Ask HN: Feasible Alternative to the MacBook Pro?
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.
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[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 377 ms ] threadTouch 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.
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.
I would suggest you hold off any laptop decision until then.
Are you really confident this first new batch will be ok?
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.
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
You should check out Luna Display. In the wake of being "Sherlocked" by Apple's new iPad Sidecar feature, they've added support for using Macs as external displays.
https://lunadisplay.com/pages/meet-mac-to-mac-mode
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.
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.
I'm going to be in the market for a new <= 14" soon but want more ram than the X1 carbon offers. A T490 caps out at 40gb and has decent specs on paper, I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on the model though.
I 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.
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.
On the plus side its a solid and stable dev machine, iterm seems slower than the linux terminal. Rubymine, pycharm etc are stable. Google cloud shell freezes in browser sometimes but firefox quantum and chromium work pretty well otherwise. It also works great with my uhd monitor even tho it doesn’t have a dedicated graphics card.
But, I encounter screen tearing a lot on web pages. The trackpad is horrible in comparison to a macbook pro. There is some pretty nice support for multiple workspaces but they dont have the amazingly useful trackpad gestures.
I honestly feel like if there was a thinkpad with a trackpad as good as a macbook pro 2012 then there would be no problem switching.
My X230 is buttery smooth. The X1 Extreme and T490 I've tried, not so much.
48 according to the spec sheet.
Same for Dell XPS 13 vs 15.
(Conversely, the H series cpus consume a lot of energy: the laptop overheats quickly and has to slow down anyway.)
It's been excellent (used it twice: fixed a broken keycap, and a spilled drink), and gives me a ton of peace of mind.
I am very satisfied with that thinkpad. Excellent linux support, good performance, quiet under sustained load, best laptop keyboard I’ve ever used, and extremely durable.
My Dell Latitude had included "next business day" 3 years warranty. I used it twice (to get motherboard and display replaced) and they sent technician next working day. There were a bit more failures then I would expect, but warranty was great and I happily bought 2 more years (5 years total) for equivalent of about 200 USD plus tax.
I've also heard from friends that E7*70 had a bit higher failure rate than usual. It still seems (subjectively) to be much lower than Apple's issue with keyboard. Most importantly, they fixed it almost immediately.
Today, I don't expect things to not break. I'm still annoyed when they do, but more important is what happens after failure, how long (and how much effort) does it take to get things working again.
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.
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).
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
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.
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?
Basically Zlatan Todoric the former CTO of Purism calls Purism's claims "shady" :(
Too bad... I had high hopes for Purism.
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).
https://www.pcworld.com/article/3445857/dell-xps-13-2-in-1-v...
- 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)
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.
I have a Thinkpad X201 Tablet from 2010, and it's easy to take it apart and replace/clean bits. There's a serious cost to that, though: the entire Surface Pro 4 tablet takes up only about the volume of the Thinkpad's screen. The Thinkpad as a whole is about three times that thickness. This is only partly an age thing - mostly it's serviceability design.
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.)
Another Surface Book and docking station had ongoing problems, which was very disappointing since dock was relatively expensive. Apparently a known problem with no fix.
Overall, not very impressed with MS hardware for a variety of other reasons.
If it is the keyboard then it’s 4 years, not 3 (https://support.apple.com/keyboard-service-program-for-mac-n...).
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.
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.