Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

I bought a newer one and 2 keys have already popped off the new ultrathin keyboard. They didn't break, the C-clamps have just already worn out. This laptop is 5 months old. I type a lot. The keys now regularly come up with my fingers as I type.

I'm traveling so I can't fix it. And this has happened to most of my friends in some way. Or constantly having keys misfire because a molecule of dirt got in there.

A major letdown. I'm glad I didn't sell my old Macbook Air because I think I may have to use it shortly. My buddy already had to revert to his MBP 2015 for the same reason.

I know that I might be an outlier here, but I personally find using OS X to be a frustrating experience - the only positive I could personally see for developers vs windows was (was - past tense!) the unix command line (linux has historically always been a struggle (drivers etc), so I personally steer clear).

But now Win10 has a unix command line too so what is the point of getting a MBP? You pay excessive amounts for commodity hardware with a mac, then you're forced to use a horrible UI designed for your grandparents to use without getting confused. Yes, you can buy and install 100 extra apps to make the it more usable for serious users (BetterTouch, ShiftIt, uBar, iTerm etc etc), but then you're just throwing good money after bad. The UI is great if you're just watching netflix or reading your emails, but for anything serious where you're doing more than one thing at once I personally find it a really annoying experience. Current MBPs don't even turn on instantly like my previous 2 older MBPs did - it now takes a few seconds to wake up. The final nail in the coffin for macs for me is the awful, awful, awful keyboard on the new MBPs. I will concede though that the 2017 MBP is a nice physical item that feels solid and with good battery life though.

Personally I'd just get a cheap Win10 Pro (dont get Home edition - you cant run docker natively without Hyper-V which is only in Win 10 Pro IIRC - I think that without Hyper-V/Win10 Pro you have to run docker in a linux VM) no-name/rebadged-Clevo with the biggest CPU, RAM and M.2 SSD you can afford. They just work out of the box and will be half the price of an equivalently-speced mac. I use a i7/16GB/M.2 Win10 machine for personal stuff, then at work a 2017 MBP Pro and a absurdly over-speced linux desktop (many-cored xeons, 64gb ram etc) - they all feel about the same speed in day to day usage in intellij & vscode etc. Clevo laptops are nice since they are aimed at small-scale "builders" targeting gamers etc, so they are often high-spec and easy to open up and work on.

PS I've never had a laptop's hinge break on me, even the cheapest ones that I've dropped. If longevity is a concern, get a proper "thinkpad" branded one (but you'll pay a premium for this).

Good luck! The transition off of OSX will be painful (YMMV), but stick with it.

The Razer Blade is a pretty excellent machine. Its gaming focused, which surfaces a little bit in their design language, but all that really means is more beefy specs. The Stealth model in particular might be a great choice, or you can up-market. I've heard nothing but great things about it.

The Surface devices are also an expensive but excellent choice. They do suffer in that I don't believe any of them are shipped with 8th gen Intel chips or Thunderbolt yet, but once they get that updated they'll be worth looking into. They are very pricey though; its basically $2000 minimum for any model with 16gb of memory.

Really, if you want MacBook-like quality, you need to realize that there's a reason why they're so expensive, and you can't really cheat the price by looking at Windows. There are a few manufacturers that are getting the prices down, like Dell's XPS line, but they make sacrifices in build quality, touchpad quality, etc. If you're fine with that, then yeah you can save $500.