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Apple Sucks Now, Here’s a ThinkPad Buyer’s Guide

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Re: Apple Sucks Now, Here’s a ThinkPad Buyer’s Guide

#211

Post by arthurfm »

dbg31415 wrote: post #188
dewiz wrote: post #103

I was very disappointed too, however I've seen similar disappointments when Apple dropped CDROM, usb, audio jacks etc. Eventually everyone gets used to it, and admittedly they are trying to simplify the keyboard IMHO. I'm super happy to have bought a maxed out mbp15 before not too long ago, so I won't have to deal with the devices/adaptors market catching up to Apple. And BTW, looks like the disappointment is all aro…

Mostly agree, but MagSafe was amazing and USB is what everyone in the world uses... we will just have to get a hub... it's not like when they killed floppies or CDs or Ethernet Ports and I hadn't used those in years anyway... This stings. I still like HDMI... literally all the ports on my 2013 MBP I think are perfect. Except the card reader... that's dumb and can go away. Ugh, I don't care about plugging in dual 5k m…

Perhaps the reason Apple didn't include an HDMI port is because Skylake CPUs only support [1] HDMI 1.4 which means you can't output anything at 4K @ 60 Hz. They could have used an LS-Pcon to convert DP 1.2 into HDMI 2.0, but that's not ideal.

Personally I think Apple made the right decision by dropping the HDMI port since the Thunderbolt 3 ports are far more flexible.

[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/9483/intel-skylake-review-6700...

Re: Apple Sucks Now, Here’s a ThinkPad Buyer’s Guide

#212

Post by einr »

gkop wrote: post #157
zeveb wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I prefer a tiling WM over Gnome 3, and I prefer Debian Stable over Testing for anything I need to work on, but that's probably good enough for most folks.

I spent two days trying to get Stable (Jessie) to work with Skylake before giving up. Meanwhile Stetch supports Skylake almost perfectly, and is quite stable for professional work; I've seen only one buggy package (ffmpeg), and it was easily rolled back, and ultimately fixed in just a couple weeks. I do use Jessie with Broadwell, and it runs quite well indeed. Gnome 3 is a full desktop environment with pretty good ti…

I'm amazingly out of the loop with modern x86 processors (my laptop has a 2008 Core 2 Duo, my desktop has a 2009 Phenom II, and I have not yet felt a need to upgrade) so I gotta ask: what are the issues with supporting a new iteration of an Intel CPU on an OS level? Isn't a generic x86 CPU a generic x86 CPU that runs anything you throw at it anymore?

Re: Apple Sucks Now, Here’s a ThinkPad Buyer’s Guide

#213

Post by Esau »

antisthenes wrote: post #80

My recent experience with Lenovo shunned me away from Thinkpads for the foreseeable future and from Lenovo in general as a customer. After placing an order for a Thinkpad that I needed urgently, they, without explanation or email canceled the order the next day. Trying to contact customer service, I found out that their online chat employees have no access to customer order history, because "the functionality isn't t…

The website is indeed horrible. Also, why does every PC maker try to get you to do a survey within five seconds of arriving?

Re: Apple Sucks Now, Here’s a ThinkPad Buyer’s Guide

#214

Post by BatFastard »

gogopuppygogo wrote: post #149
slantyyz wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably offtopic, but I hate, hate, hate Intel's CPU naming strategy for the Core i line. An i7 (U,M) in an ultrabook is vastly different from the i7 (MQ, HQ) in a gaming laptop. A lot of people don't realize that, they just assume that i7 means "fastest intel processor". It also doesn't help when computer manufacturers say "#th generation Intel processor". Unless you're keeping up with that stuff, how does…

I agree. The intel naming convention has sucked since they switched to the Core iX names a few years back. Why are they still selling Core i5 computers in 2016 when they were available in 2012? It's like they don't want consumers to know there is a new processor out. No wonder PC sales are so bad these days.

Because i5 and i7 processors are exactly the same silicon. It's just for i7 they turn on hyper-threading.

Re: Apple Sucks Now, Here’s a ThinkPad Buyer’s Guide

#215

Post by nicky0 »

sangnoir wrote: post #142

> Eventually everyone gets used to it, and admittedly they are trying to simplify the keyboard IMHO No, not everyone. I remember the time Apple "simplified" Final Cut Pro "X". The professional users moved on to other products and never looked back.

This seems rather a generalisation. I wonder how true this really is.

Re: Apple Sucks Now, Here’s a ThinkPad Buyer’s Guide

#216

Post by slgeorge »

ceor4 wrote: post #42
marklyon wrote: post #2

In addition to Lenovo, consider the XPS 13 and 15. While Dell's quality has been somewhat inconsistent as they launched the line, they stepped up and took care of the problem I encoutered with my XPS 13 and it's quickly become my favorite laptop ever. Great battery life, super portable, an external battery for long flights and an AMAZING screen. It even supports touch, which I don't use all the time, but find nice to…

How's linux support in the XPS 15?

Go for the Linux specific version "Developer" version for two reasons. First, the components it uses are identified by Dell to work with Linux well. Second, Dell pays the Linux vendor (Ubuntu in this case) to make the hardware work well: that's the only way to get good software support for PC hardware.

Re: Apple Sucks Now, Here’s a ThinkPad Buyer’s Guide

#217

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

bobbygoodlatte wrote: post #194
antirez wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, looks like things are better than 7/8 years ago.

They really don't though. Right now I have these apps open on my Mac. I don't want to settle for sub-par alternatives. I want these specific apps: Spotify, Photoshop, Sketch, Illustrator, iMessage, Apple Numbers (I'd settle for Excel), Keynote (far superior to Powerpoint), Hearthstone, Apple Calendar, Apple Mail, Apple Maps, Apple Photos For nearly every one of those apps I'd have to settle for an inferior user exper…

Photoshop, Illustrator, Spotify, Excel, and Hearthstone (more or less) work well through Wine. I've never heard of Sketch, so I wouldn't know about that.

iMessage and Apple Maps are accessible from your phone (as is Hearthstone, for that matter), and probably more convenient there, although iMessage might be useful on the desktop as well. Google Maps, however, is a thing, and probably better.

I've heard good things about Shotwell for photos. Have you tried it, or did you dismiss it out of hand?

Mail and Calendar can be replaced by Thunderbird, or any number of other email clients if Thunderbird concerns you. None of them, AFAICT, are worse than Apple's mail and calendar apps, which are pretty "meh" IMHO.

So of the apps you listed, only iMessage, Keynote, and Sketch don't work on Linux, and don't have viable alternatives.

Re: Apple Sucks Now, Here’s a ThinkPad Buyer’s Guide

#218

Post by cheiVia0 »

sliken wrote: post #101
kyriakos wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem with this argument is that any manufacturer can be preinstalling spyware in the future and you won't know until it becomes public. Lenovo did but apparently stopped after it got caught. My point is that all OEM's are on the same boat.

Lenovo seems pretty unique and adding ugly hacks to their hardware (like disabling ACHI), and then changing the PCI ID of a "fake raid" chip. So not only does this break linux, but it also breaks the standard release of windows. So even if you want to install MS Windows from official microsoft media, you can't. Why would lenovo would disable AHCI (which breaks windows and linux), then mess with a fake RAID (despite h…

Wasn't it concluded that it was to reduce power usage, and it was Intel that didn't provide a Linux driver?

Edit: http://lwn.net/Articles/701635/

Re: Apple Sucks Now, Here’s a ThinkPad Buyer’s Guide

#219

Post by jasoncchild »

zeveb wrote: post #117
exclusiv wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know the vast majority of consumers need less resources than a developer though. So what's with the "because I need it, everyone would need it" attitude?

> So what's with the "because I need it, everyone would need it" attitude? The problem with Apple (well, a problem with Apple; they've more than one) is that if you need more then you are completely and totally out of luck. So it becomes 'since not enough people need it, I can't have it.'

This is true, and an obvious business decision. I assume if they offered more options (CPU, ram, etc) consumers would certainly buy them. I also assume that each permutation of the product will compound the logistics around manufacturing, marketing and so on.

Re: Apple Sucks Now, Here’s a ThinkPad Buyer’s Guide

#220

Post by gkya »

grapeshot wrote: post #192
gkya wrote: post #155

My dream laptop: - Remove the function keys, remove escape, and all other ancient stuff like Sys Rq and Pause / Break, remove arrow keys, remove Page Up etc. Swap the places of the trackpad and the keyboard so the keyboard is closer to me and the mouse is farther away. I use the former most of the time, and it's more ergonomical that way. - No moving parts; have a 64GB SSD disk, a 4-8GB RAM, a decent CPU that support…

Well I guess I finally know who this was made for: http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/31/4380132/acer-aspire-r7-rev...

Thanks a lot! I'll see if it's any good in hardware and if it's possible to swap some things out if need be. I'm curious why home-row-all-the-time people weren't interested in this, as the palm-resting because of the large gap between the closer edge of the laptop and the keyboard is not really ergonomic.
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