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Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

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Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#171

Post by massysett »

uniqueuid wrote: post #24

I may be an outlier, but for me, the problem with non-mac machines is that they seem just careless. Steve jobs famously said "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste.", and this seems true to me for almost all hardware manufacturers, and to a larger degree still for software. Why does nobody care about creaking plastic? About sticky-feeling texture? About uneven weight distribution? About the sound…

Add “my Windows has ads for crapware even though I paid full price for it and bought direct from Microsoft” to the list.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#172

Post by IE6 »

postalrat wrote: post #53

I dream of a device that's basically a laptop without a screen, keyboard, trackpad, etc. Just plug it into a usb-c hub it restores everything from where I left off last time. Then once I'm done put it in my pocket and go. Then if I do want a laptop I could buy a chassis with a battery, keyboard, trackpad, screen, etc, etc to dock my device above in to. Edit: Seriously considering taking the motherboard out of a steam…

It doesn't exactly exist in market as a product yet but the Intel NUC Laptop Element may promise to do this. From the marketing material I have seen it's basically like a cartridge that presumably you can slide into any kind of chassis. On the go it could be a 15" or 17" laptop chassis being sold along side with a Desktop chassis for at home.

I'm also considering the same albeit a bit different - a standard NUC or even a Chromebox that I bring to work and use at home - all over USBc. And for in-person meetings where I need a device I have a thin and light Chromebook in my bag.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#173

Post by can16358p »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #88
uniqueuid wrote: post #24

I may be an outlier, but for me, the problem with non-mac machines is that they seem just careless. Steve jobs famously said "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste.", and this seems true to me for almost all hardware manufacturers, and to a larger degree still for software. Why does nobody care about creaking plastic? About sticky-feeling texture? About uneven weight distribution? About the sound…

> Why does nobody care about creaking plastic? About sticky-feeling texture? About uneven weight distribution? About the sound that materials make when handling them? Because the value of a laptop is the parts inside, not the presentation. Why would I care about those things? Or at least why would I care about them enough to make me spend more than I have to?

Well, because you'd be potentially looking at it and using it for hours almost every day for years as a professional?

For me something I spend my time that much should look nice. That combined with the parts inside is perfection, which is the M1 MBP for me.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#174

Post by tmnstr85 »

i've got a refurbed evoo with a Ryzen 5, it cost 225$ from walmart, it'll run anything, linux, win11 - you name it. I use every port on the laptop when i'm at my desk, its super lightweight and the battery life is admirable. my point here is that its all about the users preference, if you want something totally plug and play, you're going to have to pay for it and then you will still probably have issues. i've got an old gaming rig that i've transformed into a proxmox host, between the laptop and being able to connect to any of the VMs, I find that I have everything i need to stay productive, keep my data safe and not be limited by hardware or cloud costs.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#175

Post by zitterbewegung »

civilized wrote: post #150
zitterbewegung wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's taste and the ways they do things makes you love / hate your experience and your judgement of whether you should buy their product. The company is position as "we know what's best for you" and you can see this along their product line. General PC makers have a carefree attitude where here is what you want and they will give you the specs and it works however you want. Which means sometimes you will have to de…

> General PC makers have a carefree attitude where here is what you want and they will give you the specs and it works however you want. Which means sometimes you will have to deal with managing your own experience. You can't get whatever you want though. You can't get a machine with remotely the look and feel of a MBP. You have lots and lots of mediocre choices and no really good ones.

By whatever you want I meant is whatever you choose (like a cellular modem and touchscreen laptop) but I agree with you the look and feel is driven by Apple because they want to preserve margins by having a sense of taste that allows them to still have the Apple tax.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#176

Post by goosedragons »

uniqueuid wrote: post #24

I may be an outlier, but for me, the problem with non-mac machines is that they seem just careless. Steve jobs famously said "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste.", and this seems true to me for almost all hardware manufacturers, and to a larger degree still for software. Why does nobody care about creaking plastic? About sticky-feeling texture? About uneven weight distribution? About the sound…

You can buy metal PCs. There's loads of them. Microsoft themselves even make them. Pretty sure every big OEM has at least one laptop with a solid metal chassis at this point.

I prefer the plastic of my Thinkpad, it doesn't feel creaky, there's no "sticky-feeling texture". It doesn't boil on my lap the way metal MacBooks and PowerBooks have. It feels solid while also not denting from knocking it into a doorway by accident or worse yet deforming itself from it's own heat.

You can buy quality PCs. You just gotta pay more.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#177

Post by can16358p »

xnx wrote: post #55
uniqueuid wrote: post #24

I may be an outlier, but for me, the problem with non-mac machines is that they seem just careless. Steve jobs famously said "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste.", and this seems true to me for almost all hardware manufacturers, and to a larger degree still for software. Why does nobody care about creaking plastic? About sticky-feeling texture? About uneven weight distribution? About the sound…

Or materials that look grimy/grubby from use and wear (e.g. Thinkpad touchpads). My go-to has been to run Windows (best OS) on Mac laptops (best hardware), but with M1, it looks like this will no longer be an option. Hoping for some magic cross-architecture emulation.

With ARM adoption it might again be an option. I'm using Windows ARM in Parallels on M1 Mac and use Visual Studio perfectly.

Microsoft says "it might not work" yet it works flawlessly. YMMV though.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#178

Post by bluefirebrand »

can16358p wrote: post #173
bluefirebrand wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does nobody care about creaking plastic? About sticky-feeling texture? About uneven weight distribution? About the sound that materials make when handling them? Because the value of a laptop is the parts inside, not the presentation. Why would I care about those things? Or at least why would I care about them enough to make me spend more than I have to?

Well, because you'd be potentially looking at it and using it for hours almost every day for years as a professional? For me something I spend my time that much should look nice. That combined with the parts inside is perfection, which is the M1 MBP for me.

How much are you actually looking at a laptop's aesthetics versus looking at the information displayed on a screen though?

Does it really matter to you to have something pretty sitting on your desk while you work? That seems really weird to me. Personally I couldn't care less. Especially in the context of a professional work laptop which is a machine that goes onto the corner of my desk and I plug a bunch of other things into and basically ignore forever past that point.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#179

Post by imhoguy »

throwaway675309 wrote: post #79
TheChaplain wrote: post #40

I'd say just unlucky. My Thinkpad Carbon X1 is rock solid, no issues the last 1.5 years even though my large cat frequently sleeps on it.

I want to like the carbon but the lack of AMD options and a hard cap of 16 GB of RAM keep me away.

You may check X13 AMD Gen 2 which has 32GB soldered RAM option. Although I am not sure how much it differs from X1 Carbon. Anyway I prefer a bit more screen real estate so went with T14 which is still very portable too and gets up to 48GB RAM. What I miss is lack of TB4/USB4 support to plug in eGPU. Some rumors say AMD Ryzen 6000 line should have it.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#180

Post by muzani »

uniqueuid wrote: post #24

I may be an outlier, but for me, the problem with non-mac machines is that they seem just careless. Steve jobs famously said "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste.", and this seems true to me for almost all hardware manufacturers, and to a larger degree still for software. Why does nobody care about creaking plastic? About sticky-feeling texture? About uneven weight distribution? About the sound…

Apple has the same problem. In college, we'd bring our own mice to the computer labs because it was better than the buttonless Apple mice they had there. Even today, the input devices have been IMO Apple's weak spot and the main reason I stayed away from MacBooks.

I had a MBP, 2019 I believe. It was riddled with problems. True Tone color was wrong. Flickering on the display. The weird internet connectivity which often required some hacky restart. The touch bar was a terrible idea; this was a time when other laptops had high quality touch screens that were actually useful. The touch bar was a half-hearted implementation with a fraction of the benefits of a touch screen, but taking up a whole row on the keyboard.

But then they make the best processors and have the most power in a compact space, so as OP said, there's really no other option. I gave it another chance and they've fixed all the problems from the 2019 model.

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