I dev on a System76 Pangolin running Pop! OS. My only complaint is that there's no Ubuntu terminal that I like as much as iTerm.
Have you looked at Alacritty[1]?
Once I adopted tmux, I really enjoyed using Alacritty.
Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
521–530 of 538 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#522You don't say where you are located, but unless you are in one of the few places where Dell doesn't offer on-site next business day support then XPS 13 is a great laptop. Their support is amazing: "We're not sure what is causing it, but we'll send someone to replace the whole motherboard tomorrow." "OH, your currently halfway across the world on a island? No problem, we'll be there tomorrow" I really don't understand…
XPS 13 sucks lmao. I have one and I'd never get one again. Dell don't know how to do cooling for shit. Honestly the most naive design I've seen for cooling; I've had to add a thermal pad between heat pipe and the aluminium back of the case just to sink some extra heat, only other thing possible to do is repaste but the pad makes the most difference.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#523You don't say where you are located, but unless you are in one of the few places where Dell doesn't offer on-site next business day support then XPS 13 is a great laptop. Their support is amazing: "We're not sure what is causing it, but we'll send someone to replace the whole motherboard tomorrow." "OH, your currently halfway across the world on a island? No problem, we'll be there tomorrow" I really don't understand…
Just make sure the model you're getting supports S3 sleep mode (AKA real sleep mode) before hand. A lot of the newer Dells don't. Its something the OEM needs to support in the BIOS, so you can't just fix it by installing a new distro.
Even if it does you still can't manually control the fan. Ahahaha, Dell, what a fucking joke.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just make sure the model you're getting supports S3 sleep mode (AKA real sleep mode) before hand. A lot of the newer Dells don't. Its something the OEM needs to support in the BIOS, so you can't just fix it by installing a new distro.
Even if it does you still can't manually control the fan. Ahahaha, Dell, what a fucking joke.
I think my employers IT policies have a lot to do with it, but fans on my laptop do spin up in the middle of the night. It can be annoying.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#525Please excuse the long-winded answer... I have also given up on Apple, but mostly because I can't see the value in it anymore, otherwise my experience with them has been satisfactory (Intel CPU models). For the past few years I used a Microsoft Surface Pro because it seemed to have good build quality and high screen resolution, but despite this I have had to replace it as part of a recall due to a graphics hardware i…
For me the value of Apple is to develop and design on the same machine, reliably.
A privacy-oriented OS that allows me to run photoshop Lightroom etc. in addition to dev things.
At this point I wouldn’t touch Windows with a 10-foot pole.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#526Get this: https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-strix/rog-strix-scar-17-se-...
It's currently the fastest laptop in the word. (scores 99th percentile on everything)
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#527Mac's started sucking with their SW problems (usable until around High Sierra), their deprecation of 32bit, glossy displays and ultimately made it impossible with their broken keyboards. They fixed that, but I'm long gone since.
My new cheap Lenovo AMD Ryzen 3 Thinkpad is far better and faster, just horribly heavy and low battery compared to the mac airs. The M1 Air is tempting, but they still have their broken SW.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#528You don't say where you are located, but unless you are in one of the few places where Dell doesn't offer on-site next business day support then XPS 13 is a great laptop. Their support is amazing: "We're not sure what is causing it, but we'll send someone to replace the whole motherboard tomorrow." "OH, your currently halfway across the world on a island? No problem, we'll be there tomorrow" I really don't understand…
yep, I had two Dells, one XPS 15 from 2019 and some cheap Vostro, and both had problems with sleep state. The support is great, but I couldn't get Ubuntu to run without issues, and it sucked a lot.
Older Latitude were great for dev work, and I still use my 7450.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#529You don't say where you are located, but unless you are in one of the few places where Dell doesn't offer on-site next business day support then XPS 13 is a great laptop. Their support is amazing: "We're not sure what is causing it, but we'll send someone to replace the whole motherboard tomorrow." "OH, your currently halfway across the world on a island? No problem, we'll be there tomorrow" I really don't understand…
I don't understand why anybody can recommend anything from Dell.
Last company I worked from had ~30 XPSs (various models). On average we had one break daily. Yes, they pick it up, and return it "fixed" within a week, but then it just breaks down 2 weeks later.
One of their "docking station" brick thingies went up in flames, while nothing was plugged into it, causing an evacuation of the building. Another one "exploded". Not bad enough to hurt somebody, but the coffe mug next to it was blown off the table.
My XPS 15 started to get hot, and smoke out of the keyboard while I was reading my email. Scaring the shit out of everybody in the coffee shop I was sitting in.
"Dude! You're Getting a Dell!" "Nah, thanks, I'd rather get a lobotomy."
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#530I've been using a Clevo-based laptop for years - very good value and works well with Linux. Just don't expect something light-weight with a great battery life - but if you're happy to carry more weight (it's actually good exercise..) and mostly plug it in that's fine. In Australia you can buy from https://www.metabox.com.au/
I second Clevo - running Manjaro for a year professionally and it kicks ass. Great CPU (got an 8-core 11800H) and the NVMe and RAM of your choice for about $2000