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Comment by asah | Hacker News Reader

For laptops, I have a more basic problem: Mac hardware continues to win (M1 air):

- screen resolution: Retina display vs PC laptops offering half the resolution.

- price: Macs are running USD$1000-1500 while comparable PCs are $2K+

- the rest just works: speed, battery life, USB-C, reliability, brightness, etc.

For development, I run Docker for environmental isolation & portability anyway so there isn't a lot of benefit to switching.

For daily driving, various browsers all work fine (I don't use Safari). Airplay and Chrome Cast both work fine.

I don't play desktop games.

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Eh, a recent Ryzen laptop with a 2K display will run you less than $500 on Ebay. You won't get Macbook Air battery life, but you're also not spending Macbook Air money. Plus, you could run Docker without bumping your ambient temps up by 5-10c.

Mac hardware is certainly competitive again, but you couldn't pay me a living wage to daily-drive MacOS for development. Given the circumstances, I think the appeal of Mac hardware will depend on the appeal of Mac software for most users.

Intel Macbooks, absolutely: the fan will be on, make sure your room has adequate ventilation. But I've been developing on an M1 Macbook Pro for a few months now. Heavy Docker use, all still AMD64 images so heavily relying on qemu. I'm looking forward to all the pieces lining up to let me use Rosetta inside Docker. I always have what many would consider "too much" running, between Firefox, Docker, JetBrains IDEs, Office, Slack.

I've yet to hear the fan.

How does it compare to a Ryzen laptop?

How does it compare to WHICH Ryzen laptop?

It’s a meaningless question without that. There’s so many options. Each with their own manufacturer characteristics.

Comparing an M1 to an Intel Mac is easier because there were so few SKUs of each. Comparing against a sea of alternatives requires more precision.

Any of them? I'm talking about CPU performance, since we've already hashed over hardware. Plus, this wasn't really a question directed at you; I'm generally curious if the parent has tried a Ryzen laptop in the past half-decade.

I should have been clearer that I was only talking to your comment that the Mac would "raise the ambient temperature", sorry -- I've not tried a Ryzen, my personal Linux laptop is a Haswell and is fine but won't win any awards for battery, speed, screen, or fan volume. It's really good at cooling though, the only laptop I've seen that makes one's knees cooler as CPU usage increases.

My previous work laptop was an Intel Mac space heater. Nice in winter, not so much in summer. Don't try putting it on your lap. My current work laptop is an M1, and is the one for which I have yet to hear the fan

I don’t have an M1 but my Ryzen notebook runs Linux and works great. Ryzen 7 5700U, pangolin model which doesn’t seem to be sold anymore..

It’s quite quiet, battery life is great (a minor miracle) and I’ve done some genetics processing in it and it’s quite fast (multi hour runs, 8 core fully loaded) where the fan spins up but is quite low volume. I think the power supply is only 45 watts.

But you just compromised on every single point they laid out. So it’s not really an alternative any more than a Fiat 500 is equivalent to a Cadillac Escalade.

Sure they both do the same basic task, and they both may be good options in isolation, but they’re not comparable as a whole, and only comparable if you focus on only specific metrics.

I've used Mac hardware though, I know what it does and where it's strong points are. The new Macbook designs are really good, arguably a return to the pre-2015 years when Mac laptops weren't designed with eggshells and fairy teeth. That being said, you can get 80% of the experience for 50% of the price these days. Laptop manufacturers are simply catching up, the gap isn't as wide as it used to be.

But again, your options compromise on what the person states they want.

What might be “80% of the experience” to you , may be a great reduction for them.

Take your previous comment, you already compromised on screen resolution (the Air is higher than 2k - depending especially on what ambiguous definition of 2k is being used , it’s slightly higher than QuadHD and quite a bit higher than 1080p), and battery life. Both of those are things they stated as important to them.

Macbooks are at least $500-1k more expensive than any equivalent PC laptop. For $1k you're only looking at a M1 Macbook Air with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage.

Screen resolution is great on Macbooks, but also great on certain PC models as well, you just need to do your research and buy a good one.

I agree that Macbooks generally have superior battery life.

I have a LG Gram 17 with 17" screen, 32GB RAM, 1TB storage, and 12th gen i7 processor and paid $1,500 for it. A Macbook Pro with 16" screen, 32GB RAM, and 1TB storage starts at $3,500, 2.3x the price. So yea hard disagree on anyone claiming that Macbooks don't carry a significant price premium.

Fair enough - I'm comparing an m1 air which is actually been awesome for dev. I don't need 1TB and 16GB RAM is surprisingly fine, even for Docker + browsers

Brand new it's $1600 and $1000 on eBay:

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air/space-gray-ap...

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m...

I don't strictly need a TB of NVMe storage, but:

* I might in the next 5 years, which is at least how long I'd like a $1k+ system to last.

* I do like to download media, including movies. It adds up fast.

* I know for a fact that 1 TB of NVMe storage does not cost $400. Apple's storage pricing is downright offensive and harmful. These machines could last a lot longer if Apple didn't skimp on the storage as much.

I'll bite. You seem to be wrong. I use a 13" Huawei laptop from 2019 (I can't compare newer hardware):

- screen resolution is 4k (please correct me if that's not retina)

- price was $900-$1000 (apple products were double that price)

- everything just works in Linux except the fingerprint reader (I'll have to give you that)

thx! how's the CPU?

(separately, I won't touch Huawei on principle... but maybe there's other brands?)

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