Time to replace my Probook 4540s

[thecrusher]

I've had a hackintosh 4540s for several years now, through three OS upgrades, and it's served me well. But the battery is giving me problems, and it's starting to seem slow with what I'm doing with it. I also wouldn't mind having a bit higher resolution, though with my old eyes I don't need retina.

I'm considering going back to Apple, because it's not clear that there's really a laptop that's competitive with the Macbook Pro. So that's my question. I like hackintoshing. I can handle the work. In the past I've gotten more powerful machines for much less money. So:

Is there a laptop that's a lot cheaper than a macbook pro, with comparable performance (or at least, much faster than my Probook 4540s), 16GB memory, 15 inch or so, good resolution but not retina, no extra GPU, just built-in intel HD graphics, that is hackintoshable to good compatibility?

(Note that I've considred simply upgrading components on my 4540s, but the screen doesn't get better, and there are reports of slowdowns when it is boosted to 16GB ram.)

 

[thecrusher]

Here's one example I've found that looks really intriguing. The Lenovo Legion Y740S, which has a display that is not retina (although there is a 4K option), and has no discrete graphics added. 16GB and for CPU I've seen both 9750H and 9880H listed. (These benchmark at 2-3 times faster than the 3632QM CPU in my current laptop.)

Looks like a beefy powerful lightweight laptop that doesn't waste a screen on me that my eyes can't see, and doesn't waste a GPU on me that I don't want and will just add weight and battery usage. The Legion Y520/Y720 has a very active hackintosh support thread, and I would hope this new system will be similar. The wifi card looks easy to replace (assuming this new model is similar to the Y720).

The only downside I see so far is that it isn't out yet.

Reviews:

Lenovo Legion Y740S hands-on review

You'll need to buy an eGPU for true gaming

www.laptopmag.com

 

[thecrusher]

And it has USB-C with TB3. This thing is screaming "make me a hackintosh".

 

[Feartech]

And it has USB-C with TB3. This thing is screaming "make me a hackintosh".

you may want to check the wifi card to see if it is soldered, or if it has a whitelist as you may need to want to swap it out if you need a compatible one. that may be an issue or not? you could use a usb wifi but the software that comes with those are not so great

also you will want to check if you can change DVMT to around 64mb for higher resolutions screen

 

[SerjEpatoff]

4540s is the epic monster. Eight OSX/macOS versions in a row, from ML to Catalina! But yes, it is a bit weak as for today. Mostly because of no M.2 and 16GB max RAM. CPU is still rather good.

I also want newer hackbook and choose between Dell Precision 7000 series (7510, 7710, 7520, 7720, 7530, 7730), Dell Inspiron 7577, and Alienware (R3, R4). Though the latter will be too large according to your criteria.

 

[SerjEpatoff]

Actually I'm swinging between new macos-compatible laptop and NUC8i7HVM barebone micro-pc that can also run macOS near-perfectly. The latter is easily portable between display-eqipped places and at the same time has more horsepower than new Mac Mini (not to mention laptops), also has upgradable SSD and RAM and can drive stunning 6x 4K displays. And all macos-compatible laptops today, macbooks included, have some flaws that are critical for me

 

[thecrusher]

Just wanted to note that this laptop, now designated as Y740si, is on sale in UK, Switzerland, Singapore, and perhaps other places, though I don't see it on the U.S. site yet. The sites where it's sold say shipping is more than six weeks out so basically they're pre-ordering them.

It is currently only being sold with the i7-10875 CPU, and not the promised 10880 or 10980 CPUs that early specs said it might have. And unfortunately, they don't seem to be offering a 32G memory version.

It still looks like it could potentially be a very fast lightweight hackintosh, and you'd probably get four or five years out of it both in terms of useful hardware and macOS support. But I won't be biting the bullet until actual hardware is available, and I may wait until someone else has had a whack at one of these.