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The best laptop ever made

marco.org

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Re: The best laptop ever made

#231

Post by b3b0p »

petercooper wrote: post #63

I feel like the odd one out. I buy a new MBP every 12-18 months (have owned all Intel generations), use my MBP for hours every day, and think the latest is by far the best. Being able to charge on either side is a big deal for me as I move around a lot, plus being able to use 30W USB-C power packs and third party chargers (e.g. Anker) without fear of fire.. a massive boon for me, especially as my phone and Nintendo S…

I recently picked up a 2017 15 inch with Touch Bar and I honestly love it. I feel like it's one of the best MacBook Pro I have ever owned (soldered components and all), except for the first 17 inch Aluminum PowerBook and my Thinkpad 600E/X it's my favorite laptop so far. I like the touch bar too (Nyan Cat [0] makes it worth it alone). It seems like it's ripe for playing around, fun little hacking/side project fun, and who knows, maybe something useful can come of it. It also just seems like the next step up from the finger readers on all the other laptops in the marketplace currently.

[0] https://github.com/avatsaev/touchbar_nyancat

Re: The best laptop ever made

#232

Post by tritium »

simonh wrote: post #184
tritium wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 expect…

  Hardly anyone uses wired ethernet...
Au contraire! Anyone familiar with wi-fi security knows better than to trust the flimsy authentication protocols, and even flimsier application layer implemntation of the user interfaces that control and behave as lock and key for the (more difficult to crack) actual encryption that protects the traffic itself.

Wireless communication is often attacked at the joints, by targeting the login handshakes that relay the password-oriented auth tokens back and forth, when confirming access. These side channel attacks on encryption are more likely to succeed than trying to capture a terabyte of traffic, in order to crack the encryption itself.

Anyone tasked with the technical aspects of handling millions of dollars securely, is likely to be avoidant of wi-fi for some select activities, where convenience is not the priority. If you know you're a spear phishing target, there are certain things you don't do over wi-fi.

Re: The best laptop ever made

#233

Post by dpkonofa »

jkubicek wrote: post #136
dpkonofa wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the USB-A port thing, what reason does anyone have for plugging their phone into their computer anymore, though? Everything about iOS and macOS now supports wireless sync and file transfer. I can't think of a single thing that I'd even need that for...

If you have a long commute, it’s nice to have a 4lb battery strapped to your back

What does that have to do with having a USB-A port on the computer?

Re: The best laptop ever made

#234

Post by gtm1260 »

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.

You know it's an issue when apple releases an official guide on cleaning the keyboard for users with unresponsive keys due to dust.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205662

Re: The best laptop ever made

#235

Post by SirFatty »

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 know this is a story about Apple.. but you are spot on, the Thinkpad, especially the IBM versions were the best laptops. I used a Thinkpad from the mid 90's right up till they sold to Lenovo. I had an x41 for years, one of my favorites... and like you said, all the parts were replaceable.

Re: The best laptop ever made

#236

Post by pen2l »

trb8 wrote: post #111
petercooper wrote: post #63

I feel like the odd one out. I buy a new MBP every 12-18 months (have owned all Intel generations), use my MBP for hours every day, and think the latest is by far the best. Being able to charge on either side is a big deal for me as I move around a lot, plus being able to use 30W USB-C power packs and third party chargers (e.g. Anker) without fear of fire.. a massive boon for me, especially as my phone and Nintendo S…

> 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 wouldn't mind a USB-A port.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a non-issue because of the existence of USB wires that have USB-C on one end and USB-A on the other, isn't that right?

Basically, any device which is USB-A works just fine if you simply use a USB-CUSB-A wire.

Re: The best laptop ever made

#237

Post by passivepinetree »

wyclif wrote: post #223
passivepinetree wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's absolutely why. Every time I try to just use the "Install macOS $VERSION" app, my new installation seems slow and buggy, and I swear some of my files disappear. But if I backup everything and then wipe the drive, things work perfect. I also get the additional benefit of only adding back the programs/files/settings I actually use, so I use it as a "spring cleaning" to clear out all the cruft that accumulates du…

I get it, but how much work is it for you to add back apps and other software and how do you manage that so it takes less time? Do you clone all your settings and dotfiles in a repository?

It's actually not that bad; I'd say maybe a couple of hours at most.

I actually enjoy the opportunity to slim down the apps/files/etc. that I need. It's like a spring cleaning for my files.

My settings/dotfiles are something I've been backing up on my external harddrive, but it would be a good project to put them into a repository somewhere and make a setup script to get everything installed just how I like it.

Re: The best laptop ever made

#238

Post by danseely »

bhj wrote: post #135
petercooper wrote: post #63

I feel like the odd one out. I buy a new MBP every 12-18 months (have owned all Intel generations), use my MBP for hours every day, and think the latest is by far the best. Being able to charge on either side is a big deal for me as I move around a lot, plus being able to use 30W USB-C power packs and third party chargers (e.g. Anker) without fear of fire.. a massive boon for me, especially as my phone and Nintendo S…

Yep. I love my late 2013 15" (typing on it now), but also use a late 2016. They're both great machines, and there were controversial things about the 2012-era models at the time (soldered RAM, proprietary PCI connector for the SSD (I don't believe there was a standard for this at the time), no ethernet, the usual chiclet keyboard qualms, etc.) and that Marco doesn't mention those today actually bodes well for the lat…

He didn't "gloss over" the standard discreet GPU. He specifically mentioned that the integrated GPU was a benefit for the increased battery life it allowed, and that it wasn't a performance sacrifice for non-gamers and non-video-focused professionals.
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