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Comment by fio_ini | Hacker News Reader

It says 14 hour battery life but how can anyone tell about future longevity? I usually find any other laptop than a macbook has poor long term life. For example I have my macbook (this isn't a pro Apple post but they have damn good battery life and power efficiency) that lasts 10 or more hours after 3-4 years and then a Dell precision 5540 that lasts 10 minutes after 1 year. These aren't exact figures but you get the picture. Is there somehow to calculate this comparison/benchmark against multiple workbooks with different hardware and claims with all the usage aside. Don't say "well if you use it more and has more apps open..." or "the operating system uses blah blah blah" just hardware specific benchmark agnostic of apps and os, etc.

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Dell are horrid, everything about their laptops is disappointing. Everything about the way they refuse to stand behind their appalling quality is culpable. I will never buy a Dell laptop again.

Replaced my precision with a second-hand thinkpad t480s. 3 years old. Haven't replaced the battery it arrived with. Recent popular distro. I get 10 hours of battery life doing programming. Webbrowser open with 20+ tabs, multiple terminals, signal, rhythmbox.

Cost USD$410. Tough to beat that at any price. Maybe a new one with an AMD under the hood? I can get 3+ of these for the same money and is it really actually better? Dell was more money and a lot worse, you see a lot of people with that experience around here.

My 3-4 year old Macbooks definitely don't last anywhere near their original battery life, and I've had plenty of MacBook batteries fail in the way of turning off under 50% battery when under heavy load. Not to mention swelling up.

actually speaking of apple... bc I didn't really want to get into this whole debate.. but at this price point why wouldn't you just buy a macbook air m2.

Macs are not comparable to a full Linux system.

Also, when the battery dies, you can replace it easily. Any modern laptop is still going to have battery degradation. This is a much better investment for those that can't afford to replace laptops every 3-4 years.

As someone (myself) that uses linux almost exclusively, what is that supposed to mean "that it's not comparable?" It's 100% comparable. And if you ask me ubuntu gnome desktop is starting to look exactly like a mac ui. Another comparison is that there's no support for my "full Linux system" when shit hits the fan and the OS deadlocks except for myself. Linux has 100% bricked on me after upgrades/updates. Anyway overall I 100% love my ubuntu and centos systems. 5/5 would recommend.

Just because both Mac and Linux are "unix based" with terminals doesn't mean that they allow for the same use cases. The OS are structured very differently.

Linux is core os on top of which you can use a UI of your choosing. If you have something like Ubuntu server installed with just a terminal interface, that system will most likely never lock up from user input unless all the stuff in the background becomes resource constrained.

MacOS has the UI, the kernel, and the programs all tightly coupled together to where you have zero choice on a lot of things in the OS.

> you can replace it easily.

Especially with System76. They all have instruction manuals available: https://tech-docs.system76.com/models/lemp11/repairs.html

> you can replace it easily

I actually followed the link and went to the battery section..

"Tools required: Cross-head (Phillips) screwdriver"

"Time estimate: 30 minutes"

"Difficulty: High (red)"

High/Hard == easy

If you read it, it sounds easy. The "easy" things in their categorization are things like removing the bottom cover. If you're not comfortable doing it, I believe you can ship it to them and have them do it. (If you have questions about these things, I highly recommend asking them.)

Sure, it's not as easy as an external battery, but I've not seen those in a long, long time. But you also don't need specialist tools nor a 35kg custom kit to replace it (https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/21/23079058/apple-self-servi...). And you definitely don't _have_ to send it to them to get it changed.

For contrast, here's Apple's page on how to replace their batteries: https://www.apple.com/batteries/service-and-recycling/

> Macs are not comparable to a full Linux system.

What does that mean? I've run Linux on all the MacBooks I've owned. I just ordered an M2 Air with the intention of using it primarily as a Linux laptop.

To be fair, it'll probably be a lot easier to replace the battery on that dell (and the system76, I imagine?) than on the Macbook. That evens things out even if the battery doesn't last.

Yeah sure that's a good point for someone who wants to keep doing IT support on their laptop and replacing batteries and other failing parts

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