I have not used Mac yet and am not a fanboy of Apple (yet!). Anyone who has used both?
Thanks!
Still has windows 10 on it (my only windows machine) since I need occasionally to use the latest versions of office, and I use eclipse for the odd bit of programming I need to do away from my main dev machine (common workspace with linux is awesome).
Macbook Air was good, in 2008. couple of the staff use them.
Be aware, unlike the Macs the different versions of the XPS13 over the years are very different machines. Only this years model has the 14 hour battery life for example. But many stores (such as Amazon) stock old models.
I was actually commenting to collegues last week that Dell appear to have become the world leader in "real" computing - laptop, desktop and server. They have a lot of skeletons to shake though before they are perceived that way.
I found the dell xps 13 very expensive and heard some people with wi-fi issues.
Both Mac book pro and air seem to be close to change so it might be worth to wait for their next version.
I don't know other brands that people use with Linux.
At the moment I am using a Toshiba that I bought very cheap with i3 and 8gb of ram running Ubuntu 16 and everything just works... Damn marketing/consumer instinct making me want to buy a more powerful machine.
All my complaints are with software (Windows specifically), so just make sure your Linux distro behaves sensibly with a 3200x1800 screen and whatever external monitors you want (Windows doesn't).
How would you put ubuntu on it ? I have tried changing the boot partition to GRUB and somehow windows still ends up loading !
like how is that even possible ??
Colors are messed up with poor contrast. Windows looks much, much better. I messed around with exporting color profiles and importing other users' color profiles with no real improvement. So it's really only useful as a headless machine or in low light. Which leads to the next issue...
External displays don't work properly with lid closed unless you boot with the lid closed. Even then if you suspend, you will wake up with no screen. If you set to "turn display off" on lid close, then when you close the lid the cursor becomes completely erratic and unusable. I'm sure this can somehow be fixed with some arandr and acpid scripting, but seriously fuck that noise.
The keyboard is crap and the form factor hurts my hands. Even my old R500 education line Thinkpad is better in this regard.
It sits on my shelf and collects dust. Every now and then I bust it out because I love programming on Linux, but always go back to the MBP for the reasons mentioned. I want to sell the Carbon X1 and regret spending $1500 on it so hard, but I'm wary of my ability to install Windows and get the right drivers on board (have done it, but also was getting terrible offers for it so decided not to sell at the time). And I'm holding out hope that these issues get fixed some day.
Seriously, just get the Mac. It's sad that the state of Linux on the laptop is worse now than it was a decade ago, when you could get a T4* or T6* and everything worked like a dream. A big part of the problem is that non-Apple hardware is utter crap nowadays (not that Apple's stuff is universally amazing). Going Linux laptop shopping right now is the most depressing experience.
Well, I can:
- run many VMs
- browsing using this monster of RAM named Chromium
- have as many terminals as I wish
- work on frontend projects (React.js, jQuery, Browserify, Webpack)
- work on backend projects (NGINX, uWSGI, Node.js, Gunicorn)
As for the battery, it depends on how do you use it and what do you install on it. I run on i3, and with my average workload, it can survive ~ 3 - 4 hours. A friend can survive ~ 8 hours, but he has different way to work (no Chromium process, etc…).
The key is what do you want to do? Machine learning? Native programming? Mobile programming?
For example, it makes sense to get a Mac to do React Native / iOS development.
But, the other way: it makes sense to get a ThinkPad / UNIX-friendly machine to do Linux kernel development IMHO.
Anyway! Good luck with your hunt! :)
The battery life is poor (3.5 hrs max), and I had to replace the CPU fan a few weeks ago (free of charge, thanks to 3y warranty).
What's worst, however, is the deterioration of customer support. Lenovo has introduced this 'community' concept where users are expected to post their woes to a forum, hoping that a mix of other users and Lenovo affiliates (not sure whether they are employed by Lenovo, or just volunteering) would solve their problem.
It's stupid to the point of hurting their sales, for example in cases where you want to check compatibility of an accessory you want to buy.
But more importantly for me as a customer, if I forked out a premium price for a top of the line product, I want to be sure there's a quick way for me to reach a live person to address my problem; I don't want to have to post to a forum for a community to solve my problem.
ThinkPad franchise has gone down the drain after IBM sold it to Lenovo.
... but there's still regular customer support you can call. The forums are optional.
My T460s is the best laptop I've ever used btw. They reverted to the old trackpad, it's as light as a Macbook.
Maybe in the US and some other major countries, but not in the 'rest of the World' countries...
They seem to be very responsive in terms of doubts, questions, etc. but as most small companies their main disadvantage is brand awareness when compared to Dell or Apple. But of course this is greatly compensated by a cheaper price.
I own a mid 2012 MBP (16gig ram, ssd, retina) and really want to upgrade pronto.
This. The MBA is fine for most things I do; in fact I prefer a slower CPU if it gives me more battery life. But the screen is so bad I regret getting the MBA anytime I look at a different screen, including phones.
edit: however, I recommend the MBP. I've only had bad experiences with Linux on laptops, which I have to use for work. HiDPI sucks on Linux. You'll get conflicting advice, most of which is useless because maybe the person telling you <Linux dist> is the best" really likes tweaking <Linux dist>.
(well...until I upgraded to xenial and systemd. Now I'm using OS X. I'm not really helping my case here)
That is false. If you decide to take an extreme position to attract attention or vent, at least say something intelligent.