Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer? • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by theyinwhy » Sun, Apr 08, 2018, 7:00 PM UTC

anon1253 wrote: post #55

I recently wondered the same thing to replace my 15" 2014 Macbook Pro Retina. I went with the 2018 Lenovo Carbon X1 (16GB, WQHD, i7) and ... it's awful. Linux doesn't work due to a bug in the trackpad drivers, for which there is no reliable fix yet. And, I personally just can't stand Windows (that's a whole different rant). Hardware wise: the sound quality is so horrendous that even watching youtube is a no-go (think…

Sound is really bad in the Lenovo t4xx(s) series as well. Had multiple, sound always was bad. The resonating was always there as well, some models better, some worse. Dampening with foam inside the casing sometimes did the trick. But it is not recommended because it might produce heat problems. Oh and yes, foam loves to burn (although there would be enough materials that won't).

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

#272

Post by pavelevst » Sun, Apr 08, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

Probably you should keep your current laptop as long as it makes you happy or consider some high spec retina mpb 15”. Recent models with touchbars don’t have big performance improvement compared to previous generation (can search for benchmarks). For non-apple alternatives, there is a big chance to end up with tick square price of plastic (that shows square, plastic-looking windows), more elegant models with such specs will cost you more then 2k...

I would recommend you to look at iMac’s. IMO it’s a very good choice for software development and design tasks. I’m using iMac 27” ‘11 at work and it has same performance as latest mpb 13” (mid spec). You can choose old version with upgradable ram or new one with cool screen and slimmer body (non-upgradable ram)

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

#273

Post by ktosobcy » Sun, Apr 08, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

There is na nice, related blog post (part of a series about switching form macOS to Linux): http://bitcannon.net/post/replacing-a-macbook-pro/

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

#274

Post by denimnerd » Sun, Apr 08, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

jhoechtl wrote: post #244

aviraldg wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do your co-workers not have issues with HiDPI support on Linux? I've heard it's not the best experience and can require quite some fiddling to get working correctly.

HiDPI on Linux is pretty much non existent. I am telling from experience. I have booth a decent 4K external monitor and a HiDPI IPS internal display. The only setup which is ok in the sense of least horrible is Gnome mutter Wayland with experimental per monitor fractional scaling enabled. And this one is only ok if you can restrict yourself to the few ported pure GTK3 Gnome apps. Which means not that much. No Firefox…

linux desktop is isn’t dead.

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

#275

Post by hiram112 » Sun, Apr 08, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

blackdivine wrote: post #2

I'd say buy a new mid 2015 Macbook 15inches, some vendors might have it in stock. I recently got it for around $2000 USD in Pakistan. It's Core i7, 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD.

My new 15" MBP 2015 just arrived from Ebay in the US. $1740 total which is about $400 less than you'll pay at the Apple store.

I think the 2015 model has now replaced the older 2012 model (last that had upgradable parts) as the MBP that power users go for, even though it's almost $2k for hardware that'd be $800 on a typical windows machine.

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

#276

Post by SkyMarshal » Sun, Apr 08, 2018, 7:06 PM UTC

linkmotif wrote: post #264

CoffeeOnWrite wrote: post #194

I’m on my 4th Thinkpad T-series - T520, T530, T450s, T460s - each one was a a winner. I ditched the T5XX series when they borked the keyboard layout by adding a numpad. Used to run Ubuntu, now I run Debian, stable or testing depending on point in release cycle at install time. I plan to take another look at Ubuntu now that they gave up on Unity. A coworker is happily on the T470s (first USB-C in the series). I always…

I don’t really understand how people overlook the whole Chinese government thing with regard to Lenovo. Can someone shed light on this? I would be very uncomfortable using Lenovo, and I’m not even a huge privacy person. But Lenovos must be bugged by the Chinese. How could they not be?

I think the same thing every time I see someone on HN recommend Lenovo. Glad someone is calling it out.

That said, if you're not Chinese/in China, the Chinese govt has little/no power over you, and probably isn't sharing what they collect on you with your govt, which does.

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

#277

Post by hiram112 » Sun, Apr 08, 2018, 7:07 PM UTC

pseudometa wrote: post #12

blackdivine wrote: post #2

I'd say buy a new mid 2015 Macbook 15inches, some vendors might have it in stock. I recently got it for around $2000 USD in Pakistan. It's Core i7, 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD.

They have been around so long you could likely get an Apple refurbished one for a few hundred less than new.

There are a few left from reputable sellers on Ebay and sometimes online vendors for around $1750. Without tax, that's about the same price you'll pay refurbished at Apple.

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

#278

Post by sethrin » Sun, Apr 08, 2018, 7:07 PM UTC

jasonvorhe wrote: post #164

I've been working on Chromebooks since the 2013 Chromebook Pixel, though the laptop itself is almost irrelevant, because I've just moved everything into the cloud and work from a couple of VMs with tmux/vim/mosh. Of course that's not on option if you require a complete IDE, but it seems that support for local GUI apps is coming with a native ChromeOS feature called Crostini. People runing the Development channel alre…

If you need a complete IDE on a chromebook, you might check out Cloud9[0], which seems to have been acquired by Amazon. It gives you a decent editor and a small VM as a workspace, and the nice thing is that you can close the browser window and do something else, and the workspace will be exactly as you left it when you return, including any running terminal commands. I used C9 for a while before discovering Crouton[1] and subsequently GalliumOS[2], and it's still a pretty credible alternative to local development.

[0] https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/ [1] https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton [2] https://galliumos.org/

(I have no affiliation with any companies or projects mentioned.)

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

#279

Post by cs02rm0 » Sun, Apr 08, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

This is so messed up.

A company I work with used to have everyone use MBPs, bought for them if they didn't bring their own and people were actually excited to receive them. No one seems where to go next but it's pretty obvious no one wants a new MBP.

I've had a 2013 i7/16GB/1TB from new. I might be tempted by the coming Dell XPS with Linux but the last Dell laptop I had have me electric shocks until the day that the plastic hinges finally gave out, which puts me off a bit.

I just don't understand the need to push so hard on keyboards that you can't replace keys on, ports that are so widely used, slow upgrades or at least out of step with processor release cycles and above all Touch Bar. Is it really all down to Cook's direction?

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

#280

Post by hiram112 » Sun, Apr 08, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

onyva wrote: post #49

I've switched last year to Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu, and then Fedora 27 (now also installed on my 2011 iMac). Difference in performance when running a Linux based OS on both machines is quite noticeable, with a surprisingly much superior smooth and performante and stable Fedora 27... no glitches, and a pure GNOME experience... My only criticism against moving away from Apple, is customer support. I bought mine in Swit…

If you're going with Dell, pay extra for professional support.

In the US, it was very good. Basically you aren't talking to offshored tier one customer support. Instead you get US based support who are empowered to get you up and running - they replaced several keyboards and a mobo next day, no questions asked.

Hopefully it's the same in Switzerland.