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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

#511
post #401

Last year I upgraded to a Thinkpad Carbon. Almost immediately, I couldn't stand the keyboard. This sent me down a rabbit-hole of what was wrong with the keyboard (as it looked almost identical to my previous Thinkpad). The answer is that Thinkpad has slowly evolved their keyboards to be slimmer. Reducing the travel on the keys with each step. Some of the new ones are down to 1.3mm of travel. I realize this is a perso…

Where did you get the info about the key travel? I have an X1-Carbon Gen 6 and I feel that the key travel is good, but I wouldn't mind a better "click" feeling when I hit the keys, like in a Macbook or a Surface.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's odd to me that Apple has never offered a 24h turnaround (or cross ship) higher tier support package. This was a hold up for businesses using Apple machines for a long time. I guess enough employees started requesting Apple machines eventually getting businesses to offer them anyway.

> It's odd to me that Apple has never offered a 24h turnaround (or cross ship) higher tier support package. They used to have an even more exotic AppleCare tier than that for Xserve customers - onsite hardware support within 4 hours if you had a problem during the business day. I don’t remember exactly how much it cost but I want to say it was less than $500. Remarkably, the old product page for it is still up on B&H…

In relevant countries / locations, that's a fairly standard option from Dell, HP etc for servers.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#513

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.

The main problem is that e-waste is an ever increasing problem and companies like Apple are just creating more e-waste. Every single time a new Apple device is created, so is more e-waste. With a fully user serviceable device (of any category), less e-waste is created, and the time period of use is longer for many of those components. Personally, I do not care what people choose to buy, but everyone needs to become more aware of the true cost of their iTrinkets.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#514
post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s fine in the UK. Not sure about mainland Europe.

Prices in Switzerland are ok, to not say cheaper than elsewhere, but support...Unless in warranty, is atrocious. They asked me to send my laptop for "diagnostic" with unknown cost when I requested how to buy the part (out of stock on their website) to replace it.

Honestly, once it's out of warranty, I buy the part I need on ebay/aliexpress/etc. and fit it myself.

"being able to take it apart and put it back together" covers for a multitude of sins if you're me.

Others may feel differently, and, well, to each their own preferred set of trade-offs :)

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#515

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 think you got exceededly lucky with your MBA repair. And honestly it's a bit tough to believe they replaced the motherboard for free 3ish years after they typically refuse to stop servicing the device entirely for anything besides the battery and have declared the device obsolete. Had it hit the 11 year mark they probably would have offered to recycle it and maybe give you $50 off a new one.

I've had extremely bad luck with Apple support and products. The last time I had to do some ridiculous process to prove it was still under warranty and they still tried to pawn it off on the retailer.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#516
post #421

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 Lenovo gaming laptop for my son These are not comparable. There are wildly different quality of laptops under the Lenovo brand. A ton of them are complete crap. Apple simply doesn't sell anything like that. The author is comparing to a Thinkpad specifically. Additionally, the 10 years old Apple that made your macbook is a very different company from today. Although they are still a premium brand, the rel…

I will agree that it's not quite as easy to fix/service/upgrade as it used to, but I bought my Macbook Pro (Intel i9) in 2020, used it daily since then, thrown it in a backpack and had to thrashed around in airports repeated, and the thing still works about as well as when I purchased it.

I really do think Apple does a reasonably good job at making sure stuff lasts. It hurt to pay nearly 4 grand for a computer three years ago, but I suspect I'll get at least another five years out of it.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#517

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…

Every single laptop I owned before switching to Apple was a huge piece of shit, in hindsight—like, probably shouldn't have been saleable, just a straight-up lemon by design. ... except an IBM (yes, it's that long ago) Thinkpad that was super-underpowered even for the time. Though, it did have the ~2-3hr actual-in-practice battery life that was typical of laptops at the time, no matter what they promised, so like all…

I agree with Apple being the king of the hill... But it really isn't all that bad on the other side. There are some Windows laptops that will last you a work day on battery, albeit none of them can do considerable compute. I've seen some non-Apple hardware last for 5-ish years all right too.

And if all you need from the laptop is Chrome and SSH, then Chromebooks are actually a pretty sweet deal. I still run a 6 year old Pixelbook as the daily driver. Battery deteriorated to the point of lasting only 6-ish hours, but I have nowhere near that many meetings in a day. A new premium Chromebook should reliably last 10 hours and stay good for 5-ish years.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what they say. Windows for your gaming desktop, Mac for your laptop, and Linux for your servers.

Really? I thought it was Arch for your desktop, Arch for your laptop and RHEL for your servers? /s

There are some people in Arch communities that use Arch on servers too and think that stability is not necessary.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#519

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 was in the same situation with a Macbook Air 2011. At about 9 years old I needed to replace the battery, but got turned away from the Apple Store because it was 'too old'.

I tried buying a replacement battery online but it only worked for a short time before it stopped charging all-together.

Left a really sour taste in my mouth because the battery was the only thing stopping me from using an otherwise perfectly fine piece of hardware.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#520
post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single laptop I owned before switching to Apple was a huge piece of shit, in hindsight—like, probably shouldn't have been saleable, just a straight-up lemon by design. ... except an IBM (yes, it's that long ago) Thinkpad that was super-underpowered even for the time. Though, it did have the ~2-3hr actual-in-practice battery life that was typical of laptops at the time, no matter what they promised, so like all…

"If I ever go back to PC-land, it'll be to an underpowered device from a business-oriented line." If I ever need a PC again, it'll be by running Parallels on a Mac Air.

If only they made a Mac air with 64GB of ram. Alas market segmentation department won’t hear any of it.
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