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Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#181

Post by aschampion »

013a wrote: post #167

Haven't seen these two suggested: The Razer Blade is a pretty excellent machine. Its gaming focused, which surfaces a little bit in their design language, but all that really means is more beefy specs. The Stealth model in particular might be a great choice, or you can up-market. I've heard nothing but great things about it. The Surface devices are also an expensive but excellent choice. They do suffer in that I don'…

I briefly had a Razer Blade for development and returned it for several reasons, the top two being:

1. Enormous screen bezel, which made it silly to lug around a laptop with the screen real estate of one much smaller.

2. Without careful, tedious manual power management in linux the cooling fans routinely spin up to dust buster sound levels under normal use, which is unacceptable if you exist around other human beings.

The Surface Book 2 is an interesting option, but the linux support, while improving through community effort, is still spotty [1]. At the moment it has many power draw, heat, and noise issues. Also, everyone I know who has had a surface device has had to have it serviced or RMA'd at least once, which is not acceptable for something so expensive from such a large vendor.

[1] https://github.com/jakeday/linux-surface

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#182

Post by eat_veggies »

michaelangerman wrote: post #156
flyingfences wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want something practical and productive right out of the box then just go with Ubuntu for any hardware. Thinkpads are popular in the Arch community (and vice versa), so there's discussion and documentation available if that's your cup of tea.

Do you have link for the Arch community where I can read more about what you are referring to., I am not familiar with that... Thank you !

The Arch wiki has general information and laptop-specific errata for most models:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Laptop/Lenovo

It appears the X1C 6th generation doesn't have a page yet, but it's likely extremely similar to the 5th generation one.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#183

Post by tlavoie »

I recently migrated from a mid-2013 MBP, primarily because I was increasingly disgusted with the lack of control over my own system. I knew (more or less) what I was getting into when I bought it, but that choice grated as it needed work.

The battery had pretty much gone, and not only wasn't something I could fix, but the Apple stores I visited didn't carry the part. Turns out it's not just the glued-in battery, but they replace the entire top deck - keyboard, trackpad and all. I don't live near one of their stores, so it was going to be a multi-day commitment either way. Local authorized service place was able to get it done, except that the new battery caused the charging circuin (on the main board) to die. I had a choice to make.

I went with a Thinkpad P50 - not the thin, flat laptop at all, but a "mobile workstation." Great keyboard, display is good too (matte), and upgradeability in spades. One SIMM slot is a 16GB module, but there are still three others. Multiple drive bays, only one used. A battery I can replace without tools or delay, when that day comes.

I went with Linux Mint (Ubuntu-based), and it's been great. There's still a small Windows partition I left for a couple tools, but rarely use that part.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#184

Post by saltcured »

mikojan wrote: post #127
fencepost wrote: post #92

I see a lot of discussion that includes used ThinkPads, there's one caution I'll give if you go that route: avoid the __40 models (T440, T540, etc). I've not used an X240 but the TouchPad on the larger models is unusably bad.

It's a thinkpad. Why not use the track point? I guess it's down to personal taste but that phrasing was weird.

That's actually where it is worst. That generation of Thinkpads omits the physical buttons you normally use with the trackpoint, instead using soft buttons on the "click" style trackpad. It makes both functions much less usable.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#185

Post by always_good »

epmaybe wrote: post #82
andy_ppp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, having upgraded from one I fully regret this decision, mostly because of the keyboard and the £2000 after trade in. I’m actually a big fan of USB-C, it’s much better.

Not to bring this up in every usb-c comment, but what do you do for backwards compatibility? I consistently (nearly daily) find myself having to connect older USB devices into my laptop, but end up grabbing an adapter/dongle to connect the device. Flash drives, external hard drives, and SD card readers are my main issues.

Well, it's the same answer as every other usb-c thread: a dongle.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#187

Post by nickthemagicman »

stefantheard wrote: post #179
sametmax wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a dell xps 15. Same, i don't recommand it. Autonomy is abysmal, usbc support very poor, the bios took a year to be stable and the sound died after some months. Not worth the price tag. Mind you, the xps 13 doesn't seem to have the same problems. I still love my old samsung 9 serie and wish the brand would have worked out the quirks and made a new one. My next try will be a thinkpad carbon since every owner arou…

This was also my experience with the XPS15. Took a lot of struggle just for really basic hardware to start working properly on the ubuntu side, also extremely painful to install ubuntu itself and to have it recognize the XPS15's touchpad. I would not spend 1400$ and 10-20 hours to configure the damn thing again, do not recommend.

Had the same experience with Dell XPS and ubuntu 17.02 and earlier versions.

Upgrading 17.10 and everything is working perfectly.

Still would rather use my MacBook though because of software incompatibilities.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#188

Post by ericd »

shazow wrote: post #112
blinkingled wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got the 16GB/i7/512 with 2 year warranty from Costco for $1599. And I agree totally that it's an amazing machine! I have left it running W10 for now because I don't want to have to modify the DSDT for S3. Modern standby on Windows is magical - instant desktop after lid opening with the fingerprint reader! I wish it had better speakers though and I still feel like the low power CPU in a thin package might get b…

> I don't want to have to modify the DSDT for S3. While I did end up doing that (it wasn't as scary as I thought), turns out just adding `acpi.ec_no_wakeup=1` is sufficient on many distros (I presume ones with recent kernel/systemd versions, older versions seem to require hitting power to wake up). > I wish it had better speakers though I find the speakers fairly comparable to my old MBP, fwiw. > and I still feel lik…

I find the speakers to be awful, but I just use headphones most of the time anyway, so nbd. I have the last gen, so may be different.

I'm curious how you tuned the thermal throttling, though!

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#189

Post by always_good »

koehr wrote: post #39
yutuco wrote: post #30

System76 has a line of high end Linix Laptops, if you take their OS (Ubuntu based) you get a pretty direct alternative to MacBook Pro https://system76.com/laptops

System76 is definitely on my watch list. After using a Dell XPS with, what they call an infinity edge display (means, very thin bezels, hence a 15 inch display in a <14 inch case) and 4K resolution, I'm afraid I couldn't go "back" though :o

I miss my bezel on my Macbook Air. Now I always have fingerprints on the perimeter. Not really a feature I ever wanted, just makes it look better on the sales floor.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer?

#190

Post by chillydawg »

michaelangerman wrote: post #158
noir_lord wrote: post #38

I went through this last year. I looked at Macbook Pro, Dell XPS15 and Thinkpad T470P. In the end I went for the T470P (i7-7700HQ (4 core/8 thread) w/ 2560x1440 screen, 16GB of RAM (upgraded myself to 32GB)) and the bigger battery (pretty much no optional with a 35W TDP processor). I tried the XPS15 but the keyboard was bad and the fit and finish wasn't awesome. I've had zero issues with linux support or the machine…

What version of Linux are you running where you have had zero issues, Thank you...

I'd also be interested in this. I've never once run linux on a laptop flawlessly - and I've been trying for a decade.
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