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We Need a Better PC

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Re: We Need a Better PC

#301

Post by eosrei »

chjohasbrouck wrote: post #285
habosa wrote: post #113

Not disagreeing with the premise, but just want to plug a machine I am very happy with. I was a lifetime mac owner (since OS 9) and my 2010 Macbook Pro finally broke down this year. It made it that long because I doubled the RAM, replaced the battery, and replaced the HDD with a hybrid drive. Finally the battery puffed up and exploded. I brought it to the Apple Store and they were beyond useless. The new MBPs are not…

I have both, and I find the things that Macs have that everything else is missing just aren't articulated on a spec sheet. The display on the Macbook Pro Retina is just flawless. The colors, the anti-glare, and the picture quality from all angles, it's just really well done. The brushed aluminum chassis makes it very cool and lightweight, great to travel with and keep on your lap. Excellent battery life. It's just a…

You seem to have only looked at the older PCs. Have you looked at the Dell XPS 13 or Microsoft Surface Book? They may dispel your complaints. You can even buy the XPS with Ubuntu.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#302

Post by radicalbyte »

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…

I use a screen protector on my MBP: it removes the glare and covers up the horrible ugly streak marks (production fault which Apple only admitted after being sued).

Still, I've just bought an XPS15; it has a better screen than the MBP and incredible specs. The only real downsides are 16:9 and not using the new Samsung 950 Pro PCIE-SSD (which is 25% faster). Upgradability, a massive amount of RAM, fantastic screen and a tiny shell more than make up for that :)

Re: We Need a Better PC

#303

Post by askafriend »

chjohasbrouck wrote: post #285
habosa wrote: post #113

Not disagreeing with the premise, but just want to plug a machine I am very happy with. I was a lifetime mac owner (since OS 9) and my 2010 Macbook Pro finally broke down this year. It made it that long because I doubled the RAM, replaced the battery, and replaced the HDD with a hybrid drive. Finally the battery puffed up and exploded. I brought it to the Apple Store and they were beyond useless. The new MBPs are not…

I have both, and I find the things that Macs have that everything else is missing just aren't articulated on a spec sheet. The display on the Macbook Pro Retina is just flawless. The colors, the anti-glare, and the picture quality from all angles, it's just really well done. The brushed aluminum chassis makes it very cool and lightweight, great to travel with and keep on your lap. Excellent battery life. It's just a…

Not to mention that the entire casing of the MacBook acts as a heatsink, which is really just awesome design.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#304

Post by beloch »

maccard wrote: post #289
beloch wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I had a motherboard fail on a 2011 MacBook Pro running Windows 7 - I just wiped the drive on another Mac and put it back in and have it to them. No questions asked.

Why did you do this? Did you believe that if they knew you were running Win7 they'd void your warranty?

Re: We Need a Better PC

#305

Post by tluyben2 »

hartator wrote: post #210
habosa wrote: post #113

Not disagreeing with the premise, but just want to plug a machine I am very happy with. I was a lifetime mac owner (since OS 9) and my 2010 Macbook Pro finally broke down this year. It made it that long because I doubled the RAM, replaced the battery, and replaced the HDD with a hybrid drive. Finally the battery puffed up and exploded. I brought it to the Apple Store and they were beyond useless. The new MBPs are not…

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.

That depends on your taste. I bought my first retina macbook pro last year and I really don't like it compared to my Air. Actaully it's rotting in a cupboard now because of the ghastly battery life. I agree with the premise; computers are locked down and cheap build quality in general. But for me only battery life matters, so I bought a stack (from a broker; it was very cheap) of Lenovo X220s with a 9 cell batteries and i'm happy as a clam. It costs a fraction of the Macbook Pro (10% actually) and it actualy just chugs along with Ubuntu installed for 12 hours after which I just swap batteries for another 12 hours. I was never that bothered with the whole lock-in thing before but now that i'm back working in Linux (2009 was my first Mac, before that I went from DOS to Unix in the early 90s and after that straight to Linux until 2009) I really don't want to touch anything else. But YMMV.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#306

Post by headmelted »

Am I missing something? Can't you just boot Ubuntu on a Macbook if that's what you want to do?

(This is a genuine question - I've always found OSX sufferable enough to not need to, and I have a fanless Acer for Ubuntu that travels with me).

Re: We Need a Better PC

#307

Post by tluyben2 »

eosrei wrote: post #301
chjohasbrouck wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both, and I find the things that Macs have that everything else is missing just aren't articulated on a spec sheet. The display on the Macbook Pro Retina is just flawless. The colors, the anti-glare, and the picture quality from all angles, it's just really well done. The brushed aluminum chassis makes it very cool and lightweight, great to travel with and keep on your lap. Excellent battery life. It's just a…

You seem to have only looked at the older PCs. Have you looked at the Dell XPS 13 or Microsoft Surface Book? They may dispel your complaints. You can even buy the XPS with Ubuntu.

Worthless battery life for such costly machines. I would've bought the XPS 13 with Ubuntu otherwise.

Edit: I read reviews like this http://www.iretron.com/blog/posts/dell-xps-13-is-a-major-dis... cannot find the other ones though. It is better than I remember; I thought it was worse. Still; 6 hours is not really usable in my book.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#308

Post by natch »

habosa wrote: post #113

Not disagreeing with the premise, but just want to plug a machine I am very happy with. I was a lifetime mac owner (since OS 9) and my 2010 Macbook Pro finally broke down this year. It made it that long because I doubled the RAM, replaced the battery, and replaced the HDD with a hybrid drive. Finally the battery puffed up and exploded. I brought it to the Apple Store and they were beyond useless. The new MBPs are not…

There are third party batteries that will puff up and explode. I wouldn't blame Apple for that. If it was an Apple battery, I'm curious which Apple store gave you grief about this. Care to tell?

Re: We Need a Better PC

#309

Post by arthurfm »

thirdsun wrote: post #209
gcb0 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

That was my impression too. I'm not an expert on Windows hardware/devices but from what I hear the Dell XPS 13 is an excellent machine if you don't want a MacBook. Not even mentioning Dell tells me this guy misses a few things.

> Not even mentioning Dell tells me this guy misses a few things.

I fully expected to see the (2015) XPS 13 mentioned too and perhaps Microsoft's Surface Book (which could be used as a laptop 100% of the time if required).

The way he talked about "Microsoft Surface" made it sound like Microsoft only made the Pro model.

Re: We Need a Better PC

#310

Post by Cymen »

habosa wrote: post #113

Not disagreeing with the premise, but just want to plug a machine I am very happy with. I was a lifetime mac owner (since OS 9) and my 2010 Macbook Pro finally broke down this year. It made it that long because I doubled the RAM, replaced the battery, and replaced the HDD with a hybrid drive. Finally the battery puffed up and exploded. I brought it to the Apple Store and they were beyond useless. The new MBPs are not…

If you still want to bring your old MBP back to life, I just replaced the battery on my sister's 2011 MBP with an aftermarket one from Amazon. There were a lot of pro/con reviews and it's only a couple weeks in but so far it's great. I went the one branded by Anker and it came with the correct screwdriver which was a nice touch. Installation was very simple. She also needed a new HDD so I put in an SSD and the machine is surprisingly zippy with the latest OS X.
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