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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

#351

Post by greckles »

I've used a variety of Mac laptops, from the 1.25Ghz PowerBook G4, to a later model Intel based PowerBook. In each instance, I found the OS experience to be clunky, and equivalent programs that were available for Windows hard to find. The former point has probably since changed, as it seems everyone has a Mac laptop for work and study. I also found that the machines slowed down after a few years of usage, with no discernible reason. Hardware wise the laptops always felt well built.

Fast forward to 2015, the first gen Surface Book feels similar. The build quality surpassed the PowerBooks I was used to, Windows was pretty decent for getting things done. I've used it for 7 years now without any problems, although I know that when the battery comes to the end of its life, a replacement will be difficult to arrange. The whole thing feels proprietary which means I haven't bothered to install Linux on here, but I don't require it in daily life/work. The OS still feels fast, and it's easy to troubleshoot what could potentially slow it down with Windows.

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

#352

Post by Braini »

dbevv wrote: post #186
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…

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…

This so much, the Mac touchpad is almost perfect, still no other manufacturer can compete, its really night and day. With all other systems I immediately switch to a mouse if possible.

It was actually perfect in my 2015 MBP, now its a tad too bad and its hard to find good resting positions for the fingers and palms.

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

#353

Post by lewispollard »

smeej wrote: post #247
heavyset_go wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu is a bad choice for newer and esoteric hardware, a rolling release distro will have up-to-date kernels and userlands in comparison. As an example, Ubuntu had issues with my newer Zen hardware despite the hardware being on the market for quite some time. Switching to the newest kernel fixed my issues with stand-by and sleep, along with weird issues like random freezing.

I think in this thread it's worth pointing out that it doesn't work well with even a very common Linux distro. For someone who's considering a MacBook the primary viable alternative, I'm just trying to point out that it's a long way from a smooth experience on a refined product.

Sure, at the same time it's worth pointing out that anyone who wants to buy a laptop to run Linux on it full time should be using a Linux distro which provides up to date packages.

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

#354

Post by goosedragons »

MBCook wrote: post #279
alienthrowaway wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It'd cost way too much to redesign the product correctly. No such thing as a "correct" design: it's all about market positioning and design trade-offs. I'm typing this on a sub-$300 laptop, it's made of plastic, it bends and flexes, but it is very light, and has a 1980x1024 display, a 9-hour battery, and again - it bears repeating - cost less than $300 brand new. These factors may not be important to you, but they…

Those are totally fair trade-offs. The problem is that often they seem to continue to exist at or above the thousand dollar plus price point.

Because usually when they do that you get better performance per dollar. I had a $1000 gaming laptop in 2016. The CPU was the same as the $2400 2016 15" MacBook Pro, it had a faster GPU, came with same amount of faster RAM too. Did it flex? Yes of course. It's still trade-offs even above $1000.

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

#355

Post by brian-armstrong »

Why are people using laptops? It's a form factor that compromises functionality and performance for mobility. Not sure if you've noticed but there's been a global pandemic going on for the last 2 years and we don't need to lug computers around anymore. Build yourself a nice desktop and forget about laptops.

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

#357

Post by Tabular-Iceberg »

jrm4 wrote: post #212
uniqueuid wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All true, but why is the culture and aesthetic of computers inherently trashy? Look at all the fields where superior quality is a completely natural criterion (whether it exists may be another question): Watches, cars, pens, paper notebooks, furniture, fashion, jewellery, architecture, bikes, coffee machines ... What's more - if you look at the visual representations of computers - i.e. marketing material, art, illus…

I mean, it's not unreasonable for a painter to not really give s** what her brushes look like, as long as they work?

No, on the contrary. In my experience, the professional artists and craftsmen that I know are rather choosy about their tools.

A bit of creakiness and flakiness is tolerable when you’re a home gamer and only have to deal with it for a couple of hours at a time during the weekend, but when it’s a full time job it gets old fast.

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

#358

Post by neoberg »

kaba0 wrote: post #318
wildrhythms wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But the most important thing with Apple trackpad is not the haptics imo. If Apple went back to regular buttons tomorrow I wouldn't care at all. The tracking itself is light years ahead of any competition. This is still one of the big things keeping me from using Linux (even on Macbooks). Tracking and scrolling is just unbearable. (Yes I tried that driver, the other library, the recommended macos like settings, custom settings... I spent a LONG time trying to have something decent. Nothing is even remotely close.)

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

#359

Post by ahoka »

lr wrote: post #112
uniqueuid wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All true, but why is the culture and aesthetic of computers inherently trashy? Look at all the fields where superior quality is a completely natural criterion (whether it exists may be another question): Watches, cars, pens, paper notebooks, furniture, fashion, jewellery, architecture, bikes, coffee machines ... What's more - if you look at the visual representations of computers - i.e. marketing material, art, illus…

I think you just answered the question: All of the categories you note have both high-end and, sadly, mostly low-end options. What is surprising is that, in the world of computing, there is very little at the high end (Apple -- from going by this original thread), and almost all of it is at the low end. I guess some company could make an amazing PC that ran Windows, but the, you'd have an amazing piece of hardware th…

The Carbon starts at 1400 USD. Is that low end for you?

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

#360

Post by neoberg »

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?

This. I don't care about ripped or dirty clothes since their function is to warm me and I don't see them when I wear them anyways.
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