Windows Machine advice from a Mac (soon to be ex) user

[#1]

Hi

I have been using a macbook for a good number of years as for a long time, macs have been faster, more efficient, more reliable etc. I love the fact that I can just open the lid and I am good to go.

However Apple are not the company they used to be, new updates are littered with issues, when new models come out my current machine suddenly slows down for a few months (strange that, same time every year and same with iphones, when a new phone comes out my current phone grinds to a halt for several months) and don't get me started on how they shepherd you through and force updates etc. If my phone downloads ios10 automatically one more time I'm on a place to California! Oh and a comparable macbook to the one I have now will cost almost £2k!

I have read that Windows 10 is a huge leap forwards for Microsoft and some of the machines don't look like the beasts they used to be.

So my question, can anyone recommend any good laptops, makes I should avoid, day to day are the MS Surface machines any good?

I need:

1. I want it to be ready to work when I am, if I turn it on, it needs to be ready to go instead of waiting 20 minutes for it to wake
2. Be able to handle photoshop smoothly (mostly I work with up to 30MB website design psd's), I rarely edit photos
3. I want a machine I can work on daily but also take to meetings, pitch projects, training sessions etc so needs to look the part
4. Be able to have a projector input (believe it or not, most offices I visit are still using vga projectors, as long as a connector is available I'm happy with hdmi)

Thanks for any advice you can give.

[#2]

the Dell XPS 13" or 15" laptops are very good.
for the work that you want to do, you will be paying a price for that.
so you can ignore 90% of the windows laptops out there.

you'll be spending £1k+ i would say.

personally though, i have a late-2011 macbook pro and i haven't suffered from the slowdowns you mention.
I've updated to every new version of OSX/MacOS and currently running Sierra.
i've only just recently upgraded the RAM from 4GB to 16GB and removed the 750GB HDD and replace with a 250GB SSD, and it's running perfectly (also with Windows 10 on Bootcamp).

[#3]

Dell XPS, Surface Book or maybe look at Lenovo X1 Carbon/Yoga

[#4]

Dell XPS hands down, brilliant machines

[#5]

I've got the (2015) Spectre x360 it's a very well rounded machine.

[#6]

Wow Dell really must have upped their game, thanks for the suggestions folks. Last time I was in the market for a pc Dell were nasty bricks that didn't perform very well.

Does it look the part, often at a pitch meeting I am selling myself as much as what I can do. I want to pull something out  that makes the potential customer think 'hey this guy is doing ok' rather than looking like I'm muddling through.

BTW, is the surface not really usable day to day, I just looked at the surface book and it just seems to be a surface with a hard keyboard

[#7]

http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Offer.aspx?p=c-spectre-x360

[#8]

Forced updates are also an issue with Windows 10.

Make sure your new PC has an SSD - much faster

A modern laptop PC will probably have an HDMI output and probably not a VGA output any more.  There is also Display Port.   

[#9]

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@ReedRichards wrote:

Make sure your new PC has an SSD - much faster 

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Or even better an SSD with an M.2 interface. I have some servers here with these disks, running Server 2012 R2 and they come up from cold and are ready to login in 3 seconds.

[#10]

HDMI <-> VGA converters are cheap.

[#11]

most modern laptops don't have an HDMI port.
they will have display port.

[#12]

Since when?

[#13]

since about 2 years ago?
most of the cheap and nasty laptops will have HDMI, but the higher spec laptops moved to display port a long time ago.

[#14]

Even the extra-expensive current laptops will have HDMI available.

[#15]

then they are using old technology
display port is the default port for connectivity now.

the example given in this thread of the Dell XPS has thunderbolt port (which is essentially higher spec display port), and that is a current model laptop.