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Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

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Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#421

Post by darksaints »

cytzol wrote: post #253
mherrmann wrote: post #48

I switched from MBP to a Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu. I compare the experience to living in a hotel vs. living at home [1]. In a hotel (=on Mac), everything is stylish and cared for, but you have very little freedom to change things. At home (=on Linux), you need to do the dishes yourself but there's no external agenda. It's simply yours. I'm very happy with the switch. Though I'm on (Debian+) Xfce now instead of Ubuntu…

> In a hotel (=on Mac), everything is stylish and cared for, but you have very little freedom to change things. I've heard this over and over — that Macs are locked-down, uncustomisable machines — and I don't agree with it at all. I use replacements for almost all the built-in apps. I use a custom launcher. My editor config Git repo is approaching ten years old, and my shell config Git repo is almost eight. There are…

Get back to me when you can figure out how to upgrade your ram.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#422

Post by [deleted] »

asjw wrote: post #381
FussyZeus wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always criticize the lack of customization too as though it's an inherent flaw, like things must be customizable or not be good and I disagree. I love having my Windows Desktop to tinker on, but my Macbook is my workhorse. I don't care if I can customize it to any great degree. I've paid a lot of money for that machine and I expect it to work, without troubleshooting, and without fiddling. I akin it more to go…

Except you are paying 150 $ for a dinner and they are serving you a very over priced average meal and you can't even add anything to it to make it better. Do you want some oil on it(ram)? It's 80 euros because you have to ask the chef assistant (apple store) Do you want different kind of pasta which is the standard for that receipe? (Nvidia GPU) You can't So what are you really paying for? The forniture? I go to a mu…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#423

Post by jbergknoff »

alextingle wrote: post #267
mduerksen wrote: post #168

Any serious contender should have an answer to the MBPs extraordinary touchpad. It is key to working without a mouse, and therefore being truly mobile and comfortable at the same time. So please post at least some information for this aspect, which is one of the things the OP explicitly listed. Some examples: - Would you be able to do some solid Photoshop/Sketch/Gimp/Inkscape/Blender work with the touchpad/knob of yo…

I can't stand track/touchpads - I just turn them off. Give me a good trackpoint any day.

There are dozens of us! I've tried to get comfortable with touchpads, but I always find them frustrating (yes, even MBP touchpads). For instance, selecting text with them is a disaster. Trackpoint or external mouse for me.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#424

Post by msrmthehomeless »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #342
spectramax wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget the ads. Ads, even in the powershell. Telemetry of everything. Automatic installs of OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, etc. Fuck Windows. It sucks.

What ads??? I've been on Windows for decades, never saw a single ad by the OS.

I think he's referring to app store recommendations and ms push for edge

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#425

Post by whycombagator »

cdata wrote: post #346

Similar story to OP. The MBP I acquired in 2017 has been undergoing rapid disintegration while the 2013 model it replaced is still working just fine. After stressing over the problem that nothing seemed comparable spec-wise, System 76 released their Adder WS and after reading some testimonials from users online I made the leap back to Linux. So far, I am very pleased with the choice. Here is what I love about it: - A…

How is the chassis/build quality? IIRC they are just sager/ shells

I've read varying reports of the build quality and it's one of the reasons I've not bothered with System 76 - I fear it will be inferior to a Dell/Lenovo product.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#426

Post by SomeOtherThrow »

okennedy wrote: post #330
cytzol wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a hotel (=on Mac), everything is stylish and cared for, but you have very little freedom to change things. I've heard this over and over — that Macs are locked-down, uncustomisable machines — and I don't agree with it at all. I use replacements for almost all the built-in apps. I use a custom launcher. My editor config Git repo is approaching ten years old, and my shell config Git repo is almost eight. There are…

Once upon a time this was true. User-facing documentation was scarce (usually requiring internet searches). However, between unofficial package managers like homebrew, the excellent efforts of a few devs (LaunchBar/Quicksilver, PathFinder, Little Snitch, etc...), `osascript`, and the internet providing defaults documentation for obscure apple apps, I always felt like I could get the system to behave the way I needed…

> In summary, earlier versions of OSX are perfectly fine (my one remaining mac is on 10.10), but Apple has not been doing itself any favors with the dev community in more recent iterations of the OS.

The GNU/Linux community also isn't bending to my will arbitrarily either. Frustrating, to say the least.

In all seriousness, people are all happy to talk about how easy linux is to customize until you broach the subject of changing keybindings to use a mac-like scheme (using command for gui interactions as a rule of thumb, readline bindings everywhere there's text entry), and you find out this is pretty much impossible. In reality software is mostly customizable in the way the creators built it to be customized, including things like windowserver and macos mouse behavior and X11 and gtk and emacs and bash.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#427

Post by bluedino »

emilsedgh wrote: post #8

X1 Carbon is a really nice device. Its pretty reliable, Linux friendly and has no spyware installed like some other Lenovo lines. But no matter what laptop you pick, its gonna take you a couple of weeks until you are comfortable with it. But it will happen eventually. Laptops have the same interface after all. Switching the entire software stack from Mac to any other OS is probably the main struggle. Try a couple of…

I've had almost every model of MacBook Pro, and quite a few models of ThinkPads. At any given time, I own 2-3 of each.

Generally, Linux works fine on the ThinkPads, as does Windows. But neither of them work as smoothly as a Mac OS for me. Especially when it comes to multi-monitors. They also don't handle different resolutions nearly as well (4k, standard, etc). I usually run dual-boot because I'm not 100% happy with either.

However, for the most part, I can do things like plug my USB-C LG 4k monitor into a ThinkPad with Linux or Windows 10 and it works just fine. But, a couple reboots later I might have to re-configure all my externals (various 1440p and 1080p monitors).

The trackpad on the MacBooks is beyond anything you will get on a ThinkPad. They are usable, they also have the trackpoint, but they don't have the 'flickability' that the Macs have. The keyboards are also better than anything you'll find elsewhere.

The place where the ThinkPads really win is cost and flexibility. Plus, they have all the ports you would expect.

Do you need a beast of a 'portable workstation'? You can configure a P5x on Lenovo.com with 64-128GB of RAM, 3x2GB SSD's in it, and you're still cheaper than a maxed out 15" MBP with 1/3rd the capacity.

Do you want a thin and light travel machine? You have the X2x0 and the X1. Neither share the footprint of the 12" MacBook but they have real processors, and you can upgrade the RAM and SSD with standard parts.

And then if you just want a 'laptop', you have the T3x0, T4x0, T5x0, if you need a 'workstation' there's the X1 Extreme, P1, P5x. Enough options to make it confusing.

We have XPS 13's at work, but I don't care for them too much. They feel chintzy, 4k @ 13" isn't ideal for me (the screens are high quality, though). The shiny bezel around the entire laptop gets all scratched up and cheap looking very quickly as well.

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#429

Post by remotedeveloper »

tasuki wrote: post #67
Doubleslash wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

X1 is a nice laptop. The problem is it's weak CPU. Apple manages to crunch a whole different tier of CPU (h(q) series vs. U series for Lenovo) in the same form factor.

I'm a big fan of the U series cpus: They consume very little energy, which leads to less overheating, less fan noise, and longer battery life. (Conversely, the H series cpus consume a lot of energy: the laptop overheats quickly and has to slow down anyway.)

Thanks to constant throttling. Which makes an i7 feel like barely an i3. (i7-7660U in an XPS 13, at least)

Re: Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

#430

Post by mehdix »

yoloClin wrote: post #12
emilsedgh wrote: post #8

X1 Carbon is a really nice device. Its pretty reliable, Linux friendly and has no spyware installed like some other Lenovo lines. But no matter what laptop you pick, its gonna take you a couple of weeks until you are comfortable with it. But it will happen eventually. Laptops have the same interface after all. Switching the entire software stack from Mac to any other OS is probably the main struggle. Try a couple of…

I used an X1 for a few months. It took me a fortnight of rage before I discovered you can switch fn and ctrl in BIOS. after that I really liked it. I'm going to be in the market for a new <= 14" soon but want more ram than the X1 carbon offers. A T490 caps out at 40gb and has decent specs on paper, I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on the model though.

I go everything working under Arch except the sd card reader.
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