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Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

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Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#31

Post by x0x0 »

copying my comment from here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12832547

You can buy a dell xps 15 today that comes with: 3840 x 2160 display / 1tb pcie solid state disk / nvidia gtx 960m (crucial for developing cuda programs and prototyping deep learning on your laptop) / 32g ram. For $2340 (ten percent off coupon at the top of the page). I'm not sure if this link will work: http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/xps-15-9550-la...

And this thing comes with regular usb ports and an hdmi port instead of usb-c nonsense so I don't have to immediately drop $250 in dongles just to keep the capabilities I already have. (And one usb-c port).

here's a detailed guide to getting with ubuntu from a year ago: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2301071

it appears that it only works modestly well. So if you buy this, you're probably going to have to live with Windows or the issues in the above thread.

========

My personal plan is to buy a 1-ish year old mac and cross my fingers that someone builds a well-supported powerful linux laptop by 2018. Good sleep/power management support seems to be a common problem.

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#32

Post by threeseed »

Massive tip if you decide to stay with a Open up the laptop and reapply the thermal paste on the CPU with something high quality like Arctic Silver. It really needs redoing after 1-2 years. This will result in a significant improvement to overall performance. Why ? Because when OSX detects that the laptop is overheating it schedules a dummy task e.g. secd or kernel_task to throttle the CPU. Cool the laptop and the throttling stops. Use iStat Menus or top to check for the process.

Takes all of 10 minutes and iFixit can guide you through it. As much of a performance difference as going from HDD->SSD. The other most vital thing to do on OSX since all of the daemons result in lots of random reads (check fs_usage).

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#33

Post by mananvaghasiya »

Philipp__ wrote: post #16

No terminal is on par with iTerm. I was using Linux and *BSD for years, used many terminals, and of all iTerm is bread and butter (and with that font rendering and retina screen, nothing comes close). I would recommend to evaluate your needs, but be objective! If you can live with 16GB of RAM (I can, I do not do anything that would require me to use 32GB of RAM) then buy last year model. I have it, amazing machine. A…

You should checkout hyper https://hyper.is/

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#34

Post by pritambaral »

eknkc wrote: post #23

I asked the same question and read replies to others. Just a quick summary; - Lenovo has decent laptops. Personally, I'd not touch anything from Lenovo after their shady stuff. (Maybe not an issue on Linux, maybe it is. I don't trust them) - Dell XPS series are really good but people complain about coil whine, worse battery life compared to MBP and hit/miss trackpad. It might not be that big of a problem. And if you…

Important corrections:

- Lenovo's ThinkPad line has decent laptops. Lenovo's more popular line, Ideapad, which are branded just "Lenovo", are terrible.

- Dell XPS series are good, but if you're looking to run Linux on them, make sure to get the Developer Editions

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#35

Post by dothis »

One thing I never liked about my Macbook is that there is no option for a matte screen. So I consider switching and finally getting a matte one now:

http://www.productchart.com/laptops/sets/1

I will replace Windows with Linux. I heard Thinkpads are good for this. But the Dell XPS series looks very compelling too.

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#36

Post by mmusc »

eknkc wrote: post #23

I asked the same question and read replies to others. Just a quick summary; - Lenovo has decent laptops. Personally, I'd not touch anything from Lenovo after their shady stuff. (Maybe not an issue on Linux, maybe it is. I don't trust them) - Dell XPS series are really good but people complain about coil whine, worse battery life compared to MBP and hit/miss trackpad. It might not be that big of a problem. And if you…

razor sells in the uk and other markets too www.razerzone.com but they cost an arm and a leg

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#37

Post by x0x0 »

idlewords wrote: post #10

What about a 2015 MBP? I also have a 2012 model, with a little water damage, and am seriously thinking of upgrading to 2015 and then giving Apple one more upgrade cycle to come to its senses.

My guess is there may be decent sales around thanksgiving as vendors look to clear last year's stock. I'm mostly hoping saner people prevail at apple too. Or you could learn to type on an ipad, which is clearly the future of computing!

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#38

Post by y7 »

pritambaral wrote: post #34
eknkc wrote: post #23

I asked the same question and read replies to others. Just a quick summary; - Lenovo has decent laptops. Personally, I'd not touch anything from Lenovo after their shady stuff. (Maybe not an issue on Linux, maybe it is. I don't trust them) - Dell XPS series are really good but people complain about coil whine, worse battery life compared to MBP and hit/miss trackpad. It might not be that big of a problem. And if you…

Important corrections: - Lenovo's ThinkPad line has decent laptops. Lenovo's more popular line, Ideapad, which are branded just "Lenovo", are terrible. - Dell XPS series are good, but if you're looking to run Linux on them, make sure to get the Developer Editions

Can you elaborate? Why are the Ideapads terrible? Why get a Developer Edition?

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#40

Post by acchow »

Philipp__ wrote: post #16

No terminal is on par with iTerm. I was using Linux and *BSD for years, used many terminals, and of all iTerm is bread and butter (and with that font rendering and retina screen, nothing comes close). I would recommend to evaluate your needs, but be objective! If you can live with 16GB of RAM (I can, I do not do anything that would require me to use 32GB of RAM) then buy last year model. I have it, amazing machine. A…

I use iTerm daily but I don't think I get it. What makes iTerm so great?
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