I had a mid 2015 MacBook which did me well for years, but I've just switched to a surface pro 6 with a Linux VM running in Azure.
Still have the MacBook at the moment though, only device in the house with a dvd drive
Ask HN: Is MacBook Pro worth it nowadays, for a developer?
11–13 of 13 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is MacBook Pro worth it nowadays, for a developer?
#12I have a 2013 15" MBP. It's holding up really good till now, only the performance and the battery are affected negatively, but still not enough to warrant an upgrade. It's the first laptop I didn't need to replace after two years. The biggest upside is the trackpad, which I use extensively. The display is very good if you can deal with glaring. It's more durable than most plastic junk that I used before. I can't recommend the new Macbooks, since there are in total too many downsides: Keyboard, lack of Escape key, no magsafe, price policy, T2 and dongle lifestyle.
Re: Ask HN: Is MacBook Pro worth it nowadays, for a developer?
#13mid-2012 A1278 or Lenovo T480 hackintosh.
Modern MBP's:
- glued-in batteries
- nonservicable RAM
- nonservicable SSD
- lack of peripheral ports
- terrible keyboard
- thin and fragile
- very expensive
- USB-C charging is a step-backwards from MagSafe
- prone to more defects and breakage, and more difficult to repair at the component level, per Louis Rossmann
A1278:
+ older, better keyboard
+ unofficial 16 GiB of third-party RAM
+ 2 SSD's with optical drive removed
+ plenty of ports
+ user-servicable battery
+ MagSafe support
+ relatively lower cost
~ 13" non-Retina display
- thicker
- slower CPU
- slower integrated graphics / GPU
Lenovos:
+ have water-resistant keyboards with drains
+ generally excellent keyboard from IBM lineage
+ 7-10+ hour runtime with both front and rear batteries
+ more normal repair and expansion options
+ semi-rugged
~ moderate cost
- Hackintosh isn't supported nor 100% work-alike