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The best laptop ever made

marco.org

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Re: The best laptop ever made

#181

Post by jlgaddis »

fapjacks wrote: post #123
yoodenvranx wrote: post #56

For me it's the Lenovo T61 with a 14.4" 4:3 display (or any of the older 4:3 IBMs). Yes, compared to modern laptops it is heavy, slow, bulky and has a shitty display but: i) I can replace every single piece of it with a simple screwdriver and ii) 4:3 is still the best aspect ratio for reading and developing. If I am doing the latter I prefer a screen with a lot of height. A 4:3 aspect ratio gives me a tall screen whi…

I'm a big Thinkpad person, too. Had and loved the W530. Now I have and love the P50.

Here in my home office, I have three laptops within 10 feet or so of me: a late-2015 MacBook Pro, a ThinkPad T420, and a ThinkPad W530.

95% of the time I'm using the workstation on my desk but when I'm not I almost always reach for the W530. I've probably only touched the MBP three or four times in the last year or so (since I built the workstation).

I absolutely love the W530! I've had it for, I think, about 4.5 years but it still has twice as much RAM as the MBP (32 vs. 16) and a pair of Samsung 850 PRO SSDs in a ZFS mirror. It is a beast of a laptop (considering its age) and it takes a beating riding around in the saddlebag of a Harley-Davidson.

Re: The best laptop ever made

#182

Post by ctack »

burntrelish1273 wrote: post #138

"Best?" really? - Glued in batteries - Difficult to repair, especially the poorly-manufactured logic board - No Kensington security slot - Soldered in RAM This is why I still use an 13" A1278 non-Retina from 2012: 2x SSD's, 16 GiB of RAM, SD slot and KS slot. It's a little thick but sturdy, not the fastest CPU but it's solid. The latest MBP's have unreliable logic boards and Apple's repair policies result in massive…

I'm using the same laptop and do like it, but I find my battery life is not that great.

How are you optimising battery life?

Re: The best laptop ever made

#183

Post by mgkimsal »

bhk wrote: post #161
petercooper wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt similarly about the trackpad in the first few weeks but somehow the problem seems to have "gone away". I'm suspecting this is some sort of unconscious physical adaptation on my part..

Apparently I can't adapt. Spurious touch events while typing are incredibly frustrating on my 2016 MBP. I love the display and the size and weight but overall I'm a bit disappointed in my $3600 purchase.

$3600 was a lot. Too much for me, and i returned mine, and got a refurb 2015. Almost same CPU speed, longer battery life, quieter keyboard, more usable trackpad, retina screen. You can get refurb 2016 models now for ~$2500 - a better deal, but the 2016 changes - I just don't know who asked for them. I couldn't type in the same room as someone else without them being aware of it - that's just... a big problem (in my eyes/ears).

I will probably end up getting one of these 'newer fangled' models at some point, if only for faster CPU, eventually, but I was quite disappointed in the 2016 model, as were many of the long-time Mac users I know.

Re: The best laptop ever made

#184

Post by simonh »

tritium wrote: post #112
sarreph wrote: post #58

I knew what laptop Marco would be talking about before I clicked on the link. Perhaps that says something about Marco, but I have the feeling it's almost certainly about how widely-lauded the old rMBP was, and still clearly is. Apple got so many things right with it, because all the design choices made sense , for exactly the reasons Marco gives. The design choices being made at the top of Apple no longer make sense.…

DongleGate™ arguably started (and was likely internally fomented) with this edition of the MacBook Pro. This was the first MacBook Pro to exclude an ethernet port, and when Desktop Support at my company handed it to me, I looked at it and asked them what the fuck was I supposed to do about it? They shrugged, threw up their hands and left ( I was the prima donna that asked for the Mac, figure it out asshole), and so I…

DongleGate is a real thing, I'm actually putting off getting a new MPB until I get my head around what I can and cannot use different USB-C connectors for, but honestly dropping wired ethernet along with the optical drive was the right thing to do.

There has to be a balance between features on the device and the number of people that will end up ever using them. Hardly anyone uses wired ethernet these days, so expecting the tiny percentage that do (most of whom are probably on HN knowing my luck) to use a dongle is a justifiable decision.

The USB-C debacle is not justifiable. It's a stupid, necessary mess that will affect almost everybody at some point or other.

Re: The best laptop ever made

#185

Post by mgkimsal »

jseliger wrote: post #73
random3 wrote: post #17

This is the most elegant critique to the current line of Macs I've read so far. I hope it reaches the right eyes and ears. While Steve Jobs was unique, I believe Apple has the right people to continue delivering the same great products. They just need to let them do their jobs. This said, I'm looking forward to test a Pixel 2 Chromebook.

This is the most elegant critique to the current line of Macs I've read so far. I hope it reaches the right eyes and ears. I tried a 12" MacBook. It was a gorgeous machine and wildly fast given its size. But its trackpad is a grotesque monstrosity, and while I writing I too often activated it by accident, flinging the cursor to some distant spot by accident. Then I'd have to stop, recover, and reset. I can't figure o…

> I can't figure out what usability case would mandate a trackpad that large.

I couldn't figure it out either. Did they have a bunch of focus group feedback saying "this trackpad is too damn small... moving my wrist 1/4" to touch the trackpad from a resting spot is way too much work, I'd rather have my wrists touching the trackpad"? That's the only feedback I can see them getting to justify it. That or... it's a general trend towards the ios-ification of mac, and pushing towards "touch interface" for everything (except, of course, on the actual screen).

Re: The best laptop ever made

#186

Post by mgkimsal »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #159
thijsvandien wrote: post #62

I got myself the 2012 model shortly after it was introduced. Despite the obvious risk, I made an exception to the rule of never buying a 1st gen. It was simply everything I (until then) didn't know I wanted. A machine truly worthy of the Pro label, pushing the state of the art at a fair price. I was happy to spend my money. Meanwhile we lost both the quality and the fair price. It really makes me feel sour, to the po…

Not quite following you here, are you saying the 2015 variant is not as good as its 2012 same-model predecessor? What's the difference?

I'm thinking the OP meant that, when looking to upgrade, the 2015 model was the only choice left, due to the changes in the 2016 model. I'm guessing that because I came to a similar conclusion. My decision was a combination of the new design choices and price point - a refurb 2015 gave me more consistency with earlier models, while saving > $1000. There were/are positive aspects to the 2016 (I miss the touchid on the model I had for a couple weeks) but enough annoyances to make the question the value I was getting at that price point. My 2016 ended up being... $3700? Had it been, say, $2500, it would have been a no brainer to keep, even with some of the design drawbacks.

Re: The best laptop ever made

#187

Post by sunpazed »

I personally own the 2014 15" MBP — and would agree with the post.

My work–issued 2017 13" MBP requires 2x dongles to run a dual screen setup — at a total cost of $240 — which is just ridiculous. And I have to carry one everywhere, just in-case I want to jack into HDMI (ie; visiting customer, presenting research). HDMI will be the prevailing standard for some time, and is ubiquitous.

Re: The best laptop ever made

#188

Post by mgkimsal »

holografix wrote: post #108

I loved my MBPr when it came out, had it for years abd then decided to buy a refreshed model basically for faster wifi and because I could. Suddenly I learned that the SAME version of my mac but newer cost the same and REMOVED the dGPU. I was flabbergasted... why the HELL would I pay the same money to lose the dGPU. That day I had to abandon the mac and I got a Surface Book. The new line of Macbooks with their poorer…

How are you liking the surface book? I was on the fence, and... to get the model I'd want, it's still > $2k - not something I'm going to just randomly grab to try out for a bit. But... the build quality seems very 2015 MBP, and as the specs improve, I'm tempted. Perhaps that'll be a 2018 upgrade?

Any downsides you've hit in switching? I do a lot of work with intellij/phpstorm, vagrant/vms - I'm assuming there wouldn't be any substantive changes in those. Also, some of the WSL/ubuntu stuff in win10 looks promising too.

Re: The best laptop ever made

#189

Post by thijsvandien »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #159
thijsvandien wrote: post #62

I got myself the 2012 model shortly after it was introduced. Despite the obvious risk, I made an exception to the rule of never buying a 1st gen. It was simply everything I (until then) didn't know I wanted. A machine truly worthy of the Pro label, pushing the state of the art at a fair price. I was happy to spend my money. Meanwhile we lost both the quality and the fair price. It really makes me feel sour, to the po…

Not quite following you here, are you saying the 2015 variant is not as good as its 2012 same-model predecessor? What's the difference?

What I meant is that practically the only reason I upgraded* is that I don't want to risk my old one breaking when no pre-2016 model is available new from Apple anymore, which could be anytime soon. Now warranty assures me that for at least three years I'll be able to keep using the 2015 model. I can't switch to another platform all at once, or bet that my stuff won't stop working before Apple get their act together again. That's why the lack of options.

*This new one isn't really worse, nor is it much better. The biggest improvement is the SSD. No more dGPU is a loss in terms of performance but a win for durability and battery life. The screen has this weird thing that something inside slides when you shake or turn it on the side (https://youtu.be/HmL7KXCMfxU). Don't bother having it replaced because all have it to some extent. I suppose it doesn't affect anything but my quality perception. Everything else feels pretty much the same.

Re: The best laptop ever made

#190

Post by jsjohnst »

jonbeebe wrote: post #164
trb8 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like the odd one out. You're not. I have the late 2016 model. It replaced my ~2013-2014 model and I consider it an improvement. The Touch Bar / touch-id is a (mostly irrelevant) improvement over a row of keys that I never used. I think my computer would be worse if it dedicated space to a SD card slot reader. I've never used it. I wouldn't mind a USB-A port. But I have only wanted to plug something in twice…

I agree, but the keyboard is what gets me the most. I can get used to the feel, but it is simply too unreliable for a $2k computer. A spec of dust can bring it down for crying out loud.

I’ve had a new MBP since it came out and also had a 12” MB too with virtually the same keyboard and never had a keyboard problem with dust. I wonder what I’m doing different?
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