Realistic alternatives to Apple computers
onebigfluke.com
onebigfluke.com
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)
MBP would be a fine laptop for a twice less cost. There are cheaper decent alternatives.
And four USB-C 3.1 ports with TB 3.0?
And a TouchBar?
And really last 10 hours on battery (Microsoft advertised 12 for the SurfaceBook and it only lasted 6 on the same test the MBP lasted 10)
I dont know where you got the $500 touchbar, and I don't want to know.
Still waiting...
> I dont know where you got the $500 touchbar, and I don't want to know.
A small hint, just compare prices for touchbar based laptops and those with usual fn keys (13 inch model is optionally shipped with usual fn keys, not the 15 inch though).
It's better to get HP x360 for $1300 with i7-7500U / 512 SSD / 16GB Ram (which in addition has a touch screen and it's convertible) than a slightly worse Macbook for $2000.
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.
Apple MBP is nice, but lacks Ethernet, a headphone jack, function keys and a SD card reader, all deal breakers to me. And no, dongles don't qualify.
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.
USB-C works with all the monitor you have and also with all the monitors you'll have.
You can use any port on the laptop and crucially charge the laptop and connect to a display with the same cable, and can be even used to connect to other peripherals using the same cable.
Your argument is that you don't want to spend $10 in adapters, you'll end up spending more in the future and be limited in terms of compatibility with newer hardware.
"Stick every Port in it" is ridiculous also.
What laptop does have Ethernet, infiniband, USB-A/B/C, thunderbolt 2.0, miniDisplayPort, MiniUSB, MicroUSB, RS232, Centronics, PS/2, VGA, EGA, PCMCIA, SCSI, eSATA, S-video, etc?
This is Apple we're talking about. The only thing they've ever sold at a $10 price point is the MagSafe 1 to MagSafe 2 adapter. And, frankly, even that was overpriced.
Meanwhile, all those craptastic laptops that are "better than the MacBook Pro", you'll have to buy a specific adapter from the OEM.
My point was that adapters are something that I have to think about, carry separately, and sometimes forget or lose.
I don't know why people keep repeating "USB-C works with X" (replace X with whatever). It might work if I get all the dongles. For the moment, as I said, out of ~40 devices around me there are exactly ZERO that I can plug into the new machine.
Also, let's not get into extremes here: I would not complain if they at least kept at least one or two USB 3 ports.
Yes, "every" port is ridiculous. In particular, I think most people would happily do away with anything that hasn't been in wide use in new hardware over the last decade.
I like machines with a port for wired network, a port or two for wired video, an SD slot, and 3-4 USB ports in a mix of USB-A and USB-C. For a Mac, I'd argue that some Thunderbolt ports would make good sense, too. I'd rather have my laptop be a self-contained system than have my bag filled with the half-dozen converter dongles that I'd need to provide the connectivity that I use with my current machine.
There are reasons for this no happening. TB3 is compatible with USB Type-C port format, it has a very high bandwidth and it's supported by Intel.
One of the things I actually dislike about it: a port can be USB-C without being TB3. That's going to be fun with the plain USB-C port in my laptop.
> a port can be USB-C without being TB3
It is dominant in the market where USB falls short, that's what matters.
> It is dominant in the market where USB falls short, that's what matters.
It isn't dominant in the market yet, and that's my entire point. When it is: cool. I don't have much argument against it (aside from the dongle-hell I'll be living in). But right now, I don't own a device with any version of Thunderbolt, even with several new laptops around.
I hate on board ethernet, it's stupid, almost all of them have only one NIC and only 1Gbps, which is laughable in this day, much more in the 4 or 5 years a laptop usually lasts.
So... welcome TB 3.0 (which can be used for 40Gbps daisy chain networking), and 10GbE adapters someday or another.
Why would you need more than one NIC on a laptop?
Ethernet is ubiquitous in corporate. I'm yet to see an office with Thunderbird ports.
The author's definition of Pro also includes 16GB RAM, but most posts I've seen complain about not being able to order 32GB RAM. It seems that Apple can't win no matter what they do.
(tbh, avoiding sd and hdmi doesn't make sense to me. What do you have to lose?)
Then Apple is not the company for you. They have always been first to obsolete things. Remember the hoopla when they canned the DVD drive? Firewire? Literally every other port that isnt USBC
You do not need to buy a dozen Apple dongles, just one USB-C dock/hub/whatever, with the ports that you regularly use. Have one on your desk with monitor, drives, keyboard, mouse, network all connected so you only plug in one cable.
When you go on the road you might want a dock with HDMI so you can plug in to various displays. But you won't need a dozen dongles. Just a hub.
It is just a slightly different way of working rather than plugging all the cables into the laptop and having a huge clumsy mess.
Is that really what you want?
Criticism isn't hate. Blind loyalty isn't love.
Please, be specific.
Why not introducing USB-C on the iPhone 7 and makes it easy for the new MBP crowd? It seems the 2 teams didn't talk. Samsung could pull off the same stunt.
More correctly, tells Apple that they can disappoint and dictate to some of their customers.
Whether it's a problem for Apple is, of course, dependent on whether it disappoints enough customers sufficiently.
My sense is that they will continue to appeal to a large number of people who want highly attractive, easy to use, reasonably capable, reasonably portable kit. They will also continue to attract those who wish to service said people.
What they'll fail to do is continue to service the more niche clientele who traditionally swore by Apple e.g. non-Apple ecosystem devs and heavy duty media makers.
I'm not hugely happy about this trend as I'm sort of in one of these niches. I'd quite like to have access to a big, expandable chunk of kit that has Apple's traditional build quality.
But I'm still likely to upgrade to a 7 when my contract renews as I have a pair of Bluetooth headphones. I mean, I use my phone for appy things and music when I'm travelling. In that regard I'm really not niche at all.
Yes, I could drop another $40 to get that functionality back, but then I sacrifice simultaneous charging. It's hard not to see this as being pushed around by a bully who's after your lunch money (for arbitrarily large values of "lunch money") sometimes.
I'll stick with a 6S for as long as I can, and hopefully this situation will be resolved somehow before then. Maybe they'll release another SE-like device that has a physical headphone jack again, but I'm not holding my breath.
Ever since my first computer 35 years ago, I've dreamed of the day when we could get rid of all these individual ports and finally have the One True Connector.
Yeah, the transition period sucks. Yeah, you'll have to buy $25 dongles. So what? There's a usb-c dongle that has HDMI, SD card reader, and 4 usb 3 type A ports on it for $30. Done. Problem solved. Stop bitching.
I still have old style keyboard to ps/2 adapters, ps/2 to usb adapters, composite to VGA adapters, VGA to DVI adapters, DVI to HDMI adapters, HDMI to thunderbolt adapters, serial and parallel to USB adapters, IDE to SATA adapters, SATA to USB adapters... And now I'm glad to see that era is finally at an end.
And in a few years when there are no more peripherals using outdated ports, nobody will even remember this time, or your griping.
But the headphone jack? No, that one is Apple pushing people around. It's not to make the phone "thinner" because that fugly lens protrusion is hideous, and the 7 is exactly as thick as the 6S, anyway. It's not to make the phone "waterproof"; $.00000002/phone worth of silicone around the jack could have done that. As Schiller himself said, it "comes down to one word — courage."
It's purely about seeing if they can dictate to their customers, and people are lining up, all, "Shut up and take my money!"
EDIT: vulgarity.
Once again, problem solved.
Can we please at least have the same conversation? Or are you more interested in down-shouting anyone who has this objection with "quit your bitching" and "problem solved"?
One connector. Not one connector except for this one I particularly like.
And that's why I say I like a company with the balls to bring in the future, even if it pisses off the minority that clings tenaciously to its old tech.
Nevermind. Sorry for the noise.
Most of the best headphone companies are not experts in digital-analog conversion. Nor should they need to be, because having a separate usb audio interface built into every set of headphones is a stupid idea.
It's fine if all you want to use is the absolute crap Apple earbuds, but for people like me who have spent a lot of money on nice headphones, it's ridiculous. If you want to use quality headphones or IEMs, they don't come with USB connectors, and I pray they never need to because that's a stupid idea.
I don't care either way because I hate Apple's business practices and would never purchase their products, but I think Apple will have to backflip on their "courage" on this one.
Even people drinking the Apple kool-aid seem to be angry about this headscratcher. Maybe the base of people who care about what headphones they use won't be large enough to change their "courageous" minds though. Apple doesn't care about professionals and they don't care about audiophiles. I think especially antagonizing the professional market will hurt them in the medium term.
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.
[EDIT] discovered via Wikipedia that it is the same processor generation, just a weaker version. Also, USB-C ports cut down from 4 to 2. The non-touchbar Macbook seems to be designed to make people not buy it. And it's still more expensive than the previous entry level.
The one with physical function keys is less powerful.
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).
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.
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).
In return, I'd get the ability to use slide controls, and have both system controls (volume, brightness) and application-specific ones directly on the bar rather than having to choose Fn for one - which makes for terrible ergonomics. Plus, Touch ID.
But then, I don't care about the Esc key because I've had Caps Lock mapped to it for years.
I used this approach in my student days and it worked pretty well given the very limited budget.
Most PC laptops are worthless after 12-18 months of use. You either give them away or throw them out. If you buy a low-end system it's junk, and if you buy a high-end one, the only people looking for such a system would want to buy it new anyway, so you're stuck in a trap.
A MacBook often sells for a minimum of 50% of its purchase price if in good condition, possibly more depending on demand. The metal cases generally hold up a lot better than the plastic housing on less expensive laptops.
The last time I bought a Mac with an education discount, the computer was about 7% cheaper, but the AppleCare was 30% off. Not a bad discount overall, but not enough in the hardware department to break even on a resale, even new in box.
I'm on a Lenovo x220... it's plenty fast for most of my work. runs ubuntu like a champ. has, hands down, the best laptop keyboard that's ever been made. and only cost me $350, plus there's a strong aftermarket parts option.
Since i don't spend my time watching media, i don't have to worry about fancy monitors or display ports (though i could have gotten a Thunderbolt port).
This is a 5 year old laptop. The battery lasts at least 6 hours.
I'd say it has less value than five year old used underwear, but there's actually a market for that.
Machining a laptop chassis from solid aluminium isn't what makes Apple laptops expensive. Sure, it does add to the cost.
What makes Apple laptops extremely expensive is the ridiculous mark-up Apple charge.
People these days whinging about "extremely expensive" have no idea. Computers used to be stupidly expensive and ridiculously slow, no matter the brand. We've been spoiled by these vendors willing to sacrifice everything to slash costs and margins.
Do you want a good keyboard, a great trackpad, and a durable metal housing? Be prepared to pay more than you would for some system built out of what was salvaged from the garbage bins of Dell's factory.
Every single one of these alternatives listed is over $1000, and that segment of the PC market is tiny. Most get all dizzy at the thought of spending more than $500 on a laptop, that's what the industry's conditioned people to think.
100% of the "extremely expensive" machining processes are done by robots. They're just marked up 300-400% by Apple because, well, they love money.
[2] https://discussions.apple.com/___sbsstatic___/migration-imag...
It would be great if Apple could engineer a completely indestructible 3 lb laptop. I'm pretty darn pleased with the durability for its portability.
The Asus was $150, though, so it's not a big deal if it breaks easily.
Some of the listed attributes are just odd too: only 16GB RAM? No HDMI? No SD?
Guessing from the relative volumes of complaints that I've seen, a more useful list would probably be something comparable to the previous MBP, but with more RAM and a better CPU, and bonus points for a dedicated GPU.
- a Microsoft Ergonomic Natural 4000 [1]
- A Kinesis Freestyle 2 [2]
- a Macbook Pro (2014)
That's a wide range of keyboard travels and force requirements, and I'm now comfortable with all. A friend got the new MBP and said he got used to its keyboard "within a day".
[1] https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en-us/products/keyboar...
[2] https://www.kinesis-ergo.com/shop/freestyle2-for-pc-us/ That pic doesn't do it justice. With the risers that come with the "VIP kit", you can tilt and angle it to your comfort.
The irony :-)
The Surface Book I'm on now is very close, but the trackpad isn't quite as good. The Pixel trackpad was, honest to god, better than on a MacBook pro.
If you look around you can find it for $600 (refurb).
The Dell appears to be more likely to survive getting wet than Apple's laptops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8211HNs4eY
So... for 1/2 the price you can get a machine that you might like better than a MBP.
1 - the webcam. what the hell? it's on the bottom right of the screen. if you videoconference often this will drive you insane -- the angle is so bad it borders on being useless
2 - the trackpad. (obv nothing matches apple here), but the xps in particular sucks (and oddly is not mentioned in any reviews i saw). for programmers, having the cursor randomly move while typing is just not acceptable.. from what I read the hardware was picking up noise from somewhere else in the system, causing jumps in the cursor. the latest drivers filter this noise in software, but this lead to increased latency. end result is weak. sold the machine :(
Disclaimer: I work at Google, but not on Chrome / Chromebook.
And if you're willing to spend the big bucks, Panasonic offers some pretty rad premium options like 1000 Nit daylight readable display, built-in GPS and 4G wireless.
If you're on a budget, look for used models on Ebay that are being dumped for cheap after a corporate lease runs out.
Source: have owned both brands for many years
This article isn't comparing Macbook Pros with cheap plastic tat. HP, Lenovo, Dell, whoever, have nice high-end stuff. If you're a developer and you're not aware of that you must be living in a bubble.
For example, Current Dell XPS 13" (9360) w/ so-called InfinityEdge (bezel-less) display, either 1080p or QHD+ version:
Color Options
- Silver or Rose Gold
Exterior Chassis Materials
- CNC machined aluminum in Silver or Rose Gold
- Edge-to-edge Corning® Gorilla® Glass NBT™ on touch displays
- Carbon fiber composite palm rest with soft touch paint
Keyboard
- Full size, backlit chiclet keyboard; 1.3mm travel
Mouse
- Precision touchpad, seamless glass integrated buttonThe new macbook pro 13" without the touch strip is already in apple stores.
I would suggest you supplement whatever you read about these macbooks with an actual visit to the apple store, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
The color definition on those new screens is INSANE, it's still far better built than any pc I've tried this year (and I tried zillions while considering one last pc before switching), and the keyboard is surprisingly good.
If you get one of these pc's, get ready for a mechanical touchpad that you WILL notice, a flattened aspect that ratio that is not ideal for document editing, and screen quality that just doesn't quite match up despite pixel counts.
Anyway, I've had a rough time switching from windows to mac this year, find it ironic that now everyone is talking about jumping ship the other way.
Edit: why exactly the downvotes?
If they refresh that line or the Dell XPSs with an Nvidia pascal GTX 10xx, then I'll probably go ahead and get one. I figure that if I'm jumping back over to the Windows side as my daily driver, I might as well hold out for decent gaming GPU in a reasonably lightweight platform.
-Loud fan. With all of its (considerable) horsepower, it can get quite hot. Even when simply booting up or writing a document in Word, the fan is on almost constantly and very audible.
-Keyboard quality. The coating on the keyboard has already started peeling off after 1.5 years of mild use.
-Big and heavy power brick that gets extremely hot.
-Random buggy hardware issues. The webcam stopped working after updating Windows, and I haven't been able to get it working since. The trackpad is HORRIBLE and buggy. Maybe it's because Apple's trackpad has spoiled me, but going from apple's trackpad to Asus' was probably the single most frustrating thing. It's terribly inaccurate, doesn't understand multi-gestures, and worst of all, there's this weird cursor jitter when you touch the trackpad without being electrically grounded. I'm serious. If I want to accurately place my cursor over something, I have to be touching the laptop's aluminum chassis or else the cursor starts spasming.
The overall build quality just cannot be compared to Apple's. Even the mini Sub Woofer my Zenbook came with started working intermittently and I discovered that the port it connected to came loose for no apparent reason. The same thing happened to one of the USB ports.
Oh, and this was all after going throught he trouble of RMA'ing the first one for harddrive failure.
For a higher end, premium priced laptop I really expected better.
It has 6th gen Intel i7, USB-C (one gen 1, two gen 2 which are also Thunderbolt 3), it was $1100, weighs 2.4 pounds. It's been the best Linux machine out of the gate I've had. Trackpad works, wireless works, the one glitch I'm running into right now starting with kernel 4.8 is suspend. https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=185521
http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade
Here is a thread about running Linux on the new blade:
https://insider.razerzone.com/index.php?threads/linux-on-a-n...
Also, there is always the Dell Sputnik program and I find the XPS 13/15 series to be comparable to Apple build quality these days:
http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/555/campaigns/xps-linux-lapt...
Now if you want first class support for Linux (at least Ubuntu) and don't mind some build quality compromises, System76 has been a great experience for me:
TL;DR: The options for Linux laptops have never been better.
Although I expect the battery life to still not be up to the MBP level.
But also worth noting is battery life is going to depend on what your task load is. For my typical use case, I end up usually hammering on CPU for dev work so my battery life on my MBP isn't actually as impressive as it is for light use (web browsing/typical user workload). So for me, the potential battery life gap between a Blade and 13" MBP is going to be fairly close.
Also worth noting, the Dell Sputnik I have is comparable to a MBP and it is running Ubuntu natively (!!!). Throw an slim external battery in (Dell sells one) and it seems to exceed my MBP battery life (although I haven't really rigorously tested it).
Finally, drop the screen resolution down to the 1080 version and you will get better battery life. Not appropriate for everyone, but it's a compromise you can choose to make if it works for you :)
Razor? Dell? Not even close when they are in the hand.
Razer and Dell were very comparable to an MBP 13 for me. I would be happy to break down some comparisons for you (according to my personal experience/preference having owned all 3) but I would definitely agree the System76 is in a different build quality category...although (IMO) it makes up for it with its first-class hardware support.
Haven't owned or even used an MB 12", but I am surprised you like it so much, most things I read about it complain about the keyboard: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/2yhemp...
Keyboard is also one of the most important things in a laptop for me personally...
https://dbrand.com/shop/razer-blade-14-2016-skins
(has the option of covering the logo)
To me the look of the Dell is comparable to the Mac, but again, you can skin it as well:
I've had one MB break the first month and one last a year before I sold it. My current Sony VAIO (VPCZ21) is running like a champ since 2011 and the build quality is stellar.
I think it hasn't happened yet because it's probably economically not viable.
Especially because:
1. It takes a lot of capital to even attempt.
2. The traditional players in position to do so do not have it in their DNA (Dell, HP, et all).
And yes, the build quality doesn't match Apple. But actually I really don't care. Over three years of daily usage already and I can't really complain. Next thing I'm checking the Razer, Dell and Lenovo selection, but it seems I just don't need an update yet.
I'm a developer, I do hard stuff for work. Setting up a Linux distro is peanuts compared to the issues I face daily. And no, OSX is far from a usable operation system for my usage.
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?
Maybe we need a MACE emulator. How hard could it possibly be to run macos apps on linux? ;)
Support for high density displays on Windows is a lot better than it was 2 years ago, thankfully.
I was also making this mistake too in the past. You cannot beat MacOS in its own game, polished object-oriented Apps reminiscent of NeXTStep with a lot of indie offerings.
You need to realise polish means something different in Linux. It means classic open-source text-mode keyboard-driven file-configured programs that do one thing, do it well and are easy to compose in the Unix tradition. URxvt, emacs, vim, mutt, mbsync, zathura, irssi, etc.
Obviously most of these are portable and thus not exclusive of Linux. But you will get most of them in Linux, running a minimal tiling window manager like XMonad and a good package manager like pacman, nix or guix.
This takes time to master, but in my opinion can't be beaten and will not become out of fashion easily.
Unfortunately, terminal apps do not help with RAW editing, editing vector graphics or diagramming (replacing OmniGraffle).
For these reasons, if I'd flee from macOS, Windows would currently make more sense. There are better replacements for macOS applications and the Linux subsystem holds a lot of promise.
It's definitely not better when it comes to polish, it's worse. However, instead of the lickable polish of OSX, you get responsiveness that makes OSX feel laggy in comparison.
Under Windows at least, you still have Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. except I've found they run faster than under OSX. Whether I'm on my PC or my retina Macbook Pro, I usually develop under a Linux VM via VMWare, and VMWare is definitely much more responsive under Windows as well.
Regarding Homebrew, if you didn't want to use a linux vm setup, there's now the linux subsystem on Windows 10, which has worked well for the few things I've tried under it.
But yes, everything looks worse than OSX. I found I haven't cared as much as I originally thought I would, especially with the increased responsiveness and lack of beach-balls (you don't realize how used to beach-balls you are till you stop seeing them).
Sounds like Elementary OS.
(Since someone will inevitably ask, because they personally never have any issues: off the top of my head: the barely-adequate Alfred replacement forgot its keybinding on the daily. Unity's hotcorners would stop working randomly until I cleared and reset them in the prefs. Mouse acceleration was a disaster on my bluetooth trackpad so I wrote a bunch of calls to the synaptics command line util to reset it to something close to reasonable -- but it would randomly reset and I'd have to re-run the script. HiDPI support is a random mess of things working well or appallingly depending on author, toolkit, time of day, and orientation of the sun. The typography situation is awful -- every third person will point you at a different guide to "fixing" it, but they just result in different kinds of awful. The GUI would hard-lock occasionally and no amount of keyboard poking would get me to a TTY I could reboot from -- seemed to be something Systemd was doing. Getting simple system logs is cryptic bullshit thanks to Systemd's binary mess now, naturally. Etc, etc. I could go on for days.)
On the contrary, Systemd has brought a standard, a replacement for messy scripts and logs used before.
Ubuntu is not a best choice despite of the popularity, I'd recommend Manjaro (XFCE edition since it's simpler - so not a lot of things can be broken, not the Gnome/KDE version), or Debian stable if you need stable system. Gnome itself is shitty thing in my opinion, KDE is too complex, XFCE is nice.
Listen: I learned unix by installing MkLinux on a PowerMac G3 (the beige kind that came with MacOS, the single-tasking cooperative OS from the '80s) in 1997. I built my first PC in '99 or '00 and ran Debian on it until the old glibc transition broke so much that I switched to Gentoo, and much later to slack & arch.
I've done the distro-shuffle. There is no magical Happy distro where everything finally Works. Everything is constantly being rewritten, and some percentage of it is egregiously, embarrassingly broken at the user-facing level.
In some ways it's even worse now than it was in the early 2000s. So after nearly 20 years of "you shouldn't have used distro X you should use distro Y", I think I'll pass.
And despite this rant in 3 years I'll probably be dumb enough to think "well maybe this time things are finally working well", yet again.
That's why it's advisable to use simpler stuff, not like the Gnome/KDE based systems, etc. Actually Linux works well enough for me.
I decided to blow everything away and do a fresh install of 16.04. I wanted to have both Gnome and KDE on it, so I could have the choice of window managers. You're meant to be able to do that.
So I put a fresh ubuntu on it, and then the first thing I did was try to install kde. The kubuntu-desktop package install stopped halfway because of conflicts between Gnome and KDE packages, with just a cryptic error message about a background process having an error during package installation!
The failed install broke (both) GUI's and the apt package manager completely. KDE wouldn't launch at all and Gnome would come up with a blank screen and a mouse cursor and nothing else.
It took hours of googling to find the magic commands to actually remove the conflicting Gnome packages to get the KDE install to continue, and any GUI working. I have it working with just KDE now, but could never get it working with both.
A fresh install of the latest "long term support" version of the most popular distro, then I tried to install the second most popular window manager, and that didn't work. What a massive fail.
I actually love using Linux, and it's so refreshing to not be tied to corporate garbage on your PC, but unfortunately, Ubuntu/linux is 100% not ready for normal consumers. I really really hope it improves, but it always seems to be two steps forward, one step back. It's a bit sad.
- iTerm2 is a far cry from my typical Emacs set up...I would take e-macs with ansi-term/shell buffers over iTerm2 any day (on Linux).
- Homebrew is a shim to get Linux-like packages to work in the limited terminal/shell environment of OSX (at least IMO). I would take `apt-get` over `homebrew` in a heartbeat.
- Spotify actually has a native Linux client and I have used it without a problem for awhile (https://www.spotify.com/us/download/linux/). Although it looks like it lost its dedicated developer earlier this year: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/03/spotify-linux-no-developm...
There is definitely a creativity suite void (Photoshop, Lightroom, etc.) but you could consider setting up a Virtual Machine on Linux with VT-D passthrough to be able to use those sorts of applications.
For me, I spend most of my time basically in a terminal or in an IDE...and for that, Linux fits quite well...but yeah...
Having a package manager that mostly keeps its hands off my core system is something I didn't realize I wanted until I tried Mac package managers (now using Homebrew). Keeping "update all the junk I've installed" and "update the system itself" separate is pretty nice, though it'd be trickier in Linux since the two concepts aren't as distinct, especially in GUI-space.
Photoshop Lightroom
- Windows: both run fine (sometimes faster)
- Linux: GIMP + darktable? Pretty capable really, but a lot of people have strong opinions on anything that isn't Photoshop + Lightroom
Sequel Pro
- Windows / Linux: MySQL workbench covers a lot of the same territory
iTerm 2, Homebrew:
- Windows: Ubuntu on Windows or (cygwin, mingw, console2) + (chocolatey, oneget, ...)
- Linux: Plenty of solid options for terminal emulators, pick your favorite distro and it will have a solid package manager. I would argue that Linux has been doing terminal and package management longer and better than Mac + Windows
Sketch
- There have been a plethora of web-based UX/UI design tools in the last few years that don't suck.
Transmit
- I'm probably the wrong person to ask. I'd just use the terminal, but maybe Filezilla?
Alfred
- A lot of built-in search and hotkeys on Windows and many Linux distros, add additional tools on top for a lot of flexibility.
Reeder, Airmail
- No suggestions here... looks nice
Spotify
- Spotify on Windows or Linux
Don't get me wrong, I think for free software Gimp is amazing and it works great for some. But not if you're used to the full Photoshop suite.
Most of the functionality of my workflow is provided by other programs, but there is also a good portion that's provided by the actual OS -- mostly things like switching between workspaces, starting and closing programs, inspecting disk contents. (Of course, I'm omitting the fact that the OS is responsible for all that metal underneath to do something useful at all, but I guess all of the three major desktop OS's have that part covered.)
If your workflow depends on a functionality that is provided by certain tools/programs, and these tools/programs have no alternative on other OS's, then of course it will be difficult to switch. But I would say that in my case, either the same tool I'm using today is cross-platform and thus available on other OS's too, or the functionality that I need is available through some other tool. This doesn't seem to be the case for what the parent lists, but for me, I guess the main difference after a switch would be interacting across apps, not within apps.
Keynote is easily replaced by PowerPoint
Sketch: you may be able to replace it in the next future with Adobe XD, that will also support Windows 10 and it will be an UWP app with support for pen and touch (Currently waiting for the first beta, it's due before the end of 2016)
* 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.
Could you link to references about external screen troubles?
Also "limited to 32GB" sounds a bit funny. Would you mind sharing why would you need more? (I am developer btw)
Such heavy laptops can not be considered as an alternative for Macbooks.
Especially if you get a proper bag or backpack to carry the laptop with. The laptop would need to weigh over 12lbs before I even noticed I was carrying it with a shoulder-strap.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DUGZFWY/ref=oh_aui_deta...
This is not to say that you'd accept this as a Macbook Pro, but your statement about it not being an alternative to the Macbook Pro is clearly not true.
Personally, I often carry around a 40 pound weight (4-year-old daughter), so for me the difference is negligible.
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)
http://ark.intel.com/products/95451/Intel-Core-i7-7500U-Proc...
I've continued to update Ubuntu on all of them without reinstalling.
Instead, a guy showed up at our door the next day with a new drive that he installed.
It was definitely within the warranty period, but I was really impressed.
They're not perfect computers, and I do tend to be pretty careful with them, but so far so good.
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.
Downsides: The screens are pretty washed out and blah compared to the mac screens, but ok for coding. The trackpads also holdup very poorly against the macs.
The key problem for us though is they fail way more than the macs. Probably about half of them have had some issue or another after 2yrs. For the macs it's been closer to 1 in 10 or 1 in 15.
We decided to spend more and push people toward more expensive macs. It saves us so much IT time.
I think I would like X260 more though. I do not use touchscreen and pen very often and hot-swappable battery would be great.
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.
Touch is one of the most natural forms of interaction to people. A screen without touch, to a young child, is "broken". The more screens with touch in our lives (such as say the iPhones and iPads), the more that seems to apply to any age that a screen without touch starts to feel "broken".
This is what I find strangest about the arguments by people for the MBP Touch Bar: so many people that support agree how useful touch is. Wouldn't it be more useful just to make the whole screen touch capable than to stop part of the way there with just a tiny strip?
The boldness of the original iPhone at the time was relying entirely on touch. The MBP Touch Bar seems a strange hesitation relative to that.
The most classic forms of input (keyboard and mouse) are touch manipulations of plastic artifacts: their bandwidth is essentially a subset of touch rather than any other way around.
With modern touch screens we are only beginning to scratch the surface of touch sensory bandwidth. Certainly there remains plenty of interesting areas to expand haptic feedback. There's also plenty of ways left to blend and hybridize touch sensitivity and gestures and even context sensitive/context reliant physical objects (like digital pens/pencils or even how our keyboards might interact with touch).
«It's for consumption, not creation.»
Many of the earliest forms of human creativity were manipulating things through touch. Maybe we haven't yet arrived at something like a good approach to digital sculpting or pottery, but that doesn't mean that we won't.
Even then, I've seen amazingly creative touch apps. There are some really cool touch apps in music creation, just off the top of my head. The fact that you associate touch with consumption (and "less cognitive development") may say more about you than the world of touch apps that already exist.
«It leaves the screen dirty.»
Yeah. So? Things get dirty when you use them. You find ways to clean them. Are you keeping your screen pristine and untouched/undirtied because it needs to be sconced in a museum some day?
I get that it's a personal preference and it plainly drives the Monk-esque sorts of OCD wild, but at the end of the day, entropy wins anyway.
«It encourages wasteful use of screen real estate by UI.»
One person's waste of space is another person's accessibility. Touch invites larger click targets to better accommodate the fatness of people's fingers. That accommodation, however, also helps people with accuracy issues with a mouse (which has always been a big deal easily ignored). Even further, it helps those situations that shouldn't demand accuracy in the first place. When I'm working on a spreadsheet at work, why does every click need to be a "headshot" to get my work accomplished? Lining up those shots takes time and energy I could be spending on the actual work. Just because mice can be pixel accurate doesn't mean they should be. As monitor resolutions increase and DPI increases and pixels shrink this only becomes crazier when an application has a small pixel-accurate hitbox. (It amazes me how many mission critical Enterprise apps you see with old school 16x16 pixel icons on toolbars running on modern hardware as if those businesses have a need to be FPS sniper schools.)
Fitt's Law suggests we should do better than that. Targets that are bigger and/or closer to the mouse pointer are easier to hit. If it takes touch to force more developers to be more mindful of Fitt's Law, then that alone is reason enough to support touch.
Bandwidth is information transferred over time. Whether you are discussing input (push/gesture max) or output (can't see the screen because hand is in the way), current-era touch is inferior to traditional input systems.
You failed to provide even one example of a creative use of touchscreens, except a vague music reference. I've seen those apps too, they are frustrating to work with and any serious musician would use a (musical) keyboard with real velocity support in preference.
I agree UIs need to move forward, I simply disagree that current-era touch is creative or high enough bandwidth to get us anywhere useful.
From that perspective a touch screen, even with current technology, is still more bandwidth than no touch screen at all and more creative than no touch screen at all... I'd argue that does get us somewhere useful.
I don't think the onus here is on me to provide examples of how useful that may be, but on you to explain why perfect is not the enemy of the good, in this particular case.
What I'm actually saying is I don't know what is wrong with a touch screen.
a) I'd be paying more for a touch screen that I don't want. Whatever the cost, I'd rather have the money
b) Does whatever OS I'm running know I've got a touch screen? What's to stop it taking advantage of that? What's to stop it essentially requiring I use it?
c) Even if I don't use it, buying a laptop with a touchscreen suggests there's a market for such a device. I'd rather not add the weight of my support.
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 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.
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.
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.
Great battery life (it's a charge every couple of days laptop for me), love the watch-style hinge (which is really solid), and the keyboard has all the keys I want on it.
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.
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.
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.
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
I greatly prefer the ThinkPad for the following reasons: much better battery (even after a brand new battery for the MBP), it is much lighter weight, non-glossy screen (better to counter train window glare), and the keys requires much less force to actuate.
I miss the smooth MBP track pad, but I rarely use the mouse anyway. I'd never buy a Mac for personal use, even without any price either way I prefer the Thinkpad.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Could you get a Mac desktop and remote into it? It might be cheaper and more powerful even when including the cost of the other machine.
http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbo...
I don't _need_ one right now, but I'm definitely in the market and weighing my options.
I know roughly 4-5 people in this exact situation right now.
So they have a computer they wanted to replace ten months ago (or indeed any time since then) and no good options from Apple. And before you suggest they just buy a previous-generation MacBook Pro; do you really think the best thing to do today is to buy a two year old computer?
In my list of requirements quad-core is definitely prioritized over which gen the processor is.
Intel Core i7-7500U @ 2.70GHz - 5,337
Intel Core i7-6920HQ @ 2.90GHz - 9,588
Intel Core i7-6820HQ @ 2.70GHz - 8,697
Intel Core i7-6700HQ @ 2.60GHz - 8,029
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.
I'm sincerely curious (this isn't some veiled criticism or w/e): what do you like about having it in clamshell mode with an external monitor? I use my MBP with an external at work every day, but I always keep it open for the extra screen.
At this very moment, I have 3 monitors in front of me (2 30", 1 27"). Space is at a premium, I don't gain much with the laptop screen. In clamshell, I can tuck it below the monitors.
Sometimes I will have the laptop open. But then the screen is not properly positioned vs the other(s) monitor. And then I put it in a stand. Which means I no longer have easy access to the keyboard.
This is why, in fact, I bought my first magic trackpad. I caught myself reaching for the laptop's trackpad to use gestures or scroll.
Get me an external keyboard with a touch bar and I'm on board! I don't think that's going to happen though, because right now it is what makes the MBPs stand out.
Although I actually disagree -- I think a touchbar standalone keyboard is inevitable. They want people writing touchbar-aware apps, and the only way that's going to happen is to make the touchbar available to the broader installed base. Whether or not it happens right away is going to come down to how efficiently they can drive down the cost.
It could happen. The Touch Bar internally communicates over USB.
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.
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've been eyeing jumping to linux, whether on a mac or some other laptop...
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.
My leading contender at the moment is an Alienware 13, which is sold in three different configurations from $1,000, $1,100, and $1,500. (note: i have no affiliation with Alienware nor am i a gamer).
it's not ideal for my use cases (which are probably similar to most other dev), eg, i don't need the industrial strength speakers, which is one of the reasons the box depth is a little on thicker than most laptops to say the least. After having a MBP for the past 7-8 years, an Alienware will feel practically cuboid.
one additional criterion i have is high build quality which has led me to look closely at ThinkPad and Alienware. I had an Alienware quite a few years ago before the company was purchased by Dell; The build quality was superb; i have no direct experience with the quality of the newer units (post-acquisition).
(I have never owned an Apple laptop.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/48y2db/system76_lapt...
This is a sincere question.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=cax13u...
Let's compare the HP Spectre x360 and the Dell XPS 9360.
component HP Dell
---
os Windows 10 Home 64bit Ubuntu 16.04 SP1 64bit
processor 6th gen i5-6200U (3MB cache, <2.8GHz) 7th Gen i5-7200U (3MB cache, <3.1GHz)
memory 8GB LPDDR3 1600MHz 8GB LPDDR3 1866MHz
storage 256 GB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD 256GB PCIe SSD
graphics Intel® HD Graphics 520 Intel® HD Graphics 620
display (13.3") FHD IPS LED-backlit 13.3” FHD AG (1920 x 1080) InfinityEdge display
touch screen (1920 x 1080)
ports 1 headphone/microphone combo 1 Headset jack, 1 Noble lock slot
3 USB 3.0 2 USB 3.0 - 1 w/PowerShare
1 HDMI, 1 Mini DisplayPort 1 Thunderbolt™ 3
expansion 1 multi-format SD media card reader 1 SD card reader (SD, SDHC, SDXC)
:)
[1] http://www.dell.com/ie/p/xps-13-9360-laptop/pd?oc=cnx93609&l...
[2] http://www.elara.ie/productdetail.aspx?productcode=WCEW8Y31E...
It's not Skylake based anymore, please take updated x360 for this comparison http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Spectre-x360-13-w023dx-Conve... (7th Gen CPU, became a little lighter/smaller than prev generation, etc) It's convertible which is a good bonus.
Don't forget to take into the account Dell's XPS well known coil whine issue, even latest generations still do have it http://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-13-9360-QHD-i7-7500U-N...
> System76 is the only other well known system builder that I know of that does this.
System76 laptop doesn't have Thunderbolt 3 ports.
> Interestingly from a developer perspective, the Dell XPS Developer edition comes with Ubuntu 16.04 SP1 out of the box so no Apple or Microsoft or Google tax. Isn't that neat?
It's not a big deal to install Linux in your own, the distributive you need, not the Ubuntu (Ubuntu is not the best choice for developers in my opinion).
So I really believe x360 is a better choice in all terms than XPS, I hope 15 inch model will also get update soon.
You make your case well sir. :) I agree that the newly updated HP x360 you point to is on a par with the Dell XPS in every way plus it has a convertible touchscreen. If you want touchscreen on the Dell XPS you have to go to the QHD+ (3200 x 1800) model. And that's hundreds of extra $ or €.
If Linux works well with the latest HP x360 then I agree it seems like a better value proposition than the Dell XPS. I'd be very tempted!
In the context of the article what is good though is that the Lenovo Yoga, HP Spectre, MS Surface Pro/Book†, and Dell XPS all offer excellent chassis build quality and I think they are genuine Macbook Pro competitors. We are spoilt for choice a bit now.
† Not yet Thunderbolt 3 which will be a deal-breaker for most I suspect.
I would also say, both have very sensible ports.
That said, I just got one and it's pretty nice. Linux installed really smoothly.
Do you really speak from this model: HP Spectre x360 13-w090nz (13.30", Full HD, Intel Core i7-7500U, 16GB, SSD) ? And did you have any issues installing linux? Everythings works out of the box? Touchscreen, Sound, etc.? Which distro do you use?
Thanks a lot for your reply!
I installed Arch Linux with KDE, and most things worked with minimal configuration, including wifi, touchpad, touchscreen, power management. Sound works, but I think only the bottom speakers are on, not the top ones. Also I'm not sure if Bluetooth works, as I haven't had a need to try it. And then finally the 2-in-1 mode doesn't really work, because screen rotation and disabling the keyboard/touchpad aren't automated.
I would expect other distros to work as well or better, especially if they have a more automated installation process than Arch.
I don't mind to carry a bit.
Best I could find so far: https://www.cyberport.de/?DEEP=1C10-2WN&APID=6 (german, but I guess you can see the specs, goes under the brand name "Clevo" elsewhere. would need to upgrade ram, but there is plenty of space I think)
I'm not aware of any, and this article seems to confirm it: http://www.businessinsider.com/macbook-touchpad-better-than-...
"No USB-C ports. No Thunderbolt 3 ports. Too many video out ports. Unnecessary SD slot. 6th generation CPU."
Why would you want or need either of these for a Windows/Linux machine? USB-C is near non-existant and the Carbon uses the Lenovo flat connector for charging. Instead you get 3 USB3.0 ports.
> Too many video out ports
Who cares? They aren't taking up space. You get HDMI for easy connecting to a TV without any adapters and a mini-displayport for everything else. Seems like a win-win to me. HDMI is the most common and near universal video connector now. The lack of HDMI on Apple laptops is inexcusable.
> Unnecessary SD slot
Uh, another who cares. Hell, put a second OS on there for kicks, load up photos from your mom's old camera, run a hypervisor on it and use local storage for your VM's, etc.
> 6th generation CPU.
The i7 model has a i7-6500U from Q3 2015. Its fairly newish and a great performer considering its energy use. The current X1 is in its 4th generation and from early this year, so of course it has a late 2015 processor. More than likely you'll see a 5th generation early next year if getting the newest processor is important to you. Not that intel's yearly offerings differ too greatly from last year's model.
True, though with it being featured in the Google Pixel, I'm certain it'll become more common.
The Apple computer experience is a lot more than just the hardware.
I am would have to research a lot if people got Ubuntu to work there well. Last time I tried 2 yrs ago on my then old Macbook pro, took 2 days to configure everything. Then battery life simply was not that good and I went back to osx.