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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?

#301

Post by kingkongjaffa »

eggsyntax wrote: post #298

I switched a few years ago from MBP to ThinkPads running Ubuntu (with Gnome). It's been an overall improvement for sure, and there are very few things I miss (iTerm2 is the big one; there's no Linux terminal emulator that has all the advanced features I loved in iTerm2 like incremental search/highlight/copy. Gnome terminal with tmux is...acceptable). And of course it's much cheaper; on both computers (P51 and X1 Extr…

This is such a strange story - my thinkpad T490 lasts all day, my MBP lasts about 4 hours. (granted it's a 2012 model but still).

Battery life isn't one of the things Mac books have ever had going for them in my experience.

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

#302

Post by fbnlsr »

I've pondered quite a great deal about this very same question. I'm the owner of a 2015 MacBook Air, and I'll probably won't buy another MacBook when mine dies.

What I'll definitely do is get a Thinkpad Carbon X1 and put elementary OS on it. The Thinkpad line has been around for ages and are praised upon. It's fairly linux-friendly, and elementary OS is a great distro, stable enough to work on, and its polish and attention to detail resonates with a MacOS user.

I've been using elementary OS on a VM in my gaming PC and it's been working flawlessly. Really like this distro.

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

#303

Post by dangoor »

I've been using Macs since a 12" Powerbook around 2004 and think I've only taken a Mac in once over those 15 years. My current Mac is a 15" MBP from earlier this year as well. One precaution I took is to get a silicone keyboard cover. I've had no issues with it.

Though I haven't had a problem with the keyboard (likely thanks to the latest generation of it and my silicone cover), I know that lots of people have. Apple deserves criticism for that, but at least it sounds like the next MBP is going to have a new keyboard design.

Hardware aside, I don't want to run Windows or Linux. Apple would have to screw up even worse than this keyboard thing to get me to switch.

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

#306

Post by theatrus2 »

ratiolat wrote: post #223
tasuki wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So, just the same as a MBP in that regard.

I use X1Carbons as a daily Linux driver after MBP and am very happy with them.

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

#307

Post by Green_man »

torvald wrote: post #158
yoloClin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used an X1 for a few months. It took me a fortnight of rage before I discovered you can switch fn and ctrl in BIOS. after that I really liked it. I'm going to be in the market for a new <= 14" soon but want more ram than the X1 carbon offers. A T490 caps out at 40gb and has decent specs on paper, I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on the model though.

The new Lenovo x390 looks quite promising for being smaller than 14, but bigger then the x200 series (which is 12.5").

The x390 comes with a 13.3 inch display, as opposed to the previous 12.5 inch screens, but it's just 4mm longer and 7mm wider than the x290. They reduced the bezels on the screen to gain the majority of the new screen real estate, so the keyboard won't be any larger than the old one.

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

#308

Post by mcv »

LeonM wrote: post #174
mcv wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've replaced the fans on that old MBP and that didn't help, so I think it's really just that noisy. I was hoping the X1E would be quieter, but your experience is clearly different. My impression from reviews is that coil whine seems to be a fairly random issue that can affect any model, but usually doesn't. I wonder if Lenovo should fix it under the warranty. Seems to me there's no good excuse for coil whine. I've h…

The dust accumulates between the fan and the heatsink/radiator, it usually has nothing to do with the fan itself. Thanks for the tip on the coil whine issue, I thought it was just a design flaw. Maybe I can get it fixed under warranty.

Maybe I could have done a bit more about the noise, then. I mostly thought about the fans because I once had a noisy desktop PC that turned out to have its fan covered in gunk. The heatsink probably too, though.

It would be really awesome if they fixed the coil whine under warranty. No idea if they will, but I think they should. Isn't it a sign that there's something electrically not quite right?

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

#309

Post by mcv »

Symbiote wrote: post #181
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.

Stretching this analogy even further: With Linux, we have a choice of over 20 different housemaids and lawn-cutting robots, though choosing between them is difficult at first. Most lawn robots can also sweep patios or shovel snow, so if you move to a different climate you can use the same tools.

I'd like to have a house set up and ready with a decent selection of pre-configured robots to take care of my needs, with an easy interface to reconfigure them or add some new ones.

Or are we still talking about Linux?

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

#310

Post by new_realist »

robert_foss wrote: post #299
cytzol wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a hotel (=on Mac), everything is stylish and cared for, but you have very little freedom to change things. I've heard this over and over — that Macs are locked-down, uncustomisable machines — and I don't agree with it at all. I use replacements for almost all the built-in apps. I use a custom launcher. My editor config Git repo is approaching ten years old, and my shell config Git repo is almost eight. There are…

There's no real package manager. You can't rebuild your kernel. You can't upgrade your hardware. Once your HW is unsupported by Apple you're stuck with an old OS that is unsupported by third party software as well.

“You can’t rebuild your kernel.” Are you kidding me? Apple supports the hardware it ships on day one, then provides free updates until the device is obsolete.

If you must rebuild Apple’s OSS kernel, you can follow the instructions here: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Da...

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