Apple drops to fifth place in laptop brand survey | Hacker News Reader

Apple drops to fifth place in laptop brand survey

9to5mac.com

49 pointsartsandsci71 comments

But what can you do? If you want unix environment (and don't want support Microsoft with their telemetry spyware bullshit), and want retina quality text?

You're stuck with Apple, because nothing else like that exists. XPS 13 is close, but the scaling on Linux just isn't good enough yet, and there's the coil whine, and there's the touchpad, etc.

Apple has created a niche - high quality laptops with unix environment and HiDPI screens, and is the only one inside that niche and can do anything it wants with people who are in it.

It's sad, but that's the way it is. Apple has developers by the balls and know is.

EDIT: and this is really, really sad - and it's probably even worse on mobile, where you get to chose between Apple (bye bye jack) and giving all you data to Google 24/7, but I digress, sorry.

> XPS 13 is close, but the scaling on Linux just isn't good enough yet

It isn't? A coworker has one and Fedora looks pretty stellar on it. What qualms do you still have with it?

Mac users will always find a reason to like Mac. They are possibly even more stubborn than me.

Mac will always be better to them just like KDE is better to me. And I even liked KDE 4 - which I hardly used.

Last time I found a new favourite desktop was with early Ubuntus and they were discontinued. Since then it has been mate, Gnome 3, Cinnamon and elementary until KDE 5 came and everything was back to normal with KDE being best (even if most people don't seem to be able to understand it ;-)

That's all well and good, but glogla specifically mentioned scaling issues. The only thing I've still seen only work so-so is mixing HiDPI and non-HiDPI screens, like laptop + monitor, so I was curious if they were referring to that or something else.

Well of course if the things you care about most are the things that are unique to Apple laptops, only Apple laptops will satisfy you. But those things are by no means what most consumers care about or will even notice in a laptop.

The Macbook trackpad is underrated. Well, maybe that's the wrong word. I know I take it for granted until the second I go to use any other laptop. And I'm still using a 2008 Macbook Unibody.

That said, my next machine won't be a Macbook. They are just too expensive, as the alternatives are catching up. It used to be that they were priced well to similarly-spec'ed competitors, but I'm not sure that's true any more.

Is it the hardware or software that makes it better? On my Thinkpads, I disable the trackpad in Ubuntu because it's just terrible. But when I boot into Windows 10, it works rather well. The difference seems to be whether unintentional brushings are ignored and how accurately the trackpad is ignored during typing.

I think it's a combination. The physical quality certainly feels nicer than others, and I think the surface area is larger too. Then, whatever is going on with the software side is great. I know that on mine, it's nicer in OSX than Windows with Bootcamp drivers, so I'm sure software has a lot to do with it.

It is the only trackpad that I enjoy using.

It's a shame. I've grown disillusioned with Apple, and have largely switched to Ubuntu on Thinkpads. But I really miss Apple's trackpad implementation.

I disable the trackpad and only use the pencil nub, which does work very well, but months in and I'm still not completely used to it. Not to mention other people are always disappointed to find my trackpad disabled if they jump on my computer.

People always rave over the mac trackpads and they seem nice whenever I use them but I generally don't have the problems with windows trackpads so it's not a big deal to me. The main thing I've noticed is that multi-touch gestures seem to work better on a mac

Is a hard preference for retina quality text actually a thing? It's never been something I've ever cared about, and while I recognize that I could be suffering from the False Consensus Effect, I have a really hard time imagining it is a thing for a critical mass of laptop users.

I haven't seen a single ad on my Windows 10 Surface Pro 4 since getting it nearly a year ago.

And, no, Apple doesn't have devs by the balls. Windows 10 has Ubuntu now. Linux environment out of the box.

I believe it. Last summer I switched to a Dell M5510 (dev edition) from a MacBook Pro that was under a year old. Until then I had been a die-hard Mac user basically my entire life, but the MBP and new versions of the OS just had too many bugs:

- Time machine backups being corrupted on a monthly basis

- Audio occasionally not working after wake from sleep

- Laptop failing to wake from sleep altogether

- One or two kernel panics

In contrast, the Dell has had absolutely no problems running Linux for the past 9 months other than the inability to hot-plug the ethernet dongle. It's truly been more stable than the Mac. And the physical build quality is 90% of the way there, too. Aluminum case, similar keyboard, rubberized CF palm rest, etc. No complaints.

What made you realize that your Time Machine backups were getting corrupted? I've never seen that before and am curious to know if there's some kind of user notification.

The classic notification that "Time Machine must take a new backup". Usually that translates roughly to "Time Machine lost the plot and will now start from scratch, say bye to your old versions".

I haven't seen this one -- just when the backup disk is full and Time Machine says "this backup will erase backups before date x".

I've gotten it 3 or 4 times in the last 6-8 months. It makes a new backup from scratch which takes forever. Very annoying.

I use it for the times when I mess something up and want a file system level "undo" that goes back months.

I'd be happy if it just used spare space on the drive. Which it does, but only if you are also backing up to an external drive.

Time Machine lost the plot and will now start from scratch, say bye to your old versions

Except that Time Machine just creates one directory per backup and hardlinks unchanged files into the new backup (sometimes in a sparse bundle, but IIRC only on the Airport/Time Capsule). So, it's never 'goodbye old versions', since you can just browse Time Machine backups as a regular directory structure.

My wife had the damaged backup problem a couple of years/macOS versions back. But regardless, we could still browse old backups as normal directories.

I don't know about Time Machine specifically, but the first rule of backups is to always test your backups, so that may be how they found out.

Here's an informative link with a screenshot: http://pondini.org/TM/C13.html

Honestly, though, I still don't understand how Dell can have such a crappy website to sell their products. Just compare the laptop image here, http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstatio... , with the imagery at http://www.apple.com/macbook/ . On the Dell site you get a couple crappy, low res photos, where it's hard to tell how "robust" the laptop chassis is. On the Macbook site you get gorgeous, high res photos that give me a much better understanding of the overall look and feel of the product.

I mean, I understand that other companies will not have the same design focus as Apple, but isn't it pretty easy to at least standardize on "use high resolution photos"??

Looks like the 5510 has been succeeded by the 5520, which has a slightly better product page: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-15-5520-laptop/p...

Seriously. Dell's website is a tire fire. I have been on the cusp of buying an XPS-13 several times but the lack of usability and details during the configuration process is a big turn-off. For instance it took me a long time to figure out that the high-res screen is only accessible with a touch screen. Was also hard for me to see if the ssd was m2 and replaceable.

I love my Surface and I tend to love the MS ecosystem, but they (and others) don't get enough flak for reliability.

I have owned bunches of MS hardware, and only one device has made it through its life without needing warranty service. That includes my Zune 80, Xbox 360, Surface RT, a Nokia 920 (iirc), and a Surface 3 (which I will need to take in for service again after the semester ends).

More and more professors are switching to Surface devices, and students are, too. Unfortunately, just about every one I've seen has come with a story about hardware or driver issues. On top of that, the relative abundance of bugs in Office and Windows 10 lately isn't a good look.

While macOS has gotten worse over the last few releases, they're still nowhere near as bad as the Surface hardware in terms of reliability. It makes me sad, because I really love the devices but I just can't count on them to work 100%. 95% isn't good enough for a device that I use every day for hours per day; Apple seems to get that with their MBPs, and it seems the other manufacturers (notably Dell) are catching on.

I used to replace my Windows laptops around every two years because something broke or they just got painfully slow. My MB 13 now is now almost 3 years old still going strong. Everything works, I never had to reinstall the OS and it still looks great.

So for me a Macbook is still the better option. I would agree, however, that Apple has lost interested in moving the platform forward so I am not sure what I'll do once my MBP breaks down. I would like to see a touchscreen for example. The touchbar seems pretty half assed. We have SP3 at work and they have a lot of little issues so I doubt they will last very long.

Just as a counterpoint, I've kept my current window laptop for almost four years. My last was also kept for four years and I was still using it years after as a backup until just recently when the charger broke. That was seven years after purchase. The laptop itself still works and I could probably replace the charger if I cared to.

I never understand this. Why would a machine get painfully slow after a few years of use? Do you install rubbish on it? Do you not take care to ensure that everything in your process task list makes sense? Do you look to see what's gobbling up CPU, memory or startup time?

I have had Windows machines for decades and never reach a state where the machine is slow or that it slows down since installation. The only thing to cause that is running endless taskbar apps or background services.

What are you doing to make it slow?

I have to install/uninstall a lot of software during development. Maybe the uninstall isn't complete, who knows? Most people I know reinstall Windows once a year from scratch.

I have been all in on the Surface line for a bit now. And have not really had and reliability issues.

Bought the Pro 3 for portability with school, instead of carrying around a massive old gaming laptop. And it was amazing, with the only drawback being the type cover not being the greatest in the world. Now this one did have a hardware issue after it was dropped, but that is not on MS. It got replaced by a Pro 4 for my wife to use at school, which she loves. One Note with a touch screen is beyond compare for note taking in class.

For work, I convinced them to buy me a Surface Book, and with WSL I have full access to a Unix environment for development. It meets all of my needs. A few other people followed suit on this as well, and have all enjoyed it.

I am moving jobs, and my new company offered me a new laptop, and continued to go with the Surface Book, and not the Macbook Pro. It just beats it for all of my needs. I can do all of the Unix development I need, as well as a touch screen, and a larger hard drive. All for the same price. Not to mention not being a fan of the latest keyboard the Macs have.

I really believe the Surface line with WSL on it, especially after this creators update, is a completely viable platform for development. And do encourage others to check it out.

Link to actual ratings: http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/laptop-brand-ratings

If I'm reading this right, it seems that the results are from a survey of the Laptop Mag editorial staff, which is a little disappointing. I'm much more interested in seeing some third-party consumer data – very curious to hear how Joe Public's opinion of the current lineup compares to the tech industry's.

Agreed. The description of why Lenovo is suddenly "#1" seems fairly arbitrary and subjective.

I think it's still relevant, because Apple has historically had great mindshare amongst thought leaders — now that it appears to have lost it, it's only a matter of time before it starts to lose mindshare amongst normal folks.

A non-technical acquaintance who occasionally asks me for computer help recently switched from Android to iOS (at the behest of her daughter, indicating Apple's continuing mindshare amongst at least one segment), and she utterly hates it compared to Android. From what I can tell, it's not solely because of the pain of changing — it's also that iOS simply isn't as pleasant to use. And that says something, given that she was using a fairly terrible vendor Android previously.

That's just one anecdote, but I wonder how many others there are. How many vi-users will seriously consider switching to Windows or Linux? How many power users will have to switch to Windows or Linux just for more RAM? At what point do people who used to be proud Apple fanatics become sheepish, and at what point do sheepish Apple users just switch to something else already?

And I know as many people who went in the opposite direction, love iOS and love the integration with their Macs (hand-off, etc.). An anecdote is just an anecdote.

At what point do people who used to be proud Apple fanatics become sheepish, and at what point do sheepish Apple users just switch to something else already?

Until 'something else' offers: good retina support (including mixing retina and non-retina displays), hardware that works out of the box, long battery life as stated by the manufacturer [1], no spying on user behavior, proper GUI and application sandboxing, low weight, uniform application look & feel + shortcuts, etc.

(I use Linux and Mac, switched from 3 years of Android back to iOS. So hardly a purist ;).)

[1] http://www.which.co.uk/news/2017/03/which-laptop-battery-tes...

You know what happens in nature when you don't adapt quick enough to change...

Joe Public isn't using expensive Apple laptops. They want a $500 laptop that does the job.

In any case, the editorial staff are much more capable of comparing laptops, since they not only use a wide variety of laptops, they are also likely to be more savvy than the regular public when it comes to newer features. I'm not sure what you intend to find after asking people who only have experience across a few brands and a few models.

Joe Public doesn't even use a laptop, they use a phone now.

Well Joe Corporate uses the platform his PC department supports and can easily push updates/etc too. Still pretty most home users have the old standard box with monitor, I wonder where in the age ranges that the transition occurs of if you start on a laptop because of school you stick with that form?

Apple has figured this out too. They use the phone (iPhone) for 90% of their informational access needs, but still need a laptop to do more extensive work.

Now, however, instead of having multiple PCs, Joe Public needs one, and preferably one that lasts years. Enter Apple's high-end pitch.

The high resale value is both indicative of the value ascribed as well as a nice perk for buyers.

> Joe Public isn't using expensive Apple laptops. They want a $500 laptop that does the job.

This probably depends a lot on how you define what Joe Public looks like, but I think you're seriously underestimating the yeoman's effort Apple has put in to become an aspirational brand. Lots of people may make do with a $500 laptop, but lots of them want a Mac.

For better or worse, Apple is as much a lifestyle brand as a technology company today.

Then that's great for Apple and their shareholders. I don't begrudge their success. But as a consumer, I don't want to line Apple's pockets, I'd rather keep the money in my own pocket.

For the lazy and/or mobile... "Lenovo, Asus, Dell, and HP. Acer tied Apple for fifth place."

That's really not the same thing as the title suggests. Sheesh, thank you for the tldr

The title is pretty accurate. What GP didn't include is that Apple was #1 for the previous 4 years.

Lenovo has the best laptops? Is spyware a good thing now?

IIRC, the Thinkpad line was not affected, and wasn't it a external partner that planted the rootkit?

Even if so, it reflects poorly on Lenovo.

> the Thinkpad line was not affected

Correct.

> wasn't it a external partner that planted the rootkit?

Nope. The first time it was 3rd party software, Superfish, but Lenovo installed it and installed a self-signing root certificate authority to MITM the traffic[0]. The second time it was Lenovo's own software, Lenovo Service Engine, which they also installed themselves[1].

[0]: http://www.zdnet.com/article/superfish-stop-using-your-lenov...

[1]: http://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-rootkit-ensured-its-soft...

I read that too. Lenovo the top spot? Aaaand we are done here. I am not going to trust any "review"/"ranking" system that doesn't put Lenovo dead last. They were caught 2 times preloading spyware/malware on their machines.

Someone recently gifted me a ThinkPad. It is hands down the most awesomely satisfying piece of computing equipment I have ever owned.

Of course, I wouldn't dream of running this or any other real computer with a pre-installed OS.

If only thinkpads had non-rubbish screens and touchpads. Actually, I could probably learn to use the nub, whatever. Just give me reasonable screens on something under 2000 USD.

Doesn't matter if you re-install the OS. They spyware was baked into the BIOS.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/12/lenovo_firmware_nas...

I do not reinstall "the OS".

One charm of this ThinkPad is it works superbly with some Arch Linux on it.

>I do not reinstall "the OS".

>it works superbly with some Arch Linux on it.

These 2 statements contradict each other. Either you reinstall the OS (OK maybe you didn't technically REinstall, but most people would call installing a different OS "reinstalling the OS") or you still running the default OS.

Installing a different OS is not 'reinstalling'

The BIOS thing was specifically targeted at Windows installations, a thing I havn't bothered with since the previous millenium.

Really? Which one? I've used the T450, one of the W series ones and an X1 Carbon, and neither of them were very satisfying

It says T440p on the cover.

I am clearly not representative of anything. I was given a MacBook at work once, and forced to use it. I hated that shitmachine with a passion.

Oh, wow; why?

Dell shiped laptops with custom root certificate that had private key available.

Is this a real survey or just a random survey by the staff of some website? If so odd this is trending on HN. Otherwise where is the actual data and the number of people who actually made this ratings, the questions they were asked to see how statistically valid the results are.

Any survey where Lenovo is at #1 should be taken with a grain of salt.

Sorry, this is too generous; it must be taken with a huge truckload of salt. No way in hell would I equate a company who isn't able to maintain a functioning website with any sort of competency.

Now more than ever, would be the time to launch a new Unix based Operating System and hardware startup since Apple is so weak, especially with a focus on developers. Imagine a commercially supported laptop line running Linux or FreeBSD.... one can dream

The problem is that Linux and it's ecosystem are completely fragmented. Say that you deliver the laptop with your own Linux distribution. People still expect that you support dozens of other distributions, desktop environments, etc. Providing support will probably blow away the relatively thin margins that most manufacturers have to work with.

The only company well-positioned to take marketshare from macOS is Windows. They are doing extremely nice work with Windows Subsystem for Linux, which is quickly moving closer towards providing enough of Linux to be productive. At the same time, Windows provides good driver support for recent hardware, applications such as the Adobe Suit, etc.

Unfortunately Microsoft has to screw up with telemetry, etc.

http://slimbook.es/

wow that's pretty awesome actually!

Sales said different: http://fortune.com/2016/11/09/apple-macbook-pro-sales/

And performance: http://www.computerworld.com/article/3136714/data-storage/ap...

I have the 2016 15" MBP and it's a solid machine. The Touch Bar is also surprisingly pleasant once you get used to it and customize it a little.

Dell at 3rd and HP at 4th. Pretty sure whoever they surveyed doesn't use laptops.

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