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Ask HN: What to replace my MacBook with?

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Re: Ask HN: What to replace my MacBook with?

#41

Post by pimeys »

acd wrote: post #19

I would recommend Thinkpad T470s. I have used both Lenovo T460s, T470 laptops and Dell XPS developer edition with Linux. I personally prefer the Lenovo. Here is a detailed review of T470s https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T470s-Core-i7-... Here is ranking of Laptop brands by Laptop mag, Lenovo rank best laptop brand. https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/laptop-brand-ratings

And they still sell the T25 model which is basically a maxed out T470 with the perfect seven row keyboard. A superb laptop with Linux.

Soon though the T480 is out with the quad core ulv CPUs, so maybe waiting is also an option...

Re: Ask HN: What to replace my MacBook with?

#42

Post by dpark »

pimeys wrote: post #40
ajford wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gotta say, I've used a fair number of thinkpads across the last 10 years, and I've never seen any blotching or ghosting. I will admit that the older models had fairly crappy resolutions (I mean 1366x768 and 1600x800 was crap, and Lenovo held on to those resolutions far longer than they should), and pretty dim (I could barely use my X200t and X201 in the shade outside), but I feel most models in the last 2-3 years hav…

I have the 25th anniversary model and while the screen is not the best colour wise, it's still much better than the older panels and for programming it's bright and sharp with no ghosting or blotching. The keyboard and battery life are both best in class. Of course when the battery is worn out, you can buy a new one. This is possible with ThinkPads.

Battery life is not best in class in my experience, either. My manager who loves his new X1 Carbon with the OLED screen admits it’s got terrible battery life.

The keyboards are fine but not better than, say, MBPs from a couple of years ago. (Half millimeter travel on the latest MBPs is not great.)

Re: Ask HN: What to replace my MacBook with?

#43

Post by pimeys »

dpark wrote: post #42
pimeys wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the 25th anniversary model and while the screen is not the best colour wise, it's still much better than the older panels and for programming it's bright and sharp with no ghosting or blotching. The keyboard and battery life are both best in class. Of course when the battery is worn out, you can buy a new one. This is possible with ThinkPads.

Battery life is not best in class in my experience, either. My manager who loves his new X1 Carbon with the OLED screen admits it’s got terrible battery life. The keyboards are fine but not better than, say, MBPs from a couple of years ago. (Half millimeter travel on the latest MBPs is not great.)

By installing and running tlp and having the 24 and 48 Wh batteries I get easily 11 hours of use on Linux with my T25. 7 watt average power use reported by powertop, but I mainly run i3, browser and tons of terminals...

T25 has the legacy 7 row keyboard which had no competition currently.

Re: Ask HN: What to replace my MacBook with?

#44

Post by contingencies »

nwmcsween wrote: post #35
contingencies wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. AFAIK, Gentoo is the best full-control Linux distro out there, possibly only rivalled by arch. It's not for everyone, but I do want that level of control. Using OSX I constantly run up against annoying irritations and have to spin up special VMs, which is tedious. I gave it a good go - almost seven years. Enough. IMHO ZFS root (snapshots and rewin…

OT but I used Gentoo since about 2003, the issue for me anyways was Q/A of the packages and migration when updating old systems. I was constantly fixing or working around issues.

Yeah. Often a gentoo root system becomes inoperable because it's out of date or has some weird package configuration. Using a snapshot-capable root allows you to easily swap it out to something known good or freshly installed and keep running.

Re: Ask HN: What to replace my MacBook with?

#46

Post by nukeop »

dpark wrote: post #17
drawnwren wrote: post #15

I went from a stolen 2015 MBP to an X230 (modified with an X220 keyboard) to a new MBP. With the thinkpads, the smaller screen and lower resolution will take some getting used to. Running a customized window manager in Linux is the best solution when it works but you shouldn't discount the amount of time you will lose to tinkering and random breakages. My personal belief is that, for a working dev, MacOS is still the…

> With the thinkpads, the smaller screen and lower resolution will take some getting used to What takes getting used to is that Thinkpad screens are trash. :( I’ve been so disappointed in them. They start mediocre and decline rapidly with blotching and ghosting. I’ve used Thinkpads for my personal laptop and my work laptop and refuse to own another. My manager has a recent Thinkpad with an OLED screen which seems pre…

As opposed to glossy displays? In 2017?

Re: Ask HN: What to replace my MacBook with?

#47

Post by mmanulis »

krutzger wrote: post #28
mmanulis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to Dell Precision Develop Edition 15" at the start of the year. It comes preloaded with Ubuntu 16.04. I have really enjoyed this machine and don't miss my MacBook Pro at all. The machine worked great out of the box, I made a few minor changes to how I like to work. The two major changes I made were: * Install a libinput and get rid of synaptics driver * Install the latest kernel I run with a bunch of propr…

How well does the precision work out of the box? I would prefer to run standard Ubuntu with no modifications or proprietary drivers of possible.

It works fine except for the touchpad, hence the switch to libinput.

Keep in mind, it comes with a bunch of stuff enabled by Dell and using their own repos.

I upgraded the kernel as I'm using the WD15 dock and the thunderbolt firmware/drivers are flaky on older kernels and will lock up the system.

If you've never ran Linux as your primary machine, be prepared for occasional snags, especially around suspend.

Overall, it's an easy system to fiddle with with lots and lots of online resources and how-to's.

Re: Ask HN: What to replace my MacBook with?

#48

Post by O_H_E »

I recommend checking out the "Galago Pro" from System 76, it comes preloaded with Linux (actually their whole company is built on Linux), Good customer support. They have been recommended various times in another HN threads

BTW: They are currently addressing the Intel ME problem.

https://system76.com/laptops/galago

Re: Ask HN: What to replace my MacBook with?

#49

Post by dpark »

nukeop wrote: post #46
dpark wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the thinkpads, the smaller screen and lower resolution will take some getting used to What takes getting used to is that Thinkpad screens are trash. :( I’ve been so disappointed in them. They start mediocre and decline rapidly with blotching and ghosting. I’ve used Thinkpads for my personal laptop and my work laptop and refuse to own another. My manager has a recent Thinkpad with an OLED screen which seems pre…

As opposed to glossy displays? In 2017?

I’d definitely take a glossy display over a matte display with ghosting and blotching.

And anyway, Lenovo’s matte display technology consists of a slightly cloudy piece of adhesive-backed plastic sheeting stuck on top of the display. I don’t know why anyone is impressed with this. It’s not as if they actually have textured glass or even a proper screen coating. It’s contact paper that you can buy for pennies per square foot at Staples. It’s really awesome if you have a device that has pen input because the pen scratches up the plastic over time.

If you really want this, you can buy it aftermarket and stick it on any glossy display. You’ll end up with a better result than Lenovo if your laptop is using a decent panel to start with.

Re: Ask HN: What to replace my MacBook with?

#50

Post by [deleted] »

krutzger wrote: post #22
contingencies wrote: post #18

I just did this because my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) / 16GB / 1TB machine finally developed a hardware fault they want motherboard replacement money to fix (occasional but frequent hard resets). After checking the cost of a new MBP (basically almost same specs as the old one, plus touch bar!) and then noticing a Dell sale on before Xmas here in Sydney, I decided to replace it with a Dell XPS 15 9560 (l…

Seriously, you went from osx to Gentoo? It's like going from using computers to designing your own cpus... Just install Ubuntu and be done with it

[deleted]
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