I sold my MacBook and went to an XPS 13 about 3 years ago. I have enjoyed the machine and Windows just fine. I dont know anything about configs and launchers and Ubuntu - I just use the machine to run my company and spend 99% of my time in Excel, Chrome, and Mailbird. The Dell is an excellent machine except the battery life is terrible.
Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
321–330 of 628 posts
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#322Windows 10 on good hardware is very, very nice. My advice is "don't fight windows". I've seen many people try to make Windows like Unix. Don't. Use Windows versions of things, not things compiled under Cygwin or MinGW. Learn to use Powershell and Powershell scripting language. I do development (C/C++/CUDA/Erlang/Python) all day long on Windows 10 and in addition use desktop applications like Microsoft Office and Adob…
Have been working on Windows machines (C# ftw) for a while now.
I hate it. Everything.
Kafkaesque configuration UIs, horrible window management, mouse acceleration is off, font rendering is atrocious, the updates make me unreasonably angry, mixed design systems leave me confused, File Explorer isn’t even trying, many apps are downright insulting, and the entire thing just reeks of PMs in ill-fitting suits prodding things this way and that with their doughy fingers.
And I need to install a linux subsystem to make it just about usable.
It’s a shame, because I do like the look of their Surface line.
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here is an anecdote on Dell laptops. I have an XPS 15. I too had a swollen battery and I got it replaced while it was in warranty. It swelled again about a year later. Seems to be a design flaw in either their laptops or their laptop batteries.
me too, I purchased a 3rd party battery from amazon and so far so good... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0748BRHH4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
Going to put a blanket warning about buying battery replacements on Amazon. I bought a replacement battery on Amazon that was a Chinese knock-off. It barely holds a charge and started swelling within a few months. I don't think it would be safe to bring on a plane.
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#324Thinkpad X-series is the alternative with a more durable build and a comparable pointing device. I would recommend any Thinkpad, but the X series is absolutely fantastic.
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#325I like this question because I'm in a similar situation with my MacBook Pro 2015 despite having bought a MBP 2019, because i was not convinced of the quality... Unfortunately i did not find a real alternative for now...
My thoughts about alternatives are:
# Software / OS:
- Hackintosh - I don't want to bug around with hackish scripts or repeating the whole procedure on upgrades, so I refuse to do this.
- Elementary OS - Linux with UI similar to MacOS (at least kind of) including Apps for the most common Tasks like mail, calendar, etc.
- Manjaro Linux - Rising star of the distros, presentations i saw looked pretty good. Based on archlinux - so there is some things to learn ;)
- Ubuntu / Xubuntu / Mint - well, i know them but working with them for mee feels by far not as good as with MacOS.
# Hardware:
- Lenovo Thinkpad T4X0S - Good value, great linux support, business quality
- Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon - Pretty expensive but high end and man what a display
- CLEVO N141CU (https://clevo-computer.com/en/laptops-configurator/purpose/b...) - a colleague recommended this manufacturer, i don't have any clue if this is a good value thing, but it looks very similar to a MBP with all the connectors you can think of
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#326I am using Xiaomi Notebook Pro 13, and I am very happy with it. I think for running Linux it's better choice than MBP.
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#327My thinkpad x1 carbon is running Linux very well (better than Windows I might add). Battery is great, keyboard is acceptable, and it's significantly lighter than my old MacBooks. I've grown to like the plastic Lenovo uses.
Definitely not the X1 Carbon 7th Gen. While I love my X1C7, it runs Linux horribly. Speakers, microphone, HDMI issues galore.
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#328Windows 10 on good hardware is very, very nice. My advice is "don't fight windows". I've seen many people try to make Windows like Unix. Don't. Use Windows versions of things, not things compiled under Cygwin or MinGW. Learn to use Powershell and Powershell scripting language. I do development (C/C++/CUDA/Erlang/Python) all day long on Windows 10 and in addition use desktop applications like Microsoft Office and Adob…
Have been working on Windows machines (C# ftw) for a while now. I hate it. Everything. Kafkaesque configuration UIs, horrible window management, mouse acceleration is off, font rendering is atrocious, the updates make me unreasonably angry, mixed design systems leave me confused, File Explorer isn’t even trying, many apps are downright insulting, and the entire thing just reeks of PMs in ill-fitting suits prodding th…
Don’t forget the ads. Ads, even in the powershell. Telemetry of everything.
Automatic installs of OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, etc.
Fuck Windows. It sucks.
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
what means device is obsolete?
Do you mean i3 cannot handle general browsing tasks?
Please read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#330I switched from MBP to a Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu. I compare the experience to living in a hotel vs. living at home [1]. In a hotel (=on Mac), everything is stylish and cared for, but you have very little freedom to change things. At home (=on Linux), you need to do the dishes yourself but there's no external agenda. It's simply yours. I'm very happy with the switch. Though I'm on (Debian+) Xfce now instead of Ubuntu…
> 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…
Once upon a time this was true. User-facing documentation was scarce (usually requiring internet searches). However, between unofficial package managers like homebrew, the excellent efforts of a few devs (LaunchBar/Quicksilver, PathFinder, Little Snitch, etc...), `osascript`, and the internet providing defaults documentation for obscure apple apps, I always felt like I could get the system to behave the way I needed it to.
This started changing about a decade ago. The first time I noticed it was when Apple bundled all of the services involved in NAT into a huge binary (this would have been about OS X 10.8 or .9). You could turn it on or off, but there was no longer a built-in way to serve DHCP on both ports.
There's been a steady progress away from tools aimed at the entire skill gradient and towards the lower end of that gradient: Around 10.9 OSX got new file open/save dialogs, which were infinitely better if you used a mouse... but lacked any cmd-key shortcuts.
Gatekeeper has made it progressively harder for system tweaks like LaunchBar or Little Snitch to exist, and I've had to wrestle with SIP more than once.
In summary, earlier versions of OSX are perfectly fine (my one remaining mac is on 10.10), but Apple has not been doing itself any favors with the dev community in more recent iterations of the OS.