The biggest thing to tempt me, and the reason I may walk away from Mac is native docker support. Docker for Mac is just a horrific hack, and a battery killer. Hyper kit needs a lot of work.
Is docker on Windows reasonable with battery?
Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
541–550 of 628 posts
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#542Earlier quoted context omitted.
He has developed a following because of his repair videos. He is an advocate for repairing your own stuff, has put out hundreds of videos teaching people board repair and has even put out an extensive guide for beginners: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PkeO_lC5WTPScSV3ZzEE... And he is internationally renowned for Macbook board repair and literally receives and fixes laptops from all over the world. He activ…
Now imagine how many more videos and complaints would he have if he was repairing laptops from any other brand.
But he himself recommends other brands, and he recommends Lenovo ThinkPad heavily and owns one himself. For good reason too, they are amazing machines. He says that even though he makes a living off repairing Apple laptops, he'd be happy if people stopped buy Apple products because of their poor engineering and Apple's questionable conduct.
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#543ThinkPads every day of the week. I have a T430 that I have owned for about 6 years and a new P52 which is my daily work machine. Both running Linux with zero issues. I liked the comment below describing Hotels (Mac) Vs home (ThinkPads). It's true that if you can be bothered to tweak and install some stuff then you end up with something of your own. Your way. Never used Macs as old enough to remember the "no one got s…
Just FYI: Should you plan on using Linux on the T490 don't get the Nvidia version. Read the forums, battery life drops to 2-5h vs. 9-11h on Windows. I hope the next generation fixes this and/or we finally get good nvidia drivers.
Give Pop_OS[1] a shot, it lets you switch between iGPU and dGPU.
Been using it on my Thinkpad P1 works well for my workflow, I almost always use the iGPU and for tasks that need dGPU
I am usually plugged into power. I get good battery life this way.
But I agree, MX250 option isn't worth it for the amount of GPU power it gives and the complications it brings under Linux.
>I hope the next generation fixes this and/or we finally get good nvidia drivers.
GPU offloading is being worked on by nvidia[2] so there is indeed hope.
[2] https://www.linuxuprising.com/2019/08/nvidia-43517-linux-bet...
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#544Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
If Apple is the "same" as every other company, why am I paying them a premium?
Many people don't. So why do you?
Also Apple is the same doesn't mean they don't have better quality than others, just that it's still not perfect. And plus there's a hefty premium too on top of the already high cost of high quality. (Though since they are doing very high on the economies of scale, the inherent cost of an MBP is probably not much more than a comparable Dell, so most people really pay the premium ... because Apple is seen as high-status.)
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#545Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Someone making youtube videos, with > 1M subscribers has "no incentive" to put out videos that attract more viewers? Ok sure, and the Earth is flat, Donuts are a health food, and lizard people are real.
Believe it or not, not everyone's top priority is money. There are some people who hold their ideals above money. Louis literally has made videos against YouTube and in favor of vimeo, all of his content is mirrored on vimeo, and everyone of his videos have a watermark promoting vimeo. My whole point was that he makes his videos to educate. I'm sure the extra revenue is nice but that's not his daily gig and I don't think money is the prime reason for why he makes the videos. Otherwise he wouldn't be actively driving people to look at his content on vimeo instead of YouTube.
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#546Is there a feasible alternative? Simply put, no.
I'll stick with my mac(s) for the foreseeable future. I have 2 MacPros (2011 cheese graters) and 2 mac pros, 2014 and 2017. I read most of the complaints (about Macs) here, and most of them are thin reasons to "not" use a mac.
- I literally NEVER turn my MBP's off. Just sleep them.
This works flawlessly 99.5% (estimated) of the time. I've never seen another notebook with Windows (especially) or Linux that could handle that. Nobody here claims that they do (so far) -- I read one complaint about power usage on a Linux pad.. so I assume this is still the case. Sleep mode sucks on most non-mac, not OSX machines
- Trackpad. Nothing touches the Mac trackpad. Nothing.
- App availability
I have so many QUALITY apps I've gotten on mac that just have no equivalents in Linux. Seriously, a TON, and more all the time. You can't even compare Pixelmator to Gimp, and the list of apps that are much better on OSX goes on and on.
- No Sweat OS Linux is great if you want to configure the shit out of your system. OSX is great if you want to NOT THINK MUCH about your system and just work. I prefer to spend my time working.
So, it's not all roses, we all hear the issues, keyboards have issues, apple does not play nice with NVidia (sucks having a MacPro right now), hardware IS more expensive... but, don't get fooled by the "Grass is greener on the other side" -- you'll have to keep convincing yourself it was a good mood, every single day.
Good luck with that
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#547X1 Carbon is a really nice device. Its pretty reliable, Linux friendly and has no spyware installed like some other Lenovo lines. But no matter what laptop you pick, its gonna take you a couple of weeks until you are comfortable with it. But it will happen eventually. Laptops have the same interface after all. Switching the entire software stack from Mac to any other OS is probably the main struggle. Try a couple of…
X1 is a nice laptop. The problem is it's weak CPU. Apple manages to crunch a whole different tier of CPU (h(q) series vs. U series for Lenovo) in the same form factor.
I cannot understand this statement - if I need a (relatively) thin laptop my primary focus won't definitely be the number-crunching feature (more something like weight, connectivity, panel colors, input devices, etc...).
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#548X1 Carbon is a really nice device. Its pretty reliable, Linux friendly and has no spyware installed like some other Lenovo lines. But no matter what laptop you pick, its gonna take you a couple of weeks until you are comfortable with it. But it will happen eventually. Laptops have the same interface after all. Switching the entire software stack from Mac to any other OS is probably the main struggle. Try a couple of…
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.
Just bought a t495 for myself and my business partner. Returned both, the keyboard is horrendous. Lookup nkey rollover, typing on the keyboard was full of missing and transposed letters. Will never buy another Lenovo again.
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#549Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
What cmd-key shortcuts are you thinking of? FWIW every apple filepicker window I come across I can utilise the following shortcuts consistently, which is very nice: Cmd-Shift-A: Open Applications folder Cmd-Shift-H: Open Home folder Cmd-Shift-D: Open Desktop folder Cmd-Shift-O: Open Documents folder Cmd-Option-L: Open Downloads folder Cmd-Shift-L: Open Library folder Cmd-Shift-.: Toggle Hidden Files Cmd-[: Back Cmd-]…
That hidden files toggle shortcut is amazing! I've always used a terminal command I have saved in notes to do that.
So much easier!
Embarrassingly I am not new to OSX/MacOS.
Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
#5501. I hope Surface from Microsoft will succeed. For those that live through the real IE era, i.e you are 35+ or 40s, I cant believe I am recommanding Microsoft. 2. I hope Apple fails, it seems obvious Tim Cook is lacking the awful tasing medicine Steve Jobs once had. Unfortunately it wont happen. iOS developers will need a Mac anyway, and along with those Professionals that uses MacBook, the MacBook will continue to d…
Rumor is the next macbooks are dropping the butterfly keyboards https://www.techradar.com/news/all-macbooks-will-ditch-the-b...
The problem is it give them another chance to reinvent the keyboard. And judging from recent Mac innovation their track record aren't very good.
From Keyboard, Overly large trackpad that is susceptible to false input, Touch Bar, Display Cable failure, to the use of USB / Thunderbolt as Power Input which is causing more power failure than ever.