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Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

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Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#41

Post by uniclaude »

rimantas wrote: post #22

So what made MB "Pro"? SD card slot? Height? Weight? Absence of TouchBar? People complain about 16GB RAM. Does your current MPB has more?

What made the MB "Pro", if memory serves right, it was filled with components that represented the state of the art when it was released. Best screen, latest generation of CPU, PCIe SSDs, etc... The best you could possibly get, in a sturdy, well designed machine, coming with an OS that just works.

In 2013, some company even found that the best performing Windows laptop was a MBP (!). [1]

[1]: http://www.zdnet.com/article/want-the-most-reliable-windows-...

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#42

Post by 72deluxe »

threeseed wrote: post #32

Massive tip if you decide to stay with a Open up the laptop and reapply the thermal paste on the CPU with something high quality like Arctic Silver. It really needs redoing after 1-2 years. This will result in a significant improvement to overall performance. Why ? Because when OSX detects that the laptop is overheating it schedules a dummy task e.g. secd or kernel_task to throttle the CPU. Cool the laptop and the th…

Is this specific to certain years only? I have a 2012 non-retina and it is great, but apparently certain years had more problems than others. Would you recommend it for my 2012 model too?

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#43

Post by kyriakos »

eknkc wrote: post #23

I asked the same question and read replies to others. Just a quick summary; - Lenovo has decent laptops. Personally, I'd not touch anything from Lenovo after their shady stuff. (Maybe not an issue on Linux, maybe it is. I don't trust them) - Dell XPS series are really good but people complain about coil whine, worse battery life compared to MBP and hit/miss trackpad. It might not be that big of a problem. And if you…

some of the Asus machines are pretty good - I had good experiences with a non-ultrabook laptop for the past 5 years.

most of the issues I read about with Asus is regarding the build quality of their ultrabooks (the hinge in particular) and screen issues (yellow cast on some models). Other than that, all Asus stuff I used are good quality and at least my local support is good.

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#44

Post by ahakki »

y7 wrote: post #38
pritambaral wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Important corrections: - Lenovo's ThinkPad line has decent laptops. Lenovo's more popular line, Ideapad, which are branded just "Lenovo", are terrible. - Dell XPS series are good, but if you're looking to run Linux on them, make sure to get the Developer Editions

Can you elaborate? Why are the Ideapads terrible? Why get a Developer Edition?

iirc the developer edition uses some components from other manufacturers than the standard edition. This is because of driver issues on linux.

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#45

Post by jpalomaki »

alfanick wrote: post #9
viraptor wrote: post #7

If you want more power Lenovo T. If you want something closer to air, Lenovo X.

If you want absolute power - Lenovo P50 (though P50s is closer to MBPr)

P50s is just dual-core.

P50 is quite thick, 24-29mm. I'm using T440p and the height is a bit annoying when typing.

In addition to the missing quad-core slim models, another annoyance with Lenovo is that at least the online configurators are still offering just 512GB SSD. It is of course possible to throw in what you want, but if it is not official Lenovo stuff, then it is not covered by the onsite warranty.

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#46

Post by threeseed »

x0x0 wrote: post #37
idlewords wrote: post #10

What about a 2015 MBP? I also have a 2012 model, with a little water damage, and am seriously thinking of upgrading to 2015 and then giving Apple one more upgrade cycle to come to its senses.

My guess is there may be decent sales around thanksgiving as vendors look to clear last year's stock. I'm mostly hoping saner people prevail at apple too. Or you could learn to type on an ipad, which is clearly the future of computing!

Saner people did prevail at Apple. That's why for a laptop that typically lasts 5+ years they went with USB-C to replace the other dozen antiquated ports.

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#47

Post by joefreeman »

I mostly used Macs for about ten years, but I don't like the direction the ecosystem is taking (cloud, app store, etc.), so recently switched to an XPS 13 (developer edition) running Ubuntu. (I actually also gave an SP4 a good chance for a few months, but couldn't get on with Windows.) It's pretty decent (both the laptop and Ubuntu) - sometimes wish the display was brighter or speakers louder, but depends on the environment. Nice size, bit heavy, but feels solid. Wifi was a bit dodgy before updating to 16.10 - seems fine now though. The HD screen is nice (once you change the scale setting; there's a problem with the touch screen not working after sleep though). I've never been much of a keyboard snob, but this keyboard is so much nicer than a MBA.

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#48

Post by kyriakos »

y7 wrote: post #38
pritambaral wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Important corrections: - Lenovo's ThinkPad line has decent laptops. Lenovo's more popular line, Ideapad, which are branded just "Lenovo", are terrible. - Dell XPS series are good, but if you're looking to run Linux on them, make sure to get the Developer Editions

Can you elaborate? Why are the Ideapads terrible? Why get a Developer Edition?

not terrible, just thinkpads are built for professionals and can generally take more punishment before they break. I'd assume they also use better compoenents.

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#49

Post by pritambaral »

NietTim wrote: post #26
viraptor wrote: post #7

If you want more power Lenovo T. If you want something closer to air, Lenovo X.

I'm really skeptical about Lenovo because of the proprietary software issues they've had, even read things about bioses with sketchy stuff in them which couldn't be flashed and such.

Lenovo has (at least) two lines of laptop products, one consumer and one enterprise.

The consumer line is shit. It's branded just "Lenovo", but Lenovo themselves call it "IdeaPad".

The enterprise line is good. It's branded "ThinkPad", or "Lenovo ThinkPad", and every unit in this line is bound to have the label "ThinkPad" on its body prominently displayed. The two series of laptops your parent referred to are both ThinkPad series.

And the sketchy stuff you refer to all happened in the IdeaPad line, no ThinkPads were affected. Lenovo has historically run the ThinkPad division separately with some autonomy granted.

Re: Ask HN: Disappointed by the new Macbook, what alternatives do we have?

#50

Post by icebraining »

chillacy wrote: post #6

You might want to be more specific, about the "pro" part that you want which is no longer in the MBP. For instance others have pointed out that the 16GB limitation is in all notebooks which use the same intel chipset and low voltage ram, so you'll have to sacrifice battery life for more memory. That's fine for some folks but not for others.

you'll have to sacrifice battery life for more memory

Or get a bigger battery. Not all laptops are stuck with a non-removable battery that must fit a certain size.

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