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Comment by stanleydrew | Hacker News Reader

Some of us run Linux on our MacBooks.

I'm kind of indifferent to OS X but the Mac laptop hardware is so nice, particularly the trackpad, that I'm likely to stay an Apple customer for the foreseeable future.

<rant> Am I the only one hating especially the trackpad? I feel like it has much lower relative spatial resolution, i.e. if you set the maximum cursor speed you still have to make long motions, and the precision for some reason is far from pixel perfect.

And pixel-perfect pointing is something to be desired with those ubiquitious small controls in OSX.

In discussions like this, where serious hackers praise OSX over Windows, I feel like I have some strange disease that makes me prefer my old Toshiba U500 over new MacBook Pro sitting on my shelf. (Really want the MacBook Air but feel like I'd hate it too) </rant>

Serious hackers use the keyboard.

(Awesome WM, vim and vimium on chrome).

Joking aside, I've never found any trackpad Apple or otherwise that I could use as efficiently for pointing and clicking as even a cheap-o mouse. But gestures and scrolling are so smooth and so useful on OS X that I keep one around (even when I'm at my desk - I now keep a mouse to the right and a trackpad to the left).

It is clearly the best of both worlds.

Aren't the macbooks over-priced ? Personally I'd rather buy a laptop and a tablet (something like the transformer) rather than get something that costs twice as much or offers lower return on hardware for the same price.

Disclaimer: I am from a parallel programming background, so I am biased towards performance rather than form factor or battery life.

> Aren't the macbooks over-priced ?

No? I mean is a Panasonic Toughbook C1 "overpriced"? It'll always depend on what you value and what your qualitative and quantitative metrics are.

The last one I bought (a 13" about 18 months ago) wasn't. Yes, you could buy a Windows laptop from Dell or HP or someone for half the price, but it would have less than half the battery life, it would be larger (albeit probably not heavier; Macbooks are the densest laptops I've found) and it would have a plastic shell instead of aluminium which feels worse when new and won't age well. It would also come laden with crapware, which isn't an issue for me since I've put Linux on it anyway, but it is a big deal for most people - the majority of machines I see running badly these days are doing it because of software, not hardware.

I guess if you're coming from the perspective of maximum CPU performance per $ being the key metric, then they probably aren't a great deal, but for most people that's not really the most important thing any more.

Dell 15z: $1200 http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-15z/pd.aspx?~ck=mn

Macbook Pro: $2100 (Battery life 7hr) http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macboo...

15z review. Battery life: 7.5hr. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4711/dell-xps-15z-sincerely-fl...

Just saying. Used the 15z for comparison, because I think it is closest in terms of form factor.

If you are going to use linux anyway, why waste the extra $900 to buy an OS you dont use.

I like to consider the total cost of ownership when purchasing a piece of hardware, which is hard to quantify and sometimes a touchy and subjective topic but I have found Apple Computers/Laptops to substantially outlast anything from Dell or HP. I would lay down 2K for an Apple and never quibble (that much) but I would never do that for any other brand (I have just had lots of very bad and costly experiences with them....Dell in particular)

Fair shout. Like I said, I bought my last laptop 18 months ago and back then I didn't think Dell had any good options; admittedly their website is a maze of twisty laptop models and brands and price points which I may well have missed something good in. Amusingly in this case I can't see any picture of their laptop and when I leave the tab via ctrl+shift+tab it pops something up saying '9'. Very professional.

I would also observe that I'm wasting money on an operating system I don't really want on the Dell as well, although it would likely be somewhat more useful to me than OSX.

I guess that it does look like a really nice machine. I think it says something though about Dell's image as a company that I find it hard to believe they've genuinely created something that good at this point (and yes, I have owned Dell machines before; that's part of why). I guess I should probably cut them some slack...

I don't think you can get anything with an equal display at the same price point as a macbook pro.

What metric are you using when you say equal display ? I have two laptops that display at 1080p (no, not an external monitor, just the laptop displays themselves).

Resolution, colors.

Well I did mention two laptops 1080p (1920 x 1080) with a color depth of 24. Both bought for around $1200, with substantially better hardware than what apple offers.

But what about the battery life under linux? Have you experienced any kind of problems with that?

I'd be interested to know this as well - are you experiencing decent batt life dual booting into Linux on your macbooks/airs?

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