Hacker News Reader

Comment by Locke1689 | Hacker News Reader

- A small point, but I think the comparison between a MacBook Pro an a Lenovo is a bit odd. ThinkPads are not far off from Apple in terms of build quality and are certainly more durable.

You're going to have to justify that. A case made out of a solid piece of aluminum is about as durable as I can think of in consumer-level products. I beat the crap out of my MBP and it doesn't have so much as a scratch on it.

View on HN

Yeah, but the Thinkpads are even stronger. You can dump a glass of water on the keyboard and it keeps working, because all the liquid is routed through special drainage holes. You can drive a car over the screen because they put reinforcements (magnesium, I believe) in just the right places. 100% Al is limiting -- you can't use a stronger-but-heavier material anywhere.

They're also hard to take apart. Changing a dead hard drive is a 1 minute operation with a Thinkpad. With a Macbook... well, you can't even change the battery anymore...

A bunch of screws, but not overly difficult: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook-Pro-17-Inch-Unibody-T...

Yeah, I've been in and out of the modern MBP for RAM and HDD upgrades inside of three minutes. Very thoughtful design, especially for a notebook.

The newer laptops are a lot easier, and they reflect it by labeling the HD as user-serviceable without voiding the warranty.

Meanwhile, I have this: http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-MacBook-Pro-15...

Which definitely qualifies as a PITA. Easy enough for me, though, as I've had far nastier, also from Apple (12" Powerbook): http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Installing-PowerBook-G4-A... (they don't have a HD guide, but that's all the screws). And all those screws are different sizes (or close enough).

Old Thinkpads used to be awful as well though. Changing the keyboard on a 380D required burrowing in from the back :(

Very cool. I wish their touchpads didn't suck so much, though.

Embrace the trackpoint!

http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/24/74521/

Cool, hadn't seen that. Not sure why people were downvoting you -- I asked for a source and you gave one.

The sony vaio z series also has a lot of things that i wish apple would imitate, like being the same weight as a macbook air (3 pounds), yet having better battery life a significantly better i7 processor, dual ssds, 1080p screen, 13" screen factor and still has a replaceable battery, very essential for travellers. If OSX was native on a vaio z, that would be my laptop of choice.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com