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Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

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Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#51

Post by jansan »

I am doing development on a T550 for the exact reason that it is not very fast. It is fast enough to develop my project, but the app that I am working on is quite resource hungry, so I want to make sure that it runs smoothly on the user's machine. There is no point in enjoying a super fast development environment when you later realize that there is a massive performance problem for your users.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#52

Post by lhl »

I've been running Linux laptops for years now and have been enjoying using (well, mostly poking around) with a Framework laptop, however, recently I've been doing a lot of long-haul travel and it turns out that the battery life on the Framework was really not cutting it on the road.

I'd been meaning get an Apple Silicon Mac to play around with, and ended up picking up an M2 MBA before another long flight. Battery life was good in regular use (~9-11h so far), but what was surprising to me was how fantastic battery life was on the plane. On plane wifi, with much lighter use (lower brightness, mostly browsing, no file transfers or compiles), I used the Mac for 6-7h, and still had 50% battery life at the end of the flight. Also, it has had basically zero battery loss when suspended.

I'm still using Linux on my desktop machines, but I guess I'm a Mac user again for travel...

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#53

Post by Benjamin_Dobell »

chinamn425 wrote: post #11
junipertea wrote: post #8

I love thinkpads but the T480 is basically objectively worse in every single aspect except price and repairability. I don’t think I can go back from all day battery and quiet CPU during high loads. I could definitely use my T450 for however long I need and know I can replace parts, but I’d rather have macs for 5 years and upgrade for another performance bump. Some things are just nicer

Lenovo warranty is fantastic.

Be that as it may, the author is in Australia. All MacBooks have minimum 2 years warranty.

Display recently died on my MacBook Pro (M1 Max). Having to talk to a Genius rather than being able to book in the service online or via phone was infuriating. However, aside from that, warranty repair process was a breeze. They confirmed with me that all replacent parts have a minimum of three years warranty from the date of replacement.

I get that consumer protection laws suck or are nonexistent elsewhere in the world, but since the author is in Australia this laptop replacement makes even less sense.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#54

Post by kuschku »

ostenning wrote: post #20

I've owned an upgraded T480 since they were released, run archlinux on it. It was a decent computer, but despite having upgraded the battery to the largest possible configuration and using all the tricks in the book to maximize battery life in linux - it sucked. The reality is these Intel processors are just a big inefficient hot mess. I ended up upgrading to the 14" M1 Max, and there is literally no way you can make…

> screen quality

> battery life

> speakers

> trackpad

All things you can replace with the T480. Which I've done, and can just recommend. There's much better options than the ones shipped by default, including trackpads rivalling the M1, a screen that beats the M1, and a battery that has 20h+ capacity and can be swapped with a second one to double the capacity in seconds.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#55

Post by kylec »

me551ah wrote: post #18

The thing that annoys me the most about M1 Macbooks is the lack of gaming ability. Even a basic windows laptop can play games like DOTA, Age of empires etc and so did the older macbooks. With M1, almost none of my games work.

While this is true, it's not really Apple's fault, most game makers just don't care about making their games Mac compatible. They don't even have to be Apple Silicon compatible, Rosetta does a surprisingly good job making Mac games for Intel playable on M1.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#56

Post by nicolas_t »

The main reason I love my M1 is that it's cool to the touch after switching from an intel based mbp to an m1, I went from an average of 90 degrees Celsius (there was definitely an issue in the factory with thermal paste I think) to an average of 40-50 degrees Celsius.

I can't imagine ever going back to an intel based laptop because of this (and in my experience, thinkpads don't run that cool for my uses with arch linux)

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