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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

#361

Post by thatfrenchguy »

cameldrv wrote: post #306

Regarding the non upgradable battery, one thing a lot of people don’t know is that you can charge your MacBook with a USB power bank. The typical phone power bank only puts out 10W, but this is usually enough to maintain the internal charge while you use it on an Air, and to at least very significantly extend the lifetime on the Pro. This has come in handy for me on a long flight where I unexpectedly didn’t have powe…

15W at 3A 5V actually is the maximum over usb-a. USB-PD powerbanks are a thing these days but it's useful in a pinch.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#362

Post by abrouwers »

browningstreet wrote: post #329

Regarding Lenovo: I bought an original Macbook Air. It always worked well. As it got on to about 10 years old, I took it in to an Apple Store a couple miles from my house and asked if they could replace the battery. The battery worked pretty well, but I figured.. the machine was going strong and if they still had batteries in stock, I should grab one now and the laptop will live even longer. They replaced the battery…

I bought a framework just for this sort of peace. I really long for apple hardware, but given the price, I'd be afraid of breaking things.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#363

Post by seanmcdirmid »

heavyset_go wrote: post #324
taylodl wrote: post #277

It's been 11 years since Apple first released non-upgradeable laptops. Can we get over it already? If you want a laptop that you can upgrade then don't buy an Apple. If you don't like Apple's ecosystem then don't buy an Apple. This has been the advice for over 10 years now. There's nothing new here.

Just because Apple wants to increase their profit margins, by enforcing planned obsolescence and creating e-waste on scales that are beyond comprehension, does not mean that everyone else should just ignore it and shut up about it. It's not Apple's way or the highway, there is room for criticism and change. There are also millions of Apple customers who have no idea that Apple is actively going out of their way to en…

I'm using a 2014 MBP and an iMac from 2013. Feel no reason to upgrade at all on those machines. I'm less happy with my 2G (2018?) iPad Pro, which...while it still works great, the battery is clearly discharging too quickly.

I've never had a Lenovo (at work) that was good past 2 years. Which one is creating more e-waste?

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#364

Post by chx »

ndiddy wrote: post #352
browningstreet wrote: post #329

Regarding Lenovo: I bought an original Macbook Air. It always worked well. As it got on to about 10 years old, I took it in to an Apple Store a couple miles from my house and asked if they could replace the battery. The battery worked pretty well, but I figured.. the machine was going strong and if they still had batteries in stock, I should grab one now and the laptop will live even longer. They replaced the battery…

In my experience, Lenovo is basically two different companies for their Thinkpad and non-Thinkpad machines. If you have a Thinkpad and have a warranty issue, they'll overnight you a shipping box with an overnight label. I had an issue with mine that needed a motherboard replacement and I was only without my laptop for 3 days. Meanwhile, I had a similar issue with a non-Thinkpad laptop and they emailed me a UPS ground…

Not only that, even as an individual you can buy on site warranty and they will come to your apartment to fix your ThinkPad if you have any problems.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#365

Post by zozbot234 »

ghc wrote: post #259
niclo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You will not find the same on an M1/2. In fact I'm not sure it even warms up? My M2 does quite regularly with only Chrome, Slack, VS Code and a few docker containers running.

I know from extensive debugging of this issue that docker is the problem. You basically can't run docker (as of 6 months ago...I hope this will eventually be false) on an M1/M2 without causing significant heating and battery drain. Since this is the fault of the OS, maybe Asahi will eventually be the solution.

You could also launch a Linux VM and run your docker containers in there. That ought to work better than just running docker in Mac OS and letting it manage VM instances on its own.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#366

Post by Hippocrates »

Am I crazy? The author writes

> It's not as insane of a downgrade as it sounds.

And then goes on to describe assembling a Frankenstein laptop that has specs and ergonomics that pale in comparison to the MacBook's.

This sounds like a truly awful computer to me, but if your only goal is to spend as little as possible and get user-serviceability then I guess this is one way to go.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#367

Post by mrtksn »

ndiddy wrote: post #352
browningstreet wrote: post #329

Regarding Lenovo: I bought an original Macbook Air. It always worked well. As it got on to about 10 years old, I took it in to an Apple Store a couple miles from my house and asked if they could replace the battery. The battery worked pretty well, but I figured.. the machine was going strong and if they still had batteries in stock, I should grab one now and the laptop will live even longer. They replaced the battery…

In my experience, Lenovo is basically two different companies for their Thinkpad and non-Thinkpad machines. If you have a Thinkpad and have a warranty issue, they'll overnight you a shipping box with an overnight label. I had an issue with mine that needed a motherboard replacement and I was only without my laptop for 3 days. Meanwhile, I had a similar issue with a non-Thinkpad laptop and they emailed me a UPS ground…

I consider Apple that they don't sell "non-Thinkpad" products. That's how I can easily pass the spect sheets which promise better-than-apple-for-much-less and pay a bit more and be happy about it.

It's almost as if you get what you pay for.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#368

Post by freedomben »

sockaddr wrote: post #342
heavyset_go wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because Apple wants to increase their profit margins, by enforcing planned obsolescence and creating e-waste on scales that are beyond comprehension, does not mean that everyone else should just ignore it and shut up about it. It's not Apple's way or the highway, there is room for criticism and change. There are also millions of Apple customers who have no idea that Apple is actively going out of their way to en…

How do they create more ewaste though? Like many others report my experience is that apple products routinely last multiple times longer than other tech. I only just last week retired a MacBook bought in 2013, and it still worked just fine. Now someone else bought it and is using it. Things like PCs and android phones usually have some combination of cheap materials, bloat/crap ware or poorly designed software stacks…

> How do they create more ewaste though? Like many others report my experience is that apple products routinely last multiple times longer than other tech.

Compared to some other tech, you're correct that the e-waste is comparable or better. However, the comparison above is Apple to Apple. The other tech companies are irrelevant for this. Apple has full ability to dramatically lower the amount of e-waste their products by making them more upgradeable/repairable, and they choose not to in order to maximize profit at the expense of everyone else. It absolutely doesn't have to be that way, but it is, and IMHO calling this out and being critical is 100% fair, much like you would call out an oil and gas company who was intentionally generating waste to maximize their profit, regardless of how they compared to other oil and gas companies.

But it's also very fair to point out what you've pointed out, that compared to others Apple is pretty good, so this is not a compelling reason to avoid buying Apple products if you're going to buy a different one that generates just as much or more e-waste.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#369

Post by zoover2020 »

niclo wrote: post #278
ghc wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know from extensive debugging of this issue that docker is the problem. You basically can't run docker (as of 6 months ago...I hope this will eventually be false) on an M1/M2 without causing significant heating and battery drain. Since this is the fault of the OS, maybe Asahi will eventually be the solution.

Yes, same conclusion. I wonder if people using it for writing code are running docker at all, you read so many comments on HN of how the battery life is incredible (on any thread about comparisons between any Mac and any other laptop) while in my experience a full charge Macbook Air M2 lasts about 6 hours with Docker running instead of the usual 15 it lasts when its off.

Can't you run Docker on a remote host? I always have a 64GB memory EC2 instance near if required.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#370

Post by jrmg »

heavyset_go wrote: post #324
taylodl wrote: post #277

It's been 11 years since Apple first released non-upgradeable laptops. Can we get over it already? If you want a laptop that you can upgrade then don't buy an Apple. If you don't like Apple's ecosystem then don't buy an Apple. This has been the advice for over 10 years now. There's nothing new here.

Just because Apple wants to increase their profit margins, by enforcing planned obsolescence and creating e-waste on scales that are beyond comprehension, does not mean that everyone else should just ignore it and shut up about it. It's not Apple's way or the highway, there is room for criticism and change. There are also millions of Apple customers who have no idea that Apple is actively going out of their way to en…

There are also millions of Apple customers who have no idea that Apple is actively going out of their way to ensure that the devices they own can't be upgraded.

I think it’s way more likely they’re trying to create devices that are lighter and more reliable.*

Does anyone here really believe that the vast majority of users would ever upgrade a laptop? I don’t mean the folks here, we’re outliers - although I think this is true of _most_ of us too.

They get one that does what they need, and buy a new one when modern software won’t run on it well. It’s really unlikely that they even could upgrade it sensibly, because at that point most every component in the new laptop will be noticeably better and so it’ll be better to get a new one with all-better components.

If what I said above is true, the non-upgradable laptop is the more responsible option - it’s less resource-intensive to produce, lighter to transport, and probably more energy efficient in use.

*Edit: and cheaper!

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