As an ex-linux user and current mac user, I'm still frustrated by linux laptop hardware support. Ethernet ports that need to be re-plugged, suspend-to-disk not working... lots of glitches things that were already annoying 6-7 years ago but now are hard to justify compared with the polish you can expect from other systems. I could never go back from my macbook because I need everything to just work - no glitchy touchpads, dodgy networking, haphazard sleep (and that's before we get into the quality of the available hardware). I want to actually do things with my computer, not spend my time fixing glitches.
I recently switched back to Linux (ThinkPad/Arch/Kernel4.8) after 5 years using a Macbook Pro (after using linux for 5 years previously).
Linux hardware support has become much better without a doubt.
However just in the last couple days I've had the following sporadic issues:
* External usb keyboard/mouse simply wouldn't work (and doesn't show up in lsusb). Restart fixed.
* If left overnight, occasionally won't wake up from sleep; requires restart.
* Upon start trackpad/trackpoint occasionally doesn't work; do not show up in xinput; probably fixable, but haven't dug into it.
On the other hand, mac had its own issues:
* Macbook takes relatively forever to come back from sleep; thinkpad is practically immediate.
* Macbook wireless constantly has issues connecting, to the point of having to turn off wireless and back on multiple times (this occurs often).
* Opening many tabs in chrome on mac causes serious slowdowns. Have yet to see any slowdown on thinkpad even with 20-30 tabs. This also goes generally for mac beachball issues.
In general, Arch/i3 combo is far better than MacOS for my needs (95% of time in terminal/browser).
FUD. I do use the features you are mentioning, but encounter none of the issues. Thinkpad + Arch user.
We Linux users need to realize we are an island, and it's our duty to:
- Either Linux-QA-check on our own / as a community the hardware we're buying before we buy, because the constructor isn't doing it (it's doing it for the actively supported OS, Windows).
- Or buy {System76 / Thinkpad}, and get {a lot of / some} help from the constructor.
EDIT: agreed that Mac hardware quality is miles ahead though, not contradicting you on this specific point.
Similar story here. Used linux in my HS/early college years, but switched to Mac when the swapped to intel. Recently looked at the possibilities of using linux again, but haven't really found any hardware that "just works." There is that one dell ubuntu dev laptop, but that is a pretty expensive gamble at $1800.
The best luck I've had for now is installing ubuntu on a crappy cheap Samsung Chromebook. Runs really well and everything seems to work fine, but the hardware is junk (The screen is atrocious coming from retina IPS displays.) Fun to play around with though, plus the battery life is incredible for it's $180 price tag.
I'm running linux on my laptops for decades and experienced none of the problems you mentioned. Everything works flawlessly. If you plan to run linux on your laptop, you will have to research first how well the computer is supported. You can't install MacOS (or even Windows) on just any computer neither.
The basic issue with all this is hardware manufacturers, and their fire and forget attitudes towards products.
Thus they barely get their stuff working on the major commercial platforms, and all the rest have to either beg for specs so they can write their own (good luck) or reverse engineers (and risking bricking the hardware because of abusing standards for firmware flashing and whatsnot).
And your primary complaint boils down to power management, aka ACPI. And it, like UEFI, suffers from the second system effect (Linus Torvalds do not hold either in high regard for example). There is at least one documented case of a name brand motherboard offering up junk ACPI data unless Linux claimed to be Windows.
Linux appears to be at a standstill because each time a new motherboard or expansion card gets released, the process basically starts from ground zero unless it happens to be based of some bottom of the barrel chip with zero modifications so the Linux devs can just add another product ID to the driver table and call it a day (resulting in things like USB webcam drivers that support some 100+ camera models).
I'm probably the only one around here that went from Mac to Linux... I decided to do this after a number of frustrating problems with hardware: ethernet port not working [1] and a severely swollen battery (although I followed all the advices to prevent this) which was not covered by the warranty "because of the laptop's serial number".
I decided to buy a Lenovo E540 a couple of years ago, on which I run Linux Mint: I like KDE's awesome interface add much add I liked Mac OS X's. I wouldn't ever go back...
I still run Linux despite all the challenges and all the hardware constantly breaking and working just-not-right, because I just love the openness and I don't understand how can Apple (and windows) users survive without "apt-get". Homebrew is a poor substitute for me.
I am basically using linux just for apt-get, the configurability and the ability to test server-side software in the same-ish environment as it will actually run in is a nice plus.
But yeah, people that argue that "there are no issues" are either lying or were incredibly lucky. I actually bought a laptop that had ubuntu pre-installed that stopped working immediately after doing a system update! (Because the laptop had a binary blob driver for a graphic card, and that stopped working with some new kernel or whatever.)
In my experience Linux on Mac when the hardware is supported brings overall better experience for development than Mac OS. USB-to-anything dongles that just work without any driver installation, much better behaviour under memory pressure, container technologies that allows to run not-so-trusted software without overhead of VM, fancy networking setups for stimulating production setups.
For that I tolerate ocasional (like twice in a week) forced power offs when the notebook does not wake up or when wifi stops working.
All operating systems suffer from similar random, minor, glitchy issues. I use all three extensively on a daily basis and while there are things I like about all three, there are also things I dislike about each of them.
Linux is generally a little worse. However, from my experience Windows and MacOS are approximately equally buggy in comparison to one another.
An example of an issue I have with my Macbook is that every single day I have to plug my network cable into it 2-4 times before it will recognize the connection.
I agree to this, but Linux gives other advantages in the long run like better updates and greater independence.
Furthermore you have a lot less problems these days with Linux IMO and so often the quirks are fast to fix. E.g. the full installation cost me 1h plus 1h for copying my old data and I could start working.
Had recurring wifi issues on a Macbook Pro as well (as did many of my co-workers)... Not saying it's great on Linux but I would hardly call the alternatives much better...
Witnessed both a mac and windows machine having software/networking glitches, both with non-esoteric hardware pretty much at factory settings. I wish it was a case of use just fire up and forget, but sadly 'bugs' plague all platforms.
Yes, yes, exactly this. I've been using Linux for 15+ years on my desk/laptop, but switched to Mac roughly one year ago. I'm afraid I can never go back.
I've owned Thinkpads in the past and almost bought the T460 last month, then I discovered the Dell XPS / Precision line and fell in love. I picked up a manufacturer refurbished XPS 15 on eBay and wound up swapping in a Dell Precision E3-1505M motherboard I stumbled across.
The line has Intel quad core CPUs, minimal bezel (my 15" is almost the same size as the 14" System 76 Galago Ultra Pro it's replacing), reasonably slim for a quad core, 84Wh battery, 10+ hours of low power dev (baseline power is about 5.25W on my 8GB + 1080p + Xeon E3-1505M machine) in (Arch) Linux? YES.
Oh yeah, and for nerd points the Dell Precision M5510 has the option for Intel Xeon and Ubuntu stock for people doing CPU intensive Linux work (in my case Linux embedded system builds that grind for tens of minutes to two hours).
To add icing on the cake, you can easily get parts (batteries, motherboards, etc) on eBay if you ever need to fix it yourself which is a sharp contrast to the non-existent System76 Galago Ultra Pro I picked up a few years ago after I ditched my last Thinkpad.
I keep looking at the Thinkpads, but they seem a generation behind.
So what's the point of having a Xeon? The Core i7 options offered for the laptop support all the same processor features [1], except ECC memory [2], which Dell isn't even shipping.
Edit: I think it's a legitimate gripe, Dell is selling a Xeon but there's zero benefit over buying an i7 equipped model. But thanks for all the downvotes!
And one of the most awesome things about Thinkpads not mentioned; you can get every (most?) replacement part directly from Lenovo. You can actually look up the part number in the service manual, order it, and replace it yourself. For nerds like us, this is sooo nice sometimes, when you just wanna get it fixed quickly, from the comfort of your own home.
The fact that there are easily accessible service manuals (that tell you how to fix the computer) or sometimes videos (that show you how to fix the computer) is also a nice plus.
Good to hear that Lenovo has continued to do this after the split from IBM - I ordered a new front bezel for my X40 when it cracked and the amount of parts available was staggering.
Didn't knew this, thanks. I also like the fact that the (rear) battery is easily replacable. Also something more recent laptops do avoid due to "the thin contest"
I'm still using an ancient Thinkpad T400 I bought when they first came out (2007, I think?), and I still love it. Despite heavy use, everything works perfectly and the case could probably last for decades. Doing normal dev work on Arch Linux (everything from low level C++ to Python/Julia, but no web stuff) is pleasant despite the dated CPU.
Every time I look at reviews of "modern" laptops or try a friend's machine (Apple, Dell, HP, mostly), I get a little sad over how the market has regressed in the past decade. Thus, the only upgrade I'm considering is getting a few T420/X220 machines to last me another decade or so. My dream would be a T60 case with modern hardware and there's a number of retro Thinkpad projects out there, but it's probably not going to happen. Not sure what I'm going to do when a T420 is finally too dated to be productive on, but thankfully that's a very long way off.
I also still have a T400 chugging along with Arch. It got put in storage for a few years until I dug it out while recycling some other junk and realized it still had considerable life in it.
I just set someone up with a T420 with a few upgrades and it's a fantastic value. Hardest part was finding a source for the rubber HD rails needed to swap a 7mm tall SSD in place of the original 9.5mm platter drive. It was technically a downgrade from a newer thinkpad laptop that they had, but the T420 is just a better machine from fit/finish/touchpad/upgrade/repair perspectives.
If anyone has advice on swapping the screen on a T420 please point me towards it - the T420 screen is, for me, the only negative.
I've used a T400 as my kitchen laptop for years, and recently put Win10 on it. I put my SSD in it, back with Win8. The laptop still works great, and it's my main PowerShell workstation - it's where I wrote my Arkdata player tracker static site. (Yes, I wrote it while standing in my kitchen.)
The market is the same, really. What you're seeing is the end of Moore's law, with 10 year old laptops still being effective compute devices. This wasn't true in 2005 - that 1995 laptop was painfully old.
It would be so much easier to love my Thinkpad T460s if it wasn't for the touchpad. Coming to Thinkpad and Linux after many years as a Mac-user this was almost a deal breaker for me. The palm detection in synaptic driver is laughable. People installing Linux on the new Macbook Pros are going to have a blast with that gigantic touchpad.
And I don't even think it's just a driver problem, as the touchpad can register a finger hovering over it, or not register it at all, if the finger is somewhat dry. I've spent countless hours trying to fine tune the thresholds, but it's just complete and utter shit.
I would have returned it and gotten a Macbook Pro if it wasn't for the fact that the new Macbook seems more geared towards light weight users with the smaller battery, memory and crazy expensive upgrades.
I've had to re-position my cursor three times while writing this, because my palm moves it around. It's rarely a problem when coding, because I don't stop to think for shorter periods, like I do when typing. A quick fix is to set the syndaemon to lock the touchpad when typing, but you can't have that treshhold too high either or it gets in the way.
Oh, and don't get me started on the speakers. There is no way in hell that Lenovo spent any time to tune the acoustics. Listening to people talk almost always gives resonance in the case. I know it's a laptop, but in the current state they are more or less useless.
On the other hand, what I do love about it:
- Super light weight, very noticeable when coming from a Macbook.
- Amazing battery life, I can easily do a full days work on a single charge.
- Recharges very quickly, which I think is a result of having two batteries.
- Really good keyboard. Probably the reason I'm keeping it.
- Debian Stretch was a breeze to switch to. Everything just worked (except for touchapd and docking station!)
But I honestly expected a little more from a laptop that costs $3000.
Lenovo are on my personal shitlist after superfish and abusing the windows platform binary table. When my current laptop dies (a thinkpad T440p that I'm reasonably happy with), I may have to suck up the performance hit and go to minifree for a machine I can actually trust.
After I made a few comments here on HN about the T460, I felt I should condense all the stuff into a short blog post. Feel free to add your experience or alternate developer machines, with pros and cons.
What I missed at Dell and Apple is the possibility to configure your hardware a bit so that it better fits your needs. This was better for Dell when I purchased the Dell Latitude 7 years ago.
I did not choose an MBP because I feel safer with Linux in the long run. I heared that the security updates stop two years afterwards and the software upgrades makes the 'old' hardware a lot slower.
In the end every OS somehow sucks, but Linux sucks least.
Ive went with a T420 recently, mostly because of the keyboard. But also because $400 for laptop + battery + Samsung SSD + 16GB hyperX Ram sounded so cheap i could not resist. And honestly even after a 2015 MBP it feels perfect for all my needs. In fact due to the superior RAM and SSD it feels often way faster than the MBP for 5 times that price felt. Plus it has way better battery life.
Seriously Thinkpads are the best dev laptops ever.
I bought a used W520, as it was one of the last Thinkpads with full/normal keyboard. I just can't get work down as quickly using modern island-style keyboards. I recommend it especially if you are still using an older Thinkpad.
It's fast, supports up to 32gb of memory, 3 hard drives (regular, micro SATA, ultrabay), and has a good video card.
I also find the touchpad with its mouse thumb buttons to be easier on my wrists than the trackpoint or other laptop trackpads.
As a W (workstation) version it is heavy and requires a heavier charger. The T520 could solve this problem and also be a cheaper option.
Hopefully Lenovo's "Retro Thinkpad" project is brought to reality.
Personal Machine: (Ubuntu/CentOS with 1 or 2 VM running sometimes)
For me: AMD Quad Core - A10 7300 , with 8GB DDR3 RAM and 1TB HDD (acer aspire e15) is perfect Linux development machine, it costs less than $500 . Unless you are running 3 or more VM or stuffs like high-end data processing using 16GB RAM for development is worthless.
Work machine: (Windows / Fedora-19 with 3VBox vm running most of the time)
We (team of 7 members) received new Lenovo thinkpad in 2012, with 256SSD, 16GB ram, and i7 processor. Within 18months 3 or 4 of my friends faced hardware related-issues (suddenly stopped booting etc). Luckily mine survived until I left the company in 2015.
> ... I find the boot time compelling enough (~23sec until login, plus 2sec to open the browser) that I do not need this.
I think something is slowing down your boot, I get faster boot on a 2008 thinkpad running the same OS.
OT: systemd was supposed to improve boot performance but it has actually become much worse. Upstart on a weak chromebook boots in under 2 sec, why shouldn't your current generation thinkpad with a fast SSD match that?
I love these linux on laptop articles. I've used linux since Redhat 5.0 and have almost always had to configure things to get everything to work. Nowadays, I don't really have the time to dick around, I used Gentoo for a long time, so I rely on Ubuntu to make it a simple plug and play install. Even with most of today's laptops, ubuntu seems to play well compared to the bad old days. I find I can throw Ubuntu on any laptop and get working as soon as I put in a few customizations and tweaks. Really, in my mind, linux has come a long way. But it's great to see how easy it is to get linux up and going on most laptops today.
Currently writing this from Arch Linux on the ThinkPad T450s (I think it's the version directly before the one in this article). Cannot recommend it enough, easily the best laptop keyboard I've ever used and the touchpad feels nice under my fingers. Not as nice to the touch as the mac's one, but it's the closest I've seen and on the bright side it's the perfect size to not get in the way (as opposed to Apple's massive parking lot at the bottom of the laptop) and it has regular buttons as well as supporting pushing on the trackpad itself, so overall I'd say it's a toss-up there. The main problem I have is that pgup/pgdown are right next to the arrow keys, which makes them extremely easy to hit by accident. Luckily, I don't use them often.
I am selling my much newer MacBook Pro retina now, as the Thinkpad is so much more functional, the keyboard is amazing the feeling of the machine itself is fantastic.
I am thinking to buy a X260 brand new because I need a newer CPU and better battery life, but for sure I'll only buy Thinkpads or Latitudes (I have one at work, amazing machine) from now on.
I'm using Lenovo P50 for Linux development with duel boot to Windows. The trick to get duel boot right is to have two SSDs and install each OS on its own SSD. P50 supports two SSDs + 1 spinning drive. Besides this, its very likely only laptop with 64GB option and 4K display with descret NVidia GPU with 4GB memory so you can even do local deep learning!
Happy T560 (same laptop, with a 15'6" screen) owner here. Fully agree with the post conclusion: "powerful, has a very long lasting battery, it is silent under normal work and you can get your stuff done quickly and get solid Linux support. The Linux support is so good that I’m wondering why they do not ship it commercially to attract people like me."
EDIT1: To dig further: compared to half a dozen linux "tweaks" with my former Dell XPS laptop, I have zero with this Thinkpad. Everything works as expected, no hardware-related config whatsoever. This is using Arch Linux, which ships a recent kernel.
EDIT2: I bought the larger T560 version because I like the simplicity of doing everything on the same machine, but I'm more often using it at home than on the go, so the mobility / screen size trade-off is easy for me, and it's still relatively light (it's relatively thin, unlike W series).
I bought a T460p a few months ago and am not very happy with it. The problem I have is that linux(I am running debian) has quite a few problems with the Skylake architecture, especially the graphics driver.
I tried everything I can think of, installing the intel driver manually and installing the newest kernel(4.9.0) but I still have some troubles with the graphics glitches.
So I when I'll be buying a new laptop I will definitely avoid the Skylake arch, every other version I tried worked a lot better.
I wish there were some specific rules on the internet for discussing hardware. Things just always have a way of breaking down into practically religious points of view.
I'm going to toss a couple of things out there:
1. If you are saying that literally nothing works, everything is awful, and that computer X is just complete garbage, then a few things pop into my head:
a) I start wondering if maybe you are just bad at computers,
b) I suspect that you are probably talking about a computer your work bought for you that isn't your preferred OS, and c) I decide that you really aren't contributing anything useful to the conversation.
2. By the same token, when I see people writing that everything works flawlessly I think a couple of things as well:
a) you probably aren't doing anything that interesting with it, b) you are talking about a machine you are personally invested in rather than one bought for you by your work, and c) you really aren't adding anything useful to the conversation.
Here's the bottom line, from my point of view--as well as my point of view:
I spent my own money on and use two mac laptops, a windows laptop, and a Linux desktop.
From work, I have a mac laptop and a windows laptop, and a windows desktop.
All of these computers have benefits and drawbacks. The baseline of shit that just needs to work actually works on all of them, most of the time. Weird things go wrong from time to time. I find the Linux desktop to be more fiddly than the other machines at times, but not so much that it pisses me off more than apt-get makes me happy.
The windows machines are harder to get set up properly than the macs for working with dynamic languages, but they are the best choice for working on the Microsoft dev stack. Duh.
The macs have some real problems as well for certain parts of statistical work. Homebrew + anaconda + Xcode-select just doesn't get the job done far too often. And deving on mac + deploying to Debian or Ubuntu can be a bunch of not-fun.
Not a one of these machines is perfect or flawless in any way, but any one of them would be acceptable for a daily driver work box.
To the people who are speaking about specific issues on specific machines, I greatly appreciate that. To the top and bottom 10% who are saying everything/nothing works, you really aren't helping much here, and I find your opinions suspiciously biased.
With Apple's hardware in the shitter, I'm hoping we see a rise of Linux-specific notebooks for developers! The _only_ reason I've stayed with OSX is because it's the _only_ mainstream and commercially supported desktop UNIX.
crossing my fingers for 2017... 10g ethernet, sd reader, USB3, USB-C, Thunderbolt, and a fricken headphone jack would be spectacular! It doesn't have to be super thin, just a manageable weight and functional form!
[+] [-] mangecoeur|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phaedrix|9 years ago|reply
Linux hardware support has become much better without a doubt.
However just in the last couple days I've had the following sporadic issues:
* External usb keyboard/mouse simply wouldn't work (and doesn't show up in lsusb). Restart fixed.
* If left overnight, occasionally won't wake up from sleep; requires restart.
* Upon start trackpad/trackpoint occasionally doesn't work; do not show up in xinput; probably fixable, but haven't dug into it.
On the other hand, mac had its own issues:
* Macbook takes relatively forever to come back from sleep; thinkpad is practically immediate.
* Macbook wireless constantly has issues connecting, to the point of having to turn off wireless and back on multiple times (this occurs often).
* Opening many tabs in chrome on mac causes serious slowdowns. Have yet to see any slowdown on thinkpad even with 20-30 tabs. This also goes generally for mac beachball issues.
In general, Arch/i3 combo is far better than MacOS for my needs (95% of time in terminal/browser).
[+] [-] ronjouch|9 years ago|reply
We Linux users need to realize we are an island, and it's our duty to:
- Either Linux-QA-check on our own / as a community the hardware we're buying before we buy, because the constructor isn't doing it (it's doing it for the actively supported OS, Windows).
- Or buy {System76 / Thinkpad}, and get {a lot of / some} help from the constructor.
EDIT: agreed that Mac hardware quality is miles ahead though, not contradicting you on this specific point.
[+] [-] jclardy|9 years ago|reply
The best luck I've had for now is installing ubuntu on a crappy cheap Samsung Chromebook. Runs really well and everything seems to work fine, but the hardware is junk (The screen is atrocious coming from retina IPS displays.) Fun to play around with though, plus the battery life is incredible for it's $180 price tag.
[+] [-] stewbrew|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] digi_owl|9 years ago|reply
Thus they barely get their stuff working on the major commercial platforms, and all the rest have to either beg for specs so they can write their own (good luck) or reverse engineers (and risking bricking the hardware because of abusing standards for firmware flashing and whatsnot).
And your primary complaint boils down to power management, aka ACPI. And it, like UEFI, suffers from the second system effect (Linus Torvalds do not hold either in high regard for example). There is at least one documented case of a name brand motherboard offering up junk ACPI data unless Linux claimed to be Windows.
Linux appears to be at a standstill because each time a new motherboard or expansion card gets released, the process basically starts from ground zero unless it happens to be based of some bottom of the barrel chip with zero modifications so the Linux devs can just add another product ID to the driver table and call it a day (resulting in things like USB webcam drivers that support some 100+ camera models).
[+] [-] ziotom78|9 years ago|reply
I decided to buy a Lenovo E540 a couple of years ago, on which I run Linux Mint: I like KDE's awesome interface add much add I liked Mac OS X's. I wouldn't ever go back...
[1] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5687308?tstart=0
[+] [-] runn1ng|9 years ago|reply
I am basically using linux just for apt-get, the configurability and the ability to test server-side software in the same-ish environment as it will actually run in is a nice plus.
But yeah, people that argue that "there are no issues" are either lying or were incredibly lucky. I actually bought a laptop that had ubuntu pre-installed that stopped working immediately after doing a system update! (Because the laptop had a binary blob driver for a graphic card, and that stopped working with some new kernel or whatever.)
[+] [-] _0w8t|9 years ago|reply
For that I tolerate ocasional (like twice in a week) forced power offs when the notebook does not wake up or when wifi stops working.
[+] [-] phaus|9 years ago|reply
Linux is generally a little worse. However, from my experience Windows and MacOS are approximately equally buggy in comparison to one another.
An example of an issue I have with my Macbook is that every single day I have to plug my network cable into it 2-4 times before it will recognize the connection.
[+] [-] karussell|9 years ago|reply
Furthermore you have a lot less problems these days with Linux IMO and so often the quirks are fast to fix. E.g. the full installation cost me 1h plus 1h for copying my old data and I could start working.
[+] [-] forgotpwtomain|9 years ago|reply
Had recurring wifi issues on a Macbook Pro as well (as did many of my co-workers)... Not saying it's great on Linux but I would hardly call the alternatives much better...
[+] [-] dajohnson89|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keypress|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] 2bluesc|9 years ago|reply
The line has Intel quad core CPUs, minimal bezel (my 15" is almost the same size as the 14" System 76 Galago Ultra Pro it's replacing), reasonably slim for a quad core, 84Wh battery, 10+ hours of low power dev (baseline power is about 5.25W on my 8GB + 1080p + Xeon E3-1505M machine) in (Arch) Linux? YES.
Oh yeah, and for nerd points the Dell Precision M5510 has the option for Intel Xeon and Ubuntu stock for people doing CPU intensive Linux work (in my case Linux embedded system builds that grind for tens of minutes to two hours).
To add icing on the cake, you can easily get parts (batteries, motherboards, etc) on eBay if you ever need to fix it yourself which is a sharp contrast to the non-existent System76 Galago Ultra Pro I picked up a few years ago after I ditched my last Thinkpad.
I keep looking at the Thinkpads, but they seem a generation behind.
[+] [-] kogepathic|9 years ago|reply
Except they don't ship with ECC memory.
> 32GB, DDR4-2133MHz SDRAM, 2 DIMMS, Non-ECC [0]
So what's the point of having a Xeon? The Core i7 options offered for the laptop support all the same processor features [1], except ECC memory [2], which Dell isn't even shipping.
[0] http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstatio...
[1] http://ark.intel.com/products/88970/Intel-Core-i7-6820HQ-Pro...
[2] http://ark.intel.com/products/89608/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E3-...
Edit: I think it's a legitimate gripe, Dell is selling a Xeon but there's zero benefit over buying an i7 equipped model. But thanks for all the downvotes!
[+] [-] sandGorgon|9 years ago|reply
The convertible, bezel-less XPS convertible = macbook pro + ipad pro
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[+] [-] keldaris|9 years ago|reply
Every time I look at reviews of "modern" laptops or try a friend's machine (Apple, Dell, HP, mostly), I get a little sad over how the market has regressed in the past decade. Thus, the only upgrade I'm considering is getting a few T420/X220 machines to last me another decade or so. My dream would be a T60 case with modern hardware and there's a number of retro Thinkpad projects out there, but it's probably not going to happen. Not sure what I'm going to do when a T420 is finally too dated to be productive on, but thankfully that's a very long way off.
[+] [-] sarcher|9 years ago|reply
I just set someone up with a T420 with a few upgrades and it's a fantastic value. Hardest part was finding a source for the rubber HD rails needed to swap a 7mm tall SSD in place of the original 9.5mm platter drive. It was technically a downgrade from a newer thinkpad laptop that they had, but the T420 is just a better machine from fit/finish/touchpad/upgrade/repair perspectives.
If anyone has advice on swapping the screen on a T420 please point me towards it - the T420 screen is, for me, the only negative.
[+] [-] stephengillie|9 years ago|reply
The market is the same, really. What you're seeing is the end of Moore's law, with 10 year old laptops still being effective compute devices. This wasn't true in 2005 - that 1995 laptop was painfully old.
[+] [-] vegardx|9 years ago|reply
And I don't even think it's just a driver problem, as the touchpad can register a finger hovering over it, or not register it at all, if the finger is somewhat dry. I've spent countless hours trying to fine tune the thresholds, but it's just complete and utter shit.
I would have returned it and gotten a Macbook Pro if it wasn't for the fact that the new Macbook seems more geared towards light weight users with the smaller battery, memory and crazy expensive upgrades.
I've had to re-position my cursor three times while writing this, because my palm moves it around. It's rarely a problem when coding, because I don't stop to think for shorter periods, like I do when typing. A quick fix is to set the syndaemon to lock the touchpad when typing, but you can't have that treshhold too high either or it gets in the way.
Oh, and don't get me started on the speakers. There is no way in hell that Lenovo spent any time to tune the acoustics. Listening to people talk almost always gives resonance in the case. I know it's a laptop, but in the current state they are more or less useless.
On the other hand, what I do love about it:
- Super light weight, very noticeable when coming from a Macbook. - Amazing battery life, I can easily do a full days work on a single charge. - Recharges very quickly, which I think is a result of having two batteries. - Really good keyboard. Probably the reason I'm keeping it. - Debian Stretch was a breeze to switch to. Everything just worked (except for touchapd and docking station!)
But I honestly expected a little more from a laptop that costs $3000.
[+] [-] endgame|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karussell|9 years ago|reply
What I missed at Dell and Apple is the possibility to configure your hardware a bit so that it better fits your needs. This was better for Dell when I purchased the Dell Latitude 7 years ago.
I did not choose an MBP because I feel safer with Linux in the long run. I heared that the security updates stop two years afterwards and the software upgrades makes the 'old' hardware a lot slower.
In the end every OS somehow sucks, but Linux sucks least.
[+] [-] herbst|9 years ago|reply
Seriously Thinkpads are the best dev laptops ever.
[+] [-] TheCowboy|9 years ago|reply
It's fast, supports up to 32gb of memory, 3 hard drives (regular, micro SATA, ultrabay), and has a good video card.
I also find the touchpad with its mouse thumb buttons to be easier on my wrists than the trackpoint or other laptop trackpads.
As a W (workstation) version it is heavy and requires a heavier charger. The T520 could solve this problem and also be a cheaper option.
Hopefully Lenovo's "Retro Thinkpad" project is brought to reality.
[+] [-] giis|9 years ago|reply
Personal Machine: (Ubuntu/CentOS with 1 or 2 VM running sometimes) For me: AMD Quad Core - A10 7300 , with 8GB DDR3 RAM and 1TB HDD (acer aspire e15) is perfect Linux development machine, it costs less than $500 . Unless you are running 3 or more VM or stuffs like high-end data processing using 16GB RAM for development is worthless.
Work machine: (Windows / Fedora-19 with 3VBox vm running most of the time) We (team of 7 members) received new Lenovo thinkpad in 2012, with 256SSD, 16GB ram, and i7 processor. Within 18months 3 or 4 of my friends faced hardware related-issues (suddenly stopped booting etc). Luckily mine survived until I left the company in 2015.
[+] [-] aiur3la|9 years ago|reply
I think something is slowing down your boot, I get faster boot on a 2008 thinkpad running the same OS.
OT: systemd was supposed to improve boot performance but it has actually become much worse. Upstart on a weak chromebook boots in under 2 sec, why shouldn't your current generation thinkpad with a fast SSD match that?
[+] [-] aceperry|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nonsince|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cornedor|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mentat2737|9 years ago|reply
I am selling my much newer MacBook Pro retina now, as the Thinkpad is so much more functional, the keyboard is amazing the feeling of the machine itself is fantastic.
I am thinking to buy a X260 brand new because I need a newer CPU and better battery life, but for sure I'll only buy Thinkpads or Latitudes (I have one at work, amazing machine) from now on.
[+] [-] sytelus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ronjouch|9 years ago|reply
EDIT1: To dig further: compared to half a dozen linux "tweaks" with my former Dell XPS laptop, I have zero with this Thinkpad. Everything works as expected, no hardware-related config whatsoever. This is using Arch Linux, which ships a recent kernel.
EDIT2: I bought the larger T560 version because I like the simplicity of doing everything on the same machine, but I'm more often using it at home than on the go, so the mobility / screen size trade-off is easy for me, and it's still relatively light (it's relatively thin, unlike W series).
[+] [-] EdwinHoksberg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianamartin|9 years ago|reply
I'm going to toss a couple of things out there:
1. If you are saying that literally nothing works, everything is awful, and that computer X is just complete garbage, then a few things pop into my head:
a) I start wondering if maybe you are just bad at computers, b) I suspect that you are probably talking about a computer your work bought for you that isn't your preferred OS, and c) I decide that you really aren't contributing anything useful to the conversation.
2. By the same token, when I see people writing that everything works flawlessly I think a couple of things as well:
a) you probably aren't doing anything that interesting with it, b) you are talking about a machine you are personally invested in rather than one bought for you by your work, and c) you really aren't adding anything useful to the conversation.
Here's the bottom line, from my point of view--as well as my point of view:
I spent my own money on and use two mac laptops, a windows laptop, and a Linux desktop.
From work, I have a mac laptop and a windows laptop, and a windows desktop.
All of these computers have benefits and drawbacks. The baseline of shit that just needs to work actually works on all of them, most of the time. Weird things go wrong from time to time. I find the Linux desktop to be more fiddly than the other machines at times, but not so much that it pisses me off more than apt-get makes me happy.
The windows machines are harder to get set up properly than the macs for working with dynamic languages, but they are the best choice for working on the Microsoft dev stack. Duh.
The macs have some real problems as well for certain parts of statistical work. Homebrew + anaconda + Xcode-select just doesn't get the job done far too often. And deving on mac + deploying to Debian or Ubuntu can be a bunch of not-fun.
Not a one of these machines is perfect or flawless in any way, but any one of them would be acceptable for a daily driver work box.
To the people who are speaking about specific issues on specific machines, I greatly appreciate that. To the top and bottom 10% who are saying everything/nothing works, you really aren't helping much here, and I find your opinions suspiciously biased.
[+] [-] exabrial|9 years ago|reply
crossing my fingers for 2017... 10g ethernet, sd reader, USB3, USB-C, Thunderbolt, and a fricken headphone jack would be spectacular! It doesn't have to be super thin, just a manageable weight and functional form!