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Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

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Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#221

Post by levesque »

dotancohen wrote: post #192
readingnews wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved from a MBP to a Dell XPS 13. This transition made me appreciate just how nice the trackpad on the mac is. I am no apple fanboy by any means, after my MBP died out of warranty. They wanted $700 to fix... but after some use, the XPS trackpad is a real aggravation machine. In laymen terms, it is like the MBP knows when I am typing and reduces the sensitivity of the trackpad. On the Dell, it surely seems like the…

There is some tool I've forgotten that disables the touchpad when the keyboard is in use. You can set the timeout period, I think that my sweetspot was 1.5 seconds. If you can't find it then let me know, I'll google it.

It's still rather clumsy though, if you go too fast from typing to touchpad you have to wait for the delay. If you set the delay to be too quick, you will get wrong clicks. It's more a question of palm detection, and the Linux touchpad drivers are not great at this.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#222

Post by exikyut »

tjpnz wrote: post #193
dotancohen wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I compare the experience to living in a hotel vs. living at home This is very apt. If we've all grown out of our parents' basements when we left /., then let me share my own analogy. When SSHing into different servers I used to bring my .vimrc and .bashrc along with me, because how could you live without them? Likewise for switching computers, you bring along your config files. When a new job required me to be at l…

Why the downvotes?

Perhaps the mild cognitive dissonance caused by the choice of reference points.

Possibly also cross-domain projection of various strongly held views.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#223

Post by ratiolat »

tasuki wrote: post #163
ratiolat wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinkpads come in different flavours, and the have very different quality. Either get a T-series, or X-series (X series is basically smaller version of T). Or if it's a used one, the later A-series are good as well (A series means AMD instead of Intel). The old A - series were crap. Nowadays T and X series have AMD also (if model ends with 5, it's AMD). T and X series have MIL certification. For example there's also…

Yes, when I wrote ThinkPad I meant T or X series! First time I hear the X1 Extreme is worse quality wise - I was thinking it'd be my next machine... like in a couple of years. Do you have more info?

Two examples: 1. No drainage system (like in X and T series) 2. Screen hinge becomes loose in less than a year (anecdata)

Edit: in order to remove battery, you have to remove the whole bottom cover.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#224

Post by computerex »

stephenr wrote: post #161
Jemm wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s be fair with our memory of Apple hardware. Apple had huge issues with thermal management that resulted in GPUs failing which of course Apple blamed on the user until they could strong arm a supplier to pay for a recall.

You mean the same supplier that buyers of Apple, Dell and HP laptops collectively sued? But sure, blame Apple. https://www.computerworld.com/article/2524868/apple--dell--h...

Louis Rossmann made a video highlighting a lot of the engineering problems with Apple laptops. His whole business is about repairing Apple laptops so he has all the reasons and incentives to defend Apple and downplay their issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUaJ8pDlxi8

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#225

Post by jen_h »

krembo wrote: post #205
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #164

I've always been pretty happy with Asus laptops and even their iMac-like "all-in-one" computers. The high-end ones have great quality and the low-end ones still have decent quality. Another key factor for me is that unlike Apple, Asus offers good video cards!

I'm with Asus ZenBook UX461 bought more than a year ago. While it's not a super-cool brand like Macs or Surfaces (my previous laptop), the ZenBook is 1/3 of the price and monsterly-packed with hardware superior to them (i7-8550 1.88GHz, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD and very light and good touch screen). Did my homework, you can't beat that, and I've tried all the famous brands before.

My UX303 has served me well for four years now, dropped several times, lugged it around through all climes & my only major issue right now is that it’s nearly impossible to find a good power adapter for it and the screen hinge is loose.

Negatives: Required a lot of customization to get the trackpad right on Ubuntu so I’ve got that to look forward when I upgrade, I hate glossy screens, and it can act wonky if exposed to extreme humidity changes.

It’s fast, it’s light, it doesn’t typically get too hot, I’ve treated it like garbage and it still delivers —- I’m starting to look around for a new one and will probably stick with the line, but want something with a matte screen this time for less annoying outside work, they’ve got a few models available.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#226

Post by atrilumen »

seanwilson wrote: post #50

I'm looking into Chromebooks. I'm happy with my MacBook except that if I'm traveling with it and it breaks or gets stolen, I don't have a lot of options if I'm dependent on expensive Mac hardware. If I can switch to developing on a Chromebook, picking up a new one in an emergency is a lot more feasible, plus they're very secure and low maintenance. Has anyone tried moving from Mac to ChromeOS?

I've been using a Pixelbook for the past year or so.

I do like the look and feel of the hardware: nice screen, decent keyboard and touch pad, and a thin metal body which feels really solid. The silicone palm rests start to yellow a bit, but really increase comfort. Overall, I'm happy with the hardware.

The software is an interesting concept, and actually the reason I bought it. I like the idea of a minimal, verified Linux that only runs Chrome, and (WIP) Linux containers for everything else.

I've had many issues that disrupted my work, and required switching to different release channels. Obviously this is on me for choosing to use the "Beta" container support feature, but I am still annoyed by it often because somehow bugs make their way through all those channels: Canary -> Dev -> Beta -> and even down to Stable. Several times I was forced to move to a higher channel to escape a serious / disruptive issue, only to encounter different issues. And then moving back down again requires a "powerwash", wiping all your data. So I feel like I'm just being chased around by issues that should have been resolved in a higher channel.

As a result, there tends to be nothing on this machine that isn't in the cloud somewhere. I suppose that's a good thing.

Trust is another issue, entirely. I'm looking for something else. I may install an alt OS like Gallium.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#227

Post by gigatexal »

levesque wrote: post #215
gigatexal wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me the hotel then because I want to spend my time doing work not having to do laundry or cut the lawn.

I've spent more time fighting with brew and the third party package manages than I have with issues in Ubuntu.

You might have had some exotic edge cases then because I’ve never run into this situation.

MacOS is unix-y enough to compile your own binaries like a John Siracusa does.

And if you’re a dev the Mac is still a much better platform for getting paid than any other platform (until ElementaryOS takes off...).

I use a number of really cool apps to do things I would get likely for free on Linux like magnet for window management (though that’s gotten a lot better in Catalina).

And... even though the current laptops have terrible keyboards my 2013 MacBook Pro is a bit rough around the edges it’s solid and fast and in my experience none of my pc laptops ever made it that far.

Side note: is there a Linux distribution or desktop environment that does what the Mac does with the scaling. Native res is 1440p but renders at half that to effectively give a 2x sharpen on image quality?

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#230

Post by cipherboy »

lioeters wrote: post #150
sofaofthedamned wrote: post #91

ThinkPad X1 Carbon. It's a beautiful laptop and works well with Fedora after a couple of tweaks. I've got an XPS 13 for work which is nice too but runs windows. Pros and cons are: ThinkPad: Better keyboard by far, more rugged, better bios for Linux that supports normal sleep states XPS: Can charge on either side, better speakers

> works well with Fedora after a couple of tweaks I'm considering this combination of ThinkPad X1 Carbon + Fedora. May I ask what kind of tweaks are necessary/recommended?

Make sure you're running an up-to-date kernel [0] because the version shipped didn't support the wifi card shipped in the 7th gen.

[0]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1733369

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