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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

#81

Post by black_puppydog »

I just got my first thinkpad in 9 years, after having spent two years on a dell xps from hell. I have to say, this is the first time in a long while I'm back in love with hardware. Got a second-hand L14 AMD G1, upped the ram and SSD (yes you can do that!) and apparently there's even an option to add another m2 ssd since the ryzen in this thing has some spare PCIe lanes that are hooked up to the WWAN slot I'm not using.

My whole family and most of my colleagues use macs/iOS all over, and interacting with these things is plain infuriating to me. Plus, somehow Apple pulls an amazing PR stunt where somehow everything is purported to be easy, but really they rely on untold hours of non-volunteer work from family & friends who feel bound to help out with Mac handling, because they feel "it's apple, it has to be easy... right?"

Anyhow, these are my two cents.

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

#82

Post by heavyset_go »

smeej wrote: post #63
oldandboring wrote: post #16

Definitely look very seriously at Framework. Bought one last year and it's easily been the best computer purchase I've ever made. Solved every problem I experienced with Dell and Lenovo. I run Manjaro Linux on it. https://frame.work

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?

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

#83

Post by danaris »

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…

There have definitely been some noteworthy problems with Apple's laptops in recent years...but I'm honestly not sure what it is you're doing to them to break screens on multiple machines in a row. You're the first person I've ever heard with that specific complaint, which suggests it may be something unusual about your usage pattern that's causing it.

Note that this isn't saying "you're being abusive to the computers": I can imagine daily-use patterns that are genuinely the best you can do that would result in much higher physical stress to a laptop than your typical office work. It's just saying that maybe, for your particular use case, you might need something more rugged than a stock MacBook of whatever type without a case on.

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

#84

Post by bsder »

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 the janky Bluetooth mouse that's only janky on macOS?

Why does nobody care that my USB 2.0 ports on my external USB-C docks die in about 20 minutes necessitating a reboot--again, only on macOS (and only on newer macOS versions--old ones work fine).

How many years did it take Apple to (sort of) fix their shittastic keyboards?

How garbagey is Xcode relative to any other IDE nowadays?

I can go on ... and on.

Macbooks may look pretty, but the software has been becoming increasingly garbage. And I use software to get my job done--the hardware merely needs to be sufficient (I generally customize my laptops to use an i5 (including mac)--which ducks a lot of the idiotic thermal issues).

I'm sitting on a Lenovo Carbon X1 with Linux full-time now. I finally got tired of fighting craptastic software from Apple. If I'm gonna fight software, I might as well be on Linux.

And, surprisingly, my experience on Linux has been better than the last year or two on macOS.

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

#85

Post by nathanaldensr »

My family and I avoid this entire problem by simply not buying laptops. Our desktop computers--assembled for a fraction of the cost of buying a retail laptop and much more powerful--are more than serviceable. If you need mobility, then prepare for extreme tradeoffs, relatively speaking.

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

#86

Post by a257 »

uuyi wrote: post #59
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…

If that’s an Intel one you’re getting, I can understand it. However the M1 ones are a completely different computer. I am shocked at how good they are.

I've had a M1 Macbook pro (13-inch) display shatter on me within 10 months of purchase for no reason. The cost of repair is $800 which being around 80% of the cost of the laptop, was untenable. Since then it has been gathering dust in the storage closet for the past five months.

Looking online, it seems like there was a quality issue with their displays for the first few batches of production.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/apple-facing-m1-macbook-cracked-s...

It is a shame. I did enjoy using the laptop very much.

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

#87

Post by uniqueuid »

kmeisthax wrote: post #72
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…

Because every other computer manufacturer realized they can save on the BOM cost by shoving the whole computer under plastic gingerbread. That weight distribution? It'd cost way too much to redesign the product correctly. Flickering redraws? We don't make the OS, we just sell Microsoft's. Occasionally you do see PC OEMs that try for taste in the Windows ecosystem. Sony did that with their VAIO laptops, with the somew…

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, illustrations, unix porn etc - all that highly values aesthetics and beauty. But the actual products are a disgrace to all of that!

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

#88

Post by bluefirebrand »

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?

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

#89

Post by jonny_eh »

kmeisthax wrote: post #72
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…

Because every other computer manufacturer realized they can save on the BOM cost by shoving the whole computer under plastic gingerbread. That weight distribution? It'd cost way too much to redesign the product correctly. Flickering redraws? We don't make the OS, we just sell Microsoft's. Occasionally you do see PC OEMs that try for taste in the Windows ecosystem. Sony did that with their VAIO laptops, with the somew…

> In fact, it impressed Jobs so much he literally just offered them an OSX license (which they didn't bite on).

I just googled this and it's based on an unsubstantiated boast by Sony's president in 2014, I'd be skeptical:

https://www.appleworld.today/2021/01/06/from-the-vault-did-s...

Although this article seems to think it holds water:

https://9to5mac.com/2014/02/05/sony-turned-down-offer-from-s...

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

#90

Post by [deleted] »

FpUser wrote: post #51
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?" I notice none of it on my ASUS and HP gaming laptops.

[deleted]
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