> that seemingly never wanes in performance while provide enduring support that make them last so much longer than their competitors
Dunno, I bought a top-of-the-line rMBP in late 2013, and the anti-glare coating has come off from the screen -- Apple didn't honor the warranty (this is Europe). I sold it because it was crap to use, then some months later Apple confirmed that it is a widespread problem and they will replace the screens for free. (Except in e.g. Hungary where the official dealers didn't give a crap, because the 1 year warranty was over.) Also it had problems with overheating and wifi.
On the other hand, I had a bulky, unsexy HP Zbook G2 that had a GPU problem after 2 years. HP guy came to my house with a new GPU, disassembled the laptop on my desk, put the new GPU in, run some diags and left. In 24 hrs. I sold this one and it is in service at one of my friends, rendering in 3DSMAX 12 hours a day.
ZBooks are good machines. We run HP Zbook 17s (have a G2, but about to get a G3). Battery life is horrible on the 17" model, but running lots of VMs and other demanding tasks is a breeze.
64GB DDR4 ECC, Quad core Xeon E3-1575M processor, NVIDIA Quadro M5000 (really overkill for my work, but fun to have), etc. It's a real professional machine. Just can't be touched by anything Apple makes.
Dunno, I bought a top-of-the-line rMBP in late 2013, and the anti-glare coating has come off from the screen -- Apple didn't honor the warranty (this is Europe). I sold it because it was crap to use, then some months later Apple confirmed that it is a widespread problem and they will replace the screens for free. (Except in e.g. Hungary where the official dealers didn't give a crap, because the 1 year warranty was over.) Also it had problems with overheating and wifi.
On the other hand, I had a bulky, unsexy HP Zbook G2 that had a GPU problem after 2 years. HP guy came to my house with a new GPU, disassembled the laptop on my desk, put the new GPU in, run some diags and left. In 24 hrs. I sold this one and it is in service at one of my friends, rendering in 3DSMAX 12 hours a day.
Anecdata, I know.