entice someone to switch to Windows, the Surface Pro 3 is probably it. And yes, it does start at $799, but as of right now you can only buy the i5 version of the Surface Pro 3, which starts at $999 and has only 128 GB of SSD space. If you want to go cheaper, you will have to wait and if you want to get an i7 (just a beefed up i5 with higher clocks) then you will also have to wait.

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It isn’t often that Apple will update a piece of hardware without doing some kind of major launch or making a big deal about it. But with the new Macbook Air, they did just that. With the new Macbook Air (2014), Apple has made some minute improvements over the previous generation. Namely, Apple has kept the same Haswell chips in the Macbook Air from 2013, but has bumped the CPU clock to 1.4 GHz base from 1.3 GHz. This is probably due to a bin improvement on the chips themselves, which means faster chips at the same or lower power with almost no changes at all.

Macbook Air Productivity

Apple has still opted for 11″ and 13″ models, but has dropped their prices down to $899 and $999 respectively, making them MUCH more competitive with some of their competitors’ solutions like Lenovo’s 13″ Yoga 2 Pro, which delivers a retina display and similar specs for a mere $1200, which was a solid $100 less than the original Macbook Air 13″ price. This is probably the biggest deal of the new Macbook Air release, because they still have the same fairly low-res displays and two USB 3.0 ports accompanied by a Thunderbolt port.

Macbook Air Apps

This explains why Apple hasn’t really announced it or anything, they just did it. Because, frankly, its really pretty much the same laptop, just cheaper. Yeah, it’ll probably hurt the resale value that Apple’s Macbooks and other products are famous for, but in this case, this is a good move on Apple’s part to give consumers more while charging less for it. Something they don’t usually do, so its nice to see them doing it. Plus, it will help Intel offload more chips since there’s no doubt more people will be looking at a Macbook Air with these newer prices and with a student discount the 11″ and 13″ look a lot more attractive than some PC laptops from Apple competitors that cost about the same.

There will likely be a Broadwell version of the Macbook air early in 2015, so expect that to be the real ‘overhaul’ of the Macbook Air, as opposed to this version, which is merely more affordable and configurable.

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