Who else is thinking of doing this?
For the curious, here are the specs and price: MBP: 2.9GHz i7, 16GB, 2TB NVMe, Radeon Pro 460 4GB GPU - $4299
XPS: 2.8GHz i7 (Kaby Lake), 32GB, 1TB NVMe, Nvidia GTX 1050 4GB @ 4K res - $2499
The big jump in price in the full spec iMac is the 2TB of storage. NVMe isn't cheap.
If they were both at 1TB storage, and more comparable spec for spec, the XPS makes for a more powerful machine. (and for me raw power is WAY more important than thin/light)
Why did I switch? Major GPU issues, a gimmicky touchbar with only TouchID as it's useful piece, crappy battery life, and the need for something reliable that wasn't going to flake at the drop of a hat.
Like I've commented elsewhere, it's hard not to get the impression that all Apple cares about is the iPhone.
They've been making thin and light the priority, at the expense of things that power users want.
Lest anyone assume I'm stomping off mad... I've been a hardcore Mac user for 14 years.
I am using Windows 10 on the XPS. I figured it would be a major source of pain, in terms of workflow, to switch back. The Windows Subsystem for Linux takes almost all of that pain away.
I still have my MBP, but it's sitting on the shelf. Once more updates come out, maybe I'll revisit. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thanks for the tip!
I find that the battery lasts longer than my last MacBook Pro as well.
I've seen the Surface Pro, and I find it intriguing, but can't really picture wanting to purchase or use one.
Got the non-touchbar model and it's by far the best machine I've ever used.
I use Mac and Windows every day at work. Rarely, if ever, do I have any issues with my Windows hardware but my Mac hardware constantly causes me problems. Just last week I had to take steps to "zap the PRAM" on my 2012 Mac Pro since every USB port died for no reason.
I also have multiple wireless USB mice that work fine on my Macs until I go to the Updates tab of the App Store...at which point they simply stop working. Another problem I have with my Macs is that there is no built-in way to disable an external monitor without unplugging it or powering it down.
Honestly, I've been using Macs since the 90's, I've always had hardware problems with them and when I look around I see others having the same problems - so I know it's not just me. If you search the web you can see millions of others having Mac hardware issues - so I'm not really sure where Apple fans are getting the idea that Mac hardware "just works" because it quite obviously does not.
It's a matter of what issues you feel comfortable dealing with. There is no computer utopia, unless you're only surfing and writing documents, and need nothing more complex than a Chromebook. ;)
The one I mentioned about certain USB mice dying has never been fixed. Another thing that will never ever be fixed is the lack of choice video cards that I can put into the PCIe slot on my Mac Pro. Other problems with PRAM or SMC/sleep have a "fix" but somehow they keep popping up and you have to keep applying the fix. I can tell you honestly that I never have recurring problems on the Windows because things get fixed quite rapidly since Microsoft obviously still cares about Windows.
Anyway, I don't care about Chromebooks or other walled garden devices really. Even if I just wanted something to browse with I would prefer a Windows tablet so I could have some freedom ;)
Unfortunately, I ragequit it and sold it after dealing with the "sleep of death" issue enough times. Well-documented issue, and supposedly fixed with updates. (that was not my experience).
Meanwhile, all of the Mac problems I mentioned are still not fixed and Apple is still quite obviously, ignoring their desktop OS. They've also always hated power users where-as Microsoft caters to them on hand and foot.
Definitely no arguments on the Mac stuff though... (as I type from my shiny new Dell XPS)
I never claimed Macs didn't have hardware issues. I claimed that it is nearly impossible to convince a die-hard Windows user that perhaps they might be happier overall on a Mac.
Why add layers of complexity when you can just run the OS you want?
In 2005, I bought a quad-core Opteron workstation with 16 GiB RAM. That Apple wouldn't offer anything substantially more powerful in a laptop form factor a dozen years later boggles the mind. Granted, my use case may be atypical (lots of jemalloc portability development/testing), but between the anemic hardware options and the de-emphasis of developer products, I'm sufficiently disenfranchised at this point that even after working at Apple on the operating system (~10.1-10.4 range) and then using it ever since, I'm not personally interested anymore in what Apple does next.
The best part though...I can open up the bottom and replace parts anytime I want.
Need to switch to an Android phone next because iTunes doesn't play nice on Linux.
OS X has been my primary productivity OS for more than ten years now, but I'm in the process of switching. I'll keep using my 2012 MBP until it physically falls apart, but make no mistake: this will be my last MacBook. Not sure what I'll replace it with when the time comes, performant laptops with a long battery life and 2TB+ storage are amazingly hard to come by these days.
My iPhone has a broken screen that can't be fixed without permanently losing the finger print scanner, so that's going to be my last iPhone as well.
On the desktop side, I'm using an iMac/PC dual setup (with Synergy), so I'm still dragging my heels a bit because honestly it hurts to let OS X go. Windows and I will never be friends, but there is no question that the PC platform is going to be the future for me.
To be clear, switching sucks royally for me, but staying would suck more. macOS hasn't deteriorated to the point where I want to leave it behind yet, although the writing is on the wall. But Apple's hardware philosophy and practice makes it so I'd really hate giving them even more money for yet another even more hilariously overpriced, closed-down, underperforming, outdated, unrepairable, not-upgradeable appliance that they think is going to be the future of computing.
> the end I don't want to have
> a setup that I constantly
> have to spend time on just
> to keep it alive
For all that people complain about pulseaudio, it's been working pretty well for me for the last 5 years or so.
I'll admit I'm a bit of an outlier, though: I run xubuntu as my base system but i3 as my main window manager. I'm sooo much more productive on it than anything else I've ever used - it's amazing how much time I used to spend adjusting window sizes.
I don't know why you're thinking you're going to any better off with some other smartphone. I broke my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge's screen and nobody could fix it. Nobody would replace it. I checked icracked, tmobile stores, called around. Now I have a LGV20 in an otter case, and the class that covers the camera has cracks. These phones are fragile.
At least with iPhones you have a large enough market where small businesses can help. With some random android phone from LG with nationwide sales in the low millions annually I'm pretty much not going to find anyone to help me fix anything. And there aren't like any LG stores, like there are Apple stores you can go to.
My problem, and the reason why I want to stop supporting Apple specifically is that my ridiculous $1000 phone has a home button that is cryptographically coupled to the device, and physically bonded to the display, in an effort to make repairs impossible.
Why?
That's not true in my experience. Unless the actual button/scanner is broken (unlikely) you can transplant it to a new screen without too much trouble.
Source: I've changed a couple of screens for friends and family.
Edit:
Here's a repair guide that includes the home button transplant.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+7+Display+Assembly+Repla...
Did you buy Applecare Plus? I broke my screen on my 6S and Apple replaced the entire phone. They also offered to replace only the screen, but I opted to pay more for a full replacement because the body was damaged. They never mentioned anything about the fingerprint reader being impaired after replacing the screen.
I had a macbook air 13 from my company and would probably have kept it to this date. Since my company took it back I am using some 13' toshiba with i3 and 4gb of ram running ubuntu.. haven't seen the need to upgrade.
> I am using some 13' toshiba with i3 and 4gb of ram...
You're complaining about the hardware not being better and you're using a super low-end laptop. Maybe your real complaint is price, not performance, as you can get machines like that for $200 if you're not concerned about anything other than cost.
In MY day to day, as a backend / front-end / devops guy, it isn't worth the money to buy anything better than what I have IMO.
All I do is vim, run stuff in cloud machines through ansible (SSH), and a browser.
My last MacBook Air with an i7 was better than what I have but not $2k better.
I have negative interest in the touch bar or that awful keyboard.
On a day to day basis I use both a 2009 13" Mac Book pro and a 2015 Mac Book Pro. However, for the prior 4 years I used a Dell XPS Windows 7 laptop.
The primary primary reason for using the Mac on a day to day basis is system stability and responsiveness. The Mac just works. It always fires up. It is highly responsive to my needs which are Web, Terminal (server admin), and general office applications.
The Windows laptop, on the other hand, left me with little confidence from day to day. Most days it would operate fine, then one day it would blue screen or simply become unresponsive requiring a physical restart. Certainly all kinds of tweaks were done over time to fix one thing or another related to some application setting somewhere deep in the registry.
I've not tried Windows 10, but then it has no particular 10x value for me either.
Note that the 2009 MBP was upgraded in 2012 to an SSD. It is still a crispy fast system that beat the pants off of newer Dell laptops.
Just my $0.02.
I'm posting this because, near the end of the year, the 3-year depreciation period is over and I can (or rather, have to) get a new notebook, and it will definitely be a Windows machine. ($work only has official Windows and Mac images.) Outlook and Lync ^W Skype-for-Business will work much better (I will be one of the few on the team who can do such amazing things as record Lync ^W SfB sessions).
So yes, I am one of the guys you asked for, although probably not for the reasons most people expect.
It's not the worst thing in the world but it just seems unnecessary when running the OS we target is just as simple.
I've been using both Mac and Windows OSes since the last millennium, so I'm not precious about either one. But I do personally prefer explorer over finder in most aspects.
Visual Studio is a beast, and it's absolutely ridiculous that MS now give away so many features for free in the community version.
I had no expectations for the type cover keyboard, but it turns out it is fantastically comfortable and productive.
I have no plans to get a new Mac, but my 2014 MBP is still proving useful to do remote iOS builds from Xamarin. I'll probably keep it around just for that but if I never have to open Xcode again it will be too soon.
My SO has a XPS 13 and while the build is much better than any Windows laptop I've seen, I don't think it's worth switching.
Really my decision is between the smaller 12 inch vs the 13 inch.
I just reclaimed my 2009 MBP after upgrading my wife's MBP. I'd never notice it wasn't current If it wasn't for running a little hot and the non-retina screen.
It's not just the hardware. OSX has become steadily worse over the years, and there is no indication that this will be reversed.
I'm not looking at getting myself a fully specced ThinkPad T470s: Kaby Lake CPU, 24 GB DDR4 RAM and 1 TB NVMe SSD. I'll be running Linux on this thing.
After Windows 10 got Ubuntu, there was no looking back.
I am still thinking about replacing my iPad Air for an iPad Pro, though. I love a small tablet I can write on, too.
Then I also used to have a xps13 with Ubuntu. Great machine.
I've recently switched to a T460s with 20gb ram, 1tb SSD and i7. Comes with all the ports you need and want. It's light and fast. Used to run Ubuntu for a while full time. Recently switched to windows 10 and the WSL is a game changer. Reminds me of the good old Mac days.
I'm now back on a 2016 15" TB MBP and happy to be "home" on macOS.
There's really nothing wrong with this machine. It might not be the giant leap forward from the 2015 model that people hoped for, but it's a perfectly fine machine to get work done with.
But here in Colombia, a good Apple machine cost DAMM TOO MUCH (ten months of 2x * basic income for a entry level Mac Pro), and each iteration is a bit worse than the previous.
I'm holding on my iMac, but most likely I will build a hackintosh.
I still need to commit to a decision, but I'm eyeing the XSP13 lustfully now.
Touchbar is great, don't know why people are complaining.
Mac unit sales have rebounded after a few quarters of decline, and Mac revenue is actually up by around $500 million, hopefully proving to Apple that people actually will buy Macs when the company releases new ones. Both the revenue growth and the unit sales growth can be attributed to the new MacBook Pro