Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

maxrozen.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 634 posts

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#151

Post by arcticbull »

ho_schi wrote: post #144
goosedragons wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

T480 weighs 3.6lb vs. 3.5 for a 14" M1. I'm surprised you noticed. MBP doesn't have a trackpoint. Still can't run Linux as well, lacks USB A so still requires constant dongles despite improved port selection. I moved from a 2018 15" MBP to a P14s Gen 2 AMD. The speakers, screen, trackpad are worse. But I don't care. I'm not stuck using a horrible OS with miniscule amounts of storage to keep the price down. The machin…

Using still an ThinkPad X220 here with Archlinux. There two important things in any laptop, the built-in keyboard and the built-in screen. This is the I/O-Interface! Customers often do the mistake and doesn't invest in the best available screen. You cannot make this mistake with Apple, because they offer no options for the screen. Regarding keyboards, selecting a ThinkPad is always safe. I had to buy the X220 from a…

> PS: Battery replacement is a bless. Yes, built-in batteries allow for more sturdy frames but it is bad in long term. It would be enough the provide replacement batteries with a low-weight cage and screws instead of glue.

I agree with this. That said, an all-in battery replacement by Apple is $199. Once every 3 years isn't going to break the bank vs. like $50 for an X220 battery.

Especially when an X220 gets like 7h of juice vs 17-22h for an M1/2 MacBook Pro.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#152

Post by RileyJames »

arein3 wrote: post #130
RileyJames wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which battery is required for 20+ hour capacity? And which track pad are you referring to? The track pad has always been the hardest part about moving away from a MacBook. Love my XPS, but I HATE it’s track pad. Battery life is another reason, but swappable batteries would be amazing (not on XPS)

Same, but I think he might refer to an external trackpad. I haven't ever encointered people upgrading their trackpads.

It can be done in this case. Tho I’m unclear if the X1E is ‘Macbook equivalent’.

https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/j0mrh5/t480_with_...

Hence the question. Love to know a trackpad (even external) that is of a similar feel and quality as the MacBooks.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#153

Post by nextlevelwizard »

petepete wrote: post #78
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

> ...except price and repairability. And keyboard.

>implying M1 MacBook Air has bad keyboard

You would have a point if he was replacing something like 2019 Macbook Pro with the butterfly switches

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#154

Post by MrDOS »

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.

That depends entirely on where you are in the world. In Canada, for example, the (consumer) Lenovo service centre used to be notorious for taking weeks (three was common, I've heard as much as seven) to return machines, and for providing essentially no feedback on the machine's status until they handed you the tracking number for the return shipment. Their warranty may be fantastic, but it's utterly pointless if they won't act on it in a timely fashion.

(I say “used to be”, because between this and Superfish, I've been telling everyone I know not to buy new Lenovo products for years, so admittedly, I have no recent data points.)

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#155

Post by nextlevelwizard »

jojobas wrote: post #142
petepete wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...except price and repairability. And keyboard.

And trackpoint. And running your OS of choice, free of "call home" crap if you want. But apart from that, what did the Romans do for us?

Trackpoint is very divisive, you either love it or hate it. I come on the hate side, so moving to trackpoint from Apple's trackpad feels like a huge drawback.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#156

Post by pletnes »

bogantech wrote: post #44
scandox wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know I've run Arch on Thinkpads forever and I never got one head turn from even one neckbeard. It's one of those dreams that never comes true.

It happens! Whenever I see a Thinkpad I start thinking I should buy one even though I have an M1 MacBook Pro. I'm sure I'm not the only neckbeard lusting after Thinkpads.

I have some thinkpads privately and an M1 MBP at work. Bang-per-buck is best with the MBP, no doubt. The absolute number of bucks for a used thinkpad is super low and they live for a long time, so I have old thinkpads for light home use. The fact that anyone would go back to a thinkpad is surprising to me, but if you need win10/11 (or insist on no-VM linux) I guess it begins to make sense. On every other point they seem objectively much worse. (And I have a beard!)

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#158

Post by diffeomorphism »

kylec wrote: post #64

I'm all for pushing back on the idea that just because it's "old", that it's useless and needs to be replaced. Lots of old machines are still perfectly good at a lot of stuff, and can be had and upgraded for cheap, which is awesome! However, there's no way to slice going from a M1 MacBook Air to a ThinkPad T480 as anything but a downgrade. The screen is worse, the CPU is worse, the battery is MUCH worse, it's thicker…

Heavier? A 14 inch macbook pro is 1.6kg. The t480 is 1.3kg and the non-s weighs the same as the macbook. So what are you talking about?

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#159

Post by dijit »

goosedragons wrote: post #117
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…

T480 weighs 3.6lb vs. 3.5 for a 14" M1. I'm surprised you noticed. MBP doesn't have a trackpoint. Still can't run Linux as well, lacks USB A so still requires constant dongles despite improved port selection. I moved from a 2018 15" MBP to a P14s Gen 2 AMD. The speakers, screen, trackpad are worse. But I don't care. I'm not stuck using a horrible OS with miniscule amounts of storage to keep the price down. The machin…

> T480 weighs 3.6lb vs. 3.5 for a 14" M1. I'm surprised you noticed.

Without battery.

The battery itself weights 7oz, which goes up to 13oz with the extended battery (which the parent said he bought)

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#160

Post by aniforprez »

petepete wrote: post #78
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

> ...except price and repairability. And keyboard.

Disagree. The M1 keyboards are just as good as any other keyboards now that they ditched the bad butterfly keyboards. I've used a Macbook with the older keyboards and they were certainly inferior to every single other laptop but the new keyboards I really can't complain about
Post reply on HN