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Ask HN: Is There a MacBook Equivalent?

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Re: Ask HN: Is There a MacBook Equivalent?

#31

Post by nextos »

khurs wrote: post #24
mattl wrote: post #3

Anecdotal but I have all of my Apple laptops going back to the late 90s all still in working order. The only machines I can think of with a similar build quality was the IBM era ThinkPad range. I’ve never used a Dell laptop that didn’t have something off about it.

The non ibm era thinkpads are great too. Screens are mostly hd on most models and speakers are average but otherwise perfect.

I love ThinkPads, but some models have horribly intrusive fans, whereas others are great.

It's necessary to do a bit of research ahead of buying. The new x13 looks really promising.

Re: Ask HN: Is There a MacBook Equivalent?

#32

Post by csomar »

brudgers wrote: post #18

What is important for you? Web surfing and watching Netflix? They are all pretty much equivalent. Running Linux? I don’t think the M chips are well supported, and last I looked it appeared the M3 and 4 are not supported at all…though, I did not look at Arch. Equivalent in price, aesthetics, or brand identity? For Gaming? Programming? Training LLM’s? Editing Video? Battery Life?

Mostly compiling Rust. It is a quite battery draining process. Also the main reason I want to avoid a mac is to be able to run Linux. Battery life is not a deal breaker but it'll be really nice to take my laptop to places without a bulky charger and not having to worry about usage.

Re: Ask HN: Is There a MacBook Equivalent?

#33

Post by khurs »

quintes wrote: post #29

I have an m1 which is now old and not as awesome as I imagine a maxed out m4 would be. Things just work and I love it. Came from old rubbish laptops running windows and some I ran Ubuntu on. I can’t think I’d go back. I don’t do major dev so don’t need a k8s but it’s running some containers, php homebrew ollama so I’m stoked and will get another hopefully maxed out when I replace

Unless your MacBook m1 was speced with low amount of Ram, a m4 won’t offer much real world improvement on a like for like spec.

Nowadays having minimum 32gb and ideally 64gb is more important than the cpu

Re: Ask HN: Is There a MacBook Equivalent?

#34

Post by 1oooqooq »

khurs wrote: post #24
mattl wrote: post #3

Anecdotal but I have all of my Apple laptops going back to the late 90s all still in working order. The only machines I can think of with a similar build quality was the IBM era ThinkPad range. I’ve never used a Dell laptop that didn’t have something off about it.

The non ibm era thinkpads are great too. Screens are mostly hd on most models and speakers are average but otherwise perfect.

problem after ibm is they are garbage firmware. a few versions after Lenovo took over now you cannot upgrade parts because the bios/firmware have hardcore ids and will refuse non allow listed devices.

Re: Ask HN: Is There a MacBook Equivalent?

#35

Post by 1oooqooq »

mattl wrote: post #25
khurs wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The non ibm era thinkpads are great too. Screens are mostly hd on most models and speakers are average but otherwise perfect.

The keyboards are way worse now and they all have a trackpad now instead of just the traditional trackpoint that was common to the ThinkPad.

so true. the keyboard on Lenovo flagships are barely C tier. and the keyboards on things like E series makes me want to type on my phone instead!

Re: Ask HN: Is There a MacBook Equivalent?

#36

Post by jjice »

scoodah wrote: post #9

If I were buying a non Mac laptop today it’d likely be a Framework. Their laptops don’t feel as premium, imo, but the fact you can repair nearly every single thing on the laptop yourself makes up for a lot of it. I don’t think they’re very directly comparable to a MacBook, they’re two products with fairly different ideologies behind them. Other than that I’ve been largely unimpressed by non-Apple laptop offerings.

> Their laptops don’t feel as premium, imo

Agreed. I've been using a Framework 13 AMD since they came out (almost two years?) and it's an excellent machine, but some of the hardware just isn't as good. The display, trackpad, and build quality aren't as good.

That said, there's still not a single machine on the market that I'd rather use. I actually own and control my laptop hardware, and while I'd get better battery life on a MacBook, I like that this machine is _actually_ mine.

Re: Ask HN: Is There a MacBook Equivalent?

#38

Post by brudgers »

csomar wrote: post #32
brudgers wrote: post #18

What is important for you? Web surfing and watching Netflix? They are all pretty much equivalent. Running Linux? I don’t think the M chips are well supported, and last I looked it appeared the M3 and 4 are not supported at all…though, I did not look at Arch. Equivalent in price, aesthetics, or brand identity? For Gaming? Programming? Training LLM’s? Editing Video? Battery Life?

Mostly compiling Rust. It is a quite battery draining process. Also the main reason I want to avoid a mac is to be able to run Linux. Battery life is not a deal breaker but it'll be really nice to take my laptop to places without a bulky charger and not having to worry about usage.

Why not cloud resources to compile?

I am not saying it is what you want, but a few grand saved on a laptop could buy some compute. And a laptop that doesn’t need to compile Rust can be optimized for other ergonomics.

Workstation laptops never have great battery life and other than Thinkpads, laptop Linux tends to be a bit painful.

Re: Ask HN: Is There a MacBook Equivalent?

#40

Post by quintes »

khurs wrote: post #33
quintes wrote: post #29

I have an m1 which is now old and not as awesome as I imagine a maxed out m4 would be. Things just work and I love it. Came from old rubbish laptops running windows and some I ran Ubuntu on. I can’t think I’d go back. I don’t do major dev so don’t need a k8s but it’s running some containers, php homebrew ollama so I’m stoked and will get another hopefully maxed out when I replace

Unless your MacBook m1 was speced with low amount of Ram, a m4 won’t offer much real world improvement on a like for like spec. Nowadays having minimum 32gb and ideally 64gb is more important than the cpu

I did upgrade ram and disk, but only to 16gb. It’s an amazing little machine.
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