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Comment by elorant | Hacker News Reader

Then buy a Linux laptop. Problem(s) solved.

I can't understand some of you guys. You pay 2k for a laptop which has a shitty keyboard and then you look for excuses to justify your decision. Sure, a lot of what you mention about Windows machines is true. But they're also preventable with work arounds. What kind of a work-around is there for the problem with MacPros keyboards?

I have a Toshiba laptop (Tecra Z40). Aside from the crap they install to make their tailor-made hardware to work everything else is stellar. The machine works for the last two years problem free, and it will probably keep working for another five. Don't make it sound like every non Apple laptop is crap because it isn't.

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I feel this comment is unnecessarily combative.

Setting aside security. I have owned laptops from every major brand. IBM ThinkPads, Toshibas, Lenevos, Dells, Macs and ASUS. So far, other than ASUS, I've run into more hardware issues with these laptops with fewer repair options available. They've also had bad battery lives compared to the Macs at the time.

I've bought laptops and flashed Linux on them. I've used Ubuntu since Hardy Heron. But none of the laptops worked as seamlessly and as well as my Macs. The touchpad wouldn't work. The WiFi would fail. Sometimes updates broke the machine if they worked at all. Printers weren't plug and play. A few times the system crashed because of a configuration error that was unintentional. All in all, it was a poor experience.

The difference in the experience is summed up by what happens when you open the box. A new Linux laptop would require an install, then hunting down the files, copying it over, doing updates, changing settings, changing the configuration etc etc. A new Mac is simple. I bring it home. Turn it on. It goes on my WiFi, finds my Time Machine and does the rest. I have perfect continuity from my old machine to the new. I have settings and programs here from 3 machines ago.

I like to use my computer to work rather than working on the computer.

Moreover, from a security perspective, I trust a company like Toshiba less. Mostly because the Toshiba comes with a ton of bloatware installed; https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&hl=en&ei=hsR8XZmLF... and you never know what they might install. As of writing, my Mac just doesn't.

>I like to use my computer to work rather than working on the computer.

This is why I’m willing to pay whatever Apple asks. As far as I can tell, they have done the most to earn my trust that they might not try to shove malware or ads on me. They have had a few missteps in the past, but all the other companies are so much worse.

Plus their customer service has been leagues better than everyone else...which isn’t hard since no one else has any stores I can go and get my problem fixed at.

When the touchpad on my daughter's a Yoga stopped working, I had a technician exchange it within a day at our home. I got the same 2-year service level for my Lenovo X390 for 50$ extra and it's worldwide. I think a Mac you have to bring to the Apple Store and leave it there.

Yeah, Apple's service is abysmal. The University Village Apple Store in Seattle wanted to hold onto my macbook air for a week to replace the battery because they didn't have one in stock. Why didn't they have one in stock? I had an appointment scheduled for them to replace the battery, so why wasn't the battery pre-ordered to be there on that date?

Their customer service is infamous for being an extreme ripoff, always pushing towards "buy a new device".

Most recently there was a cool video where a journalist went to the "genius bar", was told that repairing his MacBook's broken backlight would cost more than a new one ("we have to fix water damage" lol), then went to Rossman and got it fixed for free in a minute.

I feel this comment is unnecessarily combative.

If you took offense, I apologize. I didn't mean to insult you.

Hakuna matata

>A new Linux laptop would require an install, then...

No, that's a new Windows laptop that you're wiping and installing Linux on. You can buy laptops nowadays with Linux already installed and completely set up.

https://system76.com

https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-notebo...

I think you've hit the nail on the head. If a user isn't an idiot blindly following fashion (we know there are plenty who use Apple for "the looks" only). If they are a user who really loves Apple, it's really about the ease and smoothness of the services/ecosystem. The hardware can be crap priced twice as high as it should be at times, but the services are smooth and those who like them love them. I'm not a fan, but this is what I observe in the long-time Apple fans I know.

Agreed. My past several computers have been used from Craig's List, $500 for roughly $2,000 machines. Installing Mint has been flawless. Everything just works (Lenovo Carbon X1).

> Then buy a Linux laptop. Problem(s) solved.

I use Linux on the notebooks since around 2003. The problems are far from being solved, from my experience:

- There was constantly some piece of hardware that wasn't supported.

- There were constantly pieces of operating system and user space that were simply broken until a lot of manual work is applied.

- The brokenness increases with every update. At the start I didn't use LTS (I don't even remember if the LTS versions even existed for the distro I've used) -- it was a major pain. Six months go by, new upgrade, everything's broken. Search the internet, ask: "oh you upgrade an existing installation? It's not tested, you should installed blank and copied your data, we do that" -- oh thanks.

- The brokenness of power saving is amazingly persistent. Linux notebooks typically worked acceptable only when plugged in.

- Even worse, the brokenness of the possibility of playing the stutter free videos: https://xkcd.com/619/ I have still that problem (it was not only "flash" that was and is the problem!) and discovered that the "lighter" compositors that are advertised as supposedly needing less resources made even worse results. I still have computers that in 2019 with the latest Linuxes can't play videos normally, whereas on the same computer videos in Windows play perfectly.

In short, if you need a computer only for a very reduced set of tasks and are ready to spend the time "fixing" the remaining issues, Linux can work for you. But don't expect "problems solved."

On another side using Windows brings its own crazy pains: if you keep even the Windows provided "antivirus" solution on, even file copying can be orders of magnitude slower than what the machine would be able to do.

Plus the crapware. And the exposure to many more viruses trojans etc. Or even the ads built in in the OS.

So what's then left? Apple. Also not perfect, of course, but some problems are actually "solved" from the start. But using Apple computers brings its own issues and, of course, prices.

It's just the question which kinds of problems you want to be exposed to.

I personally can't stand not being able to reasonably easy replace a hard disk in my notebook. I don't even know what I can buy the next time.

This. When I buy a laptop I want to pay a big pile of money to ensure real people have tested my exact hardware with the OS and drivers I intend to use. It’s the most important feature of a laptop so I don’t mind that being a significant chunk of the price for only that.

When I buy a dell or Lenovo I expect crapware but I expect to be able to remove it by installing a clean OS on it.

> real people have tested my exact hardware with the OS and drivers I intend to use

> When I buy a dell or Lenovo

It's still nothing guaranteed with Linux distros, it's just that "mostly works" (for various definitions of "works") state is maintained: recently there was a quite big kernel bug delivered as a trivial update, which affected LTS version of Ubuntu, including Dells and many other brands, as soon as there was a second monitor attached to the machine. The recent Dell docks more didn't than did work for a while, it took many firmware updates to make them "mostly" working. But it still doesn't behave how it should. Etc.

Yes, I don't use desktop linux. When I spoke about dell/lenovo I only have experience with Windows. If I ever did buy a deskop linux machine I'd buy one of the preinstalled ones to ensure I wouldn't have to fight the tiny issues with multi-screen DPI, various sleep states etc. Those things are hard enough for manufacturers to get right in windows and Mac OS it seems.

> When I spoke about dell/lenovo I only have experience with Windows.

As far as I see, even with Dell, the modern hardware is too commonly untested and poorly developed or integrated with the OS, even with Windows: in my company I don't know anybody who uses built-in trackpads, as it's a common knowledge that they "don't work" but everybody carries the mouse around. I've tried to use the trackpad only to see it broken between different Windows versions (so very like Linux). The same story with the docks -- they seem to worked badly even on Windows.

The Dell puts their brand on the final product, but they just integrate whatever they can get at the moment. And even if you integrate Intel devices, they can remain in the software support limbo (happened to me with the Intel WiFi cards which remained unsupported and not working on Windows 10, even if Microsoft forced the upgrade as "everything works").

It's a sad state of the hardware - software integration. And knowing the Apple's problem with the keyboards, it seems that the only portable devices currently fully working "as they should" are the phones and tablets.

That's amazing. We used Dell Lattitides for years at my work with docks, with no problems. Now we have a bunch of Dell XPS 15 machines, with the new USB-C docks, and very few problems. No trackpad problems on Windows 10 at all. The only problems we have are related to software vendors who haven't updated their crap to scale properly on a high resolution monitor. A couple of times, a bad driver update, easily fixed by rolling it back.

> with the new USB-C docks, and very few problems.

I can also claim that I have "very few" problem with the thes docks, as long as I don't use them. After the initial (repeated) problem I've just learned not to hot plug anything in their USB ports, but only directly in the notebook (somehow hot plugging in the dock always results in the confusion of some level of OS -- no idea why). Then, they do work as the power supply and the monitor drivr... until you have to turn the computer off an on again. Then they still behave quite randomly. Sometimes they don't show the picture. Sometimes they block somewhere. Some strange "resets" happen even as the OS is fully booted and waits for my input. Note I keep the firmware updates to the latest version.

So yes, the users learned to say "it works" if they find any workaround that lets them do something without interruption, and then, "oh I never turn my computer off anyway" or "oh I never use the trackpad anyway, I use the mouse" etc. E.g. one of my colleagues typically keeps his setup turned on and plugged in without plugging in anything for at least a month, so he simply sees the problems less often. But when I do observe what happens when he plugs something or turns the computer on, the same story.

Yep, even with Dell you need to pick one of the good ones. That's perhaps one in 5 machines, even in the good ranges like the precisions/xps (mostly the same for a lot of models).

This wasn't the case with macbooks until recently, but now it is

I think it depends on how long you keep the laptop. If you get a new one every year then it's pretty insane to deal with new driver and software issues each time.

But if you keep the laptop for many years it might be the opposite. If you can work out the software issues given some time investment, and then have a computer you like using, it could be worth it. If the option that "just works" has a keyboard you hate, and you will be stuck with it for years, that seems a lot worse than one weekend wasted on driver issues or whatever.

I've used Linux off and on about as long as you and permanently since 2008 or so, I've never really had all these hardware problems I keep reading about over the years. I've had WiFi cards not work with certain distros, which changing to a different one has always fixed. I had issues with multiple displays years ago but that was with an actual CRT monitor hooked up to my laptop. I've had some minor issues getting obscure old gamepads to work on modern distros more recently but other than that everything's always worked pretty well whatever machines I've installed it on. Hell even my old TV tuner card that I could barely manage to make work with the software that came with it originally on xp on my old ass desktop from 1999, works well on Linux without hassle(not that I've used that thing for years now).

I agree back in the day, many features were lacking when it came to the desktop, but that hasn't been the case for years. Using the windows 7 computers at my work or the few times I've tried windows 10 feels like a massive step backwards from what I'm used to on my Linux computers. Everything always just works. Whatever hardware I plug in, even stuff I could never get working in windows, like my rp350 guitar pedal or my midi controller, just work. Music and audio recording on linux is just awesome, I could go on all day about how amazing Jack2 is compared to anything I ever used on windows.

I've only used Macs post os9 a few times, but I've never really liked them. They always felt limited and closed down. But, I don't know a lot about it so I can't say too much there.

External keyboards? LOL!

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