Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21302412

by ryanmccullagh • 7 years ago

563 570 7 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

The MBP is by far the best laptop I’ve used. The graphics are amazing, and the touchpad is ergonomic. However, Apple has demonstrated their inability to be reliable. I bought my MBP in January of this year (2019) and tomorrow I’ll pick it up from its 3rd repair. I’ve grown tired of this repair routine. And after the 3 years runs out, they will start charging me.

jonny383• 7 years ago

Dell XPS developer edition, or if you want a 15", the non-developer edition.

Touch pad is not quite as good, but the rest of the hardware is up to spec. The 4K screen is arguably better than a MBP.

muzani• 7 years ago

Slightly off topic, I greatly prefer a touch screen over the touch pad.

One downside of switching is that work software for Macs are very well built. Webstorm feels clunkier on Windows than Mac, for example.

I wish I could recommend something, but nothing seems to meet the weight, quality, power match.

HP Pavilion has the weight and power of a MBP, and the tablet mode is fun. But the touchpad is terrible.

Dell XPS has power and a good build, but is too heavy if you like to lug around two laptops like me.

MS Surfacebook seems nice, but some friends report that it it's also similarly fragile.

monkeycantype• 7 years ago

I've been doing a lot of work on windows, so I bought a surface book, and I really like it. But it is fragile. I bought a refurb, and I had to exchange it twice. Fortunately the support is good, when I've had a problem, MS swapped it for me via courier . I've had everything backed up on one drive and really been quite easy. If you find yourself in this position, their online support chat has certain hours in each country, just switch the /us/uk/au path segment in the chat url and you'll get to chat with a person any time of day.

tuukkah• 7 years ago

Thinkpad X1 Carbon (or Extreme for 15" OLED display and 64GB RAM)

drevil-v2• 7 years ago

Slightly OT however for what it’s worth the new 16inch MBP with a redesigned non-butterfly keyboard is supposed to be available soon.

I would suggest you hold off any laptop decision until then.

gherkinnn6• 7 years ago

Waiting for that announcement myself. Plus a few months to see just how reliable they are.

frogperson• 7 years ago

the rumors suggest that it will initially ship with the old keyboard, to get upgraded sometime in 2020.

dillonmckay• 7 years ago

Meh.

Are you really confident this first new batch will be ok?

awalton3• 7 years ago

Err, have you ever bought a first-gen Apple product? Not something you walk into lightly... Apple has a tendency to let customers find their flaws rather than actually test for them and shake them out.

I'd rather not volunteer $3000 to be a guinea pig for Apple's keyboard design gremlins. If they went back to the 2016 model and just slapped a new motherboard inside and made the battery larger, then yeah, it'd be a no brainer. But I can't imagine them being that smart about it given the past few years of evidence to the contrary.

house9-2• 7 years ago

Err, have you ever bought a first-gen Apple product?

I have 1st gen iMac retina, I have had zero issues and have been using it daily since I bought it new in 2014. I did get SSD and upgraded cpu and graphics card; I believe the base models under performed so I can imagine people were not so happy with those models?

Only regret, it cannot be used as an external monitor.

I'd rather not volunteer $3000 to be a guinea pig for Apple's keyboard design gremlins.

yeah, I would probably wait as well; unless work was paying for it

inopinatus2• 7 years ago

The first hurdle for me is still whether it has an Escape key.

zerotolerance• 7 years ago

Get yourself a clutch :) https://github.com/alevchuk/vim-clutch

jkelleyrtp• 7 years ago

You can rebind your capslock key to escape. I'm so addicted that I rebind it on every keyboard I use now. It's a much better location than normal escape and works everywhere throughout the OS.

pier252• 7 years ago

It's generally not a good idea to buy a 1st gen Apple product. IMO it would be better to wait at least to a 2nd gen of the redesigned MBPs.

adreamingsoul• 7 years ago

I recently switched to the Lenovo Thinkpad P1 running Ubuntu. After 6 months of use, I’m fairly happy with it.

jordanthoms2• 7 years ago

How is graphics switching working on those? AFAIK you need to use the discrete card for HDMI/displayport, and integrated for best battery life, but switching between them takes a reboot.

godzillabrennus• 7 years ago

Nothing equals the MacBook line even with all the downgrades since they switched to Donglebook models.

Closest I’ve used is the Surface line but it’s not nearly as good.

I’m still using a donglebook. My work gave me one and I had bought one so I have a spare for when one is being repaired.

The keyboards are utter shit, the usb C charging is a big downgrade, and the touch pads are now so big they often get in the way of typing.

The 2012 MacBook Pro Retina I bought before my 2018 Donglebook still hasn’t had issues.

emilsedgh• 7 years ago

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 Linuxes or Windows for a few weeks until you find the sweet spot. Between Mac, Windows and major Linux distributions, there is none that is objectively better anymore(for developer experience). Its a matter of preference and habit.

yoloClin• 7 years ago

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.

koyote• 7 years ago

I have a somewhat older T4xx model that's still running (bought in 2012/13 I believe). During its lifetime I upgraded the hard-drive, RAM, the keyboard (well, it wasn't an upgrade...coffee spilled on the previous one...) and even the screen.

I have since upgraded to an X1 carbon which is significantly slimmer and lighter (although I never had any complaints about the previous laptop in that respect).

I personally think the T4xx line is a perfect compromise between portability and power. So as long as you're ok with having a slightly thicker and heavier laptop you'll be very happy with it.

disposedtrolley2• 7 years ago

I recently purchased a T490 and it works reasonably well with Linux. My model has the base 1080p display rated at 250 nits, and while resolution and colour are no match for an MBP, the display surprisingly gets bright enough for some outdoor use.

Build quality is solid and keyboard is great. Speakers sound pretty rough but get decently loud. I got maybe 7-8 hours of use with the screen at 60%, and alternating between coding in Emacs and watching some videos.

I've tried Manjaro and the latest Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and have had no issues that would be a deal breaker. The only annoyance is jittery movement with the TrackPoint, but I've had that on every modern ThinkPad running Linux. I've been leaning towards using the trackpad more often and it seems to work okay.

torvald• 7 years ago

The new Lenovo x390 looks quite promising for being smaller than 14, but bigger then the x200 series (which is 12.5").

the8472• 7 years ago

A T490 caps out at 40gb

48 according to the spec sheet.

mehdix• 7 years ago

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

cullenking• 7 years ago

Just bought a t495 for myself and my business partner. Returned both, the keyboard is horrendous. Lookup nkey rollover, typing on the keyboard was full of missing and transposed letters. Will never buy another Lenovo again.

Doubleslash• 7 years ago

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.

MatekCopatek2• 7 years ago

The 13" MBP that is most comparable to the X1 Carbon also uses U series, while the 15" MBP is best compared to the X1 Extreme, which, you guessed it, offers the better H series CPUs.

Same for Dell XPS 13 vs 15.

tasuki5• 7 years ago

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.)

zepearl2• 7 years ago

I cannot understand this statement - if I need a (relatively) thin laptop my primary focus won't definitely be the number-crunching feature (more something like weight, connectivity, panel colors, input devices, etc...).

longtom• 7 years ago

I also moved to Windows 10 and X1 Carbon (6th Gen) after using Apple products all my life and I've never looked back. That being said, my X1 also went three times to repair. I guess people have simply unlearnt how to manufacture reliable products due to the immense complexity that is involved by now, combined with a planned obsolescence mentality. It is shitty wherever you go; it's just a bit more shitty with Apple currently IMO, and Apple deserves some flak for their provocative product policy, e.g. selling the MacBook Air with the same crappy low-res screen up until 2017 which is still available in some stores.

chillee• 7 years ago

IMO, if you're buying a higher end laptop it's worth shelling out for the on site warranty/accident protection. They'll send a technician to your location (typically within the week) and replace whatever parts needed for free. So you'll have essentially 0 time without your laptop.

It's been excellent (used it twice: fixed a broken keycap, and a spilled drink), and gives me a ton of peace of mind.

dade_• 7 years ago

Overall, I love my X1, but I have had so many problems that they finally replaced it with a brand new machine. Premier support is mandatory for Lenovo IMO, in spite of the problems, I never once had an issue getting someone onsite to repair it and they assigned a local case manager to sort out the replacement. On the Lenovo forum I read a lot of stories from people with similar problems, but with basic warranty they reported getting a run around, being without a machine for weeks at a time with it went back and forth to the depot. A YMMV..

zepearl2• 7 years ago

I moved from an XPS13 (hated the keyboard) to a Lenovo X1 Carbon (4th gen) and I'm very happy since then (Linux, XFCE). The only bad thing about the X1 are the loudspeakers (0 bass).

valleyjo• 7 years ago

I have a gen 3 carbon x1 that is four years old and I still use it every day. Never replaced the battery and I still get 4-5 hours. It’s not powerful enough for dev work but perfect for web stuff and office.

bluedino3• 7 years ago

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.

schneiderscode• 7 years ago

In love with my X1 Carbon. Great form factor, runs Debian without issues, and has been a perfect replacement for my old MacBook.

cascom• 7 years ago

The ones I’ve seen look pretty appealing but don’t think I could bring myself to purchase something from such a disreputable company

setnone• 7 years ago

can you share what was broken since January?

askmike• 7 years ago

I'm betting it's the keyboard.

ryanmccullagh2• 7 years ago

Hi,

3 things broke. First it was a dead pixel on the screen, second was a reproducible kernel panic (using any video chat application would panic the kernel.). The last and hopefully final issue was the keyboard issue (double keys, and weird issues with the key not pressing sometimes).

Varriount• 7 years ago

The Dell XPS line is pretty decent, and the newer models have fixed some design flaws (like camera placement). The higher-end models have discrete graphics cards, fingerprint readers, and a decent resolution display.

supernes• 7 years ago

Bought an XPS a couple of months ago and had to return it because of the inexcusable ghosting and slow refresh on the 4K panel and the frankly inadequate thermal design. Outrageously bad for the asking price.

ypcx2• 7 years ago

First, bad apples do happen in both Mac and Windows worlds. I've worked primarily on Macbooks over the last 10 years (while Windows on laptop was still in diapers) and they never failed on me. Now that Windows 10 Pro is getting really good, and the Macs are getting obliterated by horrid design decisions, I see myself switching to Windows.

I personally prefer Windows laptops with UHD/QHD screens because I can put much more info on it (e.g. 3 vertical code windows or two vertical web browsers). The Mac won't let me set that high a DPI, even if the resolution is theoretically there. Also the 4:3 Mac screen ratio many times results in the bottom part of the screen obscured by fingers, e.g. bed coding.

That said, the best I've found is Lenovo Yoga 920 and Dell XPS 15. The Dell can be fitted with 64 GB ram e.g. if you run VMs, and since you mention amazing graphics, the OLED version says Hi to the Macbook Pro, from another universe (in other words the Mac display looks like utter trash compared to it).

In all cases, you need to clean-reinstall from a Microsoft provided Windows installer (to get rid of the massive preinstalled, buggy and inefficient bloatware), and run ThrottleStop to undervolt the machine to avoid the extra heat and boost the battery performance. Write down what you do, and over time you will develop your "install script". Chocolatey is your friend.

HTH

kokey• 7 years ago

Try running something like EasyRes on your Mac, you can then switch to the actual resolution of the monitor. It’s somewhat insane how much stuff fits into the screen of my 13” MacBook.

ypcx2• 7 years ago

Actually, independently, I just did that a few days ago on my MBP 12", installed "RDM", it's pretty awesome.

saagarjha2• 7 years ago

Macs are 16:10.

badatshipping• 7 years ago

Try getting a refurbished 2015 MacBook Pro (the last good model), as powerful as you need.

hellofunk• 7 years ago

The new razor blade 15 really caught my eye. Expensive, though.

propercoil• 7 years ago

Macbook Air > Macbook Pro just because of the keyboard

hdbsbv_shdbfb• 7 years ago

I have MBP ‘18 and an Air ‘19 and I was surprised how much better the keyboard is. I didn’t buy it for that reason — I just like to have a second, more portable laptop for backup and convenience. It is much nicer to type on and feels more rugged.

I agree with the general consensus here however — Apple needs to get its shit together and stop pursuing meaningless marketing metrics and start making great computers again.

SWEs / tech people (myself included) probably overestimate their importance vis-a-vis Apple, but it would really only take one great alternative from Razer or Lenovo or a new company to cause a mass exodus. That will definitely not be good for Apple.

At this point I use Apple because they piss me off slightly less than the alternatives let me down aesthetically. It’s hubris for Apple to assume that will always be the case.

jordanthoms2• 7 years ago

Yeah, Lenovo is almost there with the X1 Carbon/Extreme and Razer's ones look good too - if they'd just fix the trackpads and have officially supported Linux with the Optimus problems fixed they'd be a great alternative.

llampx3• 7 years ago

Is there really that much of a portability difference between an Air and a Pro?

pkalinowski2• 7 years ago

I'm looking for a replacement, too. Had Macbook Pro 2015 and 2018.

I plan to settle on Windows 10 Pro + Ubuntu WSL. I don't need top specs (i5 and 16GB RAM are enough for me), but build quality (touchpad, screen, robustness) and weight are most important.

Playing with Surface Pro 6 in shop I kinda like it, but I can't find XPS or X1 to lay my hands on.

How is the build quality between Surface Pro, XPS and X1? Which one has the best touchpad, screen?

EugeneOZ• 7 years ago

Dell XPS 15 (2019) has good keyboard - better than Surface Pro, worse than Lenovo. Very good touchpad - worse than Macbook, better than any other manufacturer. Materials are nice to touch, design is very good looking (comparable to MBP). Screen has very modest viewing angle, but if you don't move your head too much, colors are vibrant and image quality is great.

mkl4• 7 years ago

Maybe look at Surface Book too? Bigger screen, discrete graphics option, two batteries, bigger touchpad. I have one for work. Not sure what the Surface Pro 6 is like physically, but Surface Book 2 beats Surface Pro 4 at almost everything.

morphar6• 7 years ago

I am seriously considering Purism Librem 13 (https://puri.sm/products/librem-13/) as a replacement for my MBP. I haven't had any hands on experience with it though, so if anybody have tried it, I would love to hear about your experience. I like the privacy first approach and I think it is becoming more and more essential to have this kind of alternative.

Madeindjs• 7 years ago

It sound very good. I would love to have a feedback on this product because I think it expensive (start at 1100€ for 8 GO RAM + 250 GO ...)

morphar6• 7 years ago

According to the article I just shared, it seems like it's not just expensive, but unnecessarily expensive :(

kgarten5• 7 years ago

I'm using the 15" as I'm a sucker for 4K screens. Very happy with it.

morphar6• 7 years ago

Thanks for sharing! I'm a sucker for 4k as well, but not so much for big laptops ;) I was hoping for a 13" 4k from Purism, before reading what Zlatan Todoric had to say about Purism.

morphar6• 7 years ago

And then this landed on HN: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zlatan-T...

Basically Zlatan Todoric the former CTO of Purism calls Purism's claims "shady" :(

Too bad... I had high hopes for Purism.

kgarten5• 7 years ago

Not sure I can take him too serious. I have now 3 laptops from purism (2 old 13” and one 15” ). they are great.

He’s mostly talking about the phone project (which is hard).

Don’t know about Purism, yet have friends who worked with/on Jolla and his comments sound too harsh. PinePhone is interesting, yet haven’t seen much and I doubt they will be doing better ... Jolla shipped (yes with some proprietary blobs ), but was a great product (loved their work also before on the Nokia n110 ... my first mobile internet device).

kgarten5• 7 years ago

Would also argue that Purism is still better than Dell, Huawaii or any other laptop manufacturer :)

roadbeats• 7 years ago

I use MBP 2015 at work, Macbook Air 2013 at home, run Arch Linux on both devices (dual boot). Had no issues so far.

truth_seeker• 7 years ago

XPS 13 (or 15)

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3445857/dell-xps-13-2-in-1-v...

rcarmo3• 7 years ago

I have been using a Rev1 Surface Laptop as a development machine for over a year - here are my notes after six months:

- https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2019/05/11/2030

Full disclosure: I work at Microsoft. I also still use Macs (and will keep using them regardless-for instance, I use a 5K iMac a lot of the time I work remotely) and have kept a Mac-centric blog for sixteen years, so I think I can be pretty straightforward and direct about this:

The Surface Laptop is at least as good as the MacBook (hardware-wise), and depending on what you do (for instance, if you can take advantage of WSL2 and the new Linux environment that comes with it), it may well be better. IMMV.

Hardware-wise, I cannot fault it except in the number of ports (new models changed that a bit). Having moved from a Lenovo X1 (which I hated) to it, and having avoided the hassles involved in the Surface Book (the hinge and detachable screen make for a wobbly, temperamental machine IMHO, and I’m not alone in thinking that), I’d say it is a great machine.

(I still carry around a Surface Pro 4 because it is only a slight bit smaller and lighter, but the Laptop has a nicer screen)

alpaca128• 7 years ago

The problem with Surface devices is that they're irrepairable once something goes wrong. I had issues with my Surface Pro and Microsoft support basically said "too bad, buy a new one".

That's why I went for a T-series Thinkpad and am still using it. It's not as lightweight or slim but in exchange more powerful than equally priced ultrabooks/convertibles and easy to repair and upgrade. That's a trade-off I'm happy to make.

pcdoodle• 7 years ago

^ This. I hear the next version will be repairable but until then, it's not an option.

mkl4• 7 years ago

Counterpoint: my two year old Surface Pro 4 developed a battery-swelling issue, and Microsoft replaced the whole laptop right away (well, as soon as I worked out how to contact the right level of tech-support).

TeMPOraL2• 7 years ago

How bad is it really? They do have to issue warranties at least in Europe, right?

I'm thinking about shelling out for a Surface Pro 6, but I don't want to buy a potential cat in the bag.

(We have some mandatory legal protections over at Poland/EU that apply to on-line sales, but I'm not sure if they apply if you buy a product as a business. Need to check up on that.)

wishinghand2• 7 years ago

The Lenovo X1 you hated, was it the Carbon or another in the X1 series?

rcarmo3• 7 years ago

The Carbon. I think I have a blog post about it, but my overall experience with it was lousy - spongy keyboard, dim screen, atrocious touchpad... I could go on.

joe_cloggy• 7 years ago

I am a long time mac user, up until 2015 for the valid reasons already noted re post 2015 MBP's, and I work with music. Here's recent article that may be of interest to the OP. https://www.meldaproduction.com/text-tutorials/switching-fro...

robin_reala• 7 years ago

Rather than suggesting a different manufacturer, I’d suggest getting a complete machine swap under whatever lemon law is applicable in your location. Obviously 3 repairs in 10 months is unacceptable, but Apple’s machines – even including the keyboard faults – aren’t generally that unreliable.

If it is the keyboard then it’s 4 years, not 3 (https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-n...).

jstsch• 7 years ago

I picked up a maxed out 2016 MPB right when it came out, including 2 LG 5K displays. I suffered random total system crashes with those external displays connected.

After going through three repair cycles Apple replaced mine with a brand new (faster) 2018 model, I didn't even have to ask for it. It was a bit of a drag to backup/restore the machine a bunch of times but Apple's service was top notch.

fierarul• 7 years ago

You didn't mention what are you doing with the laptop? If you filter by laptops with the same weight, screen resolution, fast CPU, etc., etc. there's going to be a small list of laptops of comparable price.

So, if you start being more flexible in some areas you have more choices.

For example, how about a Ryzen desktop + a no fuss laptop for when you are mobile? (This assumes you mostly work in one office on the desktop, but also want to be mobile).

Depending how used you are to macOS you'll probably come back to Apple. Maybe buy an use / refurbished MBP.

jankotek• 7 years ago

XPS 13, onsite service is great and is also easy to replace parts by yourself.

mxschumacher2• 7 years ago

I'm on my second Lenovo laptop (now T450s, before that: L-series). I use Linux on it and am really satisfied.

Spark_Ed• 7 years ago

I've personally loved the spectre series from HP for their 4k displays and good specs for the price. I use a MSP16 for drafting and design work, so the gpu is pretty critical for me.

odiroot2• 7 years ago

I would recommend Thinkpad T-series even for the keyboard and touchpad only.

It's much heavier though, but at that much more repairable and sturdier.

andreareina• 7 years ago

Unfortunately even the T-series has gone 100% on the integrated battery now, which IME is the thing most likely to need to be fixed. Aside from that, agreed.

odiroot2• 7 years ago

Oh no, that's sad to hear. I have T460p with completely replaceable battery and T470 with half-and-half. Didn't expect they would be go 100% baked in.

ants_a2• 7 years ago

Swapping the integrated battery is a 5 minute job, so if you are not planning on hauling around multiple batteries, it's not a major issue. I haven't really used the hot swap capability my T440s has, even though I have multiple. Maybe if they had a separate charging dock for the batteries...

Tharkun2• 7 years ago

Have you used a recent model? The T490/T590 is pretty awful. They keyboard has been getting worse with each new release. The battery is now integrated. Not enough USB ports. And to top it off, there's no "p" model, which means a brand new T490 is hardly any faster than my three year old T460p.

But hey, they're thinner now, which I'm sure makes some marketeer somewhere very happy for reasons I'll never understand.

Edit: the P43 seems pretty interesting, so there's that option.

bluedino3• 7 years ago

T480 is a quad and will destroy a T460

marmaduke• 7 years ago

The Dell business laptops run really well on Linux. I ha e a 5290 (x280 equivalent) on CentOS 7.7 and everything just works.

Higher end stuff like their xps 15 or 7530 are also very good.

Getting Retina to not eat battery life has been a little tricky though. On a non retina system, I got down to 1W idle, whereas it was 15W idle on a retina system. With Firefox, 2-5W non Retina, but 25-35W for Retina. This will inevitably improve, but it's something to watch out for. On Windows, it's less of a problem, as they seem to run a lot of the graphics on the Intel GPU, only switching to discrete when required.

kraig911• 7 years ago

I just changed to a dell XPS 15. I love the nvidia discreet GPU and it's keyboard and trackpad are pretty nice. And having a escape key.

JDiculous4• 7 years ago

It depends on what your priorities are, but I recently bought a LG Gram 17" and absolutely love it. It has a massive 17" 2560-1600 screen, yet is as light as a Macbook Air, and practically as thin too. 13 hour battery life, and super comfortable keyboard. Even the charger is smaller and lighter than any other I've seen. Honestly I've never seen anything like this in my life, and only $1,448 (https://amzn.to/2P2txdv)

I've also used a Dell XPS 15 9570 for the past year and a half which I spent $2.6k on (similar to this https://amzn.to/33PA53x). Specs-wise it's awesome and blows the MBP out of the park particularly when you factor in the price. But I've had a lot of issues with it unfortunately, having to get it repaired twice, and then another couple times I've had the screen just start glitching and crashing, both times resolving it via reinstalling Windows (seems to have been problems with the drivers). Outside of that, the laptop itself is a bit thicker and heavier than a MBP, the battery life is pretty weak (4 hours maybe?), it gets very hot and the fans get really loud, and the Wifi card sucks. Although the 4k screen is beautiful with fantastic anti-reflection, I've found that I prefer the 16:10 aspect ratio of the LG Gram and MBP vs. the 16:9 of the Dell since the former feels way bigger and I find having a taller screen more convenient (eg. for coding).

Ultimately it comes down to your preferences. Do you prioritize having the best specs? Then between the two you should get a Dell XPS 15 or alternatively a Dell Precision 5540 (very similar to the XPS 15, but more geared towards 3D work). If on the other hand you value portability but love having a large screen, I highly recommend the LG Gram 17. I don't think there's ever been a 17" laptop as light and portable as this one.

Ever since I received my LG, I stopped using my Dell. Unless you're doing a ton of video editing, 3d graphics work, or gaming, you really don't need more than 16gb RAM and an i7 processor. For stuff like coding and browsing the web, I certainly don't notice any performance difference (haven't tested more intensive stuff yet).

pkalinowski2• 7 years ago

How do you find the touchpad? I disqualified LG Gram because of it, feels like cheap $500 HP laptop

duchenne• 7 years ago

I have also used an LG gram for 5+ years. The touchpad is just normal.

Maybe, you say that it feels cheap because it bends a little bit when you press it. I guess that is the price to pay to have a 17 inches laptop under a kilogram.

However, I did not notice any mechanical failure. The keyboard is still as solid as day one. I just had to change the battery at some point, it was super cheap and easy to change by myself with a standard screwdriver. I regularly loose the charger, but it is also cheap to buy a new one.

JDiculous4• 7 years ago

Apple laptops have the best touchpads bar none. But the LG Gram's touchpad is fine, certainly no worse than any other non-Apple laptop. My only real complaint would be that it's only clickable halfway down (unlike the Macbook touchpad where you can click it from the top), but as far as I'm aware that's how it is on every other non-Apple laptop (including the Dell XPS 15)

tasuki5• 7 years ago

Never heard about the LG Gram - looks pretty nice! How is the chassis?

antongribok• 7 years ago

Came here to post about the LG Gram 17 as well. I too have never seen anything like it. I bought mine from Costco for $1200. They seemed to have some exclusive model where the specs are exactly the same as yours, but it only came with a 256 GB SSD, all other specs are the same (the model number has one character different: 17Z990-R.AAS7U1 vs. your 17Z990-R.AAS8U1).

The 16:10 screen is excellent. The battery life for me is about 16 hours, enough for a 2-day stretch, and I can go on a short business trip without ever having to plug in.

I transferred my 3 year old Fedora install with dd from an XPS 13, and then upgraded from 29 to 30 with zero issues.

Edit to add: Mine fits in a backpack meant for a 15" laptop.

least2• 7 years ago

If you open the chassis of a macbook pro, you'll see it packed with components, fitting together just barely, like a puzzle. The lack of flex anywhere on the chassis and machined aluminum make it look and feel premium.

The LG gram 17 is a machine of pure compromise in pursuit of lightness. The material is carbon magnesium and pressing down on any part of the machine results in a disconcerting flex. The inside of the chassis you see a lot of empty space. The battery, while certainly more than sufficient, is still quite a bit smaller than it could be (72wh). The space inside could easily accommodate the maximum TSA allowed 100wh battery. The keyboard is cludgy, the speakers kind of suck, and the trackpad is nowhere close to what Apple is doing.

Still, the device is in a class of its own. It has a beautiful 17 inch 16:10 display, eschews a discrete gpu for battery and heat improvements which is unheard of in a 17 inch form factor, and is incredibly light, like you've said. I'm glad that the device exists. I hope LG keeps producing it, and I hope that other companies steal the idea.

JDiculous4• 7 years ago

Any flex on the chassis is too subtle for me to be noticeable, certainly something one gets used to very quickly.

It would be nice to have a larger battery, but I'm content with my 10-13 hours of battery life.

The keyboard is the best laptop keyboard I've used in recent memory. Way better than the Dell XPS 15 or the current Macbook lineup with their butterfly keys. I'd say it's comparable to the 2015 Macbook Pro keys.

Yes the speakers suck being on the bottom of the laptop, and the trackpad doesn't compete with Apple's (though neither does any other non-Apple machine).

SyneRyder• 7 years ago

I switched from Mac to a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga 3rd Gen, when my MacBook Pro was similarly unreliable (6 repairs through the Apple Store).

The feel of the keyboard & trackpad were important to me, and the 4K display option covers 100% of the Adobe RGB color palette. I rarely use the Yoga's tablet feature, but as a Photoshop user it has sometimes been useful for photo editing with the built-in stylus. There's a built-in microSD card slot in the 3rd Gen & I put a giant microSD card in there for extra internal data storage (eg MP3 collection). The SSD is user upgradeable but I've had problems trying to get the SSD screw out myself.

There's a lot of small irritations and frustrations compared with the Mac to overcome, but the X1 Yoga has been far more reliable than my MacBook Pro. No problems in a year, whereas the Mac over the same time would have had 3 - 4 weeks of downtime due to repairs. It turns out reliability is more important to me, I need to get work done.

I'd also seriously consider the Surface Book / Surface Laptop range, I very nearly chose a Surface Book 2 until I saw the ThinkPad X1.

K0SM0S2• 7 years ago

Same here, what tipped the X1 for me was the impossibility to buy a Surface Book with US QWERTY keyboard in Europe — the only options are country-based and that's a no for me as a dev. The alternative, buy it from the US and pay for shipping, means that I could not get service because Microsoft's warranty only works in the country of purchase. That's such a bad policy, compared to Lenovo's pro support (on-site next day etc). Microsoft is not really catering to pro users here, no international warranty from a megacorp is puzzling.

mav3rick• 7 years ago

Chromebook

sandGorgon• 7 years ago

Dell XPS - its the sexiest laptop that runs Linux.

moksly• 7 years ago

I switched from a 2018 mbp 13” i5 to a surface pro 6 also i5, and I haven’t looked back. Development is much, much nicer with VSC and WSL, and while I do think Mac OS is better than Windows, it’s not that much of a difference.

One thing I will say though is that you don’t get the same resale value. I sold my MBP for around 80% of its original cost after one years usage, my surface pro on the other hand pretty much lost all of its value the moment I walked out the shop.

As a long time Mac user, the switch was surprisingly easy. I do miss not having iMessage and a few other Mac ecosystem tools, but with more and more of my friends switching to android it’s becoming less and less of an issue. Over all the Microsoft surface line feels like products that Apple should have designed.

mherrmann4• 7 years ago

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 and would go for a ThinkPad instead of the XPS, because 1) I want a 14" screen 2) the XPS's fan is too loud, especially when Skyping 3) the XPS's camera is placed at the bottom of the screen instead of at the top, so people you have video calls with look up your nostrils.

[1] https://fman.io/blog/home-and-hotel

Un1corn• 7 years ago

the XPS's camera is placed at the bottom of the screen instead of at the top, so people you have video calls with look up your nostrils.

The camera is no longer placed at the bottom of the screen in the newest model (9380), they moved it up top

mherrmann4• 7 years ago

Ah, okay! That's great.

tom_mellior• 7 years ago

Huh, weird. I used to have an XPS 15 (from 2015 or so) with the camera placed on top, but my newer one (2018) has it at the bottom. Weird and unwelcome.

ahnick3• 7 years ago

That's great to hear. Maybe everyone complaining loudly about that got them to redesign it. I completely ruled out getting an XPS previously because of that design decision.

tasuki5• 7 years ago

+1 for ThinkPads, they just work. The XPS has super annoying fans which change their speed randomly all the time (though it's possible to override: https://github.com/TomFreudenberg/dell-bios-fan-control).

Btw, Xfce is a desktop environment while Ubuntu is a distribution. Perhaps you meant to write you're on Xfce instead of Gnome?

mherrmann4• 7 years ago

Yeah, sure. I was on Ubuntu, now I'm on Debian + Xfce. It's better because it's faster and does not have some of the bugs I mentioned in the article I linked to.

ratiolat3• 7 years ago

Thinkpads come in different flavours, and the have very different quality. Either get a T-series, or X-series (X series is basically smaller version of T). Or if it's a used one, the later A-series are good as well (A series means AMD instead of Intel). The old A - series were crap. Nowadays T and X series have AMD also (if model ends with 5, it's AMD). T and X series have MIL certification. For example there's also X1 Extreme (costs around 3000€), but quality wise it's a lot worse than T or X series, because it does not have the MIL certificate.

beefield• 7 years ago

Just do not make the mistake of assuming that the lenovo's next business day warranty means next business day. My current understanding is that they try their best to give a call to you next day but what comes to actual repair, there is no guarantee whatsoever when that is going to happen (some time ago my latop was in a brick-like state for more than 10 days and lenovo seems to be perfectly happy with their performance.)

nabla9• 7 years ago

I have new Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu and I'm satisfied with it. Camera has moved in these new models.

Dell Thunderbolt Dock (TB16) is is disappointment. Others report problems as well.

Boulth• 7 years ago

I agree w.r.t. TB16. While it works (unlike TB15) it's very loud (fan is enabled 90% of time).

Generally I'm not fond of XPS 13 (9350) but later firmwares got rid of most issues (except extremely long boot time).

On the other hand Dell is contributing to several Linux projects (such as fwupd) and all of XPS hardware (including touch screen) worked out of the box.

oarsinsync2• 7 years ago

I love this analogy, and it's remarkable at how much sense it makes when I look at the choices I make in my day to day life generally.

Hotel-chic is very clean, very minimal, very sparse. Just enough to have the necessary conveniences that appeal to everyone, with absolutely nothing personalised for any individual.

As of about 10 years ago, I made a conscious choice to stop customising my desktop (and then later, mobile) experience away from the defaults as much as possible, as I was fed up of having to document and then re-deploy all of my customisations every time I had to reinstall for whatever reason, which was far too frequent for my liking.

At the same time, I'd been moving home roughly every year for the 7 years prior already, and had grown weary of all my physical effects. I started disposing of more and more of my things (inadvertently marie kondo-ing my life before it was a "thing" I was aware of) and decreasing the personalisation of my physical space down more and more.

I now essentially live a hotel-esque lifestyle, with most of my personal customisations fitting in a small corner of the room. Added bonus of this is with the frequent travel I need to do for work, I can take one or two items with me, and the hotel room instantly feels like home.

I guess this explains why I'm relatively happy as an Apple user. The lack of customisation doesn't bother me, as I don't customise anything outside of the bare minimums (wallpaper and privacy settings, thats about it).

It also explains how I'm able to use Windows 10 at work without killing anyone, while my colleagues are all using tiling window managers under Linux and looking at me like I'm crazy for not wanting to spend a week tweaking and customising my environment....

swinglock• 7 years ago

In case you didn't notice, Windows 10 is now a tiling window manager with virtual desktops, by default, if you just learn the new keyboard shortcuts.

b3orn• 7 years ago

I made a conscious choice to stop customising my desktop (and then later, mobile) experience away from the defaults as much as possible, as I was fed up of having to document and then re-deploy all of my customisations every time I had to reinstall for whatever reason

I tried this for some time and came to the conclusion that for me most desktops' defaults don't fit me and it seems to get worse from release to release.

mpol• 7 years ago

I made a conscious choice to stop customising my desktop (and then later, mobile) experience away from the defaults as much as possible, as I was fed up of having to document and then re-deploy all of my customisations every time I had to reinstall for whatever reason.

I just copy my home-dir settings everywhere I go. I have a different setup on my desktop and laptop. It is mostly .config that I need. But when moving, it just moves along to a new machine or install. Happily living on the same config files for 20 years now, and I only need to adjust as I desire. I do have daily backups ofcourse.

asjw3• 7 years ago

Hotel-chic is very clean, very minimal, very sparse. Just enough to have the necessary conveniences that appeal to everyone, with absolutely nothing personalised for any individual.

It is also terrible if you stay there for more than a couple of days.

Apple is not an hotel, it is a fast food with overpriced menus because they use expensive ingredients, charge 2x the price because of their fancy plates, but what you get it's still an overpriced hamburger.

It's like ordering a 25$ cheeseburger from McDonald because it's made with a percentage of Kobe beef

puranjay2• 7 years ago

I love how my work is now about 99% OS agnostic. I've been working from home a lot lately. There are times when I want to do some deep research and I don't want to do it on the desktop. So I just get my MBA, plop on the recliner and Google away.

Save the pages with SessionBuddy on Chrome. Then when I have to actually work, I can go to my Windows desktop and jump right into work.

It's come to a point where I'm basically using two operating systems daily and it hasn't affected my workflow one bit

olex2• 7 years ago

Our company offers Dell XPS 13 and Precision 5530 (based on the XPS 15 chassis) as Macbook alternatives for all employees. I've had my Precision for a couple years now and couldn't be happier, it's an awesome device and imho as close as it gets to the overall hardware quality and usability of Macbooks with Windows-/Linux-based devices.

mobilemidget• 7 years ago

An alternative or a replacement, could you still opt for a MacBook (pro)?

etatoby• 7 years ago

I second a ThinkPad with XFCE (such as Xubuntu) as the best combination.

A few things which, although obvious in retrospect, I had to learn the hard way:

• Get a ThinkPad with physical buttons under the touchpad, if you like to track with your index finger and click with the thumb. I made the mistake of getting the kind where you push the entire touchpad, and it's very hard to use. Apple's was at least useable, this is not.

• Get a ThinkPad with a physical Ethernet port. USB dongles are finicky and unstable on Linux, and there are places / desks / offices where the WiFi is flaky.

• Choose the stable release of a well-supported OS (Ubuntu, Mint... whatever) because the beta / newest / testing version will make you lose time on bugs and freezes.

sam_lowry_2• 7 years ago

There are not many ThinkPads with Ethernet ports. T4??p or P?? are the only ones left, IIRC. Others have either no port or a difficult to use clapet.

computerex5• 7 years ago

Overall I agree with your post. There are some things I'd like to point out.

- ThinkPads have amazing linux support. Dells aren't bad either. I have used a few dell laptops with linux as my daily drivers and no issues. Currently typing this on a Latitude E7450 and have had everything working out of the box.

- I am using a USB wired connection without issues, works out of the box.

- Currently using Manjaro linux and enjoying the heck out of it. Haven't done a reinstall in over a year and it's very stable across updates.

CareyB• 7 years ago

Great analogy

gigatexal3• 7 years ago

Give me the hotel then because I want to spend my time doing work not having to do laundry or cut the lawn.

Symbiote2• 7 years ago

Stretching this analogy even further:

With Linux, we have a choice of over 20 different housemaids and lawn-cutting robots, though choosing between them is difficult at first.

Most lawn robots can also sweep patios or shovel snow, so if you move to a different climate you can use the same tools.

levesque2• 7 years ago

I've spent more time fighting with brew and the third party package manages than I have with issues in Ubuntu.

asjw3• 7 years ago

The hotel "because I don't want to do laundry" is the worst choice immaginabile

If you can afford hotel prices to actually live inside a nice one (more than 12 sq meters), you can afford 5 people doing your laundry and other chores at your house

skunkpocalypse2• 7 years ago

After using macs for a decade I switched back to Linux last year. I really like your hotel-vs-home analogy, that describes my experience (and motivation) quite well.

Aperocky3• 7 years ago

Serious question: how’s the transition trackpad wise

readingnews• 7 years ago

I moved from a MBP to a Dell XPS 13. This transition made me appreciate just how nice the trackpad on the mac is. I am no apple fanboy by any means, after my MBP died out of warranty. They wanted $700 to fix... but after some use, the XPS trackpad is a real aggravation machine. In laymen terms, it is like the MBP knows when I am typing and reduces the sensitivity of the trackpad. On the Dell, it surely seems like the Dell knows when I am typing and cranks the sensitivity of the trackpad up 10X. I consciously have to move my hands up to type, which becomes a real problem when the laptop is in your lap and not on a desk.

I have used Linux since 1992, literally, but I still find the mac os X more cohesive and fluid. Do not get me wrong, I love linux, but on the XPS I felt like I still have to futz with the OS too much. "hey, I just went to work, I am on the OTHER wifi now mr Dell XPS laptop. Hello? HELLO? OK, gotta reboot and turn the wifi on and off three times to connect". This is with the Dell supplied ubuntu fully updated. Ugh.

SebastianKra• 7 years ago

I'd rather compare it to living in a hotel vs flat-sharing.

You can customize your room (your Window Manager, Terminal, etc...) but when you try to make yourself at home in the bathroom or kitchen (use and/or customize common applications), you run into issues. [1]

Since everyone has a different preferences, you have to make compromises.

On Mac, all apps follow similar guidelines. And the end result are beautiful, powerful, intuitive and feature-rich native applications, that make the best use of all the available system features.

[1] https://stopthemingmy.app/

saagarjha2• 7 years ago

On Mac, all apps follow similar guidelines.

The good ones, at least.

AdamGibbins• 7 years ago

the XPS's camera is placed at the bottom of the screen instead of at the top, so people you have video calls with look up your nostrils.

This is no longer the case in the latest gen, they've placed it back at the top on a very thin bezel still.

mgamache3• 7 years ago

FYI they fixed the nose cam in the new models

dekhn• 7 years ago

Since you made an analogy, it's worth going back and reading In The Beginning Was the Command Line. Mac OS X is a hermetically sealed german car, Linux is an M1 abrams tank that gets 100MPG.

(I also find many Dell and Thinkpad models to be as good as if not better laptops than MacBooks).

cytzol• 7 years ago

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 standard interfaces to per-application Preferences and keyboard shortcuts. When I sit down to use someone else's Mac, I have no idea how to use it!

What changes am I missing? The only thing I can think of is that I can't use a different window manager or a different kernel, but I'm fine with those already.

reubenmorais• 7 years ago

The only thing I can think of is that I can't use a different window manager

There are some third-party macOS window managers out there. Personally I use Amethyst. I'm sure they're not as powerful as Linux WMs can be, but it suits my tiling needs when I have an external monitor plugged in.

robert_foss2• 7 years ago

There's no real package manager. You can't rebuild your kernel. You can't upgrade your hardware. Once your HW is unsupported by Apple you're stuck with an old OS that is unsupported by third party software as well.

FussyZeus• 7 years ago

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 going to a very nice restaurant and spending $150+ for a dinner for two: I don't want to give the chef my recipe for some mediocre meal, I want the chef's recipe because it's likely going to be amazing.

Tl;dr: Customization is highly overrated.

okennedy3• 7 years ago

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 it to.

This started changing about a decade ago. The first time I noticed it was when Apple bundled all of the services involved in NAT into a huge binary (this would have been about OS X 10.8 or .9). You could turn it on or off, but there was no longer a built-in way to serve DHCP on both ports.

There's been a steady progress away from tools aimed at the entire skill gradient and towards the lower end of that gradient: Around 10.9 OSX got new file open/save dialogs, which were infinitely better if you used a mouse... but lacked any cmd-key shortcuts.

Gatekeeper has made it progressively harder for system tweaks like LaunchBar or Little Snitch to exist, and I've had to wrestle with SIP more than once.

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.

rsync• 7 years ago

"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 standard interfaces to per-application Preferences and keyboard shortcuts. When I sit down to use someone else's Mac, I have no idea how to use it!"

I run an environment, on OSX, similar to this although (I assume) much less ambitious in the customization.

My biggest problem is the lack of focus-follows-mouse. I had this in the snow leopard days with an add-on called "mondomouse" which is abandonware and I attempted to solve it with "dwellclick" but that isn't really designed for what I need and doesn't work.

Now I see that in very, very new versions of OSX there is some buried setting in accessibility that does honest-to-god focus-follows-mouse (as in, raise window as if I clicked it when I hover over) ... can anyone confirm/deny ?

darksaints• 7 years ago

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

kraf• 7 years ago

Remapping keyboard is ridiculously hard for example.. I had a somewhat working solution (never 100%) and one update destroyed everything (i think it was sierra)

joeevans10002• 7 years ago

The complaints usually refer to hardware customization (RAM, for instance). Now they glue components in and discourage the ability to change components whatsoever.

nileshk• 7 years ago

Agreed. I didn't immediately like OS X when I switched to it from Linux at home (and eventually Windows at work), but once I got the right set of 3rd party utilities (tiling app, keyboard shortcut modifiers, launcher, UNIX package manager, etc), it was a great fit.

I think it'd be difficult to get the keyboard shortcut mappings I have working even in Linux -- Emacs-style keyboard shortcuts everywhere without interfering with the more typical keyboard shortcuts.

Another thing is that if I really need something from Linux or Windows, I can either run a VM, boot into one of those OSes natively, or remote desktop to a server with good remote desktop performance. Hackintosh's are a possibility though have their rough edges, and macOS runs better in a VM these days from what I hear, but macOS is my preferred host OS anyway for things like audio/music production apps and video editing, so I'd want to run macOS natively over other OS's anyway. For the stuff I currently do, Linux and Windows run fine in a VM.

So, going with the original analogy, macOS is like a hotel where you can have your own house inside.

e9• 7 years ago

How do I remove Siri so that it never comes back to ask if I want to enable it? Just disabling doesn’t work, it comes back asking to be turned on

yellow_lead• 7 years ago

Last time I used a Mac (about a year ago) I could not for the life of me figure out how to add shortcuts for repositioning windows across monitors. It seemed the only way was through a 3rd party paid app.

derriz• 7 years ago

I tried this switch (2015 MBP 13 to top-spec XPS 13) about a year ago and was not so happy with it. The reasons that I remember:

- Unless watching movies (not something I used it for) the wide screen aspect ratio was a big step down for productivity. IDEs, browsers, etc. all feel very cramped compared to on a more square 13" MBP.

- With Ubuntu pre-installed, out of the box, the sleep/hibernate mode used about 25% battery per 12 hours of sleep. I was able to configure a working sleep mode but this is the sort of basic functionality I expect to work on a high-end laptop.

- Multi-monitor - with mixed DPI - just never worked and I tried every suggestion I could find.

- Overall battery management was poorer - probably not Dell's fault as I expect this is an issue with the way Linux applications are written. A regular pattern was re-starting applications whenever the fan would start whirring up.

- This could be an issue with our set-up but I had to write a script that ran in the background to refresh the WiFi connection. There was some ARP issue that I wasn't able to (nor had time to) fully debug.

- This is pretty subjective, but I found the keyboard to be cramped an unergonomic.

I actually wanted to like this as I've primarily used Linux on my desktops for a couple of decades.

rtdp• 7 years ago

The better battery usage and wi-fi are some of the basic things that don't work out of the box even on a preinstalled ubuntu on XPS are real let down. These are the same problems I faced when I had used Linux laptops before, and so now happily settled with 15" mac pro since past 5 years - no issues whatsoever.

_Codemonkeyism• 7 years ago

Tried to switch from an MBP to a XPS13. XPS13 (maxed out CPU, memory, screen) was the worst notebook I ever had, two power supplies broke, battery broke, fan broke and BIOS made a fire-alarm-level alarm every time it booted, service was abysmal, although I had a business level all-care next-day package they wanted to jump me through many loops, install firmware updates etc. before they did anything - in the end they would not come and fix the laptop.

Never again.

accnumnplus1• 7 years ago

I use a 2014 MBP at home, a new xps 13 at work. Everything about the Mac is more polished. The hardware differences being more important to me than the software differences. The xps trackpad is a bit flakey, too sensitive maybe; I'll be working away when suddenly I'll have miraculously switched focus to a window on another screen. Does my palm get to close to it whie typing? I guess, but no such issue on the mac. After less than six months I can see keyboard marks starting to appear on the xps screen. The xps 13 keyboard is far better than the Latitude I had previously, which was outright hell, but the mac is higher quality, precision engineering. No contest for me, but I do wish Apple had built a Linux OS for compatibilty reasons. And the reason I'm still on a 2014 model is because the subsequent models haven't appealed. I've been considering an x1 carbon as a mac replacement. Time may soon force my hand.

vzaliva• 7 years ago

I am moderately happy with XPS-13. My main problem is touchpad ergonomy http://lambda-files.crocodile.org/2019/01/dell-xps-13-touchp... which I was able to alleviate a bit by "moving furniture in my home" per your analogy.

zarkov992• 7 years ago

I use a XPS 13 as well, KUbuntu with i3 as the window manager. Works great and the newest XPS I believe fixed the camera placement.

tbrock2• 7 years ago

I’d get a Thinkpad!

Compatibility wise the dell is great but build quality is lacking. The Thinkpads (X, T, Carbons) are all light years ahead and have similar - if not better - compatibility out of the box.

I have a X1 Carbon 6th gen and the battery life is awesome and everything besides the fingerprint reader works out of the box.

puranjay2• 7 years ago

How does the trackpad perform compared to Macbooks? That's one area where I haven't found a Macbook equivalent

_qbjt• 7 years ago

My work laptop is a Thinkpad T480 running Fedora. It’s a wonderful machine but not without some flaws:

1. The thermal situation on newer Thinkpads needs to be called out. Even with undervolting, there doesn’t seem to be a sweet spot where you can avoid regular throttling without the CPU hitting unsafe temperatures. I’ve heard it can be somewhat remedied by applying more thermal paste to the CPU than the meager amount Lenovo provides out of the box (doing it yourself voids your warranty). Ultimately, I think there is a clear regression in the thermal design between Lenovo’s newer laptops and classic Thinkpads like the X200. The internals just aren’t designed to properly dissipate heat and while it’s nice that the fan is quiet, I wish it did more to cool the device. This seems to be a common issue not just with the T480 but other newer Thinkpads like the X1 Carbon. If anyone has any advice here beyond iuvolt, throttled etc. please let me know.

2. My model has a WQHD display and I use an external monitor with the same resolution but a lower DPI. Linux in 2019 is still a bit dicey when it comes to mixed DPI setups. GTK+ 3.0 applications on Wayland scale perfectly between displays but Firefox is a bit buggy and Electron apps are laughably bad. It has come a long way for sure but there’s still work to be done.

All that said, I’m coming from a 2017 MacBook Pro that had way more issues from the failing keyboard to dead speakers and screen burn-in. I’m happier with the Thinkpad and enjoy using it as my daily driver. It’s a solid machine and the keyboard and port selection are perfect. No issues with running Linux on this device either. Everything just worked on a clean install and I’m able to do everything I did before on macOS whether it be software development, multimedia creation or just personal computing. The “hotel vs. home” analogy you used is dead-on and speaks to what I’ve always loved about Linux. I’ll take an OS that lets me tailor my own software experience over the proprietary equivalent any day.

socksy• 7 years ago

"Every time I plug in my headphones, there is some white noise and I have to run a command line tool alsamixer to get rid of it"

Glad to see my suggestion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17314002 worked then :) But I run it once in my startup script along with my xmodmap changes and it seems fine to me...

mherrmann4• 7 years ago

It did! :) I think I now also run it upon login.

seanwilson• 7 years ago

I'm looking into Chromebooks. I'm happy with my MacBook except that if I'm traveling with it and it breaks or gets stolen, I don't have a lot of options if I'm dependent on expensive Mac hardware. If I can switch to developing on a Chromebook, picking up a new one in an emergency is a lot more feasible, plus they're very secure and low maintenance.

Has anyone tried moving from Mac to ChromeOS?

yRetsyM• 7 years ago

I'm curious about this as well, I'm more in a hybrid role now where less and less coding effort and I'm living in Chrome anyway for most of my tasks...

skunkpocalypse2• 7 years ago

My "daily driver" is a chromebook running linux: Samsung Chromebook Plus RK3399. Keyboard feel is identical to the good old macbooks.

Also: feather-light magnesium casing, gorgeous 300nit 2500x1600 screen, and 100% open-source: no blobs, no IME, no PSP. Coreboot, baby. No stupid Google G-chip.

Even recompiled the Embedded Controller firmware -- and not just for geek points. I customized the charging+wake behavior so it will wake immediately when AC power is applied even if the lid is closed -- never could get my mac to do that reliably, despite lots of third-party hacks claiming to make it happen. So now when I get home all I have to do is plug in AC power and I can access files on the laptop over the network -- no need to log in to the laptop, open the lid, or connect an external display. If it's got AC power it's awake and on the network.

Bonus: they're so cheap I bought several, and don't have to worry about damage. They take abuse amazingly well due to the alloy casing and the fact that they weigh so little. I expect to use these laptops for the next 6-8 years.

atrilumen• 7 years ago

I've been using a Pixelbook for the past year or so.

I do like the look and feel of the hardware: nice screen, decent keyboard and touch pad, and a thin metal body which feels really solid. The silicone palm rests start to yellow a bit, but really increase comfort. Overall, I'm happy with the hardware.

The software is an interesting concept, and actually the reason I bought it. I like the idea of a minimal, verified Linux that only runs Chrome, and (WIP) Linux containers for everything else.

I've had many issues that disrupted my work, and required switching to different release channels. Obviously this is on me for choosing to use the "Beta" container support feature, but I am still annoyed by it often because somehow bugs make their way through all those channels: Canary -> Dev -> Beta -> and even down to Stable. Several times I was forced to move to a higher channel to escape a serious / disruptive issue, only to encounter different issues. And then moving back down again requires a "powerwash", wiping all your data. So I feel like I'm just being chased around by issues that should have been resolved in a higher channel.

As a result, there tends to be nothing on this machine that isn't in the cloud somewhere. I suppose that's a good thing.

Trust is another issue, entirely. I'm looking for something else. I may install an alt OS like Gallium.

mcv6• 7 years ago

With all the bad reviews about Apple, I didn't want to replace my old 17" MacBook Pro with a new Macbook (also, they don't do 17" anymore), so I just ordered a Thinkpad X1 Extreme instead.

Thinkpad has had a stellar reputation for sturdy quality since forever, and the X1 Extreme seems like a fairly good compromise between power, size, and other concerns. It's not 17" because the only 17" Thinkpads are the monstrous P73s.

According to reviews, it's quieter than my old Macbook (which was extremely noisy), but I intend to make it quieter by repasting and undervolting, which seems to be a fairly common procedure for Thinkpads.

Also, if it breaks down during the first 3 years, I get on-site support, so I don't have to go anywhere when it breaks down; they come to me.

(My specs: 32 GB (still upgradable to 64GB), i7-9850H, 2x 1TB SSD (one for Windows, one for Linux perhaps) and the 4K OLED screen. I expect this to last me for quite a while.)

burntoutfire• 7 years ago

I intend to make it quieter by repasting and undervolting
Also, if it breaks down during the first 3 years, I get on-site support,

Aren't these two statements mutually exclusive?

mcv6• 7 years ago

Good question. They don't have to be, but I suppose it's worth checking.

I found a forum post where someone asked Lenovo support[0] which apparently said:

"When it comes to changing the thermal paste - if you know what you're doing, you're totally fine, but if you break something during the procedure, the repair will not be covered by warranty."

That sounds entirely reasonable. But I guess it's worth checking how well it works with the factory paste first. Some people say it's nonsense to believe an amateur can apply thermal paste better than the factory, others report a 10 degree C difference.

[0] https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-X-Series-Laptops/X1-Ca...

llampx3• 7 years ago

You don't lose warranty on Thinkpads if you open them.

LeonM2• 7 years ago

I bought an X1E also as a replacement for my MBP, mostly for the keyboard and due to all the praise of developers about Lenovo. Mine has the same specs as yours, including the dual SSD for Linux.

Overall it is pretty good, but nowhere near the finish of an Apple laptop. The X1E has terrible coil whine, and the fan is noisy. I have Windows 10 and Linux installed, both have it's problems. Windows has all sorts of power management issues out of the box, it still won't suspend reliably when you close the lid. Linux support for the dual GPU situation is also pretty bad, and the $400 Thunderbolt dock is a hit-and-mis on both Linux and Windows.

I'm quite happy with the X1E though, the screen and keyboard are gorgeous. The ability to play some games on the GPU is also nice. But the experience is just not as polished as I had with my MBP. My MBP lasted for 6 year (professional daily use) and for some reason I don't expect the X1E to last that long (though I bought it, like you did, with the assumption it would last me at least 5 years).

If only Apple were to offer decent support and a build a new laptop for true professional use...

According to reviews, it's quieter than my old Macbook (which was extremely noisy)

FWIW, this only happens when dust gets in the fan of a MBP, they are normally super quiet. I've written about it before on HN, if you open the bottom lid and remove the dust your MBP should be quiet again :)

mcv6• 7 years ago

I've replaced the fans on that old MBP and that didn't help, so I think it's really just that noisy.

I was hoping the X1E would be quieter, but your experience is clearly different. My impression from reviews is that coil whine seems to be a fairly random issue that can affect any model, but usually doesn't. I wonder if Lenovo should fix it under the warranty. Seems to me there's no good excuse for coil whine.

I've had the same problem with a laptop not going to sleep when you close the lid with a Dell laptop from work running Windows 10. I fixed it by having it hibernate instead, which does work reliably, but wakes up much slower.

All of these things sound like they should have been solved problems by now. Why are laptops still plagued by these things?

shpx• 7 years ago

Either the XPS 13 or a MacBook Air.

MatekCopatek2• 7 years ago

If you're in the market for an ultrabook, I recommend the Huawei Matebook X Pro. Fully aluminum, solid build quality, a keyboard that matches the old MBPs and a 3:2 screen ratio.

Downsides are a terrible webcam and all the scandals surrounding Huawei.

awalton3• 7 years ago

Huawei Matebook X Pro

Yeah I have no idea why other manufacturers haven't looked at this machine and taken away just how good it is. I'd buy a Dell or Lenovo version of the Matebook X Pro in a heartbeat, if they were smart enough to stick to some of its design principles and refine them.

3:2 is a wonderful display ratio for laptops. It's a very nice compromise between widescreen and the venerable 4:3 ratio, and makes it a much more usable machine for hackers and writers alike. I own an older Chromebook Pixel that I still use for travel purposes, and even despite its tininess, it's still one of my favorite machines just for the display aspect ratio, even if it spent several years being a pain in the ass thanks to Google not upstreaming the Linux drivers and not putting enough flash memory onboard despite it being a "premium" machine...

The Matebook X Pro features an Macbook-like touchpad, a chicklet keyboard that actually feels decent and is reliable at the same time, but maybe has a little less refinement than the Macbook Pro in some areas too - putting both its USB-C ports on the same side so you can't charge it from either side, as an example, and people are pretty hit/miss on the idea of having the webcam in the keyboard (not something I personally mind; I prefer having a hideaway camera over a piece of electrical tape on my machine).

However, the real killer about the Matebook X Pro now is that its design is a little over three years old. It's two Intel mobile CPU revisions out of date, and its nVidia MX150 chip wasn't great when it was new in early 2017 - Intel's Iris graphics are more compelling for the power budget on these machines (yes, the nVidia chip is still a little faster at the top end, but at the cost of 2.5x the power usage). And just from all of the various improvements made over the past few years, you're going to be able to squeeze out a couple extra hours of battery life from the platform alone, which is really still a killer feature for laptops.

So quite frankly, if we're talking about buying machines as out of date as the Matebook X Pro... why wouldn't you buy the all-around better machine: a new old stock Macbook Pro from before the butterfly keyboard disaster?

dhruvkar• 7 years ago

I switched from a 2012 MBP to Thinkpad P52S with Pop_OS! I had a year with Ubuntu and Lubuntu in the middle. Pop_OS! however is so similar in usability to macOS, that I can't imagine going back to macOS even if the hardware got better.

The P52S has two batteries, all major hardware ports (including ethernet) and a SIM card slot. It had a (lower end) Nvidia card. Conveniently Pop_OS! comes bundled with Nvidia drivers.

Closest replacement for macOS/MBP I've found.

mcv6• 7 years ago

The P52, or now P53, is the one Thinkpad P I haven't considered. The primary appeal of the P73 was that it's the only 17" Thinkpad. If I want a 15" screen, the P1/X1E (they're basically the same machine except for the GPU) seems like a more attractive choice.

fcurzel• 7 years ago

I got a Xiaomi Notebook Pro, display is not excellent, but great value for the money. 16gb ram, decently new i7, Nvidia 960M, 256gb PCIE M.2 SSD, and an extra M.2 slot! It was 1080€ shipped. Seems to be a good option also for building an hackintosh. I am using a vm for Xcode and such and it does the job.

solarkraft• 7 years ago

Planned to mention this device. I got my first generation 13" Xiaomi laptop for something around 750€.

Build is not exactly as sturdy or precise as a MacBook (the aluminum is thinner), but it does look as good.

If you want to make a hackintosh the only thing that won't work is the wifi card, which you can replace for about 50€. On Linux everything works perfectly.

Unfortunately mine spontaneously stopped booting and charging one day. This issue has not been documented on the english speaking forum (it's not the dead battery issue, which I had and the forum helped me solve by linking me to a replacement part on Aliexpress) and since this device isn't sold anywhere outside of China you can be damn sure that Xiaomi won't care. While nicely many replacement parts can be found on Aliexpress (battery, case, keyboard), board replacement parts or schematics don't seem to be available on the english internet. Maybe if you live or have friends in Shenzen the situation will look different for you.

Since OP doesn't seem to be looking for any trouble with repairs I don't think I'd recommend a Xiaomi laptop (I still consider them a good cheap option), but rather something from a business line of a company that is known for good customer support, like Lenovo or Dell (which my new computer, the 5285 tablet is from and I'm fairly happy with).

zelo• 7 years ago

I had a problem with not charging booting mi notebook pro and managed to fix it by unplugging battery for few minutes. It happened to me twice in 1.5 years of usage.

I still recommend this device. Currently I'm forced to use macbook pro 15 with touchbar and it's ergonomy is really awful.

aembleton• 7 years ago

I also have this machine, and am very happy with it. Added 2TB to the other m.2 slot. My only issue is not getting the fingerprint reader to work in Ubuntu.

rpastuszak2• 7 years ago

I’d gladly switch hardware, but software is a bit of a problem:

- yes, I need a *nix OS - I need to run Adobe CC (Photoshop, Lightroom) and Sketch

I code for iOS occasionally (be it via Unity or XCode).

I don’t mind tweaking my OS and making it mine. What I do mind is having to tweak stuff when I don’t have the time to do it, but things are broken.

Did anyone manage to work with these tools efficiently here on a linux machine? I always end up coming back.

mantoto• 7 years ago

You should use an example which actually needs a *nix OS. Adobe CC is Definitely not a good example

wishinghand2• 7 years ago

Ok fine, Adobe CC works on other OS's, but deploying for iOS doesn't, and neither does Sketch.

tomduncalf2• 7 years ago

I assumed the OP was saying they both need a -nix OS, and need Adobe CC (e.g. if you do front end web development, although with the move away from Adobe stuff for web design (such as Sketch) and the availability of web based tools like Figma and Zeplin, this is a bit less of an issue than it was).

Of course, Windows now offers WSL - not sure how good it is but it does mean both platforms can offer -nix Terminal while running all the software you need.

Aperocky3• 7 years ago

As a cli dweller, none Unix OS is simply unbearable. The only time I want to get a windows is so I can play old win games.

llampx3• 7 years ago

Windows and windows subsystem for Linux

goatinaboat• 7 years ago

On a Surface. Top quality hardware and a 3:2 aspect ratio screen.

Joeri7• 7 years ago

If you’re doing iOS dev at all you need a mac, period. The only thing you could consider is having two machines, with the mac used for iOS dev.

As far as Adobe CC, you’ll need macOS or Windows. On linux that would mean going the windows in a vm route. I wouldn’t try getting CC to run in wine, it is unlikely to work well and likely to break even if it does. Windows with wsl is an option, but the shell is never as smoothly integrated as in macOS or linux. I went the wsl way for a few years, and it was fine, but I’m on ubuntu now and it is definitely better.

I just ditched adobe’s tools altogether. My use of them was rare enough. Not everyone can do that.

kekeblom• 7 years ago

I have a Lenovo P52 at work. Compared to a Macbook it's not that great. You can't open the lid one-handed as the bottom sticks to the top. The build quality is super flimsy. The touchpad is not nearly as sensitive and accurate as on a MBP.

I run Ubuntu on it and currently my Nvidia drivers are not loading correctly so it's running on the intel integrated graphics. When they were, all GUI applications would crash when waking up from sleep. Will have to look into it and figure out if I can find a stable configuration.

amcrouch• 7 years ago

ThinkPads every day of the week. I have a T430 that I have owned for about 6 years and a new P52 which is my daily work machine. Both running Linux with zero issues.

I liked the comment below describing Hotels (Mac) Vs home (ThinkPads). It's true that if you can be bothered to tweak and install some stuff then you end up with something of your own. Your way.

Never used Macs as old enough to remember the "no one got sacked for buying IBM" saying and it's true even if it is now Lenovo.

perlgeek• 7 years ago

Seconded. Happy T480 user here.

ahnick3• 7 years ago

Thirded. I got mine 1.5 years ago and I love it as much as the first day I got it.

The T480 running Ubuntu really hit a sweet spot for me. I could get 32GB of memory (double the memory of other developer laptop options) and it has hot-swappable batteries for extended coding sessions off plug. I'm not a huge fan of dongles either, so the built-in ports (ethernet, HDMI, MicroSD card slot, etc.) were nice.

soylentgraham• 7 years ago

"Never used macs" maybe you should try them. I'm still using a 2013 MBP, only issue is that I had to finally replace the battery about a year ago. MacBooks used to be good. Can you still buy a 6 year old thinkpad?

garmaine2• 7 years ago

Are you joking or just don’t know? Google “x222 thinkpad” for an example. There’s a whole market for classic thinkpads.

Joeri7• 7 years ago

There are a ton of thinkpad t440p’s floating around from that era. They have upgradable everything (even a socketed cpu). You can buy a low-end model for €150 and soup it up to perform similar to current gen laptops.

kjaftaedi• 7 years ago

I had a MacBook Pro daily driver, and had the same concerns as the poster.

I'm now running a Yoga x390. It was the most I've ever spent on a laptop, and it was worth every penny. It's the perfect size, weight, battery life, performance combination, and is an absolute treat to use.

wj• 7 years ago

I have a T480s from work and it has two annoying issues for me. The first is that the cursor doesn't always disappear when typing. That is probably a Windows/browser issue.

The hardware issue is the right side of the touchpad seems to be setup as a right click space. I want one finger left click no matter where I am on the touch pad and two finger right click. Reaching to the left side of the touchpad to click is super annoying and I often accidentally drag a tan instead of clicking on it.

Posting that in hopes someone knows a way to make the touchpad just one big space.

stephen• 7 years ago

+1 to ThinkPad, good quality, great for Linux, and TrackPoint which is the vim of mice (no moving off the home row).

(Pair the ThinkPad with a Linux desktop using an external USB "ThinkPad-style" keyboard, and you've got TrackPoints + exactly the same keyboard layout (and OS layout/key bindings, etc) across laptop and desktop.)

jlarocco• 7 years ago

I don't know... I own a 2013 MBP and also use a Thinkpad P52s for work, and I really hope there's a better competitor than the Thinkpads.

The Thinkpad feels cheap and poorly built compared to the MBP. The plastic creaks and it feels like it's going to fall apart when I carry it with one hand. The trackpad isn't nearly as good, and I had to dig into the X11 configuration to make it work reasonably. I've only had it for 10 months, and I'm already worried that the USB-C plug may be breaking.

Meanwhile, the MBP has sustained 6 years of abuse and still feels solid and works great.

As far as specs go, the Thinkpad is fine, but I'd be sad if I had to buy one with my own money.

lars_francke2• 7 years ago

Just FYI: Should you plan on using Linux on the T490 don't get the Nvidia version. Read the forums, battery life drops to 2-5h vs. 9-11h on Windows.

I hope the next generation fixes this and/or we finally get good nvidia drivers.

godwhoa• 7 years ago

Give Pop_OS[1] a shot, it lets you switch between iGPU and dGPU.

Been using it on my Thinkpad P1 works well for my workflow, I almost always use the iGPU and for tasks that need dGPU

I am usually plugged into power. I get good battery life this way.

But I agree, MX250 option isn't worth it for the amount of GPU power it gives and the complications it brings under Linux.

I hope the next generation fixes this and/or we finally get good nvidia drivers.

GPU offloading is being worked on by nvidia[2] so there is indeed hope.

[1] https://system76.com/pop

[2] https://www.linuxuprising.com/2019/08/nvidia-43517-linux-bet...

[3] https://github.com/pop-os/system76-power/pull/111

cranium• 7 years ago

It saddens me that Apple used to make (almost) perfect laptops – price aside – and it's no longer the case, leaving a bunch of geeks looking for a replacement. In 2017 after searching the market, filtering on required specs and reading reviews, I came to the conclusion that there are no perfect laptop: every time there's a compromise to be made.

For me, I had requirements that were previously met in the MBP: good battery life, good processing power, and not too bulky. I didn't really care about camera or touch screen or fingerprint reader. Based on this, I finally found the Dell Precision 5520 which is the workstation version of the Dell XPS 15". Everything was configurable (OS, CPU, GPU, RAM, battery, screen) and with a good build quality and small form factor. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS was an option, meaning drivers were configured and supported by Dell – a relief, after some experiences using Linux on laptops years ago. Now I've changed the OS to Manjaro, added a 2nd RAM stick for a total of 32GB, configured a bit the power settings with `powertop` and I'm really happy with my portable powerhorse lasting >10h when coding.

As for the Dell client service, I happened to use it a month ago because my 2 years old battery was now swollen. As I took the 3-year warranty extension "Next business day", I called on Monday and Tuesday the technician was there to change battery and touchpad (that can sometimes break when the battery swells) and it was all. Fast and convenient !

Jemm2• 7 years ago

Let’s be fair with our memory of Apple hardware. Apple had huge issues with thermal management that resulted in GPUs failing which of course Apple blamed on the user until they could strong arm a supplier to pay for a recall.

stephenr2• 7 years ago

You mean the same supplier that buyers of Apple, Dell and HP laptops collectively sued?

But sure, blame Apple.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2524868/apple--dell--h...

ryanackley• 7 years ago

Here is an anecdote on Dell laptops. I have an XPS 15. I too had a swollen battery and I got it replaced while it was in warranty. It swelled again about a year later. Seems to be a design flaw in either their laptops or their laptop batteries.

mgamache3• 7 years ago

me too, I purchased a 3rd party battery from amazon and so far so good... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0748BRHH4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...

lonelappde3• 7 years ago

It's a rose-tinted glasses myth. Apple had been doing recalls and class action lawsuits for broken expensive hardware forever.

q-base• 7 years ago

Not really giving an alternative. But I have just bought a fully specced Mid 2014 MBP. I already have a T460s which I cannot decide whether to replace with a X1 Carbon or wait for a new scissor-style keyboard for MBP. But as I ran into the issue of not being able to upload React Native Expo Apps to TestFlight I had to buy a used MacBook.

I must say that even though I an very fond of the Lenovo keyboards - and they are great. The overall feel of a MacBook is just better. The keyboard pre-butterfly is one of the best ever. The trackpad is another level even though sitting with the T460s and T470s at work, it seemed like their trackpads was on par, but they really are not.

The X1 Carbon should be up there, but there is just something about the full experience of the product where MBP wins out. That is at least my experience going a bit back and forth.

ur-whale• 7 years ago

Left the Apple ecosystem 10 years ago, never looked back.

My day to day work is done on a 15 inch LG Gram + Ubutu 18.04.

I just love it: super lightweight, fast, rugged (been dropped easyly 10 times, still working fine)

The dev env is vastly superior to what I had on my MBP where I constantly found myself struggling with out-of-date software and OSS stuff that just plain doesn't work on the mac.

fsloth• 7 years ago

I really like my Surface Pro 4 i5 which is a few years old.

Maro• 7 years ago

I had similar problems. I bought a Razer Blade Stealth 13, but I cannot recommend it. There are hardware bugs, the biggest one being, 1 out of 3 times if you plug/unplug the power, it goes to sleep. Happens on both Win and Linux. It's well known and there's no fix from Razer.

My takeaway: other laptops also have bugs; I'm back to using a MBP & I hope the next-gen MBPs are good again.

hardwaresofton2• 7 years ago

System76[0] makes some nice laptops (I have an Oryx Pro and i like it a lot), and there's the Lenovo X1 Extreme[1].

[0] https://system76.com/laptops

[1] https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x/X1-...

SmirkingRevenge• 7 years ago

How is the keyboard on your system76? I've been leaning towards System76 for my next laptop, but its hard to pull the trigger without testing the keyboard. I really need cushier and longer travel keys these days or I get really bad muscle fatigue in my arms and wrists, while working on a laptop keyboard.

My 2014 MBP causes me issues only after an hour or two. And their newer keyboards... well, I'm just not even going to go there. The old ibm/lenovo thinkpad keyboards (before chick-lets) were the best.

Lenovo is an option too, but I'd rather support a Linux oriented company with Linux-first laptops (I also find it a hard pill to swallow to ever buy a Lenovo again, after all the spyware shenanigans).

hardwaresofton2• 7 years ago

I use a mechanical keyboard so I'm not the person to ask... I did find one review on youtube[0] pretty helpful.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEEUuSKL0BQ&feature=youtu.be...

rwha• 7 years ago

I have an Oryx Pro and the keypad is good as far as your two requirements.

The one thing I had to get used to is that the keys have no curvature (no gradient or tapering around the edges and the tops have zero convexity). My fingertips are either a bit more calloused now from moving between keys or my fingers have worn away the keys' sharp edges. Or a little of both.

Oh and if you do get one, and if you think it would be fun to have your keyboard light up certain sections with certain colors for certain alert conditions... it gets old real quick.

FunnyLookinHat2• 7 years ago

My employer provided me an X1 Extreme. Overall it's a great laptop - only real complaint is that it includes a dedicated GPU and I'd rather have integrated graphics. Sure, you can boot with just the Intel GPU with PopOS - but that comes with certain trade-offs like not being able to use the HDMI port.

Keyboard is great. Trackpoint is great. Trackpad is OK. Screen is great (I have the 4k and just run it at 1080p to simplify my life) - but the colors and brightness are amazing. Performance is great.

arc_of_descent• 7 years ago

I'm using a ThinkPad E480, with 2 monitors attached. Lubuntu 19.10. It's my main dev machine running Postgres, VirtualBox, Elixir, Node, etc. Battery is still amazing after 4 months.

I've always wanted to buy a MacBook Pro, mostly for music production, but the ThinkPad is a fine beast by itself. For music, I use Studio One 4 on Win 10.

jamesfmilne• 7 years ago

I like the look of the Thinkpad X1 Extreme Gen 2, but I'd want to know if it is saddled with NVIDIA Optimus GPU switching, and whether that works in CentOS 7.7 or CentOS 8.0 with the NVIDIA drivers. Anyone had any luck with that?

It looks like NVIDIA's drivers support PRIME for sharing between integrated and discrete GPUs these days.

teknopaul• 7 years ago

I believe the Optimus thing is broadly speaking fixed in Linux. Intel integrated defo still preferable if you are not gaming or similar.

sofaofthedamned• 7 years ago

ThinkPad X1 Carbon. It's a beautiful laptop and works well with Fedora after a couple of tweaks.

I've got an XPS 13 for work which is nice too but runs windows. Pros and cons are:

ThinkPad: Better keyboard by far, more rugged, better bios for Linux that supports normal sleep states

XPS: Can charge on either side, better speakers

lioeters2• 7 years ago

works well with Fedora after a couple of tweaks

I'm considering this combination of ThinkPad X1 Carbon + Fedora. May I ask what kind of tweaks are necessary/recommended?

cipherboy• 7 years ago

Make sure you're running an up-to-date kernel [0] because the version shipped didn't support the wifi card shipped in the 7th gen.

[0] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1733369

awalton3• 7 years ago

I've been considering buying a Lenovo ThinkPad Extreme X1 Gen 2 as my 2015 MBP has simply outlived its good years, and I can't wait or bet on a first gen Apple MBP replacement, especially not with the extremely poor decision making they've had over the past few years with those keyboards...

The biggest turn-off really is the nVidia graphics chip (which I really don't want, but all models seem to have) and gen 9 processor (which is probably why they don't offer the machine without a discrete GPU). The price is also a little on the higher end of what I'd like to spend, but on the flip side of that, Lenovo has an excellent warranty program including battery replacement and accidental damage replacement options - as it's likely the trend of me holding on to laptops for longer periods of time will continue, that's a really nice to have selling point.

And sadly, for me, that's as close as I can get to a machine I find acceptable... which is why I haven't pulled the trigger on buying one yet. It feels awful walking into a compromise purchase simply because laptop manufacturers have completely given up on you. So awful I just haven't been able to bring myself to do it, despite my Macbook Pro's decrepit state.

jayalpha• 7 years ago

Al the options mentioned here are good.

Dell XPS ThinkPad Lenovo X1 Carbon

I use a Dell XPS with only 8GB RAM. This can be tight at times. I switched to Ubuntu based Bodhi Linux and I am pretty happy about it. The RAM footprint is very very low and the system is very snappy.

maurits• 7 years ago

I dodged and got a 2015 Macbook Pro this year.

gothy• 7 years ago

New Surface 3 Laptop combined with WSL2 looks promising.

Also, there're rumors on MBP 16" with a fixed(?) keyboard...

coolness• 7 years ago

Related to this, any thoughts on the surface laptop as an alternative to MBP? Are the trackpad and keyboard good?

jbd28• 7 years ago

Screen and aspect ratio are fantastic. Trackpad and keyboard feel “cheap” compared to my wife’s 2016 MBP but I love the feel of the alcantara fabric while I type

ceronman• 7 years ago

I'm writing this from my recently bought Thinkpad X1C7 after moving from a 2015 MPB. Here are some notes about my experience so far:

The hardware is fantastic. Build quality is great, the keyboard is great, the screen is great, the selection of ports is great. It's not cheap though, price is very close to an MBP.

The software part is not so great. I tried Windows for a short while, but it's just a disaster. It's slow and inconsistent. I tried WSL, but it feels so alpha for now.

So quickly I decided to move Ubuntu. Overall Ubuntu feels so much better than Windows, but the caveat is hardware support. Thinkpads supposedly have very good Linux support, however, the microphone and the fingerprint reader didn't work. After googling a lot I found a way of making the mic work by manually compiling a kernel. No solution for the fingerprint reader yet. And the volume controls don't work properly, there are a few workarounds, but none fixes the issue 100%.

Another issue on Linux is that none of the stable web browsers (Firefox, Chrome) have hardware video decoding enabled, so watching YouTube drains your battery. I'm now using a Chromium Beta build which seems to be the only alternative for now.

Using Linux requires you to google and apply a ton of small fixes to make some things better. Things like installing TLP to have decent battery life, hacking grub fonts so that they don't appear tiny on the 4k screen and stuff like that.

The hardware issues are quite frustrating, but I know those will be resolved at some point. My Thinkpad model is fairly new. The lesson here is: if you want Linux to work out of the box on your hardware, don't get the latest model.

On the positive side, I'm really loving Ubuntu and Gnome. I don't have plans to move back to Mac, even if they fix their crappy new keyboards. The fact that you can make Linux work the way you want is very rewarding even if it takes some time to google and hack around. But I understand that not everyone likes to do that.

rkangel• 7 years ago

My advice for people using Linux on a laptop for the first time is to use Fedora - it has the best 'out of the box' support for hardware due to shipping the most recent kernels. With Thinkpads usually everything just works (in my case that included fingerprint reader, keyboard backlight, webcam).

jostmey• 7 years ago

I'm using a Microsoft surface laptop and I love it! The 3:2 screen ratio makes my 13" screen feel like a 15" laptop without extra bulkiness (the 3:2 screen ratio adds an extra inch of height compared to the 16:9 ratio). Everything else about the laptop is so far amazing

It doesn't have a great graphics card, but I don't do much of that anyway

RocketSyntax• 7 years ago

I have been buying 2015s on ebay since the newer models were introduced >.<

agloeregrets• 7 years ago

Not sure if this helps but Apple is supposed to offer a new 16 inch model with the old style switches early next year, the latest Catalina beta leaked its thicker design and escape key.

Jemm2• 7 years ago

Lenovo LS340 Gaming. Fantastic machine that has great specs at a good price. Lenovo even managed to avoid filling it with bloatware.

It is not aluminium but looks good. No outward signs that it has a gaming design.

udkyo• 7 years ago

I went from a 2015 MBP to a Gigabyte Aero 15x and put Pop!OS on it.

I'm very happy with it - it's a tidy little machine, build quality is good, it has a nice 4K screen, great specs incl a good GPU, all the holes and slots I could ask for, and the battery lasts something like 10hrs (GPU usage destroys this though obviously)

If you can live without Mac OS, there are a number of top notch laptops out there calling your name.

mikece• 7 years ago

I love my Lenovo P50 — except when I have to do iOS work. If not for doing iOS development I would be using Lenovo/Linux As my daily driver.

AlchemistCamp• 7 years ago

I've always been pretty happy with Asus laptops and even their iMac-like "all-in-one" computers. The high-end ones have great quality and the low-end ones still have decent quality.

Another key factor for me is that unlike Apple, Asus offers good video cards!

krembo• 7 years ago

I'm with Asus ZenBook UX461 bought more than a year ago. While it's not a super-cool brand like Macs or Surfaces (my previous laptop), the ZenBook is 1/3 of the price and monsterly-packed with hardware superior to them (i7-8550 1.88GHz, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD and very light and good touch screen). Did my homework, you can't beat that, and I've tried all the famous brands before.

jen_h3• 7 years ago

My UX303 has served me well for four years now, dropped several times, lugged it around through all climes & my only major issue right now is that it’s nearly impossible to find a good power adapter for it and the screen hinge is loose.

Negatives: Required a lot of customization to get the trackpad right on Ubuntu so I’ve got that to look forward when I upgrade, I hate glossy screens, and it can act wonky if exposed to extreme humidity changes.

It’s fast, it’s light, it doesn’t typically get too hot, I’ve treated it like garbage and it still delivers —- I’m starting to look around for a new one and will probably stick with the line, but want something with a matte screen this time for less annoying outside work, they’ve got a few models available.

mduerksen3• 7 years ago

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 your proposed MBP-replacement?

- Can you comfortably and efficiently organize your photos/files&folders with it?

dboreham• 7 years ago

I find that a touchscreen (which most non-Apple laptops have) compensates to some degree for the inferior touchpad.

derekp7• 7 years ago

That's why I like my Thinkpad X1 Yoga. Depending on the operation, I will use the touchpad, the trackpoint, or the touchscreen.

faizshah3• 7 years ago

Has anyone tried magic touchpad on linux? Theres a driver but I wonder if its as smooth as a MBP trackpad on linux.

alextingle2• 7 years ago

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

jbergknoff• 7 years ago

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.

mduerksen3• 7 years ago

I don't necessarily care if it's a point or pad. I need it to get the jobs done that I mentioned above.

Can you with your laptop, and if so, which is it?

I had a Dell Precision M4300 for quite some time. Good laptop, decent trackpoint - but it was not good enough for design work:

My main problem was offsetting the cursor a tiny number of pixels, which needed some starting force on the trackpoint, which lead to more pixels than I needed. Some trackpoint laptop might have figured this out by now. But if not, I'm not interested.

crazysim• 7 years ago

The technical requirement I see as a prerequisite would be support for the Precision Touchpad standard. That's a major part of the magic inside Mac Touchpads. It's a shame there isn't that many external Precision Touchpad hardware. Users would pay a lot more attention to touch if so. That said, at least there's a Windows Precision Touchpad driver for the Magic Trackpad 2:

https://github.com/imbushuo/mac-precision-touchpad/issues

JDiculous4• 7 years ago

Are people really working in Photoshop/Sketch/Gimp/Inkscape/Blender using the trackpad? Sounds extraordinarily inefficient compared to using a mouse.

mduerksen3• 7 years ago

Yes, me at least (design work is not my main profession but needed for creating e.g. mobile apps).

It was my biggest surprise when I first bought a macbook: After a few weeks I noticed I didn't miss a mouse enough to bother bringing one with me.

I do 95% of my work when I'm commuting by train. Only for the last 5% super involved work I have to resort to plugging in a mouse when I'm in the office.

With all other laptops I have ever dealt with (admittedly not the replacements proposed in this thread), the ratio would be more like 50:50 or worse.

I also had a pretty high quality trackpoint from a business line Dell. Still missed the mouse.

kstenerud• 7 years ago

I've got an Asus C302 Flip Chromebook, and the touchpad on it is as good as the Mac touchpad. It's just a shame that this machine is so underpowered, because it would be absolutely perfect with an i5, m.2 SSD, and 20g of RAM.

What I do now is set up virtual desktops on my server and connect to it via Chrome Remote Desktop from the C302. I have a Thinkpad for when I need to travel, but it really sucks having to switch back to a mouse (the touchpad on that thing is horrible).

paulsmal• 7 years ago

Dell XPS 15 9570 4k with elementaryOS 5.0 (macOS like DE on top of Ubuntu 18.04) + libinput-gestures worked for me. Decent touchpad, keyboard's like 2015 MacBook Pro. I replaced wifi/Bluetooth model with one from Intel and downvolted cpu (i7)

kgarten5• 7 years ago

just switched to a Matebook Pro X with Arch Linux and could not be happier. Slick, long battery life (around 10 hours with browser and neovim + latex for writing). 3:2 screen perfect for writing everything working (except of the finger print reader).

The webcam is at a strange place, yet you can be sure it is off and not recording you, I just put the laptop on a book and it looks fine for telcos.

Dell and Lenovo are a no go for me.

Compared to Dell/Lenovo, Huawei didn't put spyware on their computers yet :)

If you want a decent linux laptop, I also use a Pruism Librem 15 ... Great, the best if you are looking for a secure machine. It's my private one. Huawei for work.

kgarten5• 7 years ago

Just wondering why I got downrated. Lenovo and Dell had documented spyware on their computers.

We also know cisco and other American companies worked closely with the NSA and put backdoors in their software and hardware.

Yes, Huawei is close to the Chinese government and there are definitely issues with that. Yes, they had spyware on some phones. Still no documented case of spyware on their computers :)

FpUser2• 7 years ago

As a laptop I have HP omen 15", i7 6 Cores, 32GB Ram, nVidia 1070 GPU and 2 SSDs (500GB and 1TB). I paid $1800 Canadian Pesos for it. Has Windows and Linux Mint on it. Works like a charm. I can only imagine what would Mac with the same power cost. Sure it is not as thin as Mac but what do I care.

iamsb• 7 years ago

If you are mostly working from one location (home-office or office), I recommend building a PC with linux running on it. Far more powerful and much lesser cost. You can use any cheap laptop for computing on the go, preferably one which is SSD only, and it fairly lightweight.

lukaszkups• 7 years ago

Just couple examples from me:

Asus Zenbook + Linux

Lenovo Carbon + Linux

Dell XPS + Linux

Surface Book 2 + Windows + WSL

pbhowmic• 7 years ago

there isn't one for me. I am primarily a back-end dev but I also develop for iOS.

seancork• 7 years ago

I have went through a lot of differnt laptops, mainly had a lot of Dell laptops but last year I decided to buy a Thinkpad T430 on ebay for close to notting and it's the best laptop I have ever had.

lazylizard• 7 years ago

2 cents. I use any computer that has a keyboard,terminal, network n ssh. Windows is the most terrible os, yes.

albertzeyer2• 7 years ago

I'm also interested in that and collected a list recently:

* System 76 Oryx Pro (aluminium, official Linux support, US shipping, flaky hardware, poor battery)

* Prostar Clevo P960 (rebadge of System 76 Oryx Pro)

* Huawei MateBook X Pro (aluminium, good Linux support)

* Razer laptops (aluminium, no good Linux support)

* Chuwi LapBook Plus (aluminium, good Linux support, poor battery, poor CPU, cheap)

* Xiaomi Mi Notebook Pro (aluminium, good Linux support)

* Purism Librem 13

There was a HN thread recently about Huawei MateBook X Pro: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21170765

And also one about System 76: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21216195

gbtw• 7 years ago

Isn't it the other way around? The 76 Oryx is a rebaged Clevo BTO laptop?

albertzeyer2• 7 years ago

Ah yes, you are right.

villgax• 7 years ago

Razer Blade 15/17

indymike• 7 years ago

I switched to a Dell XPS 15. Didn't think the convertible form factor would matter... but touch and stylus are really useful. Oh, and Dell's take on a slim keyboard is much better. Linux just works and Windows is serviceable.

timwaagh• 7 years ago

My current Acer laptop has always been reliable. So are other windows/pc manufacturers like Lenovo, Toshiba, basically any brand. Reliable laptops are a commodity. I am surprised an Apple product would not be reliable. I'd be hesitant to recommend Dell. They crash. But that might be because i only encounter them as corporate laptops, which get reused a lot and carry additional risks like the corporate 'onboarding' software.

I'd recommend just sticking with windows and not overwriting it with ubuntu unless you have some very specific needs. Some important desktop applications like photoshop do not work on ubuntu and WSL takes care of almost everything ubuntu can do.

coldtea4• 7 years ago

However, Apple has demonstrated their inability to be reliable. I bought my MBP in January of this year (2019) and tomorrow I’ll pick it up from its 3rd repair.

Well, I've had 5 or so MBs and MBPs since 2003 and hardly ever needed a repair (I had to repair an iMac once). So what happened to one machine, which could have been part of a faulty production run is not necessarily indicative.

In general, the fact the MBPs have higher satisfaction rates, and command higher second-hand prices and maintain them longer should be an indicator that (again, in general) they are more reliable rather than less.

That said, if they do fail (which they still can), Apple is hardly the faster company to give you a replacement machine, or to fix your old one. And in countries without official Apple Stores even more so.

TacticalTable• 7 years ago

I don't think OP is referring to Apple's permanent inability to be reliable, but rather the current MBP series. That keyboard is atrocious, and there is no alternative to it. Maybe the 2020 MBP design refresh will fix the issues, but there could also be another set of issues that emerge after a few months. Apple has broken their user's trust.

coldtea4• 7 years ago

but rather the current MBP series. That keyboard is atrocious, and there is no alternative to it.

To that I agree. I simply resorted to using an external keyboard with the laptop 90% of the time (at home or at work) -- until I can upgrade in 1-2 years in a new model with hopefully improved keyboard.

jen_h3• 7 years ago

Surprised not to see more mentions of the Asus Zenbook here — I switched from a MBP to a Zenbook running Ubuntu four years ago, and haven’t looked back...sleek, light, fast, beefy specs AND it’s endured my abuse pretty well.

It’s starting to finally show its age, I switched to a Dell for a week after my adapter died, but went straight back to it once I was able. 13” screen and I still preferred it over the Dell (speed & comfort may have been an issue, too). Probably will be replacing it with a similar model (matte screen, though, this time, for sure).

nabusman• 7 years ago

I bought a Zenbook a year ago but the trackpad was pretty much unusable. Though Ubuntu 16.04 worked with minor tweaks.

jen_h3• 7 years ago

This saved my sanity:

synclient PalmDetect=1 && synclient PalmMinWidth=4 && synclient PalmMinZ=60

bob1029• 7 years ago

I am looking forward to the launch of the new Surface products next week. I will very likely be replacing my 2013 MBP with one of these options. Specifically, I am looking hard at the 15" laptop right now because AMD and apparent ease of repair.

Worst case scenario, I might just get a cloud Mac for iOS development concerns and VNC/SSH into it from whatever machine. It will actually be a bit of a shock for me to go full-time Windows 10, as I alternate between OSX/WIN10 at a rate of about 30/70 on a daily basis. I really have no strong allegiance either way. Both operating systems are incredible, but I will have to award some bonus points to Apple for that extra bump in UX quality. You can almost constantly feel as if OSX and the hardware were designed by the same engineer when you use things like their touchpad.

One other thing I would say is that if Apple released a clone of this exact machine I have today (the late 2013 13" retina MBP) with modern CPU/Memory/GPU/SSD and maybe USB-C, I would be stoked and would likely purchase it immediately. The changes made to the newest models are dealbreakers for me - Particularly the touchpad & keyboard (AKA the most important aspects).

pmorici• 7 years ago

Check out the Panasonic CF-53 / CF-54 they are slim and rugged. Esp. if you are rough on your equipment. All this ultra thin stuff if to fragile if you actually need to move it around frequently.

fancyfish• 7 years ago

The Dell XPS 15 is a remarkable piece of hardware and at least on par with the MBP. A nice smooth trackpad, crystal clear display that plays well with Linux drivers, and a reliable keyboard.

I, too, was fed up with Apple’s rising MBP prices and flimsy design. I need a functional and long-lasting dev machine. The XPS (and probably Precision) series checked the boxes. It has ports when I need them. Easy to take apart and upgrade. Form, but not at the cost of function.

willis936• 7 years ago

I got an XPS 15 with a 6 core CPU (boost up to 4 GHz) last year for (I think) $1000. Get baseline memory and storage, slap a 1 TB samsung SSD and 32 GB of RAM, and perform thermal mods and suddenly you have a serious piece of hardware for $1600. I don’t think Apple cares about making computers. They care about making money and their method of doing that is presenting the appearance of good computers.

alexandercrohde• 7 years ago

Aside from all the bitterness about ports, touch-bars, lock-in, blah-blah, I have a sincere question. Does anybody know a comparably DURABLE competitor?

I have 99% confidence I could knock my macbook air off my bed (while on) 100 times in a row with 0 consequences. I've never had a key come off, had the screen flicker, had a battery problem, had an overheat.

I'd be curious if anybody thinks there's any other laptop comparably reliable.

alextingle2• 7 years ago

Thinkpads.

GuB-42• 7 years ago

ThinkPads have a good reputation in that regard.

Beyond that there are rugged PCs like Toughbooks. You can literally throw them through the window and they won't mind (we actually tested that). You probably don't need that though. These things are heavy, expensive, and generally underspecced.

K0SM0S2• 7 years ago

ThinkPads tends to be pretty solid. When they fall, it's not uncommon there's a dent in a wooden floor, but no scratch on the laptop itself...

Deinos• 7 years ago

Dropped my x230t down a flight of stairs...slammed into the wall at the bottom...only damage was a very slight expansion in the seam of the external battery. Still in amazing shape using the same battery almost 5 years since the drop. Great little laptop!

swozey2• 7 years ago

I'm not sure about this anymore, my 2016 MBP has gotten some gnarly body dents all over it and it lives in my backpack and on my work desk. I've never actually dropped it. The 2016+'s seem incredibly soft.

You're likely talking about the internals which on mine seem ok. Except my right speaker makes crackle sounds 100% of the time. It's so distracting that the few times I've brought it on trips and used it to watch movies I've gone out of my way to find speakers and an aux cable.

My 2015 definitely seemed like a work horse.

tomduncalf2• 7 years ago

One of my speakers also has issues (not cracking in my case, more like weird resonance) so until I have time to take it in to Apple, my workaround is to pan the sound over to the good side, in Sound Preferences. Not ideal but works okay for watching movies etc.

bluedino3• 7 years ago

> The 2016+'s seem incredibly soft.

I had a 2016 13" Pro fall off the arm of a couch, in a zippered soft case, and then rivet that attaches the handle to the soft case impacted the side of the laptop near the ports on the side, it looked like a rat gnawed on it.

That's what I get for using the same (otherwise great) STM case since my Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro

rabite• 7 years ago

Panasonic Toughbooks. Many of them are certified under milspec standards for durability. Drop it off your bed? You can drop safely drop several of them from the top of a telephone pole.

Rediscover• 7 years ago

Also see the Panasonic Let's Note series, though I have not experienced any of the post-2013 (or so) models. Very light weight, extremely durable (not as durable as official Toughbooks). Feels a little cheap at first (too light weight?). I used to regularly prop a T5 on the floor against the counter as a make-shift step ladder.

A caveat: Let's Note machines are user hostile if you are the sort of person who likes opening up & doing your own repairs. I barely get over it for Let's Note.

fortran772• 7 years ago

Windows 10 on good hardware is very, very nice.

My advice is "don't fight windows". I've seen many people try to make Windows like Unix. Don't. Use Windows versions of things, not things compiled under Cygwin or MinGW. Learn to use Powershell and Powershell scripting language.

I do development (C/C++/CUDA/Erlang/Python) all day long on Windows 10 and in addition use desktop applications like Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Cloud.

No problems whatsoever. My main machine -- a Surface Book -- has had no issues. It sleeps, hibernates, manages power, perfectly. The keyboard feels good and is dirt tolerant. (I also have a lightweight travel notebook -- a lenovo yoga -- that "just works" though it's a little underpowered for major development work)

Tijdreiziger• 7 years ago

"Learn to use Powershell and Powershell scripting language."

YMMV. I tried PS for a few years and just couldn't get into it. Installed WSL as soon as that came out and haven't touched PS since.

kerng2• 7 years ago

You can also run PowerShell on Linux now.

vips7L6• 7 years ago

I think this depends on whether you embrace the philosophy of "everything is an object" or not.

For me its been leagues easier to learn than bash and 20 other non-portable utilities. It feels like a regular programming language.

manigandham• 7 years ago

WSL 2.0 is a full linux kernel powered by HyperV and is very fast with minimal overhead. Useful for using all those Linux tools directly on the same filesystem.

whycombagator2• 7 years ago

WSL 2.0...is very fast

Unless you want to interop with the Windows file system[0]

[0]https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4197

sz4kerto• 7 years ago

Interestingly it's running _besides_ Windows, not under it.

whywhywhywhy• 7 years ago

Seconding the Surface line, been using one for around a year and find it on par or surpasses an Apple laptop hardware wise.

Trackpad difference is negligible, keyboard has real key travel and feels great to type on, pen support without buying a $1000 iPad, light and thin but with both usb-a and c.

Don’t even mind using Windows, I still like MacOS but until a hardware option exists again that serves my needs then I’m being forced to look elsewhere. (Linux isn’t an option in my case due to Adobe)

freehunter• 7 years ago

The $329 iPad supports pens too.

gherkinnn6• 7 years ago

Have been working on Windows machines (C# ftw) for a while now.

I hate it. Everything.

Kafkaesque configuration UIs, horrible window management, mouse acceleration is off, font rendering is atrocious, the updates make me unreasonably angry, mixed design systems leave me confused, File Explorer isn’t even trying, many apps are downright insulting, and the entire thing just reeks of PMs in ill-fitting suits prodding things this way and that with their doughy fingers.

And I need to install a linux subsystem to make it just about usable.

It’s a shame, because I do like the look of their Surface line.

spectramax3• 7 years ago

Don’t forget the ads. Ads, even in the powershell. Telemetry of everything.

Automatic installs of OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, etc.

Fuck Windows. It sucks.

vips7L6• 7 years ago

mouse acceleration

Maybe it's the gamer in me, but who uses this? It's just going to make your mouse movements way less accurate.

If you haven't tried it yet pwsh integration with C# is amazing, I wish there was something like it for the JVM.

zarkov992• 7 years ago

Don't forget the file system and how locking by a rogue program can stop your build (and your workflow) until you figure out which program has a handle to the file you want to rebuild. The lack of scriptability of most tools. The perpetually behind C++ compiler. The lack of a proper terminal. The fucking ads. The broken updates. The relentless ratchet to control your machine and how you use it.

NotSammyHagar• 7 years ago

People don't wear suits at Microsoft, even PMs. Some of my best friends are PMs, and they were offended. The rest is all true though.

president• 7 years ago

Windows is the wild west. There seems to be no underlying design philosophy tying together the UI elements and interactions of applications built on top of it. Funny because Microsoft actually has huge teams of UX researchers. What are they all doing?

tootie• 7 years ago

WSL is miraculous. But Powershell is also very capable. I also highly recommend using chocolatey as your package manager. Makes it super easy to stay up to date with dev tools. It's nuts that the GitHub official docs still recommend Git Bash when git for Powershell works perfectly fine.

vips7L6• 7 years ago

scoop is also an alternative for your package manager.

https://scoop.sh/

crispinb3• 7 years ago

Use Windows versions of things, not things compiled under Cygwin or MinGW

This seems like an oddly outdated notion in the WSL era. Having used Windows 10 f/t in 2018, I'd say 'use Linux versions of commandline dev tools, not Windows'.

Mostly though I agree that Windows 10 is a decent and viable Desktop OS. It does have some problems. The task bar is an appalling bit of Stalinist design (insisting on obscuring parts of running apps even when on auto-hide), and much of the Microsoft-supplied software (eg. Mail, Calendar) is terribly amateurish. If you use the Insiders builds (tempting because of WSL2), it's pretty buggy. But most of the fundamental stuff works extremely well.

All of the OSs available have their irritations, but I don't think those of Windows are any more egregious or numerous than the competitors. Certainly MacOS (my main OS for many years prior to 2018) has become irrelevant to me because of absurd price-gouging and fake keyboards.

What eventually pulled me off Windows towards Linux is largely the development experience and the filesystem. But then I have to put up with its egregious hdpi & multimonitor support and general GUI flakiness.

There are no good OSs in 2019, just balances of tradeoffs for your particular purposes & preferences.

mxschumacher2• 7 years ago

agree on the trade-offs

have you given pop_os a try for the hdpi/multimonitor issue?

vips7L6• 7 years ago

I'm curious what cli tool you find is better on linux?

Imo WSL is fighting windows, especially WSL2, as it locks you out of the windows filesystem and you need special plugins to edit your code.

For my workflow (node,electron,java) all of the tools are already cross platform and any shell tools are usually covered by powershell. I do admit though doing C development is probably more difficult as getting ports of things like make, ld etc is harder.

tekknik4• 7 years ago

the problem here is the rest of the world runs nix (at least in webdev) so if I can’t make it nix then I’m the odd man out. I deploy to linux servers but I’m supposed to make them windows? or more like windows? how does this work?

berbec• 7 years ago

I would suggest a Lenovo T490. It has the build quality you've come to expect from IBM, usb-A ports, Thunderbolt 3, standard nvme storage, 32GB ram available and a low-power 1080p option that allows for over 10 hours of browsing.

jpalomaki• 7 years ago

You can actually go all the way to 48GB. 16GB soldered + 32GB dimm.

nixpulvis• 7 years ago

My thinkpad x1 carbon is running Linux very well (better than Windows I might add). Battery is great, keyboard is acceptable, and it's significantly lighter than my old MacBooks. I've grown to like the plastic Lenovo uses.

izolate• 7 years ago

Definitely not the X1 Carbon 7th Gen. While I love my X1C7, it runs Linux horribly. Speakers, microphone, HDMI issues galore.

city41• 7 years ago

I’m very excited about Google's Pixelbook line and ChromeOS. With Crostini (Linux integration) it has the potential to become my preferred OS for doing dev work. Crostini is still in beta and does have a ways to go yet.

The Pixelbook itself is excellent hardware with a top notch screen, trackpad and keyboard.

swozey2• 7 years ago

I'll be buying the new 13" XPS 2-n-1 pretty soon. It finally has a thunderbolt 3 port so I can plug in an egpu if I ever feel like I need an upgrade for gaming.

I am worried about the thermals, the i7 seems like it will likely throttle quite a bit.

I absolutely love the form factor though. I've been hoping for 5 years that Apple would release a convertible/2-n-1 style laptop and blow the Surface out of the water.

remote_phone• 7 years ago

I’m looking at Vaio. I had a Sony Vaio about 10 years ago and I still love it. I have given up on buying a MBP because of Touchbar and the keyboard.

skeptical900067• 7 years ago

Thinkpad x220,IPS model, running xubuntu. Display is lacking, so I wouldn't use it for illustration work. Otherwise, it has been months since I opened my mbp.

ykevinator• 7 years ago

Huawei xmate pro running Ubuntu is a dream

cloudking• 7 years ago

Not a laptop specific comment, but from a software perspective Windows 10 with WSL is a pretty awesome Dev environment. You get a full Linux subsystem, with access to the Windows filesystem and environment for testing.

mmwelt• 7 years ago

I've been using an Asus ZenBook for a while and am very satisfied with it! They aren't very cheap, but Asus seems pretty innovative with their laptops. And the brushed metal finish is also quite nice.

https://www.asus.com/au/Laptops/ZenBook-Series-Home/

Not associated with Asus in any way...

crazygringo• 7 years ago

I bought my MBP in January of this year (2019) and tomorrow I’ll pick it up from its 3rd repair. I’ve grown tired of this repair routine.

That sucks, but I think you've just had bad luck. The quality, longetivity, and service of Apple hardware through Apple stores isn't perfect, but it's been consistently better than the alternatives for me and everyone else I know. Sorry your experience has been bad.

I'm curious what you've had to get repaired?

eggsyntax• 7 years ago

I switched a few years ago from MBP to ThinkPads running Ubuntu (with Gnome). It's been an overall improvement for sure, and there are very few things I miss (iTerm2 is the big one; there's no Linux terminal emulator that has all the advanced features I loved in iTerm2 like incremental search/highlight/copy. Gnome terminal with tmux is...acceptable). And of course it's much cheaper; on both computers (P51 and X1 Extreme) I paid about 2/3 what I would have paid for a MBP.

The big downside is battery life. On both the ThinkPads I've had, the battery life has been roughly 4-6 hours, despite my attempts to improve it with Powertop and/or TLP, and despite keeping the external graphics card shut down. I find that pretty painful; I like to work outside most of the day when the weather's decent, and now I have to be meticulous about plugging in whenever I go inside for a bit. If it weren't for having it charge up over lunch, there's no way it would make it through my day.

Some folks seem to get better battery life with some ThinkPads running Linux, but I haven't been able to pull it off. In fairness, I do a fair amount of CPU-heavy work -- but I was doing the same kind of work on MBP, and the battery life was much better.

kingkongjaffa• 7 years ago

This is such a strange story - my thinkpad T490 lasts all day, my MBP lasts about 4 hours. (granted it's a 2012 model but still).

Battery life isn't one of the things Mac books have ever had going for them in my experience.

sharms• 7 years ago

I have the same experience: My T470 always goes at least 10 hours, and the battery estimate shows 16+ from a full charge. My work Macbook might get 5 on a good day?

Klonoar• 7 years ago

My MBP2015 averages 8 hours of battery still. They’re incredible.

fbnlsr• 7 years ago

I've pondered quite a great deal about this very same question. I'm the owner of a 2015 MacBook Air, and I'll probably won't buy another MacBook when mine dies.

What I'll definitely do is get a Thinkpad Carbon X1 and put elementary OS on it. The Thinkpad line has been around for ages and are praised upon. It's fairly linux-friendly, and elementary OS is a great distro, stable enough to work on, and its polish and attention to detail resonates with a MacOS user.

I've been using elementary OS on a VM in my gaming PC and it's been working flawlessly. Really like this distro.

dangoor• 7 years ago

I've been using Macs since a 12" Powerbook around 2004 and think I've only taken a Mac in once over those 15 years. My current Mac is a 15" MBP from earlier this year as well. One precaution I took is to get a silicone keyboard cover. I've had no issues with it.

Though I haven't had a problem with the keyboard (likely thanks to the latest generation of it and my silicone cover), I know that lots of people have. Apple deserves criticism for that, but at least it sounds like the next MBP is going to have a new keyboard design.

Hardware aside, I don't want to run Windows or Linux. Apple would have to screw up even worse than this keyboard thing to get me to switch.

mister_hn• 7 years ago

Basically any latest laptop from Lenovo, Dell or Asus. You have also the advantage that you can put Windows or Linux on it

ducklingslicks• 7 years ago

anyone possibly tldr'ed this thread and has just the usable answers to the original question?

kerng2• 7 years ago

I have both MBP and Surface Laptop 2. I personally like the Suface much better. And most importantly the entire Office stack on Windows is superior to anything on Mac or Google things.

The keyboard on Surface Laptop is also superior, and I never liked the touchpad. Big touch screen fan!

What feels less nice is the screen attachment, it seems less stable. The MBP has a nicer mechanism for locking in I think.

goatherders• 7 years ago

I sold my MacBook and went to an XPS 13 about 3 years ago. I have enjoyed the machine and Windows just fine. I dont know anything about configs and launchers and Ubuntu - I just use the machine to run my company and spend 99% of my time in Excel, Chrome, and Mailbird. The Dell is an excellent machine except the battery life is terrible.

rjplatte• 7 years ago

Thinkpad X-series is the alternative with a more durable build and a comparable pointing device. I would recommend any Thinkpad, but the X series is absolutely fantastic.

sandreas3• 7 years ago

I like this question because I'm in a similar situation with my MacBook Pro 2015 despite having bought a MBP 2019, because i was not convinced of the quality... Unfortunately i did not find a real alternative for now...

My thoughts about alternatives are:

# Software / OS:

- Hackintosh - I don't want to bug around with hackish scripts or repeating the whole procedure on upgrades, so I refuse to do this.

- Elementary OS - Linux with UI similar to MacOS (at least kind of) including Apps for the most common Tasks like mail, calendar, etc.

- Manjaro Linux - Rising star of the distros, presentations i saw looked pretty good. Based on archlinux - so there is some things to learn ;)

- Ubuntu / Xubuntu / Mint - well, i know them but working with them for mee feels by far not as good as with MacOS.

# Hardware:

- Lenovo Thinkpad T4X0S - Good value, great linux support, business quality

- Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon - Pretty expensive but high end and man what a display

- CLEVO N141CU (https://clevo-computer.com/en/laptops-configurator/purpose/b...) - a colleague recommended this manufacturer, i don't have any clue if this is a good value thing, but it looks very similar to a MBP with all the connectors you can think of

tristanperry2• 7 years ago

I have a Clevo N131WU and whilst Clevo's are good for the price, the poor battery life and loud fans (without their Windows-only 'Control Centre' software) would prevent me buying one again. It's definitely not a MBP competitor.

sandreas3• 7 years ago

Cool, thank you for this feedback. Are you aware of NBFC (https://github.com/hirschmann/nbfc)? Not that this is relevant to Clevo beeing no competitor but perhaps you can take control of your fan - afaik it is known to work on linux systems.

okennedy3• 7 years ago

Two other hardware resources to consider: Purism (https://puri.sm) and System76 (https://system76.com/). Both of which actively target Linux with their hardware. Both have OS distributions tailored to their hardware (less need for tinkering), and both (to varying degrees) attempt to keep hardware and software as open as possible.

sandreas3• 7 years ago

Cool thank you. I'll definitely take a look at this ones.

zaro• 7 years ago

I am using Xiaomi Notebook Pro 13, and I am very happy with it. I think for running Linux it's better choice than MBP.

mattlondon2• 7 years ago

I have a Dell Precision 5520 running linux that I got when I rejected the 2018 MBP touchbar that I returned to our tech team in disgust (keyboard sucks)

Some observations of the 5520:

- con: really really stupid web cam position: it is at the bottom left of the screen so in any video calls it is basically looking up your nose and if you are typing there are GIANT fingers on screen obscuring your face.

- pro&con: feels well built (metal frame), but it is bulky and feels very heavy

- pro: keyboard is nice to type on

- con: trackpad is nice but sometimes the clicks get "stuck" and you end up inadvertently "dragging" things (e.g. tabs) when you try to click. This might be drivers - who knows.

- pro: It has a little button on the side you can press which shows the rough battery charge level (5 LEDs light up for 20/40/60/80/100%)

- con: there is no "scoop" to make opening the lid easy, so you need to use two hands.

- con: fan is loud and seems to be on almost all the time

It is ok but I have not been particularly pleased with it - the webcam position, the trackpad, and the sheer bulk are the killers. I wont opt for one of these again - probably go for a thinkpad carbon next.

IshKebab2• 7 years ago

It has a little button on the side you can press which shows the rough battery charge level

Not sure if you're aware, but this great feature was copied directly from Apple, who then dropped it for no good reason.

mattlondon2• 7 years ago

I remember seeing it on Panasonic (I think?) laptops many moons ago. Don't really care who did it first, it is useful (dare I say it, but perhaps a "pro" feature? very useful when traveling around and going in and out of a bag.... shame it is so heavy!)

shantly• 7 years ago

What's it... for? If my MacBook's closed and it hasn't been, like, several days, the answer to "how much charge does it have?" is "about what it had when you closed it".

rvanmil• 7 years ago

Not an answer to your question, but I’m of the opinion that Apple should have a product recall for all butterfly keyboard equipped MacBooks.

My own MBP (late 2018) also just went in for its 3rd repair to the keyboard, it’s ridiculous.

I absolutely love everything about the MacBook and Apple ecosystem but god the keyboards are such an embarrassment.

All anecdotal of course but at the office many of our MacBooks have keyboard issues. And quite some people I know also have issues with the keyboard. Just from my observations the problem is gigantic and I wonder if Apple knows this; almost everyone I talked to about the issue is not willing to have it repaired and just live with the shitty keyboard, because they don’t want to wait 2+ weeks for Apple to repair it.

I’m nowhere near the point of switching to something else because I don’t want Windows or Linux, but I cannot wait for Apple to get their shit together with their keyboards.

Freaken• 7 years ago

I might be an outlier in the dev community, but I’m on my second Alienware 15" laptop running Ubuntu + Xfce and I really love it. It’s fast (my current laptop has an i9 in it), reliable, offers multiple possibilities for extensions and the new M form factor does pretty good when it comes to bulkiness.

Of course they are bigger than an XPS 13, but if you are like me and mostly work from office and home, it’s not really an issue.

Ho and it’s gaming-ready too (got a gtx2080 in my current laptop).

My previous laptop before that was the first gen of retina MBP (2012) and the only thing I miss from it is the almost double battery life I had over the Alienware.

Topgamer7• 7 years ago

Nope, you aren't alone. I run an Alienware 15r3. Manjaro + i3. I even went so far as to patch the Linux kernel to get the headset mic to work. Although I've been wanting an ultra ultra thin laptop lately.

FpUser2• 7 years ago

Al my laptops are gaming type. They can work properly without overheating/throttling

cdata2• 7 years ago

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:

- Amazing 4K OLED display configured with pixel scaling a la Retina out of the box

- Suspend / resume "just works" every time (very different from my past Linux user experiences years ago)

- Connecting an external display "just works" like my MBP

- Pop OS is a well-designed, pretty Ubuntu variant that doesn't get in the way

- I'm really productive on it (I haven't wasted any time trying to get things to work)

- Very high-end hardware all around

Things I don't love about it:

- Battery life is atrocious

- The keyboard has a numpad so home row is offset to the left

- It is rather big (though not gigantic)

- It is rather ugly (though not hideous)

- Huge power brick with a short cable

I can't speak for long-term durability. I guess I will get back to you in a few years.

FunnyLookinHat2• 7 years ago

- The keyboard has a numpad so home row is offset to the left

I'm personally waiting for one of their more powerful laptops to have a centered keyboard. The current models that feature centered keyboards offer 17W TDP CPUs, which just aren't quite enough for my taste.

whycombagator2• 7 years ago

How is the chassis/build quality? IIRC they are just sager/<insert-third-party> 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.

kls• 7 years ago

They are built off of the Clevo based systems, I personally switched from a MBP about 3 years ago. In my opinion the build quality is better than anything Dell offers, I went thru 3 high end Dell's in that time, and switched to a Sagar about 1 year ago. Now I cannot compare it to the higher end Lenovo models as I have not owned one, but my wife has had several mid level models from her work and I have been less than impressed with the issues she has had with them.

Personally I would purchase another system based off of the Clevo designs and I feel it's build quality is on par with the MBP's that I used to own.

cdata2• 7 years ago

The build quality feels great, and it doesn't feel like it is going to fall apart on me (granted, it is brand new). It feels quite solid, it doesn't easily bend or creak, and I feel like I can throw it into a backpack safely enough. Also, the keyboard feels really great, although anything that isn't a modern MBP keyboard feels really great to me these days.

That said, it doesn't feel quite like a single, solid piece the way my 2017 MBP does. I'm not sure why that is, especially since several of the keys on my MBP are actually falling off of it right now.

I would say that it feels comparable to a Lenovo laptop, but I haven't owned one of those for almost a decade.

megadeth• 7 years ago

T480 with Linux

simplyinfinity• 7 years ago

I'm super happy with my HP envy 13' with AMD Ryzen & vega graphics.

jxm262• 7 years ago

Adding my 2 cents on this since I've recently migrated from my old macbook 2015 to a System76 Gazelle (linux/Pop_OS). My comments are coming from the perspective of a web developer / trader (i make websites and trade futures+equities for a living) - with a Linux preference (i dislike Windows).

- Dell XPS_13 - Thinkpad (x1 carbon) - Purism - System76 (looked through all their laptpp offerings)

I chose Sys76 because I really wanted better hardware (I wanted _alot_ of RAM), which admittedly isn't a normal requirement for most users.

- Dell XPS 13 - totally anectodal, but I have a few friends who really dislike this laptop because of lots of little issues. Then again, I also know people who love it. My friend lent me his old one and I kept having issues with drivers and the OS just randomly crashing... so I passed on it

- Thinkpad X1-carbon - build quality feels awesome. I really like the trackpoint thingy, but the trackpad itself I thought was horrible. Also dislike the keyboard in general. I've read a bunch of mostly positive reviews though, so I might actually buy one to try in the future.

- Purism - seemed ok, but after looking at the hardware I could get on the Sys76 I liked the latter better.

- Sys76 Gazelle - Opted for this one since the hardware for the price seemed much better than the alternatives. Despite many people complaining that they're marked up Clevo's, I still found them the best when comparing price/hardware.

For about $2,000 USD, I was able to get what I wanted - 6GB GTX 1660 (cuda) - 64 gb ram - 1tb nvme

Compared to the macbook, after a few months use, I honestly miss the mac. There's awesome things to this laptop, but at the end of the day linux just doesn't play nice with everything compared to macs. Slow lagging in general (mac is much more 'snappy') when doing basic things like opening and dragging window panes. Random weird behavior when plugging in peripherals (plugging hdmi will shift some of my fn keys around, wtf?). The keyboard is awesome, the trackpad is ok, but NOTHING compares to the mac's trackpad. The mac display blows the Gazelle's display out of the water. I can't use some apps - Sketch, etc.. on this since it's linux. Battery life is so bad it's laughable.

IMHO, there is no feasible alternative, just a series of tradeoffs only your personal needs can decide. I really wish apple would offer a true "pro" user option - let me upgrade my hardware. Weight/size be damned, I basically want a desktop I can carry in my bookbag.

notadev• 7 years ago

Like someone else suggested, the Dell XPS 13 is a good replacement as it's sleek and light. As for the OS, I would recommend ElementaryOS. It is a Debian/Ubuntu derivative, but it's aesthetic is specifically targeted to Linux users who are coming from the Mac experience.

a-dub• 7 years ago

Lenovo P1 and X1 look like they'd make great Linux laptops. Looking into an 8c P1 now.

Also, great keyboards.

justinweiss• 7 years ago

I wanted to dip back into Linux, and found a ThinkPad x230t for around $70. I'm amazed by how much I like it. I'm running mostly vanilla Gnome on Arch. Every piece of hardware just works. You can take the entire thing apart with just a normal screwdriver. Tablet mode has been great for reading papers and articles on the couch. It's a common enough linux machine that there are tons of setup instructions and suggestions written specifically for it. With an SSD and 8-16GB RAM, it's plenty fast.

It's bulkier. the screen is non-retina and a worse aspect ratio. The fan is noisier. Turns out none of these things bother me anywhere close to what I expected. Hardware-wise, the only annoying thing has been the terrible speakers. Then again, I'm usually on headphones. I miss USB-C ports and USB-C charging, but not too badly.

On the other hand, I had almost forgotten what a good laptop keyboard felt like, and after getting used to the trackpoint, I like it a lot.

I still use a Mac for work, but as a lot of my favorite Mac software has gone subscription-only or subscription-preferred, I've gradually moved more toward open-source options: password-store from 1Password, org-agenda from OmniFocus, etc. So the change wasn't as big or as hard as I was expecting. Decoupling from iCloud will definitely be a thing (photos, iTunes Match, etc.), but I'll figure it out.

edit: Forgot to mention matte screen! Don't know why all the manufacturers thought glossy was the way to go, but it's nice not having to stare at a reflection of the room around me all the time.

akudha• 7 years ago

Has anyone used this one? https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Toughbook-i5-7300U-Windows-...

This series looks rugged, haven't heard it mentioned here (as far as I can remember)

haolez• 7 years ago

I’m using a Chromebook. For programming tasks, I’ve been using web IDEs. When I need something from Windows, I fire up an instance of it in a cloud provider and access it via RDP. No problems so far :)

drclau2• 7 years ago

@ryanmccullagh, can you please specify what the problem was?

I have a MBP w/ Touch Bar, and the battery just started to swell some half a year after running out of the 2 years (European) warranty. However, I contacted Apple, they directed me to an authorised service and I got the top case with battery (it's glued in), keyboard and trackpad, and the bottom plate replaced free of charge. No questions asked. Note that my machine is not part of the recent battery recall.

It would have taken 4 days (they say up to 5 days), however I opted to pay a small fee and take the notebook home and bring it back in when the replacement parts arrived. Took 2-3h to get everything done after the parts arrived.

All things considered, I'm quite pleased with Apple service, even though they don't have an official presence here, except for authorised services.

ryanmccullagh2• 7 years ago

Each time I’ve had an issue, Apple has honored the terms of their warranty. However, I value my time and frankly don’t like going to the Apple Store every 3 months and doing the run around.

drclau2• 7 years ago

Thanks for sharing. I did not expect 3 completely different issues to occur on a single machine in such a short time interval after purchase. I understand your dissatisfaction.

snek• 7 years ago

ThinkPad X1 with a good Linux OS is my favourite laptop ever. I've gotten almost 15hrs of battery from it, the trackpad is amazing, and the performance is top notch.

techslave• 7 years ago

first you have to realize you want mac OS. then the options are clear. get a used prior model MBP.

NightlyDev• 7 years ago

If you want something that works, and with little downtime, go for a Dell XPS laptop. Way better than every other manufacturer I can think of.

Next business day on-site repair is usually included, so if something goes wrong then it will be fixed very quickly as a technician will be sent to you with the necessary parts.

I love it when companies actually stands behind their products.

adchari• 7 years ago

Thinkpad or Dell XPS with a nice Linux distro is the ultimate developer combo

iamthe• 7 years ago

Seems like incredibly bad luck. I run an IT department with hundreds of macbooks, and they're at least as reliable as standard Lenovos -- and thanks to macos tend to work longer without software trouble.

I also have personally owned several, and have faced no problems. Could be that I have incredibly good luck :) As further anecdote, I've ran Linux on my computers for almost 2 decades now, and I'm really enjoying macbooks and imacs as a replacement for them.

totheDude2• 7 years ago

I thought this was about hardware. IMHO there are alternatives, but none is chaper than the MBP. Dell hardware is crap, too many complaints online. I would like Lenovo P1. More expensive than MBP…

totheDude2• 7 years ago

I thought this was about hardware.

IMHO there are alternatives, but none is chaper than the MBP. Dell hardware is crap, too many complaints online. I would like Lenovo P1. More expensive than MBP…

ratsbane• 7 years ago

Macbook Pro is still my primary laptop, but for the last year or so I've also been carrying and using a Pixelbook. Except for the smaller screen, it's almost evolved to the point that I'd be comfortable with it as a primary laptop.

The recent addition of Linux support is very nice and I'm looking forward to its continuing evolution: https://support.google.com/pixelbook/answer/9031351?hl=en

Perhaps the new Pixelbook Go will tilt the scales for me: https://store.google.com/product/pixelbook_go

c256• 7 years ago

My workhorse early 2011 15” mbp finally died earlier this year. For its final 12-15 months I had been looking for a good replacement, as the various mbp issues (primarily the keyboard) had prevented me from replacing it with a new mbp.

Eventually I pulled the trigger on a “big” chromebook, the Lenovo Yoga C630, with an i5-U processor and 8Gb of ram, as a trial period device (I had toyed around with a couple sub-$300 chromebooks before), and then the mbp died (pink screen, boot-loops), and I’ve been using the chromebook ever since. It’s pretty good, and steadily improving - at this point, it runs ChromeOS, android apps, and containerized linux simultaneously. My only regret about the thing is that I accidentally got the model without the backlit keyboard.

As a device, it’s a little larger than I would like, but it pays for that with a quite nice screen (I have the FHD version; the 4K display model gives up too much battery life for my taste). I still occasionally look at the Dell XPS13 or the Thinkpad X1 in stores, but it’s hard for me to justify spending 4* what the C630 cost me for either of those devices, especially since the XPS13 seems to have some hardware quality problems and the Thinkpad loses the portability that I would like from the XPS13.

I had hopes for the Pixelbook Go, but they were quickly dashed by the leaks then killed by the launch - it’s expensive and underpowered for a chromebook — costs more for less oomph than the chromebook I already have. I also had hopes for a new mbp with a new (old, really) keyboard, but that just doesn’t seem likely, so I’m not holding my breath.

baby• 7 years ago

What about the last microsoft surface? I find microsoft products more and more attractive.

One of the big problem is airdrop + other macos only tools like keynote. Its hard to quit those.

_of• 7 years ago

I switched from a MBP 2017 model with touch bar to a Thinkpad X1 Carbon (6 gen). I installed Ubuntu Linux and I'm happy. I do all my work on this laptop. But I've spent quite a lot of time getting the hardware to play nicely, upgrading bios + a lot of Linux config tweaking.

qubex• 7 years ago

Quite honestly, and entirely coincidentally, I recently saw un boxings and first hands-on videos with the Google Pixelbook Go, and I couldn’t help but think “the i7 version with the UHD display would be fantastic as a Linux laptop”.

tikumo• 7 years ago

Lenovo X1 Carbon, long battery time, nice resolution.. And one of the nicest keyboards i've used.

rch2• 7 years ago

I'm planning on picking up a Purism Librem 15 in the near future; probably January.

I've seen a few System 76 laptops at tech events around Boulder/Denver and they seem solid as well.

jbotz• 7 years ago

As I understand it, with Purism, if you want to "pick it up in January" you'd better order it now! People have waited more than 3 months for theirs.

rch2• 7 years ago

Ah thanks, that's really good to know!

randomsearch3• 7 years ago

If you use email a lot and don’t want to use gmail etc in the browser, your only choice is Windows. I’ve tried all the GUI mail clients on Linux, and they are all either buggy as hell, don’t support most standards, or hellish UX.

Given Windows is much much worse than OS X for tech stuff, there isn’t really an alternative. Macs have gotten worse, less reliable, design is tanking, software becoming buggy, but it’s still much better than the alternatives. So stick with the MBP and buy a stress ball and punch bags to cope.

foopdoopfoop• 7 years ago

Why haven't you tried a CLI client? Also, Office 2016 seems to be fairly well-support on any number of those wine-based compatibility layers.

randomsearch3• 7 years ago

CLI clients aren't really fit for purpose if you're doing management-level email.

ttz• 7 years ago

Check out Mailspring.

randomsearch3• 7 years ago

Yes, I did, thanks. I agree it was one of the more appealing clients, but IIRC it was demanding on my old laptop and slow, as well as being a bit buggy.

joeevans10002• 7 years ago

My next laptop will not be a MacBook. Sadly. I've used macs for decades, but it's obvious they no longer listen to or care about the needs of developers. I think musicians will soon follow. They will discover by losing it the social value of having been the go to choice for those users.

tbronchain• 7 years ago

I have been facing the same issue and eventually went for the Thinkpad X1 Extreme - and I'm quite surprised to not seeing it mentioned here.

I was afraid of the 15" being too big but as I'm not using much external screens anymore, this is the perfect size - the laptop is also very light and portable, given it's a 15"...

The GeForce graphic card is awesome. So are the 2x pcie and additional RAM slots. Bonus for the mate screen.

Small minus to the battery life, who averages to 5-8hrs (max). Otherwise it's an amazing, durable, efficient machine that does the job, at probably replaces well a MBP. Also, Windows 10 isn't perfect but I'm finding it pretty good after all. I use HyperV Linux VMs for dev and the overhead is totally acceptable.

dguaraglia• 7 years ago

I've been using a Matebook X Pro for... I guess almost a year now. I only have good things to say about it. Other than the touchpad (Apple's are just superior) and the stupid positioning of the webcam (if you use it) everything else works great, it's a great looking laptop with good battery life and super portable.

justanothersys• 7 years ago

Actually the new Google Pixelbook Go looks like it could be a 2019 version of the old plastic MacBooks, which were beautifully functional.

flanker• 7 years ago

I was looking for something like that a few months back, took a gamble on LG Gram. I have been using MBP(work) and Gram(home) side by side for past 3 months. Given the price and performance Gram for me hits it out of the park. Cherry on top is that it's just ~900gms, with USB and HDMI, also upgradable ram.

ksec2• 7 years ago

1. I hope Surface from Microsoft will succeed. For those that live through the real IE era, i.e you are 35+ or 40s, I cant believe I am recommanding Microsoft.

2. I hope Apple fails, it seems obvious Tim Cook is lacking the awful tasing medicine Steve Jobs once had.

Unfortunately it wont happen. iOS developers will need a Mac anyway, and along with those Professionals that uses MacBook, the MacBook will continue to do well and Apple will look at the sales Data and say everything is fine. ( Apple's definition of Professional is very Narrow, and programmers dont fit into that category )

We are close to 5 years mark since the butterfly Keyboard was fist introduced on MacBook in early 2015.

fooey• 7 years ago

Rumor is the next macbooks are dropping the butterfly keyboards

https://www.techradar.com/news/all-macbooks-will-ditch-the-b...

ksec2• 7 years ago

The problem is it give them another chance to reinvent the keyboard. And judging from recent Mac innovation their track record aren't very good.

From Keyboard, Overly large trackpad that is susceptible to false input, Touch Bar, Display Cable failure, to the use of USB / Thunderbolt as Power Input which is causing more power failure than ever.

quantgenius• 7 years ago

Just switched to a Thinkpad P1 Gen 2 which is almost the same machine as a X1 Extreme Gen 2. You can get upto 64 GB of user-upgradeable RAM and 2 replaceable SSDs in a package approx the same weight but 1-2 mm thicker than a 15 inch Macbook Pro. It may not fit the current fashion but to me it's a really aesthetically attractive package.

Windows 10 Pro with WSL is MUCH better than I expected it to be. Download Conemu, Terminus or similar as a terminal and you may as well be running Linux. Download VxXsrcv and you can even run the Linux version of your IDE. I run the Linux versions Emacs, IntelliJ and Pycharm, not the Windows versions.

Hardware wise, the Trackpad is worse but I don't really miss it. Keyboard is much better. Lots of ports. Great screen, though most of my time is spent connected to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse. Multi-monitor support is good. Only annoyance is that if the screens sleep all your applications get moved to whatever monitor you set as primary but this is a minor annoyance.

Ubuntu runs great but since I can ssh to multiple machines running Linux already, and I can run WSL, I really don't feel the need for Linux on the machine itself.

Less thermal throttling. Battery life is decent. I get a real 8 hours in battery save mode even with IntelliJ or Pycharm running, so long as I've set things up in the IDE to save battery by not continuously re-indexing things. Most Thinkpads are rated Milspec 1 so the keyboard isn't going to die with the first spec of dust and the machine will survive minor mistreatment. Windows with WSL basically gives me everything I need.

I bought a Macbook the week Apple released OSX and have been an Apple fanboy for years but at this point for what I do, as someone doing a fair bit of programming, it's an inferior machine.

I've also tried the various Dell XPS machines. They frankly aren't really comparable to Thinkpads in how well they are built or fit and finish. The XPS 15 is a direct competitor to the P1 Gen2 (or X1 Extreme) and in my opinion if you use both for a week, there is no comparison. I have friends who have also switched to Thinkpads and/or Dell XPS machines so I was able to compare directly before I bought them.

InTheArena• 7 years ago

The biggest thing to tempt me, and the reason I may walk away from Mac is native docker support. Docker for Mac is just a horrific hack, and a battery killer. Hyper kit needs a lot of work.

Is docker on Windows reasonable with battery?

kutenai• 7 years ago

Is there a feasible alternative? Simply put, no.

I'll stick with my mac(s) for the foreseeable future. I have 2 MacPros (2011 cheese graters) and 2 mac pros, 2014 and 2017. I read most of the complaints (about Macs) here, and most of them are thin reasons to "not" use a mac.

- I literally NEVER turn my MBP's off. Just sleep them.

This works flawlessly 99.5% (estimated) of the time. I've never seen another notebook with Windows (especially) or Linux that could handle that. Nobody here claims that they do (so far) -- I read one complaint about power usage on a Linux pad.. so I assume this is still the case. Sleep mode sucks on most non-mac, not OSX machines

- Trackpad. Nothing touches the Mac trackpad. Nothing.

- App availability

I have so many QUALITY apps I've gotten on mac that just have no equivalents in Linux. Seriously, a TON, and more all the time. You can't even compare Pixelmator to Gimp, and the list of apps that are much better on OSX goes on and on.

- No Sweat OS Linux is great if you want to configure the shit out of your system. OSX is great if you want to NOT THINK MUCH about your system and just work. I prefer to spend my time working.

So, it's not all roses, we all hear the issues, keyboards have issues, apple does not play nice with NVidia (sucks having a MacPro right now), hardware IS more expensive... but, don't get fooled by the "Grass is greener on the other side" -- you'll have to keep convincing yourself it was a good mood, every single day.

Good luck with that

theonething• 7 years ago

I enjoy developing on Linux, but my problem is Apple has sucked me into it's ecosystem tentacles and it's hard to get out. It's really nice to have my reminders, calendar, notifications, messaging, etc synced between my iPhone and MBP. And unlike any else out there that I can tell, it just works with very little setup and fiddling.

Has anyone encountered a similar experience and can suggest remedies?

petilon• 7 years ago

Samsung ATIV Book 9 series is the best laptop I've used. Better industrial design than Apple. Fantastic "retina" display. Fantastic backlit keyboard. Unfortunately it is hard to find now. The 12" version is still available on Amazon but it is underpowered for development purposes. You want the 13" version for development purposes.

The second best is the new Surface Laptop. Unfortunately its screen is not quite as highres as the Samsung.

EnderMB• 7 years ago

I've sung it's praises for years on here, and I'll do it again.

The Surface Book is the best laptop I've owned. The build quality is better than the MBP, and despite owning it for years it's as fast as it was when I first bought it. I've had zero issues with it, and I use it almost daily.

It's also not a bad Linux laptop, if that's your thing. I find myself booting into Debian less and less nowadays, but if you want to mainly use Linux it's possible.

My sole gripe with it is that the trackpad isn't as good as the MBP, but it's very close.

stringParameter• 7 years ago

I was in the same position, and last year (2018) bought a ThinkPad T480S - bought on a student discount and stuck an extra drive in the m.2 slot for the WWAN card (used a Toshiba RC-100). I upgraded to 3-year next-business-day for £60.

It's an absolute delight to work on. It's repairable, has ports, lovely 1440p display, it's upgradable, it has a good battery life.

The added advantage is I seem to have absorbed a good deal of knowledge about computers and Unix since switching. I didn't realise how ignorant I was when I was blindly strolling the paths of Apple's walled garden.

fraytormenta• 7 years ago

I run with LG Gram 14" with Ubuntu Mate - happy!

robabby• 7 years ago

I just recently tried out a 2019 Razer Blade 15", and I love it. Working with WSL in Windows 10 is very satisfying, or you can remove Windows and opt for Ubuntu or whatever Linux you prefer. The Razer Blade hardware and build quality is top-notch, and I can undersatnd why it was called the gamer's Macbook Pro.

rezmeplease• 7 years ago

Razer Blade or Blade stealth

If you're looking for something as reliable as 2015 or macbook pro's that don't have butterfly keyboards then maybe this isn't a good choice. But specwise it's even better (display and internals) and the trackpad is probably best in all windows computers (they're basically trying to mimic macbooks).

However, like I said before, they aren't exactly the most reliable laptops, but when they work, they work REALLY well

JOLYJOKER• 7 years ago

Máquina bien construida. macOS es genial. Portátil súper delgado y de 15 ". El teclado está bien para mí. El rendimiento ha sido excelente para mí, no lento pero supongo que se debe a macOS.

Ram y SSD que se están soldando no es un problema para mí, ¿necesita actualizar? Venda su MBP y compre el nuevo (los dispositivos Apple conservan mucho valor)

pmarreck• 7 years ago

My MBP is a couple years old and runs like a champ.

You know, with every product released, someone's invariably going to be the outlier... you know, the guy who buys a lemon, then gets another lemon, then gets ANOTHER lemon. Each lemon probability is small, but even with 3 in a row there's still a chance.

Is there a systematic (not just anecdotal) issue with Apple quality? Evidence?

jpkeisala• 7 years ago

I have Huawei Matebook with Windows. Very good laptop. But I had to buy Macbook Pro as well when I got project with iOS.

So, now I have 2 newish laptops. I think Macbook is still better when I code anything else than .NET. Thanks to the terminal. Matebook in hardware is better, really good screen. Also it looks good. After all it is Macbook Air knock off.

Rocafella888• 7 years ago

I'd say the only alternative is another Mac. An iMac is a fantastic work tool (I use this for work), but if you need portability, go for any of the Mac laptops. I had the 13 inch MBP (without Touch Bar) and it was the best combination of size, performance and power. Only problem was I needed the dedicated video card so I had to upgrade to the 15 inch which has the touch bar that I hate. I don't recommend upgrading to Catalina unless you are sure you won't use 32 bit apps. I have Sid Meier's Pirates, Civilization VI and SimCity4 Deluxe and now they don't work. I have to wait for the developers to release a patch, if they ever do. But yeah, I did the research, tried out different laptops (Dell XPS) and none compare to even the lowest level Mac laptop. The fan noise, the display, the touch panel, the OS, all are inferior experiences to a Mac. And, if you want to use Windows, only Macs have Bootcamp built-in, allowing you to boot into other operating systems. Its kind of sad, but there just isn't any viable competitor out there.

Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?

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