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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

#441

Post by oneplane »

Angostura wrote: post #431
oneplane wrote: post #427

So in other words, just like most "switched from X to Y" stories: it depends on a lot of factors and there is no one-size-fits-all. In this specific case however, the issue is much easier: author wanted a collection of components, not a packaged experience. So in other words: if the device is the goal (or having a collection of components), you might not enjoy an Apple product. If you want a specific experience, then…

I thought the basic summary at the end said a lot: "I wanted a cheap travel laptop I could replace without blinking an eye at the price."

Oh yeah, it definitely did. But as someone else here posted, even a 10 year old MacBook Air would work out, it reminds me a bit of the netbook days, but without the hardware being so hobbled by Intel requirements (i.e. only 1 DIMM allowed in NetBooks).

But from the general comments you can glean that people still seem to think in terms of "one has to be absolutely better than the other". At best one could argue that the mass-market enjoys one thing more than the other, but even that depends on where you are located in the world and what skills you have. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if the OLPC project had a western version where kids start out with one of those, that would make both cases even clearer (i.e. some would not enjoy doing work 'for' the device instead of doing work 'with' the device).

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#442

Post by tristor »

My experience has been that there is only two reasonable ways to buy a laptop for personal use:

1. Buy an Apple device new.

2. Buy a Lenovo Thinkpad or Dell Latitude refurb/used via their outlet stores from their business line-ups

With #2, you know exactly what you're getting, but you're getting it cheap, and the parts are possible to find (e.g. eBay) to fix it yourself.

With #1, you know exactly what you're getting, and you're paying for a premium experience that you'll actually receive and isn't a sham or bait n switch (like it is with "premium" PC products).

I have a stack of laptops on my desk because I physically separate the different types of work that I do (for many various reasons). 2 are Thinkpads, 2 are Apple, and one is a Dell Latitude. All of have been solid for years. My newest laptop in the stack is an M1 Macbook Pro 14" with the M1 Max, and it's FANTASTIC, it's easily the best laptop I've owned since I retired my /IBM/ Thinkpad T60p.

There is no reason anyone should ever subject themselves to the torture that is buying a laptop "intended" for "consumers". There is no reason anyone should ever pay full price for any non-Apple laptop, because they all make annoying trade-offs that are only acceptable when you buy them cut-rate.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#443

Post by kube-system »

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.

What does non-upgradable mean? It has been even longer since Intel discontinued socketed mobile processors. LPDDR has advantages, and it is not socketed per the spec. It seems silly to blame all of this on Apple when the entire industry is going that way, and for a reason.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#444

Post by duffyjp »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #399
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…

It's crazy how good apples are. I have a 2013 MacBook Air which I replaced batteries now after 10 years. Still as fast and snappy as day 1. It is crazy.

I use my 2011 13" MacBook Pro daily, though the OS is so out of date I don't log into my Apple ID with it or even Chrome. Media consumption, ssh to servers, web browsing is all super fast still. I even use Parsec to game on it connecting to my PC in the basement, it does so perfectly. I replaced the battery twice, but otherwise it's been issue-free. 16gb ram and an SSD gave it a new life.

Some stuff the dual core i5 just can't handle anymore, but it won't be e-waste any time soon.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#445

Post by jm4 »

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've owned a few MacBook Pros and I now use a ThinkPad X1 Extreme. I paid for the support plans on all of them.

The Macs were generally very good until the generation prior to the M1. That was the worst laptop I've ever owned. I had to repair it multiple times - keyboard multiple times and also a motherboard that went bad - and I was without it for days each time. Not to mention, I also had to make an appointment, often days away, just to drop it off. The AppleCare experience with laptops was pathetic. To be fair, they've done a fantastic job on the phones and iPads I've had to bring in.

My ThinkPad's touchpad started flaking out so I called about a repair. They had someone at my house the next day and I was only without the laptop for about 15 minutes. It was a night and day difference between AppleCare and Lenovo's premium support. There's nothing sexy about this ThinkPad and the hardware isn't as good as the latest Macs, but the Linux support is flawless and I know I can count on Lenovo to provide good service.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#446

Post by efdee »

dkonofalski wrote: post #424
blensor wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can not speak about how it would work with an MBP but the SSD replacing is a huge factor if you need it. 4 weeks ago we had to deliver a build of our game to Meta and 2 days before the deadline my laptop died out of the blue. I scrambled to buy a new one (didn't care which as long as it had enough oomph and I could source locally quickly). I went for a Lenovo Legion 5 ( or 7, I am actually not sure, it doesn't have…

With a MBP, you'd just restore from a Time Machine backup. If you don't have one, that would be on you.

That's some Apple-sanctioned gaslighting right there.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#447

Post by paulmd »

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…

Yeah. M1 MBA owner using it as a cheap daily-driver/thin-client, probably will upgrade to a MBP M1 sometime, I'm not going back to Intel. Maybe a 11th-gen for AVX512 but really I'd want to move onto a 6800U or similar at this point, and the selection of "AMD + good display + good KB + repairable hardware" is not very deep.

I know they've said it'd be a huge amount of effort and they're not planning on it, but I really wish there was a Framework laptop with a 6800U or similar.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#448

Post by eertami »

fmajid wrote: post #220
eertami wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are those the only two conclusions you came up with? If all other independent benchmarks and data points to the 5850U being roughly comparable in performance to the M1 - yet for you it appears to be 5x slower, then surely that suggests an anomalous result, or at the very least, an edge case that is not indicative of real world performance. The third, much more plausible conclusion: - Your testing method/setup is…

Different OS (macOS Ventura vs. Pop-OS), different compiler (LLVM/clang vs. GCC), different storage (internal SSD vs NVMe M.2), different filesystem. Running with full CPU parallelism in both cases, however. In fact the test was biased against the Mac because the M1 MBA was running on battery power and the HP DevOne was plugged in. Still, 5x worse performance at a real-world task that most closely approximates my use…

All you've accomplished then is to test LLVM vs GCC, not an M1 vs the 5850U.

Apple Silicon strength is in efficiency and low power draw, they're mostly slower than high end AMD/Intel chips (which admittedly, use a lot more power). In no world is the 5850U 5x worse than the M1, it's just absurd to suggest so.

When I run Docker containers on my M1 MBP, tasks are 15-20x slower than my Linux laptop. Obviously it would be ridiculous of me to suggest that therefore the M1 is 15x worse than my laptop's 2020 Intel chip.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#449

Post by nkotov »

I don't upgrade my computers (or my phones) as much anymore so serviceability isn't as important to me. I have both a MacBook Air M2 and a T480 and I love the flexibility. Most of what I do is on the M2 but every once in a while, I run into edge cases such as printer drivers that only work on Windows or upgrading video production firmware.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#450

Post by jodrellblank »

howinteresting wrote: post #318
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.

Apple is the world's most valuable corporation, they can deal with some criticism.

It isn't Apple who's suffering the criticism, it's us who has to wade through low value, uninteresting, repetitive comments on HN which won't make a blind bit of difference to how Apple does anything, who suffer from it.

Is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34879574 worth upvoting because "Apple can take the criticism"?

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