I am a person who joined the Windows team at Microsoft in early 90s. So I am as far from am Apple fanboy as you get. So believe me when I say there is NO alternative to the MBP if the touchpad is critical to your usage. If your dont care about the touchpad then there are many
Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?
131–140 of 502 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?
#132Thinkpad X-Series, great Linux support (I'm using X-250 still, going strong and onsite warranty is amazing)
Beware the latest model - the X280. They removed the SATA ports and you can no longer upgrade the RAM
Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?
#133I recent got a 15 inch Dell Precision. I’m running a recent Ubuntu. I don’t recommend.
It constantly throttles the CPI. I get lots of PCIe recoverable errors. The USB bus runs out of available throughout. Plugging anything Displaylink is a disaster.
The camera/microphone is below the screen, which sucks more than I expected.
It takes 2 hands to open the laptop.
It is possible to plug in the power supply such that computer thinks it is charging but it actually drains the battery.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?
#134I am a person who joined the Windows team at Microsoft in early 90s. So I am as far from am Apple fanboy as you get. So believe me when I say there is NO alternative to the MBP if the touchpad is critical to your usage. If your dont care about the touchpad then there are many
The precision touch pads, for instance on the Surface tablets, work quite well. How is touchingpad support still lagging?
Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?
#135I switched from a 2014 13" Retina MBP to a 2018 Thinkpad X1 Carbon (6th gen) and I'm extremely happy with it. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-2018... is the most objective/detailed review I've seen. One of my biggest anxieties was the fear of "upgrading" to an inferior device after a decade of being on Apple devices. Thankfully, that has not been the case. - The 14" WQHD HDR screen is remarkab…
What's your opinion on the trackpad? The thing I love most about MBPs is the trackpad—the size, responsiveness, gestures, and being clickable everywhere make it feel great to use. My girlfriend has a Lenovo T460, and I've been a little disappointed with the trackpad on that laptop.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is awesome, thanks! The biggest problem I had with even considering Linux on any of these machines is that the High DPI support is... non-existent, which just kills it for me :(
I think your information about High DPI support with Linux is outdated. I've been using a 4k screen with Ubuntu for more than a year now without any particular issue.
The latest Gnome/Ubuntu does not support dual monitor where only 1 monitor is hidpi.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?
#137Absolutely. Just about any Windows laptop with Windows 10 will be faster, cheaper and give you a better user experience in my opinion. I vastly prefer it over a Mac or a Linux desktop because I find the Mac UI to be sorely lacking and I've never had a desktop Linux machine that didn't break itself over time. I've done Node.js based development on Windows since Node very new (~ v0.4 or so). I build Android apps with R…
> any [...] laptop with Windows 10 will [...] give you a better user experience in my opinion Sorry but no, how can you call Windows 10 a good user experience? It's pure garbage, full of annoyances, inconsistencies (they still can't have a consistent right click menu UI between the one on the taskbar, the one on window titlebars and the one on files/folders in Explorer), dark patterns to try to get as much data out o…
Pfffft. Sorry, but yes. My opinion remains unchanged despite your weak arguments. Windows 10 is the best desktop OS - the rest are trash whose users wish their OS had the same market share, hardware variety and solidity of Windows.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?
#138I switched from a 2014 13" Retina MBP to a 2018 Thinkpad X1 Carbon (6th gen) and I'm extremely happy with it. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-2018... is the most objective/detailed review I've seen. One of my biggest anxieties was the fear of "upgrading" to an inferior device after a decade of being on Apple devices. Thankfully, that has not been the case. - The 14" WQHD HDR screen is remarkab…
What version of Linux would people recommend for this machine ? 2018 Thinkpad X1 Carbon (6th gen)
Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?
#139Not a hardware req, but I've recently become quite enamored with Win 10 + WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) after years of using a Mac. WSL lets you run a lightweight Linux shell (Ubuntu, SUSE, Kali are supported atm) without a VM. It's purely for command-line purposes, no X, but that's fine for me. Windows for UI, then I can run all my bash in the Ubuntu shell almost seamlessly. You can run the shell directly from s…
Indeed, I love WSL, and find win10 to be a better interface than OS X. Updates for OS X just move things around and change the looks, Windows 10 adds great new things - like new options for Linux distros under WSL.
With frequent bad reports regarding windows hardware, what’s the hardware to run wsl? I really did not like my experience with the XPS13