Hacker News Reader

Comment by mkhattab | Hacker News Reader

I'm conflicted about the price being in the range of MBPs and Dell competing with Apple, supposedly, based on quality and design. I think they would be much more competitive if they were to price this laptop significantly cheaper than MBPs without sacrificing too much quality. I think Dell has the resources to do this. It's difficult for me to ignore brand image and I guess this makes me a fan boy. Although, I really do want a decent Linux laptop. I will keep an eye on the XPS13 in case I make the switch.

View on HN

People consistently underestimate how much value an Apple notebook has. The reason they cost >$1000 is because of what's inside.

Dell doesn't have the resources to make a MacBook Air type computer in volume. Apple's bought the gear, invested heavily in the suppliers to get them up to speed, and starves competitors of the equipment and supplies needed to produce similar computers.

Secondly, Apple focuses on a handful of models and makes a lot of them. Dell tends to produce dozens if not hundreds of models and can't get the volume on any single one up to the level required to really slash costs on exotic manufacturing processes.

HP has tried on a few occasions to produce something close, but they never stick with it long enough to really gain the benefits of scale.

Thinkpads make rock solid GNU/Linux machines. I highly recommend the X220. It has some issues such as not being Coreboot compatible and needing nonfree firmware to drive the wireless chip. The former has no fix, but the latter can be fixed with a little hack and an Atheros chip.

As an X220 it's a very nice machine but it's no in the same realm as the XPS or the Air/rMBP.

It has a great keyboard and underlying hardware. But it's also stuck with a low-resolution screen with terrible viewing angles, and is also as thick as a brick. The touchpad also leaves a lot to be desired but it does have the TrackPoint which is great.

The X240 will supposedly have a 1080p IPS screen but I'm not sure what the holdup is.

Does the x240 have the same screen dimensions as the x230? If so I wonder if you can use it to upgrade the 230 panel.

Chassis is quite a bit different, so probably not.

I love x220, but they are far from perfect. Some serious glitches:

- Small & noisy fan - Awful trackpad (but awesome trackpoint) - Low resolution wide screen

I cannot understand why Lenovo is destroying the x2 series. Now they:

- Replaced the standard processor with a ULV one - Removed trackpoint buttons - Introduced island-style keys - Removed ThinkLight

They should have simply improved a bit the glitches i mentioned.

I love my X220 (work laptop). I use it as my main machine at work with the dock and two monitors. It is fast, responsive and very portable and the Intel graphics just work on Linux.

But I have a T410 at home and I am not very happy with it. The dock is unstable, it disconnects, USB dies. The stupid dock blocks the fan, and you do anything cpu intensive and it end shutting the system down because of temperature. The NVIDIA graphics never worked reliably with nouveau + dock + suspend (I have to use the binary driver).

And worse, it is an i7 (x220 is an i5) and it feels so slow compared to the x220.

Thinkpads seem to have taken a turn for the worse in the series after the x220. I should rephrase my recommendation to "older thinkpads". I don't know what I will use when my x220 is antiquated. I hope there's another hacker friendly laptop on par with it by that time.

I compared this to a Macbook Pro 13", which is the closest comparable hardware. It came out better in features and cost ($300 cheaper then a Macbook Pro with similar SSD and memory), and was thinner and lighter.

I wanted the Macbook Pro, but I didn't see the $300 difference in the Pro.

One difference: you can't legally develop for iOS with non-Apple hardware. Which is IMHO an extortion, but there you have it.

You should see what you have to do to develop for Nintendo hardware...

The Macbook has a better trackpad and the (legal) ability to run every major desktop OS.

That's worth $300 to me...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com