Earlier quoted context omitted.
You unlock the ability to downvote posts and comments at 500 karma points I believe
Comments yes, posts no. Post downvoting either does not exist or has much higher karma threshold.
You can flag posts, though.
Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
411–420 of 538 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
I own a slimbook and have been quite satisfied with it - it's got everything I wanted and needed for normal price.
Have heard since good things about Slimbooks. Could you tell us more about your experience and how much you paid for it?
Payed ~1.2k EUR if I remember correctly — the bigger model with some upgrades.
Took about a month (I asked for a Slovenian keyboard, which they added for free). Came preinstalled with my linux of choice, no compatibility issues yet.
It's smaller than expected for the screen size. Lighter as well. Have had no heating or other issues. Battery lasts for 6plus hours with web development including docker containers and a modern php/js toolchain.
I'm not a very finicky buyer, but I got everything I wanted for much less than all of my web dev friends. I game over geforce now, so I got everything covered.
I'm out of warranty and am still happy with it. Would recommend and buy again.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#413not really. I've tried a bunch. the biggest problem is the trackpad and just general, every day usability. you can't beat an apple silicon Mac laptop with anything today.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the downvotes are coming from calling it a “game changer”. How has the game actually has changed? What does the new AS MacBook enable that the other ones don’t, or other laptops don’t for that matter? We live in an age of fast performance and great battery life on most any laptop. Having faster performance and better battery life isn’t changing the game —- that’s how the game has been played as long as laptop…
> How has the game actually has changed? Battery life for one [1]. Many compare the Dell XPS 13/15 to the MBA/MBP and the XPS has realistically less than half the battery life [2] (the 5.5-7 hours being listed as "feasible" there also requires turning down the display brightness a lot). The 2011 Macbook Air was heads and shoulders above anything else at the time for that combination of size, cost, power and battery l…
> On a pure hardware front, the M1/M2 Macbooks are at a similar point where nothing else can compete with that combination of price, power, battery life and form factor
Like I said, the performance and battery improvements are marginal; it's the same game played a little better, not a changed game. The AS processor doesn’t enable completely new or novel ways of using the device, and in fact the form factor is still limited compared to competing options. The reason I use my Surface Laptop over my Macbook are old reasons -- touch screen support, pen support, and windows software compatibility. If my Macbook supported all of that, then that would be a game changer. But that's not what they did; they improved on some performance and some battery life, which as I said is a story as old as computing. It's not enough for me to consider my new Macbook as a "game changer" if the added benefits won't even cause me to pick it up over an alternative.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#415I've seen your post as a comment before. For India, I recommend buying Dell / Lenovo if you really want on-site repairs for cheap, otherwise I recommend Asus. I recently bought Asus Zenbook 14 Oled (12th gen) over M1 MacBook Air and I absolutely love it. It has 75Wh battery, excellent speakers and with a nice 90Hz 14inch display. However, I can't use Fedora on it since sound over speaker doesn't work yet. Dell's Insp…
It’s completely unreasonable to not be able to play audio through your built in speakers in 2022 (or even 2002). The things people will justify to keep using Linux is insane.
Fedora is one of the most beautiful and functional Linux distros out there. I don't think it is the Fedora's ( read: real humans working behind Linux) fault at all.
But since manufactures don't provide an out of the box support for Linux, it takes time for the community to catch up.
Linux can work just as well as any other operating system if there is a commercial entity maintaining it, like SteamOS for Steam Deck. And that is true for all software, not just Linux.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
Portability is the first thing I look for in a work machine, personally. I have a nice desktop setup, 5k2k, keeb, trackball, stream deck, my laptop runs it without making any noise, slowing down, or otherwise misbehaving. I can easily drive to the manufacturer's authorized retail outlet in the event that it has problems, which has indeed happened twice over the nine laptops I've owned from this manufacturer in the la…
Where are you going with your computer to do real work? I've never used a laptop to get real work done where I need to sit for 4+ hours that wasn't a nice desk with ergonomic chair and large monitors. The only thing I ever did with my laptops when it wasn't plugged into a docking station at a desk was surf the web, and I can do that from my phone.
I massively prefer a good workstation with large monitors and a nice keyboard, but I've done plenty of real work on a laptop.
Airplanes, coffee shops, recliners, internetless cabins... a laptop's been all I needed for doing everything from web development to audio synthesis algorithm development.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#417You don't say where you are located, but unless you are in one of the few places where Dell doesn't offer on-site next business day support then XPS 13 is a great laptop. Their support is amazing: "We're not sure what is causing it, but we'll send someone to replace the whole motherboard tomorrow." "OH, your currently halfway across the world on a island? No problem, we'll be there tomorrow" I really don't understand…
I would offer that the XPS 15 is a better deal since you can get it with a matte screen and it also allows upgrading both RAM and SSD. You cannot update the RAM on XPS 13. Not sure if they've changed the ability to upgrade the SSD is newer models.
Also, I'd say that Dell's customer support is horrendous. I bought an XPS 15 from them but had issues with the trackpad (which I think in hindsight were software/firmware related). It tooks months to resolve it, and by the time they did and they were going to replace it, they no longer sold the white XPS 15. They offered the gray one, which I didn't want, or a refund. They basically told me to buy a computer from someone else as there's "plenty of laptop makers around who might make a white one" (paraphrased). I also had to call them and tell them to stop the replacement, as they originally just kicked it off with a replacement that was not only not the correct color but had the completely wrong specs.
Basically every email and phone call was with a different person, for the same support ticket.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've had a couple XPS laptops over the years, one XPS 13 and one XPS 15. Both have had issues with their trackpads getting wonky. They would just increasingly ignore inputs and react incorrectly to my finger. The XPS 15 (the 2-in-1 model) would also sometimes just not go to sleep and cook itself in my bag, and its keyboard has keys which just break over time under normal use, and that's not covered under warranty. Yo…
That’s due to swelling batteries, which is apparently common in the xps line
It's also an issue on HPs similar x360 line. And it is a consequence of optimizing for the arbitrary metric "slimness" at the expense of cooling, while stuffing in high-TDP CPUs. Who on earth has a bag or backpack where 15 mm vs 21 mm thickness means the laptop won't fit?
Get something with a bit of thickness to it, like the Latitude 5530 (which Dell will also sell with Ubuntu) and stick to the low-TDP CPU versions.
If your dev work is CPU-intensive you should be doing it on a workstation or server anyways. A machine where your cooling solution can dissipate 3-400W without batting an eyelid is going to beat the crap out of a "high-end" 45W TDP laptop.
When you're on the road, just use SSH with tmux or RDP or whatever you prefer. At your desk, set up a monitor and a workstation for the serious work and keep the laptop on the side for meetings, emails etc. A USB switch for the mouse and keyboard works well and is like $30.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#419I still enjoy the Thinkpad T series. They’re older and not sold new but they’re tough as rocks and meant to be user serviceable. Plus, reduce, reuse and all that. If you’re doing bleeding edge graphics engine programming or ML it wouldn’t be my first choice unless you can deal with an external GPU.
The T series is still available for purchase, it’s a workhorse for corporate use cases and the most popular model for corporate IT deployments. There’s the P series which is a bit more premium and usually better specs. Just beware of overheating & throttling issues with some high end P/X models, especially with 12th gen intel chipsets.
My bad, you're right. I usually just buy them second hand.
Which is a pretty good way to go about it. The after market for parts is pretty strong. They're plentiful and refurbished units are cheap enough that you can get a backup or two. With a decent backup system you can clone your setup to a new machine fast.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?
#420You don't say where you are located, but unless you are in one of the few places where Dell doesn't offer on-site next business day support then XPS 13 is a great laptop. Their support is amazing: "We're not sure what is causing it, but we'll send someone to replace the whole motherboard tomorrow." "OH, your currently halfway across the world on a island? No problem, we'll be there tomorrow" I really don't understand…
I really do not understand the love the XPS 13 gets. We have several here at the office. We will never get them again. They break, the keyboard is not pleasant, the machine is not really fast, two handed openings are painful when you come from a different brand, charging it takes forever, we just leave them plugged in, switching wireless to wired in linux (several distros) takes too long, did I mention the keyboard m…
I mean the level of complaint being "Opening the lid is kinda hard" shows it must be a pretty good laptop. It's like complaining that the waiter asked one time too many if everything was satisfactory at a high-end restaurant.