The laptop market has become incredibly dense and complex in recent years with additions like double hinges for a tablet experience and desktop graphics cards inside of portable machines.
When we asked you to choose your favourite laptops in the high end and budget categories, Dell won on both fronts.
High End Laptops
In this category the Dell Inspiron 5567 came out on top with 22,6% of the vote, just narrowly beating the Apple Mac Air 13” at 22,2% into second place.
We suspect that the Dell’s slightly cheaper price, increased flexibility thanks to Windows, and the strong Dell name are the main factors that allowed it win this category. Still, this very close race shows that Apple is still a strong contender in South Africa where it is seen as the king of luxury tech.
Dell claimed third place in this category too, with the Dell XPS 9360 winning 19,3% of the votes.
Budget Laptop Favourites
In the budget laptop category the Dell Inspiron 3552 won with a much larger part of the votes at 34,2%. Second place was claimed by the Lenovo IdeaPad 320S 23,1%.
The IdeaPad and ThinkPad names has such a legacy that a second place win is not too surprising, even with Dell’s dominance, but it still could not compete with the great price versus specs of the 3552.
Third place was interesting for two reasons: firstly it was a tie at exactly 12,7% of the votes, and it contained a transforming laptop.
The HP 250 G5 and ASUS Transformer Book T100HA share this spot with the ASUS offering not only a reasonably priced mobile experience, but the ability to dock the tablet portion into a keyboard, giving you the best of both worlds.
These varied winners paint an interesting picture of what South African want and need when it comes to mobile workstations, but Dell’s winnings and Apple one high rank are not too surprising.
Journalist’s choice – Lenovo Yoga 910
After using the Yoga 3 Pro for a few months I fell in love with its lightness and found mysefl using the transforming function, which I had always thought was a gimmick. Unfortunately the processor, a Core M variant, offered very little in terms of power, even if it did mean impressive battery life.
But, I’m keen to give the range another try, and the massive upgrade to an i7 is very welcome. It’s just too bad that it’s ridiculously expensive. Thankfully the market for these powerful ultralights have grown a lot over the years and there’s bound to be something out there that matches your wallet and desired specs, if you share the same desire for more performance and less weight.
