list of the top personal computers on the market by performance

We’re glad to present our first PC purchasing guide for small businesses, focusing on Windows laptops.

How is this report different from any typical PC comparison list?This report is based on Soluto’s big-data frustration analytics. It is unique because it is based on long term, ongoing analysis of a huge number of PCs, taking into account events such as application crashes, application hangs, blue-screens-of-death, long boot times and excessive number of background processes.

Review sites and other top-PC lists are usually based on a combination of hands-on review for a few days and/or benchmarking software that stresses the PC to its limits. In this report, on the other hand, we bring you real data about ongoing PC performance “in the field” - used by real people under real conditions.

For example, the sample for constructing this report included 224,144 crashes and 84,251 blue-screens over a course of 3 months (this sample is a small subset of the Soluto data set, see our full methodology below).

How can I get these reports?This report and future ones will be served to our Business Pro subscribers on a monthly basis, each time with a slightly different focus. Since this is the first of our reports, we decided to make it special and share it with the public as well.

Thank you for being a Business Pro. Future monthly reports will include more and more valuable data, such as comparisons within price groups or performance groups, operating systems, etc.

Our reports inventory is accessible at http://www.soluto.com/reports.Enjoy, and we’re always happy to hear ideas and suggestions at [email protected] Soluto Team

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1,346,000 boots224,144 crashes

250,791 hangs

84,251 BSoDs

62,476 hours spent on boot

The sample used for this report contains:

Soluto’s PC Purchasing Guide for Small Businesses Monthly Report, April 2013

See below our full methodology

© 2013 Soluto

The MacBook Pro is the most expensive PC on our list, but if you’re looking for top reliability - the data is clear. MacBook Pro is the best Windows PC on the market.

A main factor in this machine’s metrics is the fact that every Windows installation on it is clean. With PC manufacturers loading so much crapware on new laptops, this is a bit of an unfair competition. 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. One could argue that we should not compare a cleanly installed MacBook Pro with an OEM-imaged PC from Acer or Dell. There’s sense behind this claim, and one of our next reports will include a separate comparison of only cleanly-installed machines. But – for this first report we simply compared the real PCs in the field, some with original images and some reinstalled by their users. We believe it’s more representative of reality.

There are definite disadvantages to using Windows on Mac. First – there’s more work to do (buy windows, set-up BootCamp, install Windows, etc). Also, the keyboard is not optimized for Windows (e.g. no Del key), and there may be driver issues. But on the other hand, the Mac has an amazing trackpad unparalleled by any PC, and has a very solid build.

And some people think Mac users look smarter. So if you’ve ever looked for an excuse to buy a MacBook – now you have it.

RAM

CPU

kg

13.3”

4GB-8GB

7hrs

i5/i7

500GB-750GB

4.5lb / 2.06kg

MacBook Pro 13, mid-2012

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1Soluto Score 1.05

Starting at $1,399

Crashes/wk

0.88Hangs/wk

1.06BSoDs/wk

0.01

Averageboot time151s

Avg. background processes60

© 2013 Soluto

Our data has long shown that Acer machines are very stable and well-performing, but to find the E1-571 so high on the list was surprising even for us. The reason is that Acer’s E series are consid-ered more entry level vs other series, like the V series (which you can find in the 6th place).

You could buy 3 of those for the price of one MacBook Pro 13”3, so this is a superb option for budget-minded businesses who like big laptops (15”6).

To clarify, price was not taken into account when calculating the score (see full methodology details below), this machine is in the 2nd place purely because of its performance and stability.

RAM

CPU

kg

15.6”

4GB-6GB

4.5hrs

i3/i5

500GB-750GB

5.5lb / 2.5kg

Acer Aspire E1-571

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2Soluto Score 1.12

Starting at $429

Crashes/wk

0.74Hangs/wk

0.4BSoDs/wk

0.06



© 2013 Soluto

The Dell XPS 13 is a high-end PC laptop with superb performance. It’s the smallest, lightest and has the longest battery life of the top-3.

If you put some effort into it, you could also find a Windows-7 based model for ~$740, and on the other hand the XPS 13 reaches $1499 for its highest-end model (i7, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD).

One point to mention about the Dell XPS 13 is that it has almost no bezel, using the entire upper shell area for the screen. This makes it the size of your average 12” laptop, which is really cool. Unless you have huge fingers, that is.

The Dell XPS 13 is a noble specimen among PCs, we at Soluto really love it. But it’s definitely a premium model when compared to the excellent budget Acer Aspire E1-571.

To return to the OEM vs non-OEM debate for a second, 32% of Soluto users reimaged their XPS 13 to a clean installation of Windows.

RAM

CPU

kg

13.3”

4GB-8GB

9hrs

i5/i7

128GB-256GB (SSD)

2.99lb / 1.36kg

Dell XPS 13

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3Soluto Score 1.28

Starting at $979

Crashes/wk

1.46Hangs/wk

1.38BSoDs/wk

0.03

Averageboot time67s


© 2013 Soluto

Dell Vostro 3560

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4Soluto Score 2.09

Starting at $569

Crashes/wk

1.34Hangs/wk

1.23BSoDs/wk

0.04



RAM

CPU

kg

15”

4GB-6GB

7hrs

i3/i5/i7

500GB

5.75lb / 2.6kg

Acer Aspire V3-771

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5Soluto Score 2.44

Starting at $699

Crashes/wk

1.07Hangs/wk

0.59BSoDs/wk

0.10



RAM

CPU

kg

17.3”

6GB-12GB

3.5hrs

i5/i7

750GB-1TB

7.5lb / 3.4kg

© 2013 Soluto

MacBook Pro 15” Retina

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6Soluto Score 2.51

Starting at $2,199

Crashes/wk

2.05Hangs/wk

0.78BSoDs/wk

0.20

Averageboot time57s


RAM

CPU

kg

15”

8GB-16GB

7hrs

i7

256GB-512GB (SSD)

4.46lb / 2kg

Dell Inspiron 14z

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7Soluto Score 2.54

Starting at $549

Crashes/wk

1.17Hangs/wk

1.04BSoDs/wk

0.04



RAM

CPU

kg

14”

4GB-8GB

5hrs

i3/i5/i7

500GB

4.12lb / 1.87kg

© 2013 Soluto

Dell Latitude E5530

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8Soluto Score 2.90

Starting at $519

Crashes/wk

1.22Hangs/wk

1.33BSoDs/wk

0.02



RAM

CPU

kg

15.6”

2GB-4GB

N/A

i3/i5/i7

320GB-500GB

5.25lb / 2.38kg

Dell Vostro 3460

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9Soluto Score 2.95

Starting at $539

Crashes/wk

1.05Hangs/wk

1.53BSoDs/wk

0.05



RAM

CPU

kg

14”

4GB-6GB

7hrs

i3/i5/i7

500GB

4.92lb / 2.19kg

© 2013 Soluto

Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon

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10Soluto Score 3.20

Starting at $1,169

Crashes/wk

1.69Hangs/wk

1.38BSoDs/wk

0.09



RAM

CPU

kg

14”

4GB-8GB

8.2hrs

i5/i7

128GB-180GB (SSD)

2.99lbs / 1.36kg

© 2013 Soluto

Background and MethodologyOur servers hold data from millions of machines. We chose a sample of 150,000 laptops and analyzed their data between January 1st, 2013 and April 1st, 2013, and analyzed application crashes, application hangs, blue-screens-of-death, boot time and number of background processes to try and come up with a comparison that represents the real user experience when using a PC.

We will share lots of details about our methodology here. Some of the scoring decisions we’ve taken are obviously open for debate, we tried to elaborate on it so people can change the scoring algorithms and reach their own conclusions.

Building the Sample Our servers hold frustration data from millions of PCs, but you need much less to reach statistically significant results. We started by choosing 150k PCs that 1) are of a laptop form-factor, including ultrabooks and netbooks; and 2) their OS was installed in the past 12 months (because we wanted to focus on laptops available for purchase on the market today).

We then removed every PC model that is either 1) not offered anymore for purchase or; 2) exists in insignificant amounts within our user base.

One could naturally argue that our user base doesn’t perfectly represent the world, but regardless of the level of overlap with real-world, the data is there and is interesting to look at.

We were left with 37k laptops, spanning 49 models (“relevant models”). Vendors represented are (in descending order of how many models they have represented): HP, Lenovo, Dell, Samsung, Asus, Acer, Toshiba and Apple.

The DataWe took all the frustrating events these PCs experienced between January 1st, 2013 and April 1st, 2013. The data included 224,144 crashes, 250,791 non-responsive events and 84,251 BSoDs. Non-responsive events mean cases where an application becomes non-responsive for over 5 seconds.

© 2013 Soluto

Parameter Average Min Max Application crashes per week 1.85 0.74 3.24 Non-responsive events* per week 1.18 0.4 2.16 BSoDs per week 0.08 0.01 0.2 Background running processes 78 60 94 Boot time 167s 57s 251s

ScoringWe looked at 5 parameters, here are their average, min and max among the relevant models:

We gave parameters the following weights:

For example, let’s take Dell XPS 13 and run the calculation:

Alternative ScoringThere is no right or wrong way to measure crashes against boot time. We took a weighing decision that made sense us. Each model in the top has all those values mentioned: we invite you to play with the numbers yourselves and reach alternative decisions.

Crashes per week Taken as is: one crash per week equals 1 point. Non-responsive events per week Taken as is: one non-responsive event per week equals 1 point BSoDs per week Multiplied by 10. So 1 BSoD per week is like 10 crashes per week Background running processes The average of background processes is 78. The points’ contribution of a model with X running

processes was calculated as: (X-78)/25. This means that from a frustration perspective, we defined 25 more running processes as equal to another crash every week, and 25 less running processes as one less crash every week (a model with few background processes gets a positive bonus).

Boot time The average boot time is 167s. The points’ contribution of a model with boot time X was calculated as follows: (X-167)/60, based on the same rationale described in the background processes.

Parameter Value Calculation Points contribution Crashes/w 1.4626 = 1.4626 1.4626 Non-responsive/w 1.3791 = 1.3791 1.3791 BSoDs/w 0.03134 = 10*0.03134 0.31 Background processes 72.6595 = (72.6569-78)/25 -0.213 Boot time 67.0709 = (67.0709-167)/60 -1.6655

SUM: 1.276

© 2013 Soluto© 2013 Soluto

What is Soluto?Soluto is a PC management service that allows small business IT and IT service providers to manage all their PCs over the web.

Soluto lets IT pros see all of the PCs they manage in one place, remote access into PCs from any device, receive email alerts when things go wrong, remedy them with one click from any web browser - even when the PCs supported are shut down (magic!)

Soluto is designed for both the IT pro and the co-worker or customer receiving support - resulting in a service that makes people appreciate their IT managers and understand their work. In this sense, Soluto changes a paradigm in the market, shifting the design focus to a beautiful service for everyone, not just IT.

Soluto is proactive, meaning that Soluto notifies IT pros automatically when there’s a problem, rather than them having to constantly check the status of things. Soluto’s alerts are actionable, they carry action buttons inside them you can click wherever you receive them - on any PC, Mac or smartphone, saving tons of time and reducing frustrations.

Not using Soluto yet? Learn more and start free at www.soluto.com.

© 2013 Soluto

list of the top personal computers on the market by performance

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