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Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

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211–220 of 449 posts

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#211

I may be an outlier, but for me, the problem with non-mac machines is that they seem just careless. Steve jobs famously said "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste.", and this seems true to me for almost all hardware manufacturers, and to a larger degree still for software. Why does nobody care about creaking plastic? About sticky-feeling texture? About uneven weight distribution? About the sound…

> Why does nobody care about creaking plastic?

I care way more that my Dell laptop is trivial to disassemble than that making it that way (cheaply) involves plastic, panel gaps and creaking joints.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because every other computer manufacturer realized they can save on the BOM cost by shoving the whole computer under plastic gingerbread. That weight distribution? It'd cost way too much to redesign the product correctly. Flickering redraws? We don't make the OS, we just sell Microsoft's. Occasionally you do see PC OEMs that try for taste in the Windows ecosystem. Sony did that with their VAIO laptops, with the somew…

All true, but why is the culture and aesthetic of computers inherently trashy? Look at all the fields where superior quality is a completely natural criterion (whether it exists may be another question): Watches, cars, pens, paper notebooks, furniture, fashion, jewellery, architecture, bikes, coffee machines ... What's more - if you look at the visual representations of computers - i.e. marketing material, art, illus…

I mean, it's not unreasonable for a painter to not really give s** what her brushes look like, as long as they work?

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#214
post #125
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a M1 Macbook pro (13-inch) display shatter on me within 10 months of purchase for no reason. The cost of repair is $800 which being around 80% of the cost of the laptop, was untenable. Since then it has been gathering dust in the storage closet for the past five months. Looking online, it seems like there was a quality issue with their displays for the first few batches of production. https://www.pcmag.com/n…

Why did you not have insurance? 99% of the time I’ve seen this sort of stuff happen it’s because there was a screen protector or someone shut some crap in the lid.

Why should you need insurance on something that should be covered under the manufacturer warranty?

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#215
post #25

I think Framework and System76 are largely replacing the best options from the traditional PC manufacturers for Linux users (and maybe many Windows users as well?)

Framework doesn't even support Linux and they only have one model, which is not enough to meet everyones needs.

Yes, they do.

https://community.frame.work/c/framework-laptop/linux/91

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#216
post #73

not to sound like a curmudgeon but I for one will be in the cold cold ground before I ever declare macbook as the only viable option. hackers are working hard on really cool daily driver laptops that respect your freedom and work to deliver an excellent computing experience. system76 offers a good balance of performance and value: https://system76.com/laptops pinebook offers a competitive and cheap arm daily driver:…

I got to play with a Purism Librem 14 machine last week, and the first thing I noticed was how heavy it was. The build quality seemed fine, but compared to a nearby M1, there's no contest about which one had the better build quality. When giving the machine back to its owner, one of the rubber feet on the Librem 14 simply fell off in my hand.

Thinking maybe it was a fluke, the owner of the machine fiddled with one of the other rubber feet, and was able to get it to pop off just by flicking it with his finger.

The security features are nice on the Librem, but as configured, this particular laptop cost more than the M1 Macbook Air. Same amount of storage, same amount of ram. Different CPU's, obviously.

When asked about battery life of the Librem 14, the owner said he hadn't really seen how long it'd typically last on the Librem. I can say though that the M1 Macbook Air, during my normal use (writing and compiling code, slack, email, zoom, etc), is having a bad day if it doesn't last at least 6 hours. I've used the M1 on a trip recently that took 38 hours, door to door. I didn't charge the M1 once, and used it quite a bit during various flights and while waiting for flights. I worked, watched a couple of movies, had a couple of Facetime calls. I still had 25% battery when I finally arrived.

While I admit that it's probably not fair to make a judgment after holding the Librem 14 for about five minutes, I can't really say that the quality of the Librem 14 rivals that of Apple.

Edit: forgot to add. I've rarely felt my M1 get even warm, let alone turn on a fan. My Macbook Air doesn't even have fans. I used to be able to count on the Intel based Macbooks to warm my fingers during winter, but not any more. The M1's run very cool. The Librem 14 was loud. And hot. Not warm, but hot. My fingers were sweating when trying out the keyboard.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#217
I actually agree with you. Anything other than a MacBook is indeed just a crapshoot. Chances are, if I buy non-Apple, I’ll get some half-baked hardware with no customer support beyond the bare minimum. If my MacBook fucks up (rare), I can take it to the guys at the Apple store and know it’ll be sorted out. This is really important. They’re expensive computers if you’re only looking at a spec sheet. If you look at:

+ Build quality

+ Screen quality

+ Software cohesiveness

+ Customer support

+ Longevity

+ Resale value

A MacBook is basically a no-brainer today. Even a MB Air is good now. Apple is killing the laptop game right now.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#218

I dream of a device that's basically a laptop without a screen, keyboard, trackpad, etc. Just plug it into a usb-c hub it restores everything from where I left off last time. Then once I'm done put it in my pocket and go. Then if I do want a laptop I could buy a chassis with a battery, keyboard, trackpad, screen, etc, etc to dock my device above in to. Edit: Seriously considering taking the motherboard out of a steam…

A high end phone has the HW resources to do this already. It 'just' needs the software.

I suspect that cloud + browser covers many of the use cases for this setup, and perhaps most of the uses people would pay for, while being cheaper to deliver.

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#219
I'm on thinkpad P53 since 2019, beefed up with 128Gb of RAM, running Arch on it. Had no problems with this laptop and overall good experience (though, my expectations are not high when it comes to OS, I don't mind scripting it or fixing it on my own when something does not work). It's more a mobile workstation than laptop, mainly because of Nvidia GPU for CUDA. Before making this purchase I was considering a few Dell models as I had good experience with multiple Dell laptops, but 128Gb capable motherboard won and I don't regret it. I have never used MackBook before, so I'm not judging if it would be better or not (I guess maybe more expensive? And maybe it's more of a hassle to run Arch on it?)

Re: Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days

#220
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Latitude 7370 is hard-capped at 8GB RAM. Because they soldered it directly to the motherboard. Real "what the fuck" moment, and I am reminded every time of this constraint because opening a Slack call freezes my computer for about a minute if I commit the heinous crime of leaving my IDE open.

Soldered RAM is part of Microsoft's specification for Connected/Modern Standby, supposedly because it prevents some classes of cold reboot attack on disk encryption. The official line from the people who work on the standards (both at Intel and Microsoft) is "buy a laptop with the amount of RAM you need." I hate it too, but it's not like they're pointlessly screwing their customers.

Which conveniently leads to earlier upgrades (everybody but the consumer and the environment wins!), and more profit to the OEMs in the form of RAM upgrades. Maybe I'm just too cynical.

Does anyone even care about connected standby?

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