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We Need a Better PC

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Re: We Need a Better PC

#241

Post by xerophyte12932 »

SwellJoe wrote: post #75
xlayn wrote: post #12

Do you like the MacBook but don't like the OS? go ahead and change it, you can have triple boot. Tiny fonts and pop ups doesn't have anything to do with the machine you are going to buy (unless you also want the website). HP makes the elitebook, magnesium construction a la thinkpad. And last but not least I would like to give this entry the RAGE post award, nomination points for What I want is a computer with: -Decen…

"HP makes the elitebook, magnesium construction a la thinkpad." I've been burned so badly by an HP laptop, that I'm unlikely to ever buy another HP product in any category. It is horrifically bad. Damned near everything is wrong with it. It also had some crapware, and the system restore partition didn't work...so I had a dead laptop for two weeks waiting for physical restore media to arrive (that I paid $10+shipping…

My anecdotal evidence points the other way. My own Ho dv6 gave me a good 4 years of running.

- Yes, the crapware is unavoidable. but who doesn't ship with that?

- For me the system restore worked like magic. I tried it a bunch of times on my own machine and those of some friends. The machine was virgin again with just a click of a button.

- It's also very easy to get into. Very helpfully labeled; tons of guides available online. It's like its designed to be opened and hacked around. When it finally died, I scavenged it for parts and ported to my new desktop machine

Re: We Need a Better PC

#242

Post by vegabook »

I've been very happy with my Dell Precision M3800 which has outstanding build quality, easily comparable to my previous MacBook, and runs Ubuntu perfectly. In fact I like it better hardware-wise than the macbooks because it has a much more pleasant keyboard-surround surface, which is not freezing cold like my MacBook, nor does it have that unpleasant vertical front leading edge which in my opinion is uncomfortable when touch typing.

On a separate note though, Lenovo has kinda promised to build a 90's-level robust "retro-Thinkpad", the feedback forums for which were wildly successful.

http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro-thinkpad-time-to-think

Re: We Need a Better PC

#243

Post by pjmlp »

ekianjo wrote: post #114
knights123 wrote: post #90

It seems like you should really just buy a MacBook Pro. Sure the software isn't perfect, but it's an order of magnitude closer to perfect than Windows has been lately. You buy it, boot it up, and it works wonderfully. Of course the one day out of the year that it doesn't you go rage comment on how it sucks and it scares Windows users away from Mac, but the rest of the time you'd never consider going back to a typical…

For developers OSX will almost always be worse than a Linux distro, if only because of package management.

Which developers?

Not everyone is writing POSIX only code.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#244

Post by symmetricsaurus »

gcb0 wrote: post #189
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really happy with my Toshiba Tecra Z series. The article totally missed Toshiba, which is still a decent manufacturer. I get 5-6 hours of battery life with real usage, close to 10 hours in "green" mode, I've got a 15.6" screen, a keypad, 16Gb of RAM, an i7 processor, and a 1Tb SSD. And it's just over 4 pounds and pretty thin. I have NVIDIA graphics. The Tecra Z has an available 3K touch display, and its HDMI port…

the article misses everything. lenovo is not even relevant anymore. Their new keyboards (since 2009!) are complete garbage. his "research" was probably asking some guy at the water cooler "what's a good PC laptop" "lenovo" "thanks"

I don't agree at all with the new Thinkpad keyboards being garbage. The old ones were nice (maybe even nicer than the new ones) but the new ones are still the best laptop keyboards in the market at the moment.

The keyboard has no flex or mushiness. The keys have some resistance and a nice feel when depressing them. Finally the keys are slightly curved inwards so that the fingesrs easily find the centers of the keys.

Still, I've heard of a lot of people that don't like the new keyboards. Maybe there are different versions for different models? I've only used W530 and T440s.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#245

Post by microtonal »

ekianjo wrote: post #126
jolux wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is certainly not true. You can basically get any package with Homebrew that you can on Linux, (assuming it's on GitHub, you can get all of them) in fact there's even a port of it to Linux for people that love it on Mac.

Homebrew is certainly not as good as a regular package manager you get in Linux. I'm not sure how you can argue otherwise.

Homebrew is certainly not as good as a regular package manager you get in Linux.

It's actually better, for three reasons:

- If a library is not in Homebrew (which happens frequently when you are a developer ;)), you just install it into /usr/local/Cellar// and you can use all the regular Homebrew tools (brew link , brew unlink ), etc.

- It's much easier to build and distribute your own stuff in Homebrew, by providing a repository of formulae. I have packaged both Debian packages (distributed via Launchpad's PPA) and created Homebrew formulae. Packaging for Homebrew is much easier.

- Homebrew is packaging is decoupled from OS packaging/updates. This means that you can update a new application without having to upgrade half of your system. In Linux, you usually have the choice of: stable OS, outdated software. Up to date software, in-flux OS.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#246

Post by pjmlp »

garyclarke27 wrote: post #238

Macbook Pro is best windows pc - runs perfectly via bootcamp. So much better than slower flackier virtual options - i tried all of them - fast reboot so easy to switch. I need windows for 64 bit Excel 2016 much fatser than mac 32 bit only. 2 diplay ports also great- drives 2 32 inch high res monitors perfectly.

Not if you care about graphics or GPGPU programming.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#247

Post by KirinDave »

rmm wrote: post #235

Microsoft Surface Book. Easily the best device i have used in a very long time. Expensive (especially the i7 dGPU option) but i am amazed at how good this machine is. Huge battery life, powerful when it needs to be. Connect to a dock and you have a powerful desktop. Currently use it when im working in the office doing design work (plugged into a couple of Dell U2715H) then when i am out on mine sites use it as a port…

I concur. It's excellent hardware with excellent features and excellent battery life.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#248

Post by kennycox »

How much RAM do you need for gaming? However, I have 8GB RAM but the game hardly takes 4GB for functioning. One of my friends has 32 GB RAM but I think he is more paying for it. Is more than 8GB RAM needed for gaming?

Re: We Need a Better PC

#249

Post by beloch »

xlayn wrote: post #12

Do you like the MacBook but don't like the OS? go ahead and change it, you can have triple boot. Tiny fonts and pop ups doesn't have anything to do with the machine you are going to buy (unless you also want the website). HP makes the elitebook, magnesium construction a la thinkpad. And last but not least I would like to give this entry the RAGE post award, nomination points for What I want is a computer with: -Decen…

Question for those running Linux on an Apple laptop:

If you had a hardware failure, did having a non-Apple-approved OS cause any problems when you tried to get it fixed?

Re: We Need a Better PC

#250

Post by PhasmaFelis »

stock_toaster wrote: post #240
hartator wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you are spending more than 10 hours per day on your laptop, price shouldn't matter. On a side note, you've missed the retina thing, it's making a true difference.

But it has a matte screen, which sounds glorious! I am still using a seemingly ancient macbook pro 15" 2009 model, simply because it has a matte screen, yet still runs the latest OSX. The super glossy screens make my eyes hurt after a while. I have been hoping that some day the glossiness gets down to a level that I can tolerate enough to get a newer macbook. However, if my laptop ends up giving up the ghost along th…

Have you tried using an anti-glare (matte) screen protector? I haven't, but they're reasonably priced and it seems like an easy product to get right.
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