I don't get the amount of grudge towards Apple for the new MBPs. Yeah, they could support 32GB of Ram, more battery would be nice too, and yeah I think almost no one got overwhelmed by he innovation Apple brought to the table with them, but what are the alternatives?
The author mentions in another post why he is done with Apple after his 2013 13" MBP and states he has no use for the Touch Bar. Thats fine, just get the Pro without the bar and with physical function keys.
The build quality of other laptops just isn't on par with Apples. Greg Koenig and many others have analyzed why Apple has a tremendous edge over other vendors when it comes to building computers and gadgets from aluminum[1].
Also if your are used to macOS, its perfect integration of hardware and software, its polish and many of the very nicely crafted ("made with ︎love") 3rd party applications, it might be very hard to switch to a decent Linux distro, let alone Windows.
It may be wise to first try the switch on your current Mac, inside a Virtual Machine …
For me the issue is with ports. I have exactly zero devices that I can plug into the new fancy USB ports. None of my monitors will connect. I know, they are better, yadda yadda, but I am tired of being held hostage until the "industry" understands how the new ports are better.
Right now I use a MacBook Pro to do my work ("pro", remember?). I need a faster machine, so I will have to upgrade. And I will have to deal with all the dongles, carrying them, remembering about them, losing them, etc. I expect I will eventually make an idiot of myself in front of a client, once they hand me a flash drive with their data and I'll have to admit red-faced that I forgot the dongle thingy.
MacBook Pro used to have the "pro" philosophy: stick every port in there, so that the only thing you have to carry is your macbook and you're ready for everything. Then it started: ethernet disappeared, DVI went away, and successively all ports went away until now we are stuck with 4 ports of the same kind, that are useless (but hey, they show great promise!).
I don't want a thinner machine. I don't need a lighter machine. I need a machine so that I can do my work. Pro, remember?
Price is largely not an issue if you actually use it for work, so I have no complaints there.
This kind of apologist attitude, just like everyone throwing money at them when they unilaterally took away the headphone jack, tells Apple they can disappoint and dictate to their customers as much as they want, and will still make money hand over fist for it.
I can only speak to my situation, but as the macs took longer and longer to update, I came to the realization that I might need to jump ship. And as the upgrade wasn't entirely reassuring, it seems like it might be better to bite the bullet and switch to linux full time—which, incidentally, I'm also pretty excited about and want to do.
The anger/frustration about the new models is about accepting that my time with the mac might be over (a ride which I began back in the OS 8 days). However, seeing how disappointed I've been has only strengthened my resolve to switch as I don't feel I should become that emotionally attached to a company or product (I went through the OS holy wars as a middle schooler, so I can forgive it as a folly of my youth).
> The author mentions in another post why he is done with Apple after his 2013 13" MBP and states he has no use for the Touch Bar. Thats fine, just get the Pro without the bar and with physical function keys.
That model has slower RAM and I'd guess, based on that, an older generation CPU. Lower clock, too. May as well buy a '15 refurb.
> The author mentions in another post why he is done with Apple after his 2013 13" MBP and states he has no use for the Touch Bar. That's fine, just get the Pro without the bar and with physical function keys.
The one with physical function keys is less powerful.
To me the emoji bar indicates a faltering vision. "Hey developers, we know what a pain typing emoji is for you, we're listening and check out our new touch bar!!" Is Apple really that far off course in understanding developers as a user base?
I get what you're saying about the over-hype and I'm not about to dump my MBP. I don't think anyone is going to produce as high of a quality product anytime soon, but it does leave me curious what else is out there.
> It may be wise to first try the switch on your current Mac, inside a Virtual Machine …
This is exactly what I'm doing. I run Spacemacs in a Ubuntu VM running on Parallels. I'm not too sure if I would be willing to move away from the OS X apps ecosystem though (I use 1Password, Day One, OmniFocus, iBooks, Notes, Photos etc and they all sync perfectly with the iPhone).
I feel like I'm missing something. If you don't need MagSafe, USB-A or SD card slots and all you want is Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C including for charging, then what's wrong with the MacBook Pro?
I looked at PC laptops recently for a linux project machine. You're going to be very disappointed in the build quality if you're coming from Apple. They are just-OK, and every little detail is worse.
Hardware aside, does anyone who was used to OS X and its app ecosystem's polish really find Linux or Windows that much better? I'd miss Photoshop, Lightroom, Sequel Pro, iTerm 2, Homebrew, Sketch, Transmit, Alfred, Reeder, Keynote, Airmail, Spotify... just to name a few.
Not to mention every other OS I've used has varying HiDPI support and typography really looks best on OS X.
I wonder if some design-minded Linux geeks will rally around making Linux on the desktop a polished enough experience to rival OS X?
Other than that, I tend to agree with the opinions expressed in the article.
I have found four possibilities:
* Dell Precision 7510 paired with TB15 thunderbolt dock (no touch screen)
* Lenovo Thinkpad P50 (People seem to have troubles getting 2 external screens at 4k@60, no touch)
* Falcon Northwest TLX / System76 Oryx Pro / Clevo (1080p no touch, bad battery, but has GTX 1070, more USB-C ports)
There is one more possible contender, which is the as yet unreleased kaby lake XPS 15. Given the XPS 13 refresh, I suspect we'll see the new XPS 15 in the December / January time frame. If I knew for certain that it would support 64GB of RAM, I would wait and get that machine, but at this point I'm leaning towards buying the Precision 7510 in the next week or two.
Software support for hidpi outside of OS X/macOS isn't great. If you can test it out on an existing computer before buying a new one I'd recommend doing that just to be sure that's what you want. Otherwise 1080p would probably be bearable on a 15" screen I would imagine.
The Dell Precision looks like a good option if you don't need a better GPU (Quadro M2000M ~= GTX960m). I've been doing VR dev so I went w/ an Aorus (the smaller X3v6 on preorder), but you may want to look at something like the X5v6 which should tick all your checkboxes save touch and might be more appealing than the Aorus: http://www.aorus.com/Product/Features/X5%20v6
One bummer about this new gen of Aorus' is the mystifying lack of TB3 (despite USB-C 3.1 on an otherwise top-of-the-line-specced system).
Too bad about the P50 having external display issues. A built-in 100% NTSC / 100% AdobeRGB 4K panel sounds great. (same crap Quadro card though)
Personally, I took a leap of faith and I ordered the new Alienware 15, because 50 % of my time I do Film editing with color grading and graphics heavy things (so the nvidia 10 70 should be useful) and 50% of my time I do development (Kubernetes,...) so the 32gb of RAM come in handy. Plus it has NVMe, 4k screen,HDMI 2 + DP, TB3,... it check a lot of your boxes.
I considered the Thinkpad P50 and the HP Zbook 15 but I found the GPU to be a bit weak. Plus I heard many issues with the HDMI 1.4 on these machines.
If I configure the 7510 with the 3840x2160 LCD, it doesn't let me select Ubuntu as the OS instead of Windows. Do you have any info on whether it works, but just isn't supported?
I've been happily running Dell computers for years. They're not perfect, but I've been using Linux for 20 years, and am not about to switch to Apple. I'm too attached to the freedom Linux gives me, and am mostly satisfied with Dells that run Linux as something that just works out of the box.
I've posted in a couple other threads. But Thinkpad T430. My only complaint is the screen at 1600x900. But I have it docked with 3 24" @ 1920x1200. Every day I use my macbook pro at work, I curse under my breath and wish for my Thinkpad.
It's maxed out, I bought it back in 2013 used from ebay base was 500, with dock and extra parts ~900 total. The specs outside of GPU for gaming are still more than adequate. I5 dual w. hyperthreading. 16GB Ram, 2 SSD (2.5 128GB, M2 256GB). Spare battery in optical slot, or 1TB sata. About 10 hours battery life. That's one of the biggest things to me, is the flexibility and expansion.
It's the best Linux laptop I've used. Everything on Arch works flawlessly. I haven't done a full reboot in months, opting to suspend. The dock with a custom script, is a breeze. The keyboard, almost as good as my Unicomp.
Lastly ease of maintenance. I replaced the screen after leaving earbuds on the keyboard and cracking it (60$). Dropped it down a flight of stairs, toasted I don't know what [wouldn't boot]. New motherboard, CPU, and stick of ram (80$). Dropped a box on it, broke one hinge (15$). There are also some HiDPI mods floating around replacing the screen with either 2560x1440 or 1920x1080.
I'm either waiting to build a gaming rig, or a laptop with external gpu at this point. There are pain points, the screen viewing angles are atrocious. Speakers are tinny and useless. I gutted them on a rebuild years ago. But I mean when I'm at work or on any other laptop I want my think pad.
I feel I'm an outlier in what I want. I want the old used car of a laptop. Something that has good bones, and I can maitnain myself. Rice it up, soup it up, and use it for several years. I don't mind heft, 6lb is max for me. Give me expansion and good battery life, with linux support. Also things happen, so durability is key.
Dell XPS13 9343. I love that it's super light, long battery life, high res screen, adequate performance. I use Ubuntu 16.04. I usually use chrome with a gazillion tabs open at any time + gnome-terminal running python or C/C++ compiles. Suspend/resume works very well.
Caveat: eventually I tired of the occasional wifi problems and I replaced the broadcom wifi module with an intel one (~$25). Flawless wifi since.
I think my only regret/disappointment would be the memory -- this one is limited to 4GB and I can't upgrade it.
I commented in the other thread a few days ago, but I LOVE my XPS 15. I opted for the lower res matte screen, but otherwise maxed out the available specs.
The battery life is fantastic. The touchpad is the best I've ever used on a Windows laptop. The GPU is excellent (960m). The keyboard is great.
Overall, no complaints. I did also purchase an XPS 13, which I thought was great, but the screen was just a little too small.
FWIW I purchased my 'refurb', they pop up from time to time on Dell Outlet, but they go quick.
EDIT: Oh yeah, Linux works flawlessly. Currently running Antergos, but have also run Ubuntu.
I have a T420s. Actually I have two because I bought a second as a spare in case my first one dies.
Pros:
* matte screen
* aftermarket upgrade to 16 GB ram
* aftermarket upgrade to 2 SSDs, one in the normal SATA6 connection and another in the ultrabay with a caddy, so I can always remove it and put the cd/dvd driveback in if required.
* still have a spare PCIe slot so I could add another SSD there or use that instead of getting a caddy for ultrabay
The biggest draw for me: power, ethernet, VGA, 2x USB and mini display port are all on the back of the machine so the cables stay out of the way when it is on a desk connected to external monitors. If I am using the keyboard on the laptop then I can have my paper notebook on the right and it isn't in a tangle of wires, or a wireless mouse and mousepad.
CONS:
* 1600x900, but I use external monitors 95% of the time
* the first T420s had some battery firmware issue so it wouldn't hibernate when the battery got low, it would just turn off. Doesn't seem to happen any more and the problem was only with one of three suppliers of batteries so not everyone had that problem
T550. Probably the best laptop that I've ever laid eyes on. I can switch batteries while it's running because it has two batteries. I get a total of 16h of normal-duty work time out of it. It has 16 GB of RAM and a NVMe as well as a SSD, 3K screen and a pretty good touchpad and usable keyboard.
I think the build quality is nice, it has a serious appeal to it and has a nice weight and feel to it when carried.
I'm a 100% Arch Linux based developer doing all kinds of work.
Thinkpad X1 Yoga. Light, great keyboard, trackpoint is surprisingly useful (and I use it a lot actually), decent touchpad (not as good as on Macbook though), nice WQHD screen, everything works of of the box with Linux (including touchscreen and wacom pen) but fingerprint scanner and auto rotate (I prefer to switch manually anyway, feature will be in kernel 4.9). Hi-DPI app support could be better (improves rapidly). EDIT: Battery lasts ~6.5 in real life settings, but charging is super fast. I am sure battery would be better with i5 (I have i7), FHD and a non NVMe drive.
I think I would like X260 more though. I do not use touchscreen and pen very often and hot-swappable battery would be great.
Thinkpad X61. Solidly built. Compact. Linux runs out of the box. Currently running Fedora. I honestly never max out the 2 gb memory available - it can take 4gb, but I haven't had the need to upgrade yet. I did need to put an SSD in it.
It's been going for 10 years, and probably has at least another 10 years left.
Cons, does get a little hot on my lap from time to time. The little red joystick thing takes a little getting used to. I'm not much of a mouse user so it isn't too much of a problem, I run the i3 window manager. No space is wasted on a trackpad.
I have the Precision 5510 which is basically the XPS 15 with the intel wifi card instead of Broadcom. I have had it since April. I initially bought it as it was one of the few laptops that ship with Linux. I have been happy with the battery life and the touchpad.
HP ZBook 15, first generation. I don't truly love it because they added a number pad to the keyboard which skewed the spacebar and the touchpad to the left, so I shift the PC to the right to get the touchpad aligned with the center of my body. There were no better alternatives when I had to buy it (I needed a 15" screen).
What I like is that I can replace almost anything, even the CPU and the GPU. I added RAM, 16 GB out of 32 now and swapped the DVD burner for a 1 TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD. I was using the 32 GB SSD cache of the HDD for the OS so it was already fast, but it's faster now. THD screen is good, the touchpad has 3 physical buttons. The battery lasts 3, maybe 4 hours with care, which is more than enough for me. It's 3 kg and the power brick is a brick but it's ok.
Ubuntu 16.04 works pretty well on it. Almost: it has two problems I can live with, shared by Ubuntu 12.04: 1) it doesn't shutdown, only suspend or restart. If I have to turn it off before going on vacation I press the power button when it restarts 2) plugging out the USB 3 HD I use for backups does something to the USB port and I have to reset the port or the PC won't suspend. Every other drive works. I have a script for that and it runs at the end of the backup script. I'm a developer so it's OK. If you're not, look at another hw.
Everything else is OK, support included. Next business day on site assistance was about 100 Euro for 3 years.
The second and third generation models look iteratively better. Maybe they work better with Linux too.
Edit: however any 15" model without the number pad will win me over.
It's a Dell. Love? No way. I am using xmodmap to swap left Control and left Alt because the Alt key is located where I expect the Command key would be on a Mac. So, my Alt-C copies to the clipboard.
Using AutoKey, I've got most of the Terminal control keys remapped to Alt keys when in the Terminal. Using AutoKey, my Alt-C does Control-Shift-C in Terminal, and Control-C works as I expect in the Terminal.
Lightweight, matte non-glare screen, and double battery. The latter means I can swap batteries if I'm out and about without shutting down. 100% Linux compatibility.
Also under $1K even considering an aftermarket SSD & RAM.
Got it preloaded with Linux, which isn't important but felt nice.
It's super light, powerful enough for everything I do (giant pile of chrome tabs + one of gimp, gaming, or webdev), has incredible battery life, and is well-built and generally sturdy. Also the tiny bezel is amazing - it makes the laptop smaller, makes the screen feel bigger, and lets you see more of the rest of the world behind the laptop.
My next laptop will probably be an XPS 15 to see what those are like.
That post makes me want a MacBook. They all look cheap with so much plastic. Aluminum unibody in my 2012 rMBP is great, and it absorbed a drop by quite well, although with visible damage.
I've been eyeing the XPS 13/15 and took them for a spin at recently an MS store, though I'd get the dev/Linux version. Some things the reviews never seem to mention:
Nice screen, but it is quite glossy which sucks at my place with lots of windows. There is a matte option, but only with the low resolution screen. Not sure why a developer would ever want to use a glossy screen on ultra portable. Perhaps if you travel from dungeon to dungeon.
Second, the super thin keyboards in rage now have very little key travel. The XPS is better than the small macbook, but much worse than last years Pro. It is also a lot worse feeling than my old XPS. It makes a clanking sound when you use it. I was able to avoid that by touching very lightly, so partly my own fault but touching so lightly is less satisfying on some level. Perhaps the new Pro has a better keyboard but the Apple store did not have it in stock yet.
If you're considering upgrading then you might want to ask yourself whether you really need a laptop instead of a desktop. If you work from home and currently have a laptop that you can use while traveling (or for miscellaneous web browsing, media, etc) then a desktop might actually be a better fit.
I recently started feeling like it might be time to upgrade my 1st gen Carbon X1 and after doing some research I found myself really disappointed by how little the laptop landscape has changed over the last four or five years. After giving it some thought though, I realized that I do virtually all of my work at one desk anyway and decided to look into some desktop options. I found that you can put together something in a mini-case with an i7 processor, 64 GB of DDR4 RAM, 2 TB of SSD, a 28" 4k monitor, a mechanical keyboard, and a high quality mouse for less than about $2k dollars.
This made a lot more sense to me than spending a similar amount on a laptop that offers only marginal improvements over my current one. The obvious trade-off is portability but I would guess that most of us here already have laptops that are "good enough" for most purposes and which could still be used as necessary.
I get that different people have different needs, and someone might say there's a need for 64 Gb RAM laptop. But it's not fair to say that MacBooks are not for developers anymore. I'm really happy with 16 Gb RAM on my MBP, which allows me to run Android Studio, XCode, Rails server, Redis Server, PostgreSQL and dozens of other small things at the same time.
I don't see a reason for such reactions.
external displays are 80% hdmi and 20% vga. for the next five years there will be zero dongles available to you at universities.
yes, they are available chained to your employer and mine conference rooms, but that's not the norm when you actually need to project something and forgot your dongle.
I will happily give up the 0.0001mm it will gain to have both of those. my Asus has only a raised connector and is the same thinness of the models without.
irrelevant thickness > missing ports when you need them.
saying otherwise is buying into the thinest-is-better-marketing-pissing-contest and show that you have no idea that support for both those ports are already built into your APU. they just need to run a port with no extra parts. they just leave it out to market it easier to people like you that will pay premium for it.
Great write up, I like the simplicity and the common structure that allows for easy comparison. Would be nice in a chart view, but oh well.
The issue I face is that I need XCode and therefore need an Apple product. Currently using a mid 2010 MBP and was hoping for a good upgrade this round but don't have $3000 to spend. So I'll likely be looking at the used market.
They all have one thing in common, i7-7500U or slower. That is because the quad-core i7 7th gen processor won't be available until next year, and that's probably the reason Apple stayed at the 6th gen for this refresh.
In my list of requirements quad-core is definitely prioritized over which gen the processor is.
The biggest downside for me of this Touch Bar gimmick is not that I have to look at it. I can touch type, but I'd rather have this than a menu bar. You have to look up to the menu bar anyway, and reach for the mouse. Noone is complaining that menu bars are still there. This is like the Office "ribbon" in hardware form. It's fine, stop whining.
The problem for me is that my laptop is usually in "clamshell" mode. If I'm at the office, I have an external monitor. If I am at home, I have an external monitor. So the touch bar would be used for Starbucks and Planes? Meh. If at least the external Apple keyboards had it...
I too have been considering other alternatives. And that's mostly because I am feeling fed up with having multiple machines. I want a machine with a decent GPU, which you can't have in Apple land, no matter how much money you are willing to throw at Apple.
They could have used those speedy thunderbolt connections to power external GPUs, much like Razer and Dell are doing. Even Microsoft is kind of doing it, with the GPU in the Surface Book's keyboard. If there's a company that knows how to do this video card switching thing, it's Apple. I can never tell when the MBP is changing GPUs.
The Surface Book not having Thunderbolt was a surprise to me. I guess that's out then.
Initially I bought a Lenovo Yoga 900 - the hardware was great, but I ran into the bios shenanigans which blew up on HN and Reddit a week or so after I'd returned it. (They have since fixed it.)
I then bought a Dell Inspiron 13 7000 which is nice. Touch screen, convertible, reasonable resolution, affordable. Ubuntu installed easily (although I had to jump through minor hoops around UEFI) and everything has worked flawlessly.
I am super happy with my Lenovo T450s - it's sturdy, has a super crisp, beautiful IPS display, very long battery life, trackpoint. The only bad thing about it is that the speakers point downwards into the table, but I rarely use them anyway. I run dual-boot Windows 10 and Linux because I need both for my work. The newer Linux kernels support everything and work perfectly with this computer.
On the XPS 13: Cons: Expensive. Unnecessary SD card slot
I find this amusing and interesting. I've seen lots of complaining about the MBP dropping SD card support ("photographers HATE it!"). It looks like everyone rejects it for not-entirely overlapping reasons. Reminds me of political candidates, where everyone has differing reasons to not vote for them.
[+] [-] cseelus|9 years ago|reply
The author mentions in another post why he is done with Apple after his 2013 13" MBP and states he has no use for the Touch Bar. Thats fine, just get the Pro without the bar and with physical function keys.
The build quality of other laptops just isn't on par with Apples. Greg Koenig and many others have analyzed why Apple has a tremendous edge over other vendors when it comes to building computers and gadgets from aluminum[1].
Also if your are used to macOS, its perfect integration of hardware and software, its polish and many of the very nicely crafted ("made with ︎love") 3rd party applications, it might be very hard to switch to a decent Linux distro, let alone Windows.
It may be wise to first try the switch on your current Mac, inside a Virtual Machine …
[1] http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-... (Featured on HN ~ 2 weeks ago)
[+] [-] jwr|9 years ago|reply
Right now I use a MacBook Pro to do my work ("pro", remember?). I need a faster machine, so I will have to upgrade. And I will have to deal with all the dongles, carrying them, remembering about them, losing them, etc. I expect I will eventually make an idiot of myself in front of a client, once they hand me a flash drive with their data and I'll have to admit red-faced that I forgot the dongle thingy.
MacBook Pro used to have the "pro" philosophy: stick every port in there, so that the only thing you have to carry is your macbook and you're ready for everything. Then it started: ethernet disappeared, DVI went away, and successively all ports went away until now we are stuck with 4 ports of the same kind, that are useless (but hey, they show great promise!).
I don't want a thinner machine. I don't need a lighter machine. I need a machine so that I can do my work. Pro, remember?
Price is largely not an issue if you actually use it for work, so I have no complaints there.
[+] [-] rosser|9 years ago|reply
Is that really what you want?
[+] [-] adregan|9 years ago|reply
The anger/frustration about the new models is about accepting that my time with the mac might be over (a ride which I began back in the OS 8 days). However, seeing how disappointed I've been has only strengthened my resolve to switch as I don't feel I should become that emotionally attached to a company or product (I went through the OS holy wars as a middle schooler, so I can forgive it as a folly of my youth).
[+] [-] ashark|9 years ago|reply
That model has slower RAM and I'd guess, based on that, an older generation CPU. Lower clock, too. May as well buy a '15 refurb.
[+] [-] motoboi|9 years ago|reply
The one with physical function keys is less powerful.
[+] [-] vladimir-y|9 years ago|reply
MBP would be a fine laptop for a twice less cost. There are cheaper decent alternatives.
[+] [-] audleman|9 years ago|reply
I get what you're saying about the over-hype and I'm not about to dump my MBP. I don't think anyone is going to produce as high of a quality product anytime soon, but it does leave me curious what else is out there.
[+] [-] HappyAndHarmles|9 years ago|reply
This is exactly what I'm doing. I run Spacemacs in a Ubuntu VM running on Parallels. I'm not too sure if I would be willing to move away from the OS X apps ecosystem though (I use 1Password, Day One, OmniFocus, iBooks, Notes, Photos etc and they all sync perfectly with the iPhone).
[+] [-] angersock|9 years ago|reply
There are a lot of well-built machines out there once you leave the bargain bin--Lenovo for example.
Let us just acknowledge it for what it is, posturing.
[+] [-] cstejerean|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msane|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willcodeforfoo|9 years ago|reply
Not to mention every other OS I've used has varying HiDPI support and typography really looks best on OS X.
I wonder if some design-minded Linux geeks will rally around making Linux on the desktop a polished enough experience to rival OS X?
[+] [-] dmayle|9 years ago|reply
* 15 inch screen, preferably hidpi
* ability to power two external 4k@60 displays
* 64GB of RAM
* M.2 NVMe SSD (preferably Samsung SM961 / 960 Pro)
* quad core (this trumps kaby lake vs skylake)
* touch screen
Other than that, I tend to agree with the opinions expressed in the article.
I have found four possibilities:
* Dell Precision 7510 paired with TB15 thunderbolt dock (no touch screen)
* Lenovo Thinkpad P50 (People seem to have troubles getting 2 external screens at 4k@60, no touch)
* Falcon Northwest TLX / System76 Oryx Pro / Clevo (1080p no touch, bad battery, but has GTX 1070, more USB-C ports)
There is one more possible contender, which is the as yet unreleased kaby lake XPS 15. Given the XPS 13 refresh, I suspect we'll see the new XPS 15 in the December / January time frame. If I knew for certain that it would support 64GB of RAM, I would wait and get that machine, but at this point I'm leaning towards buying the Precision 7510 in the next week or two.
[+] [-] jrs95|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lhl|9 years ago|reply
One bummer about this new gen of Aorus' is the mystifying lack of TB3 (despite USB-C 3.1 on an otherwise top-of-the-line-specced system).
Too bad about the P50 having external display issues. A built-in 100% NTSC / 100% AdobeRGB 4K panel sounds great. (same crap Quadro card though)
[+] [-] yannovitch|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dnissley|9 years ago|reply
http://ark.intel.com/products/95451/Intel-Core-i7-7500U-Proc...
[+] [-] cowsandmilk|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intrasight|9 years ago|reply
Could you link to references about external screen troubles?
[+] [-] vladimir-y|9 years ago|reply
Such heavy laptops can not be considered as an alternative for Macbooks.
[+] [-] fdim|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidw|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] antirez|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cobbzilla|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soulnothing|9 years ago|reply
It's maxed out, I bought it back in 2013 used from ebay base was 500, with dock and extra parts ~900 total. The specs outside of GPU for gaming are still more than adequate. I5 dual w. hyperthreading. 16GB Ram, 2 SSD (2.5 128GB, M2 256GB). Spare battery in optical slot, or 1TB sata. About 10 hours battery life. That's one of the biggest things to me, is the flexibility and expansion.
It's the best Linux laptop I've used. Everything on Arch works flawlessly. I haven't done a full reboot in months, opting to suspend. The dock with a custom script, is a breeze. The keyboard, almost as good as my Unicomp.
Lastly ease of maintenance. I replaced the screen after leaving earbuds on the keyboard and cracking it (60$). Dropped it down a flight of stairs, toasted I don't know what [wouldn't boot]. New motherboard, CPU, and stick of ram (80$). Dropped a box on it, broke one hinge (15$). There are also some HiDPI mods floating around replacing the screen with either 2560x1440 or 1920x1080.
I'm either waiting to build a gaming rig, or a laptop with external gpu at this point. There are pain points, the screen viewing angles are atrocious. Speakers are tinny and useless. I gutted them on a rebuild years ago. But I mean when I'm at work or on any other laptop I want my think pad.
I feel I'm an outlier in what I want. I want the old used car of a laptop. Something that has good bones, and I can maitnain myself. Rice it up, soup it up, and use it for several years. I don't mind heft, 6lb is max for me. Give me expansion and good battery life, with linux support. Also things happen, so durability is key.
[+] [-] wyldfire|9 years ago|reply
Caveat: eventually I tired of the occasional wifi problems and I replaced the broadcom wifi module with an intel one (~$25). Flawless wifi since.
I think my only regret/disappointment would be the memory -- this one is limited to 4GB and I can't upgrade it.
[+] [-] izzard|9 years ago|reply
The battery life is fantastic. The touchpad is the best I've ever used on a Windows laptop. The GPU is excellent (960m). The keyboard is great.
Overall, no complaints. I did also purchase an XPS 13, which I thought was great, but the screen was just a little too small.
FWIW I purchased my 'refurb', they pop up from time to time on Dell Outlet, but they go quick.
EDIT: Oh yeah, Linux works flawlessly. Currently running Antergos, but have also run Ubuntu.
[+] [-] snowwindwaves|9 years ago|reply
Pros:
* matte screen
* aftermarket upgrade to 16 GB ram
* aftermarket upgrade to 2 SSDs, one in the normal SATA6 connection and another in the ultrabay with a caddy, so I can always remove it and put the cd/dvd driveback in if required.
* still have a spare PCIe slot so I could add another SSD there or use that instead of getting a caddy for ultrabay
The biggest draw for me: power, ethernet, VGA, 2x USB and mini display port are all on the back of the machine so the cables stay out of the way when it is on a desk connected to external monitors. If I am using the keyboard on the laptop then I can have my paper notebook on the right and it isn't in a tangle of wires, or a wireless mouse and mousepad.
CONS:
* 1600x900, but I use external monitors 95% of the time
* the first T420s had some battery firmware issue so it wouldn't hibernate when the battery got low, it would just turn off. Doesn't seem to happen any more and the problem was only with one of three suppliers of batteries so not everyone had that problem
[+] [-] Svenstaro|9 years ago|reply
I think the build quality is nice, it has a serious appeal to it and has a nice weight and feel to it when carried.
I'm a 100% Arch Linux based developer doing all kinds of work.
[+] [-] jacek|9 years ago|reply
I think I would like X260 more though. I do not use touchscreen and pen very often and hot-swappable battery would be great.
[+] [-] weavie|9 years ago|reply
It's been going for 10 years, and probably has at least another 10 years left.
Cons, does get a little hot on my lap from time to time. The little red joystick thing takes a little getting used to. I'm not much of a mouse user so it isn't too much of a problem, I run the i3 window manager. No space is wasted on a trackpad.
[+] [-] anuragsoni|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmontra|9 years ago|reply
What I like is that I can replace almost anything, even the CPU and the GPU. I added RAM, 16 GB out of 32 now and swapped the DVD burner for a 1 TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD. I was using the 32 GB SSD cache of the HDD for the OS so it was already fast, but it's faster now. THD screen is good, the touchpad has 3 physical buttons. The battery lasts 3, maybe 4 hours with care, which is more than enough for me. It's 3 kg and the power brick is a brick but it's ok.
Ubuntu 16.04 works pretty well on it. Almost: it has two problems I can live with, shared by Ubuntu 12.04: 1) it doesn't shutdown, only suspend or restart. If I have to turn it off before going on vacation I press the power button when it restarts 2) plugging out the USB 3 HD I use for backups does something to the USB port and I have to reset the port or the PC won't suspend. Every other drive works. I have a script for that and it runs at the end of the backup script. I'm a developer so it's OK. If you're not, look at another hw.
Everything else is OK, support included. Next business day on site assistance was about 100 Euro for 3 years.
The second and third generation models look iteratively better. Maybe they work better with Linux too.
Edit: however any 15" model without the number pad will win me over.
[+] [-] mmphosis|9 years ago|reply
Using AutoKey, I've got most of the Terminal control keys remapped to Alt keys when in the Terminal. Using AutoKey, my Alt-C does Control-Shift-C in Terminal, and Control-C works as I expect in the Terminal.
[+] [-] h4nkoslo|9 years ago|reply
Lightweight, matte non-glare screen, and double battery. The latter means I can swap batteries if I'm out and about without shutting down. 100% Linux compatibility.
Also under $1K even considering an aftermarket SSD & RAM.
[+] [-] jtolmar|9 years ago|reply
Got it preloaded with Linux, which isn't important but felt nice.
It's super light, powerful enough for everything I do (giant pile of chrome tabs + one of gimp, gaming, or webdev), has incredible battery life, and is well-built and generally sturdy. Also the tiny bezel is amazing - it makes the laptop smaller, makes the screen feel bigger, and lets you see more of the rest of the world behind the laptop.
My next laptop will probably be an XPS 15 to see what those are like.
[+] [-] gchokov|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|9 years ago|reply
Nice screen, but it is quite glossy which sucks at my place with lots of windows. There is a matte option, but only with the low resolution screen. Not sure why a developer would ever want to use a glossy screen on ultra portable. Perhaps if you travel from dungeon to dungeon.
Second, the super thin keyboards in rage now have very little key travel. The XPS is better than the small macbook, but much worse than last years Pro. It is also a lot worse feeling than my old XPS. It makes a clanking sound when you use it. I was able to avoid that by touching very lightly, so partly my own fault but touching so lightly is less satisfying on some level. Perhaps the new Pro has a better keyboard but the Apple store did not have it in stock yet.
[+] [-] foob|9 years ago|reply
I recently started feeling like it might be time to upgrade my 1st gen Carbon X1 and after doing some research I found myself really disappointed by how little the laptop landscape has changed over the last four or five years. After giving it some thought though, I realized that I do virtually all of my work at one desk anyway and decided to look into some desktop options. I found that you can put together something in a mini-case with an i7 processor, 64 GB of DDR4 RAM, 2 TB of SSD, a 28" 4k monitor, a mechanical keyboard, and a high quality mouse for less than about $2k dollars.
This made a lot more sense to me than spending a similar amount on a laptop that offers only marginal improvements over my current one. The obvious trade-off is portability but I would guess that most of us here already have laptops that are "good enough" for most purposes and which could still be used as necessary.
[+] [-] igor_filippov|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcb0|9 years ago|reply
yes, they are available chained to your employer and mine conference rooms, but that's not the norm when you actually need to project something and forgot your dongle.
I will happily give up the 0.0001mm it will gain to have both of those. my Asus has only a raised connector and is the same thinness of the models without.
irrelevant thickness > missing ports when you need them.
saying otherwise is buying into the thinest-is-better-marketing-pissing-contest and show that you have no idea that support for both those ports are already built into your APU. they just need to run a port with no extra parts. they just leave it out to market it easier to people like you that will pay premium for it.
[+] [-] giarc|9 years ago|reply
The issue I face is that I need XCode and therefore need an Apple product. Currently using a mid 2010 MBP and was hoping for a good upgrade this round but don't have $3000 to spend. So I'll likely be looking at the used market.
[+] [-] chris_7|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iddqd|9 years ago|reply
In my list of requirements quad-core is definitely prioritized over which gen the processor is.
[+] [-] outworlder|9 years ago|reply
The problem for me is that my laptop is usually in "clamshell" mode. If I'm at the office, I have an external monitor. If I am at home, I have an external monitor. So the touch bar would be used for Starbucks and Planes? Meh. If at least the external Apple keyboards had it...
I too have been considering other alternatives. And that's mostly because I am feeling fed up with having multiple machines. I want a machine with a decent GPU, which you can't have in Apple land, no matter how much money you are willing to throw at Apple.
They could have used those speedy thunderbolt connections to power external GPUs, much like Razer and Dell are doing. Even Microsoft is kind of doing it, with the GPU in the Surface Book's keyboard. If there's a company that knows how to do this video card switching thing, it's Apple. I can never tell when the MBP is changing GPUs.
The Surface Book not having Thunderbolt was a surprise to me. I guess that's out then.
[+] [-] Throwaway07|9 years ago|reply
A couple different Lenovo sales reps have told my team they won't support Linux. We'd have to wipe back to Windows.
While it's been a few years, HP said effectively the same thing.
The Dell line has options for 4k, up to 64G RAM. 17" screen if you want to lug around a cinder block (ok they're not that heavy).
Arch runs with minimal twiddling, like installing Broadcom drivers.
We're done fiddling with Linux on "Windows" laptops thanks to the Dell line.
[+] [-] flavor8|9 years ago|reply
Initially I bought a Lenovo Yoga 900 - the hardware was great, but I ran into the bios shenanigans which blew up on HN and Reddit a week or so after I'd returned it. (They have since fixed it.)
I then bought a Dell Inspiron 13 7000 which is nice. Touch screen, convertible, reasonable resolution, affordable. Ubuntu installed easily (although I had to jump through minor hoops around UEFI) and everything has worked flawlessly.
[+] [-] Kenji|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AceJohnny2|9 years ago|reply
I find this amusing and interesting. I've seen lots of complaining about the MBP dropping SD card support ("photographers HATE it!"). It looks like everyone rejects it for not-entirely overlapping reasons. Reminds me of political candidates, where everyone has differing reasons to not vote for them.