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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

#311

Post by mattnewton »

28304283409234 wrote: post #42

I'm on my 3rd(!) company supplied macbook in almost 2 years. Macbook Pro, 16'', 32GB. First Macbook: screen broke in the middle. Second Macbook: screen broke and MacOS is complaining that there's something wrong with the SSD. Third macbook I just received and can't tell what will break. But break it will. I only move them around the house, never on the road. When I move them, I place them in a Thule Gauntlet. I reall…

I have a personal 2013 MacBook that has been left running in a box in the desert for a week straight and filled with dust, had sesame oil poured into the fans, dropped, hit, scratched and heavily dented, but still works beautifully. Then the butterfly keyboard ones were issued at work and it immediately become unusable because of dust, randomly double hitting e or the spacebar or failing to register hits to some keys. YMMV, 1 apple computer sadly != another apple computer anymore

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

#312

Post by akvadrako »

eu wrote: post #215
akvadrako wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Framework doesn't even support Linux and they only have one model, which is not enough to meet everyones needs.

Yes, they do. https://community.frame.work/c/framework-laptop/linux/91

That isn't official support. If there is, for example, a driver bug that prevents your audio from working it isn't cause for a warranty claim.

While with Windows it would be.

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

#313

Post by conk »

goosedragons wrote: post #176
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 acci…

Funny I wish my M1 MBP ran hotter. It’s uncomfortably cold in the mornings.

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

#314

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Meph504 wrote: post #305

I think it is the factors in the world today that has drastically reduced quality of all system, including macs, I'll grand to a far less degree, but I use to be able to buy apple hardware and I just didn't worry about returns or manufacturing faults. But in the last 3 years, we've seen endless failings, across all brands, Dells and their shit batteries and docks, Lenovo and their cheap build quality, faulty keyboard…

The Wintel alliance is to blame for the bad state of laptops.

First, Windows shit the bed with Windows 8 and the material design and tiles and two desktops. It still ... REALLY ... sucks. And they didn't care, why would they? The money STILL came in.

Secondly, Intel sat on its laurels, and even worse, accepted a supplicative role to Microsoft in the Wintel "alliace". Intel absolutely should have pushed Linux on the desktop with some of their spare billions, if only to keep Microsoft honest, and to push hardware vendors. Even if it was under the guise of keeping compatibility high, or due diligence.

Linux has, for at least two decades, been the opportunity to showcase hardware features in Intel without waiting for Microsoft to scratch its butt and crap out another service pack about two years after the hardware feature was available. But Intel never got it.

It's not surprising they don't understand software, because from what I can tell of their management, they don't even understand hardware.

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

#315

Post by rhn_mk1 »

postalrat wrote: post #114
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the Librem 5 would fit your bill. Or some single-board computer with USB-C.

The librem might work but what can I install on it besides their OS? It also has very limited ram/etc. I've been looking for a single board computer with usb-c that's still a reasonable good desktop and haven't found anything. The only contender right now is the motherboard from a steam deck but im not sure that can be taken out and work on it's own.

I think Mobian is available there. Once it gets towboot support, it'll be able to run way more UEFI OS.

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

#317

Post by gtvwill »

Rocking a Asus vivobook flip tm420. Ryzen 5700u, nvme storage, 16gb memory. Enough grunt to run a VM win11 ontop of base win11 install. Cost me 1300 bucks, battery lasts 6-8 hours running VM and main os both with your average admin workloads (browsers with 50x tabs and a few office apps).

It also has a 360 hinge so it can become a tablet. Love it. Great for work, any workloads that are heavier and I'm on a desktop. Only downer is no usb-c charging but eh that's barely the end of the world. Rig gets treated rough like the tool it is. Cops a thrashing. People overthink laptops imo.

I advise my clients against any major vendor lock in or bs high priced gear. Also having worked fixing Dells and lenovos under big corp contracts I advise against those too. Their support/diag is terrible. The money you save not buying their overpriced bs you can use for a few hot spares and still have coin leftover to spend on your local IT guy.

Deadset go do it on a desktop if you need more grunt than 1500 bucks can buy you. If your doing long haul sessions of work 8+ hours go use a desktop with a real keyboard and mouse too your ergo w/ a laptop is probably terrible. I'm not a fan of having laptops used as desktops, short runs sure but if your leaving it plugged in at a desk 8 hours a day get a desktop. Less ruined batteries, less headaches for me as your IT lol.

Tldr dell are AVG, Lenovo are AVG, apple are also AVG. Buy something cheap that gets the job done you'll replace it in 36 months anyways.

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

#318

Post by kaba0 »

wildrhythms wrote: post #224
dbevv wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike using touchpads very much. I go to great lengths to control everything with the keyboard, and fall back to a traditional mouse when I have to (I tried trackballs but I couldn't adapt). Whenever I'm forced to use a touchpad because I'm on the go or I don't have room to bring a mouse with me, I groan. That said, the implementation of the touchpad in a Macbook vs a regular touchpad in even a high end laptop is…

I'm the same way and I'm mortified whenever I have the displeasure to use some PC or Chromebook laptop trackpad. PC manufacturers today still can't figure out how to make a trackpad as good as what Apple had 20 years ago.

Though part of it is thanks to apple themselves, for having a patent on that. Fortunately some company did find another way to reproduce this click feel through haptics and it will hopefully appear soon in other manufacturers’ laptops.

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

#320

Post by kaba0 »

NoPicklez wrote: post #241
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…

For me the only Windows based laptops which do care about detail are the Lenovo ThinkPads. These machines are simple, built well and in my 5+ year experience with all day use they're rock solid. However for my personal use I use a Macbook.

Unfortunately newer thinkpads are prone to goddamn cpu throttles, though that is in part due to intel. Nonetheless, at work I had to replace a brand new thinkpad t14 because other than manually tweaking the CPU frequency (which is not allowed by company policy but I did anyway, otherwise I may have thrown the laptop out the window which is even less in line with company policy) it throttled like crazy at random times. I even have this problem on my thinkpad t480, though it is not as bad there. The T14 throttles down to goddamn 4-600 mhz, where it is practically unusable.

But I agree, for family members I always try to find a used <T480 laptop in good conditions, because these are faster than similarly priced low-end laptops (seriously, what they offer at the low-end is just criminal, they want to take advantage of the technically illiterate), and basically everything can be changed inside.

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