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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

#191

Post by ciwolsey »

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.

Listen to this person, they're a professional

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

#192

Post by adhesive_wombat »

Definitely not as much of a fan of the T580 as much as I was of the T440s it replaced (still going, I only changed so I could give the T440s to someone else to replace their consumer ultrabook that predictably shat the bed and wasn't fixable).

The T580 is much more plasticky, and it's also the last one since they ditched the 2.5 inch bay, and they still don't give you two drive slots (unless you get the 15p) except for sourcing one of about 2 models of SSD that fit the WLAN slot, which is getting harder and harder. And the suspend battery life is maybe 20% of what it used to be, but I could probably fix that if I wanted to.

Anyway, it doesn't quite feel as amazing to me as the T440s was, and I know some people hate the '40 machines.

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

#193

Post by mindcrime »

rmbyrro wrote: post #44
mindcrime wrote: post #14

My recently (ish) purchased System76 box "just worked" right out of the gate. More so than even I expected, as I had thought I would probably replace their PopOS distro with something else. But I gave it a whirl, found that it works just fine, and stuck with it.

I'm considering System76 as well. Mind sharing your experience with "bloatness"? I switched from Ubuntu to Arch some years ago because it was getting too bloated for my taste. How is PopOS on this regard?

I'm afraid I don't know exactly how to quantify that. I also don't have much to compare to, as the only other distro I've used on a regular basis the last few years was Fedora. I've never used Arch, for example.

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

#194

Post by watmough »

varunprasad wrote: post #155
clint wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an equally useless anecdote, I've probably owned ~10 mac laptops in my life and I've never had an issue. I literally have never used a laptop sleeve or anything I just throw it in a bag and go. Literally one of the most indestructible things I've ever owned.

You're extremely lucky. Or maybe you change your laptops before Apple acknowledges the very real problems they have. So many of their laptops have had issues necessitating recalls, but because they were able to delay those recalls until 5+ years after those devices were released (even if complaints started way earlier), they get away with it. I've already had 2 Apple laptops where I took in a 4-5 year old device, and…

The Core 2 Duo 17" MacBookPro is the most expensive and worst machine I ever owned.

The 13" MBP M1 has been the best, apart from the wretched touchbar.

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

#195

Post by dTal »

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…

You could get a GPD Micro PC. It does have a screen, keyboard and trackpad, but it's probably about as small as the device you were envisioning anyway (certainly smaller than a Steam Deck), and in any case I suspect it's a lot more practical to have some sort of built-in interface to such a thing, even if it's compromised. You could easily remove the screen and/or extract the motherboard, but you'd have a much less useful device for only a small win in portability. It must also be said that it's a deeply fun device.

A USB-C laptop shell that was nothing but a nice screen, a good keyboard+trackpad, and a generous battery would indeed be an interesting product, and a fantastic companion to either a GPD Micro PC or a powerful smartphone. (edit: someone posted about the "NexDock" products which appear to be exactly this. Hooray!)

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

#196

Post by throwaway675309 »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #167
Saphyel wrote: post #134

I'm a Dell XPS 13 user here (with Linux) and I'm very happy I actually bought it twice (2014 and 2021). 0 problems, the laptop is always cold, no noise, everything works fine. At work I had several MBP in the meantime. All of them with several problems. Docker extremely slow, Bluetooth not working, ports not working, noise like a nuclear reactor, extremely hot like you can actually make a pizza on top also the OS is…

I had the reverse problem. Had several Dell XPS's both of the 13" and 15" variety. All had issues the made them unusable. Meanwhiles the Mac's I've had have never had a SINGLE issue.

Dells QC has gone down for nearly a decade, I bought one of the new XPS last year, fantastic screen but it had throttling issues and SSD corruptions within two weeks of using it on Windows 11.

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

#197

Post by jesuslop »

tobinfekkes wrote: post #109

I'm shocked the LG Gram doesn't get more attention. It's a dream come true laptop for a non-Apple developer. It took me months to actually find it after needing to replace my Vaio, but going 2 years strong with no issues whatsoever. It has it all. Lightweight, great battery life, big screen, full backlit keyboard, numpad, latest processors, USB-C charging and display, the only PC trackpad that beats the Mac. And with…

Absolutely shocking. With that weight of about a Kg you can actually have it on your lap long times (I'm now lying on bed writing), but the screen is big (17''), and undoes something the 16:9 aspect ratio mania (it's 16:10). And advertises as having passed some military-sounding duress tests (mine has fallen one or two times without consequences). Only con is later models have a physical num-pad, so keyboard G-H middle point is deviated from trackpad center.

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

#198

Post by thrill »

sedatk wrote: post #30
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? About flickering in software? About inconsistent spacing? About janky color combinations? I think Microsoft's Surface lineup has been making good strides on that front, but they still have a long way to go.

I was in love with my Surface, even after they took a month to repair it for warranty, but come on, having it die the day after the warranty expired, with no consideration for a replacement, has made that a one-and-done consideration. I sure did like fanless computing though.

As a lifelong non-Mac guy (mostly unix, and then linux, since the days AT&T were sharing their code around college campuses), I'm about to go to the dark side and embrace the fruit simply because I think the whole deal will be better.

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

#199

Post by smeej »

heavyset_go wrote: post #82
smeej wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine still won't even wake from sleep, and will freeze all inputs if it sits even slightly unevenly. The Framework is a beta product, at best. If you know that and are up for the challenge, go for it, but if you want something you're not going to have to fiddle with every time you want to do anything on it, pick something else.

What distro and kernel version are you using?

Ubuntu 21.04 (21.10 was reportedly full of even more bugs, so I'm anxiously awaiting 22.04 this week), 5.11 kernel.

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

#200

Post by shodan757 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #82
smeej wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine still won't even wake from sleep, and will freeze all inputs if it sits even slightly unevenly. The Framework is a beta product, at best. If you know that and are up for the challenge, go for it, but if you want something you're not going to have to fiddle with every time you want to do anything on it, pick something else.

What distro and kernel version are you using?

This, 100%. Running opensuse 15.3 but with a bleeding edge kernerl (via repo) to fix sleep and other issues. Works almost perfectly.
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