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Comment by mort96 | Hacker News Reader

Are you thinking about the 2016-2020 Mac hardware? The loud and hot machines with broken keyboards and a useless TouchBar and no IO can be described as terrible. But their recent machines? Powerful, always cold, never makes a noise, pretty good keyboard, industry-leading touch pad, decent IO? I don't think you can defend calling those machines terrible, even if you prefer ThinkPads.

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Yes, I can defend calling them terrible: they're terrible because they're ugly and the keyboards suck. The internals seem fantastic, but the outsides are awful (except the touchpads, and also the screens are reportedly excellent but I'm not sure if that qualifies as "internals" or "external").

What we need is a computer with the internals of a modern M1 Macbook, but the aesthetics and keyboard of a Thinkpad of yesteryear, plus a magnesium chassis.

I personally think they're good-looking, they diverge from Apple's traditional "ultra-sleek form over function" design style and enter the area of a somewhat industrial look IMO. They can be described as boring, but they're not exactly eye-sores. But this is clearly subjective. Personally, I don't buy computers based on looks, as long as they don't look like those gnarly "gaming"-branded products.

The keyboards though? I've had a range of laptops, some Dells, some HPs, a 2021 MacBook Pro and a 2011 MacBook Pro, I would simply describe the keyboard as "meh". Most of the laptops O've had have been slightly less comfortable to type on, but they've all essentially done the job (with the exception of one Dell which had a truly terrible keyboard).

No offence, but it looks like you feel the need to describe everything as either "terrible" or "amazing", the keyboards can't just be "not as good as they should", they have to "suck", the externals can't just be "boring", they have to be "awful". I think there's a version of what you're saying which people would agree with (or at least find unobjectionable), but as it is, nobody will agree with you that an objectively average laptop keyboard "sucks" or that an aesthetic lots of (most?) people like is "ugly".

You are entitled to your opinion, but many people like how the macbooks look like. They also like the keyboard.

Many people also dislike how ThinkPads look like, and dislike how the keyboard works.

I hate Lenovo keyboards. Too spongy, and key presses often don't register.

Was that a Thinkpad keyboard, though? It's a different category. Though they have declined over the years as they went to shallower keys.

P14s and X1, sorry, should have included that.

“Ugly” and “suck” are highly subjective and depend on people’s personal tastes. You could say that MacBooks are terrible for upgradeability but “keyboards suck” is pretty generic.

Older MacBooks did have issues but Apple generally delivered on what most mac users wanted.

I guess ThinkPads are pretty in the same way an old Quattro or Golf are, generously, but to me it's a real reach to call them prettier.

With the exception of the notch I think they are in top end of good looking laptops. The ThinkPad Z13 beats it in terms if aesthetics. But still. The new style is miles and miles superior to the all to common wedge shape.

What do you mean “reportedly”?

Do they still ground through the user like the intel models?

This is fixed with using a power cable on the charger block instead of the bunny-ears adapter. Apple removing the power cord in favour of only including the bunny-ears adapter was such a mistake

It doesn't help that the power cord extension they used to ship (and can still buy for $20) flat out refused to be coiled in any sort of way. Even a large loop would spring back straight immediately. Absolutely awful experience. I kept my old power cord extension from my MagSafe 1 charger from 2009 for this very reason.

Apparently they still do [1], even though I have an M1 and never experienced any of the "micro vibrations" that I had on the old Intel Macs.

[1]: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macbook-pro-m1-max-almo...

Oh, I finally have something of value to add to a HN thread!

I was always bothered by this and managed to fix it a few months ago. I had grounded my power-plug-box to the central heating system with some copper (don’t ask), but was wondering why I still got those vibrations whenever I was charging the MacBook.

Turns out, charging through just the monitor (via Thunderbolt) solved this: the monitor was grounded. The default MacBook charger (EU) plug just has just two prongs; a third one for grounding exists, but has to be attached separately.

Edit: indeed, this was on a 14” 2021 MBP. They definitely still get the vibrations when connected to a power source without grounding.

Yup, and you feel static charge when it's plugged in, too.

Actually my 2019 13" is still pretty good, but the new 16" M1 pro, though huge, puts it to shame in all of those dimensions.

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