Comment by satysin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by satysin | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

On the flip side I switched from a Dell (XPS 15 9570) to a MacBook Pro 2018 15" last August after multiple issues with the Dell.

I've not had a single issue with the MacBook Pro yet. Not a single crash/kernel panic, no keyboard issues, no T2 or TouchBar issues. I open the laptop in the morning and it wakes from sleep and works all day. I almost only ever reboot it for system updates that require it so usually every 4-6 weeks.

I'm not super keen on the keyboard but it honestly isn't horrible to type on. I do worry about reliability though. However I am at almost 300 days of zero problems where I had issues with my XPS out of the box that seems are still not fixed having looked at /r/Dell on reddit recently. Shocking that Dell have taken close to a year and things like speaker pops are not resolved.

I also had a ThinkPad but sadly Lenovos quality control isn't what it used to be and the two units I received had hardware defects. And with modern ThinkPads being less serviceable (the new T series has soldered RAM, CPU and WiFi?!) I can see even Lenovo starting to go the Apple way with soldered storage within two years.

Also while I do no deny Apple screwed up with the butterfly keyboard I do feel all the attention being on Apple is a little unfair and can lead people to think Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft are much more reliable which just isn't true in my experience. In the past few years Microsoft's Surface line has without question been the worst laptop experience I have ever had with software and hardware issues not to mention even less repairability than Apple laptops!

The attention on Apple really isn't unfair when you a) compare their 2016+ machines to their 2015 ones, and b) dig a little deeper into some of the design flaws of the machines beyond the keyboard.

For example:

* The trackpad on 2016+ models is too large for many users who experience palm rejection issues. * The display cable on 2016 and 2017 machines was too short, and is now starting to cause the issue known as "flexgate". It's almost a given that with enough use, every one of these machines will suffer this failure. To make matters worse, unlike the 2015 machines where the display cable could be replaced on its own, the entire display assembly is glued together on 2016+ machines and has to be replaced as a whole unit. * Stupid electrical decisions such as putting pins for high voltage backlight power and low voltage data signalling right next to eachother mean that there's a good chance the machine will fry itself if it gets at all humid inside (most machines do at some stage, especially if used on a lap). Most other notebooks do not do this and are much more durable in this regard. * The storage being soldered is fucking braindead. Apart from being planned obsolescence due to NAND flash's finite lifespan and macOS's increasing hunger for storage space, data recovery is not possible without a proprietary system to connect to a lifeboat port on 2016-2017 machines. 2018 machines have no such port and at this stage, there is no known way to recover data from working flash chips on a dead logic board without board-level repair.

Apple made far better computers in 2015. The competition also being shit doesn't excuse Apple's regressions.

> Apple made far better computers in 2015. The competition also being shit doesn't excuse Apple's regressions.

Totally agree with you there.

My opinion on it being "unfair" on Apple is more to do with the fact that such things are not unique to Apple yet they are the only ones who get pulled up in the tech and even media.

I had two Surface devices from Microsoft; a Surface Book 2 and a Surface Laptop and both were pieces of crap yet cost the same (or there abouts) as an Apple laptop. Sure I see people complain about it here and there but no way near the level you see complaints about Apple products.

One area that bugs me quite a bit is YouTube and tech website "reviewers" such as The Verge et al. Right out the gate the 2018 15" model was ripped apart for the thermal throttling (and it should have been, it was a problem that Apple mostly fixed within a week to be fair) but the same people never mention the same or worse throttling from an XPS or Surface. Or any other long term issues those product lines have had and never been properly addressed. The XPS 15 coil whine, DPC latency, colour saturation issues, speaker crackle, squeaky spacebar, etc. All have been issues on the XPS 15 for several revisions and Dell have still hardly even acknowledged such problems.

So while I think Apple did fuck up with several design decisions on the current MBP I feel it is only fair to point out that the alternatives people often recommend come with their own set of issues as well. My Surface Laptop had a fan issue after just two days. The solution? Total unit replacement because the whole thing is glued together and you can't open it without damaging the alcantara keyboard fabric! So that meant a full system backup and restore which brought along another issue as the machine had been upgraded to Windows 10 Pro via the Windows Store but that is locked to the motherboard and ARRRRRRGH it was such a pain in the ass.

The sad truth is Dell, Apple, Lenovo, Microsoft, Asus, etc. all make shitty hardware decisions in the name of appearance and/or thinness. It sucks but it is reality. I just wish people would bitch about Dell, etc. as much as they do Apple. Maybe then they would fix things rather than deflect to Apple for being "worse" (which is false but believed to be true because of reporting).

I generally agree.

I've also defended Apple a lot in the past for usually "getting most things right" where other manufacturers just don't. And you're right, they deserve to be cut down for stupid solved-problems-a-decade-ago like coil whine and rattling fans.

My viewpoint comes from expecting better from Apple because they've been better in the past, and only have a small number of SKUs to deal with. 2006-2012 saw Apple introduce new generations that solved problems and almost unilaterally improved upon their predecessors. They made a few hiccups (such as 2008's glass displays), and 2009's non-removable batteries, but they were reasonable well-thought compromises. Apart from serviceability, the 2012-2015 Retina era did the same.

On the other hand, Dell/Lenovo/HP etc vomit product lines all over the place and have done for as long as I can remember. Seldom do they keep the same basic chassis for more than 2 releases, and even when they do they don't seem to learn lessons and iterate to improve.

In saying that, comparing 2019 XPS, Latitude, Inspiron, and ThinkPads to their 2012 counterparts show marked improvement in many aspects, and few regressions. I guess that's a sorry indictment of PC notebooks at the start of the decade more than anything else...

I guess you could call that unfair on Apple, but then you look at the price they ask for their machines and quickly forget about fairness...

This is EXACTLY what I think. While I hate the lack of reliability in the latest macbooks, I would say that the other manufacters are not doing anything better at all. The XPS 15 is full of issues and Dell doesn't even acknowledge them, the XPS 13 has basically everything soldered on apart from the SSD and the Thinkpad is going that way as well (just look at the latest X1 carbon and T490s). The Surface devices are just as expensive as the macbooks and just as impossible to repair. I won't even consider Asus/Acer because in my opinion they simply put junk conponents (with junk drivers) in their products and they're not reliable at all, even in the high price range. What's funny is that if you actually look at the thermal behaviour of thin and light laptops (go on notebookcheck.com), you'll notice that the MBP 15 is one of the best when compared to the XPS 15, X1 Extreme, Zenbook 15 Pro, etc., And yet everyone only complains about the mac. (Furthermore, I still find macOS superior to Windows 10, even if I'm a long time Windows user, but that's about personal tastes.) Personally, I've just stoppped listening to journalists, youtubers or whatever, I just read the reviews and look at the graphs on notebookcheck.com and search for potential issues on reddit/other speficis forums.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com