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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

#531

Post by jefc1111 »

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'm a self-confessed Thinkpad fanboi so very happy to contribute my story. I bought the laptop I am typing on now (P51s) on eBay 4 years ago for ~£600 with a couple of years of warranty remaining. During a covid lockdown it developed a motherboard fault and they sent someone out the next day to my house to fix it onsite. With Apple I was always told to take it to a service centre. I mean, that's what I signed up for I guess, but the damn thing cost me £2000. I think there is not enough emphasis on the price differentials in these conversations. In fact, my repair story is kind of irrelevant to my point which is that for me the availability, cost and repairability(?) of these machines is key. I have an IT cabinet with spare parts, PSUs, clonky docking stations, and have managed to get most of my family onto Thinkpads so we have a pretty robust setup whereby if somebody has a problem we can probably sort it within an hour or two, either with a replacement part or a replacement machine. I am a bit envious of recent Apple silicon for battery life but stubbornly sticking with my old Thinkpads for now!

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#532

Post by Nullabillity »

justinator wrote: post #332
notpublic wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"IMPORTANT: BY USING YOUR MAC PRODUCT, YOU ARE AGREEING TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THE APPLE 1 YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY (“WARRANTY”) AS SET OUT BELOW...." If the product is that reliable, why not offer a 3-5 year warranty?

They do, it's called AppleCare and you would be nuts not to get it. Just factor it in for the price of the Macbook you want before budgeting and purchasing.

If they actually believed in the product they wouldn't charge you extra for the warranty.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#533

Post by Nullabillity »

taylodl wrote: post #285
javaunsafe2019 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as it’s bad for the environment it’s even more important in 2023 to keep complaining about it.

But as it’s bad for the environment Is it? Thanks to the increased reliability that non-upgradeability confers I'm still using my 2012 MacBook Pro as my daily driver. I suspect there's a lot of minutia to tease out to verify whether this claim is actually true in the global case.

How often have you had the sockets fail, compared to the components themselves?

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#534

Post by tstrimple »

Vrondi wrote: post #496
arcticbull wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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've never wanted a nipple mouse, but to each their own and I know some people love them. What I have wanted is a giant 6" diagonal multi-touch trackpad. Linux is very much a non-goal for me, and if I want to, I can always SSH into a remote instance or run a VM. I don't miss…

By the time you have a giant 6" trackpad, then a touchscreen just absolutely makes more sense, but oh, yeah, right, Apple insists on being a decade+ behind the times on laptop hardware features while insisting they're better.

It does not. Touching the screen requires moving your hand even further away from the keyboard and requires getting your screen all smudged up. I abhor touch screen laptops. They make much more sense in convertible laptops with pen input.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#535

Post by Nullabillity »

elbigbad wrote: post #321
eptcyka wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you feel the need to defend apple in this case?

My read wasn’t a defense of Apple and in fact I agree with the criticism. My read was that it’s tired and dull to keep harping on exactly the same feedback for a decade as though it’s unique. Clickbait headline “I replaced my MacBook with a thinkpad gasp ” then people click thinking there will be something interesting, but it’s the same old stuff.

The complaints will go away when the issue is fixed, presumably. If Apple doesn't want to fix it then that's on them, not on the people highlighting that Apple are, indeed, still being pricks.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#536

Post by bradwood »

AnnualDegree99 wrote: post #518
bradwood wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, if you're doing immutable infrastructure, it's probably perfectly reasonable. Not sure about rolling releases on production gear though.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#537

Post by blensor »

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.

Restoring from a backup is of course something I would have resorted to if it would have been necessary, but the point I tried to make was that it was not necessary because there was a much quicker way to get back up to speed.

Also not sure if the time machine backup would reinstall all the apps and settings exactly as they were before, but maybe it would, I honestly don't know the Apple ecosystem well enough for that.

All I know was that a friend of mine had a very similar issue recently with a Macbook (don't ask me which one) and she had the problem that not all data was on the time machine, some recent stuff was there, some not so recent stuff was missing and some even older stuff was there again. That's probably some user error but she was expecting everything to be backed up correctly so she did not even know that there was a problem.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#538

Post by trieste92 »

emodendroket wrote: post #501
trieste92 wrote: post #499

I feel torn here between FOSS principles and the quality of MacBook ux. Also the amount of performance you get per dollar It used to be, you bought an Apple product and got less performant hardware for a higher price. Now it's the opposite. I have no idea how they do this so well. Maybe by vertical integration of hardware, OS, and user level services all under the same roof

I think the design philosophy of Apple Silicon is probably the future.

I wonder if vertical integration of software and hardware is also the future

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#539

Post by tristor »

adverbly wrote: post #528
tristor wrote: post #442

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,…

Are you me? I have 3 refurb linux laptops strewn around the house, and my last 3 workplaces have always provided a macbook of some sort. One difference: For gaming/GPU heavy stuff, I still have the good old windows, full-tower desktop kicking around. Repairing/upgrading desktops is honestly easier than ever, so I've been happy to keep one in service for the odd game or two.

I did the same for desktops too. I finally retired the last desktop I built that was 12 years old. It could still do most games, but it was loud, power hungry, and annoying. I've replaced it with a Steam Deck and a Steam Dock, and at some point I might build a proper replacement gaming / workstation, but not any time soon.

For personal use, most of what I want to do is possible on a laptop now. I really don't feel as much need for a desktop as I once did. I still use a "dock" and a mechanical keyboard when I'm not on the go, though.

With the exception of the Steam Deck, I don't use Linux, though. The reason I have the Thinkpads is they work perfectly in FreeBSD & OpenBSD "out of the box". The Dell is running Windows for doing automotive tuning.

Re: Replacing my MacBook Air M1 with a ThinkPad T480

#540

Post by titaniczero »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #302
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.

I think it's also psychological. When buying a Mac, you have this warm fuzzy feeling that you are taken care of, you have been given the best, there is nothing to improve and nothing to worry about.

Jeez, I don’t think I’ll ever understand the american thing with Apple. It must be a social thing, I’ve seen people humiliate and even shun people who have Android (“the green bubble”) or other non-Apple devices.

I feel that they're always very biased in these comparisons.

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