24 ms·

My main computer is a five year old 17" MBP. I've upgraded it to the max and done repairs to maintain it. I need the computational power - I use it for programm

by beat 10y ago

My main computer is a five year old 17" MBP. I've upgraded it to the max and done repairs to maintain it. I need the computational power - I use it for programming, photo editing at scale, and recording/mixing music. It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful, has a smaller screen and less I/O functionality, and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I daisy-chain multiple adapters to get Firewire. Fuck that, as long as possible. This week, my mother's crappy Windows computer died, and I bought her a Chromebook. It was great! I'm now seriously considering getting a Chromebook for myself for day-to-day web browsing and such, and retiring the MBP to music and photos only. If I can figure out how to run Vagrant on one, I'll probably switch for development, too (or maybe I'll just start paying for a cloud-based dev environment). Meanwhile, I keep having computer envy for a friend's MS Surface Pro. It's the first time I've ever looked longingly from a MacBook to a Windows machine! But frankly, it does things my Mac doesn't do, and the build quality is on par. Someone please tell Apple than when you need to hold a press conference to convince people you're committed to your product, you're not committed to your product.

superninja234 10y ago
I honestly doubt it would cost $3000 to replace your 5 year old macbook.
- mozumder 10y ago
  I also have the same type of maxed-out 2011 17" MacBook Pro. The replacement for that I am looking at costs $3500-$4200.
  - kobeya 10y ago
    Sorry that's just not possible. There are gamer targeted systems that are better specs than anything apple ever made (even after market upgrades) in the sun $2k range.
    - _ph_ 10y ago
      The problem is, they don't run macOS. And if your whole work-environment is centered around macOS, it is not an easy choice to leave that behind, and consequently, hardware upgrades don't come cheap.
      - kobeya 10y ago
        Sure but that's a different point.
        _ph_ 10y ago
        No, if he wants to be a replacement, one has to assume he wants to be compatible and keep using the applications he currently uses. Any non-Mac system might be an "alternative" but not a "replacement".
        jamespo 10y ago
        $2k buys a lot of applications
        _ph_ 10y ago
        The problem is with changing the software environment. Most applications are not available on all operation systems. So your hunt starts for solutions where the application is not available on other operation systems.
        bholzer 10y ago
        But it won't buy the magical ability for a built PC to run macOS. I don't care about the applications, I care about the underlying OS
        beat 10y ago
        It's not just applications, it's time. I'm in the middle of producing a 17 song concept album. If I switch platforms, I have to completely redo all my mixes and learn a whole lot of new tooling. What's the cost of that? Dozens of hours of my time...
- beat 10y ago
  The cheapest I can get into a 15" MBP with a terabyte of storage (and I need a terabyte) is $2999.
  - superninja234 10y ago
    So the reason the replacement is so expensive is because you've coupled yourself to a particular OS and so your replacing a macbook with another macbook. Even though there being other cheaper and more powerful options.
    - ohyoutravel 10y ago
      I assumed that when the poster said replace the macbook, they were specifically talking about replacing it with the same thing. Obviously one can get a windows laptop with those specs for MUCH cheaper. Replacement in this context = replace with the same thing. To wit: "It would cost $150,000 to replace my Porsche!" You don't argue that one can buy a Nissan Leaf to replace it for $9k.
    - 72deluxe 10y ago
      Software on one OS is not the same on another OS, despite cross-platform apps getting better. What else could I run Logic on btw?
  - curun1r 10y ago
    Only if you need the touchbar. The non-touchbar model can be had for $2599, including the horribly overpriced 1 TB upgrade. If you can figure out how to use an external drive (Samsung T3 is $349, tiny and performance should be roughly on par with an internal drive), you can knock another $250 off that and still have the 256 GB that comes with the standard configuration. As a plus, the T3 is trivially upgradable when storage prices inevitably fall over the next couple of years. Even if you chose a Mac alternative with user-accessible internal storage, the process of swapping out the drive would be somewhat involved and require an OS re-install. I've never understood the obsession with having a ton of internal storage in your laptop. I'd rather buy external storage since it allows me to upgrade my laptop independent of my data and makes migrations easier. It also saves money given how much cheaper external storage is and becomes over the life of the laptop.
SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
I switched from a MBP to a Surface, and eventually to a $500 generic "hybrid" laptop (with decent Linux support). Turns out moving to the cloud for developer work and not playing videogames on my laptop really cuts down on my computer needs. (Also, saving that much money justifies more cell data to tether with, so it's actually more convenient at times.) YMMV though, because I worked in ML, and so had to make the cloud move because no laptop was going to be a 4GPU, 32core machine, much less a cluster of them. Once that's your workflow anyway, the switch in hardware is pretty seamless.
- blackguardx 10y ago
  What brand/model is your generic hybrid?
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    Dell Inspiron 13, 5000 Series 2-in-1. It's not fabulous, and most of the criticisms are correct, but it was $500-600 when I was looking to buy, and has done reasonably well. Mostly, it was just a choice to save $1-2k on a laptop (every 1-2 years) and spend the money on cellphone data and lattes.
- JW_00000 10y ago
  Which cloud host do you use? Isn't in expensive to get the kind of specs you want?
electic 10y ago
I did take a close look at the Surface Pro. Sorry, the build quality is nowhere near a MacBook Pro. Secondly, I found the touch screen very gimmicky. I tried using it for a week and found that my hand just hurt lifting it up repeatedly and also hated switching context from the keyboard to the screen. Not to mention, the screen was full of smudge marks after awhile. To be honest, I really found myself using the keyboard and touchpad the most on the Surface and when you think about it, the MacBook Pro has the best touch pad. I think Apple needs to do some minor things to get the MacBook Pro back on track: - Fix the battery issue. They really need to fix that from a hardware perspective. Also, the OS needs to be optimized to preserve battery. The burden can't be fully on hardware. - Put magsafe back or some sort of USB-C magsafe solution. - Bump the specs. The whole point of the Pro is it is leap years ahead of everyone on processor, HD, and RAM. - The keyboard is getting better, but I still think it needs more travel time. - The screen could be further to the edges a bit for a more modern look. - The ports. Look, I get it, you want to embrace the future but then please include free cables to help in the transition. A power extension cable was not even included in this MacBook pro release, that is just sad.
- untog 10y ago
  > Secondly, I found the touch screen very gimmicky. I tried using it for a week and found that my hand just hurt lifting it up repeatedly and also hated switching context from the keyboard to the screen. I agree, but on the other hand, I'm yet to find something that requires the use of the touchscreen. So I don't use it. Unless I'm carrying it around like a tablet, in which case it's a great feature to have.
  - avn2109 10y ago
    Yeah but you paid the money, reliability, and weight penalties for a touchscreen for no reason.
    - untog 10y ago
      Not no reason - as I said, the tablet mode is useful. Just not in the scenario when you're normally be using a keyboard and trackpad.
bloomca 10y ago
Which Chromebook do you use? I've bought Acer R11 to myself, and gave my MBPr to my wife. Of course it is a huge downgrade, but my idea is to relax from writing code in the evenings for a few months, and then later install some linux on it. It is very portable, and tablet mode is nice, but performance in web apps is pretty bad (so I even use MBP to use for stuff like AirBnB) – they work, but with quite frustrating experience. I am fine with it, but if someone will decide to go with it, be careful that it is really slow machine. I still think though that for linux that would be more than enough.
- beat 10y ago
  I got an HP something-or-other for my mother, but I took an Acer for a spin at Best Buy and was really impressed. Unfortunately, all of Amazon, Best Buy, and Newegg were out of stock for the Acer model I wanted, and she lives in another state, so I got her the HP instead (similar specs, a bit more $$).
dbg31415 10y ago
> It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful, has a smaller screen and less I/O functionality, and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I daisy-chain multiple adapters to get Firewire. Fuck that, as long as possible. To be fair, with the new Macs you still get to daisy chain adapters... Here's the thing, nobody can take away how great the Macs we have now were when they came out. The fact that it was so well built and so powerful that you're still using it after 5 years speaks exactly to what we loved about them. But the new MBPs aren't the same. They're just as expensive as they always were, but they don't have forward-looking specs. Unlike the old ones, we don't see the new ones being machines we can keep around for the next 5 years. I've got a 2013 MBP and it's got virtually identical specs as the new 2016s. (Used similarly upgraded from base units both times -- with Apple care this cost ~$3,300 then and would cost ~$3,300 now.) --- 2013 MBP 16 GB RAM NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2GB memory 2.3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 512 GB SSD Apple Build Quality vs --- 2016 MBP ($2,800) http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MLH42LL/A&step=config# http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MLH42L... 16 GB RAM Radeon Pro 455 with 2GB memory 2.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 512 GB SSD Apple Build Quality vs --- 2016 Razer Blade ($2,200) http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade-gtx970m http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade-gtx970m 16 GB RAM NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 970M with 6GB memory 2.6GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 512 GB SSD Razer Build Quality
- quickben 10y ago
  If you can build your own, and don't want to stick to the apple ecosystem; the 4 core intel cpu + 970 gfx starts around a thousand: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/VhyP8K https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/VhyP8K If you can wait until February, AMD Zen is coming out, so no matter which camp (amd/intel) you are in, all prices should go down for the given level of performance.
- zeusk 10y ago
  --- 2016 Razer Blade ($2,099) 16 GB System Memory (DDR4, 2133 MHz) NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 (6GB GDDR5 VRAM) Intel® Core i7-6700HQ Quad-Core Processor (2.6GHz / 3.5GHz) 256GB (PCIe M.2) options for 512/1024 14.0-in. IGZO QHD+, 3200x1800, capacitive multi-touch http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade#QHD+%20-%20256GB http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade#QHD+%20-%20256GB What you linked to isn't 2016 Blade.
natch 10y ago
Sounds like you are pretty happy with your MacBook Pro. Awesome. If you want to replace it, maybe you should get a MS Surface Pro, and let us know how that works out for you. BTW did Apple hold a press conference? I thought it was just an internal memo type thing for the employees, no?
iplaw 10y ago
Same boat as you. I have a late-2011 17" MBP with an i7, maxed out RAM, and a 512GB SSD. I think that the graphics processor is starting to fail and I'm starting to experience some very odd DNS-related issues with the OS. I am very unsatisfied with my replacement options.
- eiriklv 10y ago
  If the GPU fails and you want to fix it this seems to be the only "permanent" solution: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Macbook-Pro-A1297-820-2914-B-17-2011-Logic-Board-Repair-New-GPU-Reball-/301997307233 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Macbook-Pro-A1297-820-2914-B-1...
  - rasz_pl 10y ago
    US $14.81 reballing = someone heats up your GPU with a paint gun to make it "work" for about a day to a week. its a scam
    - eiriklv 10y ago
      That's just the price of diagnostics. If you read further you'll see that the full repair price is £169 + shipping. But yes, that confused me at first as well. They replace the GPU and use lead solder.
      - rasz_pl 10y ago
        Charging "diagnostic" fee is also a scam ;-). The sad reality is there doesnt exist a reliable source of _real_ new replacement GPU chips. Almost every single chip from china is either a pull from dead laptop or old stock(1). Chinese counterfeit markings, clean them up and sell as new. The absolute best case scenario is you get really new old stock and it will survive at least 2 years, but in reality it will most probably be a pull from recycled trash with week-month lifespan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OogV7pbqEGQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OogV7pbqEGQ 1- Nvidia chips were ALL factory defective (bad underfill between die and bga carrier), every single GPU at least up to FERMI has a limited life span dependent on thermal stress. Nvidia had to issue huge recall and restart manufacturing of ancient chips with fixed underfill formula - they only did a limited run for select partners (Dell, Apple) and those chips are pretty much _gone_ from the market.
macjohnmcc 10y ago
I have a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 with i7 processor and I would not trade my Macbook Pro (3 1/2 years old) for it. The Surface frequently heats up to be too hot to hold as a tablet and just isn't nearly as fast.
- anjc 10y ago
  There must be something wrong with it then if it heats up too hot to hold, and its i7 doesn't make it more performant than an old MBP
  - sirn 10y ago
    The overheat problem is quite common with i7 Surface Pro 3. See also Microsoft Community thread[1]. Personally I have the i7 512GB but do not have the overheat issue, although I do have the problem of the fan running very loud sometimes under light usage. [1]: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-surfdrivers/excessively-loud-fan-constant-overheating-during/1efa253a-f7f2-486b-a891-5633738b8532 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-s...
  - macjohnmcc 10y ago
    Too be too hot to hold doesn't mean it's blistering hot just not comfortable to hold.
Pigo 10y ago
I bought a Chromebook Pixel out of curiosity and have loved every minute of it. It's fun and really slick, and even as the most expensive, by far, it's still a fraction the cost. It was easy to put Linux on it for real dev, and I keep hearing about more and more methods (https://mrchromebox.tech https://mrchromebox.tech). Plus it has all the Play Store apps now. Everyone I know is just waiting for work to buy them a Surface, but doesn't want to pay for it themselves.
- treve 10y ago
  The big thing that has deterred me so far, is that I heard it's not really usable unless you're cool with having a google account. Despite having one, I thought it was a bit offputting for that to be a dependency.
  - Pigo 10y ago
    Well, yeah, I suppose it's like needing an AppleID for mobile devices. ChromeOS is web based, so a lot of it is tied to their services. Like the free drive storage you get with it.
  - wutbrodo 10y ago
    From what I've heard, throwing Linux in it works really well from a compatibility standpoint (and obviously doesn't require a Google account). I believe Linus was using a pixel as his dev laptop some time back.
    - johnsmith21006 10y ago
      There's s two ways to use Linux. You can load something called Crouton which runs inside of ChromeOS and basically exposes Linux. But this method everything goes away on reboot. Maybe way to fix. The other is to replace ChromeOS with Linux. No different from buying a Windows laptop and replacing Windows with Linux.
      - thebaer 10y ago
ma2rten 10y ago
If I can figure out how to run Vagrant on one You could ssh into another computer.
- beat 10y ago
  I may wind up doing just that, or using Koding or Cloud9 or some other cloud-based dev environment. My work tends to want a 2gb vagrant instance, and even a DigitalOcean VM starts getting me into the price range of a cloud dev environment.
brightball 10y ago
In the same boat with a maxed out 2010 17" MBP. RAM is maxed and I've upgraded the HD 3 times. The lack of a new 17" is blocking my upgrade entirely and has me shopping for Linux laptops at the point that it finally dies. I use my laptop as a second screen when I work and a screen smaller than 17 makes it less functional in terms of readability from a distance.
- wlesieutre 10y ago
  I don't know how the Linux support is, but if you're looking for a 17" performance machine I've read good things about the Razer Blade Pro. http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13344566/razer-blade-pro-specs-price-release-date-photos http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13344566/razer-blade-pro-... http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro 4K, 32 GB DDR4, dual PCIe SSDs, i7-6700HQ, GTX 1080 (a real desktop one apparently), SDXC reader, Thunderbolt 3, plus a full compliment of legacy ports. Doesn't come cheap at $3,699, but you can save $10 if you sign up for their newsletter ;)
  - jedmeyers 10y ago
    Razer Blade Pro comes with a desktop gtx 1080, which is a much more powerfull beast than a 1060.
    - wlesieutre 10y ago
      Whoops, typo on my part. Thanks.
    - dr_zoidberg 10y ago
      What about battery life?
      - wlesieutre 10y ago
        About 4 hours
  - 10y ago
blinkingled 10y ago
> Chromebook It's amazing how much of a good quality machine with great battery life you get today for $299, especially compared to what you used to get with a netbook just a few years ago - my son was using my old laptop and installing things left and right on it including adware some times and I let him go crazy because I don't want him growing up just knowing about the web and the browser. I still let him use that as a tinkering machine after a bit of security 101 but I got him a Acer 14" Chromebook recently and I was seriously blown away how good it felt, how decent the screen was and just how long it lasts!
- johnsmith21006 10y ago
  Same experience with the Chromebook. What I love is the logging in and the computer is you with no signs of any other accounts. This makes quickly using another computer so easy. ChomeOS is also noticeably faster than the same hardware with MacOS or Windows.
mrkgnao 10y ago
> run Vagrant on one I'm running Arch on a Chromebook (an Acer one).
coldtea 10y ago
>My main computer is a five year old 17" MBP. I've upgraded it to the max and done repairs to maintain it. I need the computational power - I use it for programming, photo editing at scale, and recording/mixing music. It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful Compared to a five year old 17"? More like double the power. And unbelievably faster SSD (even if you have an aftermarket SSD on your 17", it will be nowhere near as fast as the ones in current MPBr unless you pay top dollar). >has a smaller screen Smaller but hi-dpi, and with far greater color accuracy and brightness. Also, you can hook up an external monitor, apparently lugging 17" beasts around wasn't popular enough to carry the models forward. >and less I/O functionality Actually way way more. Less varied ports (basically 2 types: 4 USB-C and 1 headphone), but way way more I/O power and connectivity. >and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I daisy-chain multiple adapters to get Firewire. Or just get a USB-C to Firewire adapter of hub. Daisy chain multiple adapters? Huh?
- stuckagain 10y ago
  Does a USB-C to FireWire exist?
  - smoser 10y ago
    TB2->FW + TB3->TB2 in theory. http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD464LL/A/apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapter http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD464LL/A/apple-thunderbol...
    - stuckagain 10y ago
      Exactly the chain of adapters that beat was complaining of.
      - an_account 10y ago
        FireWire has been dead for years, it's time for an upgrade.
TYPE_FASTER 10y ago
> This week, my mother's crappy Windows computer died, and I bought her a Chromebook. It was great! Yeah, no kidding. I have a $160 Toshiba Chromebook that is great for most tasks. Apple's risk in dropping the Premiere/FCP crowd is that the mass audience they are seeking will discover how good Chromebooks are, and the price tradeoff, and use them with Google cloud services for pretty much everything.
- beat 10y ago
  Indeed. One of the big selling points of Macs was that they weren't running Microsoft Virus Studio, and didn't turn into a filthy pit of malware when handed to someone without a degree in computer security. Chromebooks are probably more secure than Macs.
  - 72deluxe 10y ago
    Do they all still have abysmal screen resolutions? All the ones I keep seeing have resolutions from the 1990s.
    - beat 10y ago
      The one I got my mother has 1920x1280. I set that as a minimum requirement, because the cheap Windows junker I bought her four years ago had that resolution.
      - 72deluxe 10y ago
        That's good to hear - actually a better resolution than my 2012 MacBook (should have got the higher res one but with DVD drive). What make/model is that Chromebook, out of interest?
    - jdietrich 10y ago
      Several Chromebooks have FHD IPS displays; the HP Chromebook 13 is available with a 3,200 x 1,800 display.
eiriklv 10y ago
The 17" MBP is such a beautiful and usable machine. I've been using a rMBP from 2012 until recently, but when Apple announced the new 2016 MBP I went and got a mint maxed out late 2011 17" instead. Just to give it a try really. I now love everything about it (especially the keyboard and the screen). Serviceability and the fact that you can run a 4TB RAID 0 or a 2TB RAID 1 is a huge bonus as well. Regardless of the justifications Apple may have to continue on their current path, it personally (and very subjectively) makes me sad. They used to be a tent pole in my digital life, but now I feel we've lost touch with each other...
pvg 10y ago
Someone please tell Apple than when you need to hold a press conference to convince people you're committed to your product, you're not committed to your product. Wouldn't Apple have to do that first so that someone can then tell them?
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
>Chromebook It might be usable for some stuff, but if you don't devmode it (mine's a school computer, so I can't), it's really insufficient for a wide variety of tasks. It does (credit to Google) have a very good SSH client, and (credit to the mosh team) have a very good Mosh client, so if you've got a fast network and you're an emacs/vi/vim user, it's okay for dev work, but it's not ideal. And it's rubbish for games.
olegkikin 10y ago
Why not get a cheap powerful desktop for heavyweight processing, and a cheap lightweight laptop for mobility? $3K is a ridiculous amount of money considering modern options. Examples: Dual Xeon E5-2690 + 64GB RAM + 1TB HDD = $1250 http://www.ebay.com/itm/391654102568 http://www.ebay.com/itm/391654102568 Dual Xeon X5670 + 128GB RAM + 2TB HDD = $1600 http://www.ebay.com/itm/361745717969 http://www.ebay.com/itm/361745717969 Dual Xeon E5-2670 + 128GB RAM + 8TB HDD = $1900 http://www.ebay.com/itm/172218395641 http://www.ebay.com/itm/172218395641
- dmoy 10y ago
  I would agree. I would not want to do serious editing on a laptop that costs >2x, has half the ram and like a third of the CPU/GPU power. Just not worth the money and time. So much longer waiting for renders...
  - skykooler 10y ago
    Half the ram? Where are you finding a macbook with 32gb of ram?
    - dmoy 10y ago
      Ah yea I suppose depending on your workload. I've never hit much more than 30-40G doing editing work, I guess some people might use more. As always, depends on usage.
- 72deluxe 10y ago
  Great idea. I might get a cheesegrater Mac when my MBP dies and then a cheaper laptop to remote?
- strictnein 10y ago
  Those are some really interesting options. I recently picked up a new Asus Zenbook ux330ua (basically Macbook Air, but significantly better specs and ~$500 less) for mobile use and was going to start looking for a new desktop option. I really like building my own systems, so buying one prebuilt would be strange, but that's some serious hardware for pretty nice prices.
module0000 10y ago
> This week, my mother's crappy Windows computer died, and I bought her a Chromebook. It was great! I'm now seriously considering getting a Chromebook for myself for day-to-day web browsing and such, and retiring the MBP to music and photos only. If I can figure out how to run Vagrant on one This is tricky, the vagrant part. Virtualization extensions aren't compiled for the chromeos kernel. You can do it, but it requires downloading the chromeos kernel source, configuring the modules to be compiled, recompiling and booting with that. This means substantially more work if you want to upgrade the software, since each upgrade means you have to repeat the kernel compilation step. The development side of it is simpler though - you can load whatever you want on it once you put it into development mode. tldr; it's possible, but not without some time and effort, and it may not be worth your time. When I need to vagrant on a chromebook, it starts and ends with SSH'ing to a linux machine that can run vagrant.
shams93 10y ago
You can use a chromebook for music too, if you use crouton it allows you to shut off cras (the chromeos audio system) and fire up jackd, you can run open source stuff like audacity and ardour but if you have an intel chromebook you can even run Renoise and Bitwig.
mcv 10y ago
I'm in the same boat. I still use my 2011 MBP for development work, and I will continue to use it until it falls apart, but I don't think I'm going to buy a new Macbook to replace it. I love that I can open this one up and upgrade the hell out of it. It's got a better SSD than Apple ever sold for it, and more memory than Apple claims is possible. I doubt a processor upgrade is possible, but if it was, I'd be in the market for one.
ThinkBeat 10y ago
What can the Surface do that your Mac cant? Use a pen? The build quality of the Surface have gotten better with each iteration but they are still far below the Macbooks. I have had 3 of them, and I have a lot of friends that use the Surface due to work. I believe one guy is on his 4 Surface 3 now, due to repeated quality problems in hardware. I am on my 2 Surface 3 now. The list of hardware issues for Surface 2 and Surface 3 is long and painful. I dont have insight into 4 yet, but I am told it is better.
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
Can I ask what your MacBook's current specs are? I love my 5-year-old 13" MBP, but IIRC $3000 was close to the cost of a fully-upgraded top-end 17" MBP in 2011. It's hard to imagine how a similarly-specced machine could cost the same five years later.
GabeRicard 10y ago
I have a 15" 2012 MBP Retina that still works amazingly well. But... I wanted to do side project work on the train ride to/from work and the MBP is just too big for my backpack and cumbersome to use if I'm sitting next to someone else. I picked up a Chromebook so I'd have a smaller (11") device to work on. I did a bunch of research and ended up with an Acer C720-3404 (a specific model that has 4GB of RAM, when most only have 2GB, and has a legit Core i3 CPU instead of a Celeron, so it actually had great horsepower. And I managed to find one with an upgraded 128GB SSD for $150 on craigslist. I spent a bunch of time messing around with it and ended up with an EFI boot system, Clover bootloader, and a triple boot setup with Windows 10, Ubuntu 16.10 & Mac OS X El Capitan. Sounds great, but it has its downsides. Win10 has to run in some test mode so the custom drivers will work, OSX wifi is flakey and stops working periodically, Linux would randomly crash and I was never able to get the trackpad setup juuuuuuust right so I can use the smaller keyboard without my palms causing issues. I was able to get some work done with it, but eventually it turned into me spending more time maintaining the system than being productive. So I'm selling the Chromebook and I bought a 2013 MacBook Air to replace it. I spent probably 4x as much on the Air, but it just works, I can triple boot it the same way if I want, and it has a Core i7 and 8GB of RAM, and the battery life is like 10+ hours. That and the overall quality is just better. The Chromebook was fun to mess around with, but I'm more productive with a Mac.
- douche 10y ago
  I just can't wrap my head around the idea of a 15" laptop being too big to fit in a backpack or work on comfortably. On the other hand, these tiny laptops that people wax poetically about seem comically small to me. In college, I had a 10" Asus eeePC that I picked up cheap to take to class, since my main computer was a beastly 17" HP, and there was no way in hell that that would balance on the tiny little flip-up desk arms on lecture auditorium seats. I couldn't physically fit both hands on the keyboard, and had to learn how to type with just my left hand. It was passable for typing a few notes and dicking around on the internet, but I cannot fathom trying to actually do work on it, simply because of the ergonomics of something that tiny. Even going up to the 13" form-factor that appears to be all the rage these days, it's tough when I hold one up next to one of the 27" monitors attached to my desktop, and notice that it is only one quarter of the screen area. And I've got four of those arranged 2x2 at my desk.
tbrock 10y ago
Yeah that's just not correct. The CPUs and GPUs from 5 years ago were good but the current generation of intel cpus are much faster and the video cards are in an entirely different realm. Source: owned 2011 MacBook Pro that was decked out, own current MacBook Pro
jsz0 10y ago
> less I/O functionality ThunderBolt 3 is certainly not less IO functionality. It provides the highest performing / most versatile IO that's ever been available in a laptop before. I get your point that it's not exactly the physical connector you need but that's a small price to pay for what is pretty close to desktop level expansion on a laptop. > maybe I'll just start paying for a cloud-based dev environment That's really the best option for developers in most cases. I can't imagine ever going back to being limited by the resources of any individual computer (much less a laptop) when cloud resources are so inexpensive and offer so many other advantages.
40_pending 10y ago
Have to agree with you. I'm still lugging around my 2011 17" MBP. For work I've been issued a recent 13"(not the newest MBP) and it does not perform significantly better than my 2011. I'd have long ago just settled on a linux laptop if I wasn't dependent on the media apps on the mac(Logic Pro & FCPX). I might look at Windows a little more seriously depending on how Bash for Windows development comes a long. Currently it is not feasible to develop in my stack on Windows though without a VM.

by beat 10y ago

superninja234 10y ago

I honestly doubt it would cost $3000 to replace your 5 year old macbook.

mozumder 10y ago
I also have the same type of maxed-out 2011 17" MacBook Pro. The replacement for that I am looking at costs $3500-$4200.
- kobeya 10y ago
  Sorry that's just not possible. There are gamer targeted systems that are better specs than anything apple ever made (even after market upgrades) in the sun $2k range.
  - _ph_ 10y ago
    The problem is, they don't run macOS. And if your whole work-environment is centered around macOS, it is not an easy choice to leave that behind, and consequently, hardware upgrades don't come cheap.
    - kobeya 10y ago
      Sure but that's a different point.
      - _ph_ 10y ago
        No, if he wants to be a replacement, one has to assume he wants to be compatible and keep using the applications he currently uses. Any non-Mac system might be an "alternative" but not a "replacement".
        jamespo 10y ago
        $2k buys a lot of applications
        _ph_ 10y ago
        The problem is with changing the software environment. Most applications are not available on all operation systems. So your hunt starts for solutions where the application is not available on other operation systems.
        bholzer 10y ago
        But it won't buy the magical ability for a built PC to run macOS. I don't care about the applications, I care about the underlying OS
        beat 10y ago
        It's not just applications, it's time. I'm in the middle of producing a 17 song concept album. If I switch platforms, I have to completely redo all my mixes and learn a whole lot of new tooling. What's the cost of that? Dozens of hours of my time...
beat 10y ago
The cheapest I can get into a 15" MBP with a terabyte of storage (and I need a terabyte) is $2999.
- superninja234 10y ago
  So the reason the replacement is so expensive is because you've coupled yourself to a particular OS and so your replacing a macbook with another macbook. Even though there being other cheaper and more powerful options.
  - ohyoutravel 10y ago
    I assumed that when the poster said replace the macbook, they were specifically talking about replacing it with the same thing. Obviously one can get a windows laptop with those specs for MUCH cheaper. Replacement in this context = replace with the same thing. To wit: "It would cost $150,000 to replace my Porsche!" You don't argue that one can buy a Nissan Leaf to replace it for $9k.
  - 72deluxe 10y ago
    Software on one OS is not the same on another OS, despite cross-platform apps getting better. What else could I run Logic on btw?
- curun1r 10y ago
  Only if you need the touchbar. The non-touchbar model can be had for $2599, including the horribly overpriced 1 TB upgrade. If you can figure out how to use an external drive (Samsung T3 is $349, tiny and performance should be roughly on par with an internal drive), you can knock another $250 off that and still have the 256 GB that comes with the standard configuration. As a plus, the T3 is trivially upgradable when storage prices inevitably fall over the next couple of years. Even if you chose a Mac alternative with user-accessible internal storage, the process of swapping out the drive would be somewhat involved and require an OS re-install. I've never understood the obsession with having a ton of internal storage in your laptop. I'd rather buy external storage since it allows me to upgrade my laptop independent of my data and makes migrations easier. It also saves money given how much cheaper external storage is and becomes over the life of the laptop.

SomeStupidPoint 10y ago

I switched from a MBP to a Surface, and eventually to a $500 generic "hybrid" laptop (with decent Linux support). Turns out moving to the cloud for developer work and not playing videogames on my laptop really cuts down on my computer needs. (Also, saving that much money justifies more cell data to tether with, so it's actually more convenient at times.) YMMV though, because I worked in ML, and so had to make the cloud move because no laptop was going to be a 4GPU, 32core machine, much less a cluster of them. Once that's your workflow anyway, the switch in hardware is pretty seamless.

blackguardx 10y ago
What brand/model is your generic hybrid?
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  Dell Inspiron 13, 5000 Series 2-in-1. It's not fabulous, and most of the criticisms are correct, but it was $500-600 when I was looking to buy, and has done reasonably well. Mostly, it was just a choice to save $1-2k on a laptop (every 1-2 years) and spend the money on cellphone data and lattes.
JW_00000 10y ago
Which cloud host do you use? Isn't in expensive to get the kind of specs you want?

electic 10y ago

I did take a close look at the Surface Pro. Sorry, the build quality is nowhere near a MacBook Pro. Secondly, I found the touch screen very gimmicky. I tried using it for a week and found that my hand just hurt lifting it up repeatedly and also hated switching context from the keyboard to the screen. Not to mention, the screen was full of smudge marks after awhile. To be honest, I really found myself using the keyboard and touchpad the most on the Surface and when you think about it, the MacBook Pro has the best touch pad. I think Apple needs to do some minor things to get the MacBook Pro back on track: - Fix the battery issue. They really need to fix that from a hardware perspective. Also, the OS needs to be optimized to preserve battery. The burden can't be fully on hardware. - Put magsafe back or some sort of USB-C magsafe solution. - Bump the specs. The whole point of the Pro is it is leap years ahead of everyone on processor, HD, and RAM. - The keyboard is getting better, but I still think it needs more travel time. - The screen could be further to the edges a bit for a more modern look. - The ports. Look, I get it, you want to embrace the future but then please include free cables to help in the transition. A power extension cable was not even included in this MacBook pro release, that is just sad.

untog 10y ago
> Secondly, I found the touch screen very gimmicky. I tried using it for a week and found that my hand just hurt lifting it up repeatedly and also hated switching context from the keyboard to the screen. I agree, but on the other hand, I'm yet to find something that requires the use of the touchscreen. So I don't use it. Unless I'm carrying it around like a tablet, in which case it's a great feature to have.
- avn2109 10y ago
  Yeah but you paid the money, reliability, and weight penalties for a touchscreen for no reason.
  - untog 10y ago
    Not no reason - as I said, the tablet mode is useful. Just not in the scenario when you're normally be using a keyboard and trackpad.

bloomca 10y ago

Which Chromebook do you use? I've bought Acer R11 to myself, and gave my MBPr to my wife. Of course it is a huge downgrade, but my idea is to relax from writing code in the evenings for a few months, and then later install some linux on it. It is very portable, and tablet mode is nice, but performance in web apps is pretty bad (so I even use MBP to use for stuff like AirBnB) – they work, but with quite frustrating experience. I am fine with it, but if someone will decide to go with it, be careful that it is really slow machine. I still think though that for linux that would be more than enough.

beat 10y ago
I got an HP something-or-other for my mother, but I took an Acer for a spin at Best Buy and was really impressed. Unfortunately, all of Amazon, Best Buy, and Newegg were out of stock for the Acer model I wanted, and she lives in another state, so I got her the HP instead (similar specs, a bit more $$).

dbg31415 10y ago

> It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful, has a smaller screen and less I/O functionality, and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I daisy-chain multiple adapters to get Firewire. Fuck that, as long as possible. To be fair, with the new Macs you still get to daisy chain adapters... Here's the thing, nobody can take away how great the Macs we have now were when they came out. The fact that it was so well built and so powerful that you're still using it after 5 years speaks exactly to what we loved about them. But the new MBPs aren't the same. They're just as expensive as they always were, but they don't have forward-looking specs. Unlike the old ones, we don't see the new ones being machines we can keep around for the next 5 years. I've got a 2013 MBP and it's got virtually identical specs as the new 2016s. (Used similarly upgraded from base units both times -- with Apple care this cost ~$3,300 then and would cost ~$3,300 now.) --- 2013 MBP 16 GB RAM NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2GB memory 2.3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 512 GB SSD Apple Build Quality vs --- 2016 MBP ($2,800) http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MLH42LL/A&step=config# http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro?product=MLH42L... 16 GB RAM Radeon Pro 455 with 2GB memory 2.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 512 GB SSD Apple Build Quality vs --- 2016 Razer Blade ($2,200) http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade-gtx970m http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade-gtx970m 16 GB RAM NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 970M with 6GB memory 2.6GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 512 GB SSD Razer Build Quality

quickben 10y ago
If you can build your own, and don't want to stick to the apple ecosystem; the 4 core intel cpu + 970 gfx starts around a thousand: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/VhyP8K https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/VhyP8K If you can wait until February, AMD Zen is coming out, so no matter which camp (amd/intel) you are in, all prices should go down for the given level of performance.
zeusk 10y ago
--- 2016 Razer Blade ($2,099) 16 GB System Memory (DDR4, 2133 MHz) NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 (6GB GDDR5 VRAM) Intel® Core i7-6700HQ Quad-Core Processor (2.6GHz / 3.5GHz) 256GB (PCIe M.2) options for 512/1024 14.0-in. IGZO QHD+, 3200x1800, capacitive multi-touch http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade#QHD+%20-%20256GB http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade#QHD+%20-%20256GB What you linked to isn't 2016 Blade.

natch 10y ago

Sounds like you are pretty happy with your MacBook Pro. Awesome. If you want to replace it, maybe you should get a MS Surface Pro, and let us know how that works out for you. BTW did Apple hold a press conference? I thought it was just an internal memo type thing for the employees, no?

iplaw 10y ago

Same boat as you. I have a late-2011 17" MBP with an i7, maxed out RAM, and a 512GB SSD. I think that the graphics processor is starting to fail and I'm starting to experience some very odd DNS-related issues with the OS. I am very unsatisfied with my replacement options.

eiriklv 10y ago
If the GPU fails and you want to fix it this seems to be the only "permanent" solution: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Macbook-Pro-A1297-820-2914-B-17-2011-Logic-Board-Repair-New-GPU-Reball-/301997307233 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-Macbook-Pro-A1297-820-2914-B-1...
- rasz_pl 10y ago
  US $14.81 reballing = someone heats up your GPU with a paint gun to make it "work" for about a day to a week. its a scam
  - eiriklv 10y ago
    That's just the price of diagnostics. If you read further you'll see that the full repair price is £169 + shipping. But yes, that confused me at first as well. They replace the GPU and use lead solder.
    - rasz_pl 10y ago
      Charging "diagnostic" fee is also a scam ;-). The sad reality is there doesnt exist a reliable source of _real_ new replacement GPU chips. Almost every single chip from china is either a pull from dead laptop or old stock(1). Chinese counterfeit markings, clean them up and sell as new. The absolute best case scenario is you get really new old stock and it will survive at least 2 years, but in reality it will most probably be a pull from recycled trash with week-month lifespan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OogV7pbqEGQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OogV7pbqEGQ 1- Nvidia chips were ALL factory defective (bad underfill between die and bga carrier), every single GPU at least up to FERMI has a limited life span dependent on thermal stress. Nvidia had to issue huge recall and restart manufacturing of ancient chips with fixed underfill formula - they only did a limited run for select partners (Dell, Apple) and those chips are pretty much _gone_ from the market.

macjohnmcc 10y ago

I have a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 with i7 processor and I would not trade my Macbook Pro (3 1/2 years old) for it. The Surface frequently heats up to be too hot to hold as a tablet and just isn't nearly as fast.

anjc 10y ago
There must be something wrong with it then if it heats up too hot to hold, and its i7 doesn't make it more performant than an old MBP
- sirn 10y ago
  The overheat problem is quite common with i7 Surface Pro 3. See also Microsoft Community thread[1]. Personally I have the i7 512GB but do not have the overheat issue, although I do have the problem of the fan running very loud sometimes under light usage. [1]: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-surfdrivers/excessively-loud-fan-constant-overheating-during/1efa253a-f7f2-486b-a891-5633738b8532 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-s...
- macjohnmcc 10y ago
  Too be too hot to hold doesn't mean it's blistering hot just not comfortable to hold.

Pigo 10y ago

I bought a Chromebook Pixel out of curiosity and have loved every minute of it. It's fun and really slick, and even as the most expensive, by far, it's still a fraction the cost. It was easy to put Linux on it for real dev, and I keep hearing about more and more methods (https://mrchromebox.tech https://mrchromebox.tech). Plus it has all the Play Store apps now. Everyone I know is just waiting for work to buy them a Surface, but doesn't want to pay for it themselves.

treve 10y ago
The big thing that has deterred me so far, is that I heard it's not really usable unless you're cool with having a google account. Despite having one, I thought it was a bit offputting for that to be a dependency.
- Pigo 10y ago
  Well, yeah, I suppose it's like needing an AppleID for mobile devices. ChromeOS is web based, so a lot of it is tied to their services. Like the free drive storage you get with it.
- wutbrodo 10y ago
  From what I've heard, throwing Linux in it works really well from a compatibility standpoint (and obviously doesn't require a Google account). I believe Linus was using a pixel as his dev laptop some time back.
  - johnsmith21006 10y ago
    There's s two ways to use Linux. You can load something called Crouton which runs inside of ChromeOS and basically exposes Linux. But this method everything goes away on reboot. Maybe way to fix. The other is to replace ChromeOS with Linux. No different from buying a Windows laptop and replacing Windows with Linux.
    - thebaer 10y ago

ma2rten 10y ago

If I can figure out how to run Vagrant on one You could ssh into another computer.

beat 10y ago
I may wind up doing just that, or using Koding or Cloud9 or some other cloud-based dev environment. My work tends to want a 2gb vagrant instance, and even a DigitalOcean VM starts getting me into the price range of a cloud dev environment.

brightball 10y ago

In the same boat with a maxed out 2010 17" MBP. RAM is maxed and I've upgraded the HD 3 times. The lack of a new 17" is blocking my upgrade entirely and has me shopping for Linux laptops at the point that it finally dies. I use my laptop as a second screen when I work and a screen smaller than 17 makes it less functional in terms of readability from a distance.

wlesieutre 10y ago
I don't know how the Linux support is, but if you're looking for a 17" performance machine I've read good things about the Razer Blade Pro. http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13344566/razer-blade-pro-specs-price-release-date-photos http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/20/13344566/razer-blade-pro-... http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro 4K, 32 GB DDR4, dual PCIe SSDs, i7-6700HQ, GTX 1080 (a real desktop one apparently), SDXC reader, Thunderbolt 3, plus a full compliment of legacy ports. Doesn't come cheap at $3,699, but you can save $10 if you sign up for their newsletter ;)
- jedmeyers 10y ago
  Razer Blade Pro comes with a desktop gtx 1080, which is a much more powerfull beast than a 1060.
  - wlesieutre 10y ago
    Whoops, typo on my part. Thanks.
  - dr_zoidberg 10y ago
    What about battery life?
    - wlesieutre 10y ago
      About 4 hours
- 10y ago

blinkingled 10y ago

> Chromebook It's amazing how much of a good quality machine with great battery life you get today for $299, especially compared to what you used to get with a netbook just a few years ago - my son was using my old laptop and installing things left and right on it including adware some times and I let him go crazy because I don't want him growing up just knowing about the web and the browser. I still let him use that as a tinkering machine after a bit of security 101 but I got him a Acer 14" Chromebook recently and I was seriously blown away how good it felt, how decent the screen was and just how long it lasts!

johnsmith21006 10y ago
Same experience with the Chromebook. What I love is the logging in and the computer is you with no signs of any other accounts. This makes quickly using another computer so easy. ChomeOS is also noticeably faster than the same hardware with MacOS or Windows.

mrkgnao 10y ago

> run Vagrant on one I'm running Arch on a Chromebook (an Acer one).

coldtea 10y ago

>My main computer is a five year old 17" MBP. I've upgraded it to the max and done repairs to maintain it. I need the computational power - I use it for programming, photo editing at scale, and recording/mixing music. It would cost me $3000 to replace it with a computer that is not significantly more powerful Compared to a five year old 17"? More like double the power. And unbelievably faster SSD (even if you have an aftermarket SSD on your 17", it will be nowhere near as fast as the ones in current MPBr unless you pay top dollar). >has a smaller screen Smaller but hi-dpi, and with far greater color accuracy and brightness. Also, you can hook up an external monitor, apparently lugging 17" beasts around wasn't popular enough to carry the models forward. >and less I/O functionality Actually way way more. Less varied ports (basically 2 types: 4 USB-C and 1 headphone), but way way more I/O power and connectivity. >and would be incompatible with my audio interface unless I daisy-chain multiple adapters to get Firewire. Or just get a USB-C to Firewire adapter of hub. Daisy chain multiple adapters? Huh?

stuckagain 10y ago
Does a USB-C to FireWire exist?
- smoser 10y ago
  TB2->FW + TB3->TB2 in theory. http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD464LL/A/apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapter http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD464LL/A/apple-thunderbol...
  - stuckagain 10y ago
    Exactly the chain of adapters that beat was complaining of.
    - an_account 10y ago
      FireWire has been dead for years, it's time for an upgrade.

TYPE_FASTER 10y ago

> This week, my mother's crappy Windows computer died, and I bought her a Chromebook. It was great! Yeah, no kidding. I have a $160 Toshiba Chromebook that is great for most tasks. Apple's risk in dropping the Premiere/FCP crowd is that the mass audience they are seeking will discover how good Chromebooks are, and the price tradeoff, and use them with Google cloud services for pretty much everything.

beat 10y ago
Indeed. One of the big selling points of Macs was that they weren't running Microsoft Virus Studio, and didn't turn into a filthy pit of malware when handed to someone without a degree in computer security. Chromebooks are probably more secure than Macs.
- 72deluxe 10y ago
  Do they all still have abysmal screen resolutions? All the ones I keep seeing have resolutions from the 1990s.
  - beat 10y ago
    The one I got my mother has 1920x1280. I set that as a minimum requirement, because the cheap Windows junker I bought her four years ago had that resolution.
    - 72deluxe 10y ago
      That's good to hear - actually a better resolution than my 2012 MacBook (should have got the higher res one but with DVD drive). What make/model is that Chromebook, out of interest?
  - jdietrich 10y ago
    Several Chromebooks have FHD IPS displays; the HP Chromebook 13 is available with a 3,200 x 1,800 display.

eiriklv 10y ago

The 17" MBP is such a beautiful and usable machine. I've been using a rMBP from 2012 until recently, but when Apple announced the new 2016 MBP I went and got a mint maxed out late 2011 17" instead. Just to give it a try really. I now love everything about it (especially the keyboard and the screen). Serviceability and the fact that you can run a 4TB RAID 0 or a 2TB RAID 1 is a huge bonus as well. Regardless of the justifications Apple may have to continue on their current path, it personally (and very subjectively) makes me sad. They used to be a tent pole in my digital life, but now I feel we've lost touch with each other...

pvg 10y ago

Someone please tell Apple than when you need to hold a press conference to convince people you're committed to your product, you're not committed to your product. Wouldn't Apple have to do that first so that someone can then tell them?

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

>Chromebook It might be usable for some stuff, but if you don't devmode it (mine's a school computer, so I can't), it's really insufficient for a wide variety of tasks. It does (credit to Google) have a very good SSH client, and (credit to the mosh team) have a very good Mosh client, so if you've got a fast network and you're an emacs/vi/vim user, it's okay for dev work, but it's not ideal. And it's rubbish for games.

olegkikin 10y ago

Why not get a cheap powerful desktop for heavyweight processing, and a cheap lightweight laptop for mobility? $3K is a ridiculous amount of money considering modern options. Examples: Dual Xeon E5-2690 + 64GB RAM + 1TB HDD = $1250 http://www.ebay.com/itm/391654102568 http://www.ebay.com/itm/391654102568 Dual Xeon X5670 + 128GB RAM + 2TB HDD = $1600 http://www.ebay.com/itm/361745717969 http://www.ebay.com/itm/361745717969 Dual Xeon E5-2670 + 128GB RAM + 8TB HDD = $1900 http://www.ebay.com/itm/172218395641 http://www.ebay.com/itm/172218395641

dmoy 10y ago
I would agree. I would not want to do serious editing on a laptop that costs >2x, has half the ram and like a third of the CPU/GPU power. Just not worth the money and time. So much longer waiting for renders...
- skykooler 10y ago
  Half the ram? Where are you finding a macbook with 32gb of ram?
  - dmoy 10y ago
    Ah yea I suppose depending on your workload. I've never hit much more than 30-40G doing editing work, I guess some people might use more. As always, depends on usage.
72deluxe 10y ago
Great idea. I might get a cheesegrater Mac when my MBP dies and then a cheaper laptop to remote?
strictnein 10y ago
Those are some really interesting options. I recently picked up a new Asus Zenbook ux330ua (basically Macbook Air, but significantly better specs and ~$500 less) for mobile use and was going to start looking for a new desktop option. I really like building my own systems, so buying one prebuilt would be strange, but that's some serious hardware for pretty nice prices.

module0000 10y ago

> This week, my mother's crappy Windows computer died, and I bought her a Chromebook. It was great! I'm now seriously considering getting a Chromebook for myself for day-to-day web browsing and such, and retiring the MBP to music and photos only. If I can figure out how to run Vagrant on one This is tricky, the vagrant part. Virtualization extensions aren't compiled for the chromeos kernel. You can do it, but it requires downloading the chromeos kernel source, configuring the modules to be compiled, recompiling and booting with that. This means substantially more work if you want to upgrade the software, since each upgrade means you have to repeat the kernel compilation step. The development side of it is simpler though - you can load whatever you want on it once you put it into development mode. tldr; it's possible, but not without some time and effort, and it may not be worth your time. When I need to vagrant on a chromebook, it starts and ends with SSH'ing to a linux machine that can run vagrant.

shams93 10y ago

You can use a chromebook for music too, if you use crouton it allows you to shut off cras (the chromeos audio system) and fire up jackd, you can run open source stuff like audacity and ardour but if you have an intel chromebook you can even run Renoise and Bitwig.

mcv 10y ago

I'm in the same boat. I still use my 2011 MBP for development work, and I will continue to use it until it falls apart, but I don't think I'm going to buy a new Macbook to replace it. I love that I can open this one up and upgrade the hell out of it. It's got a better SSD than Apple ever sold for it, and more memory than Apple claims is possible. I doubt a processor upgrade is possible, but if it was, I'd be in the market for one.

ThinkBeat 10y ago

What can the Surface do that your Mac cant? Use a pen? The build quality of the Surface have gotten better with each iteration but they are still far below the Macbooks. I have had 3 of them, and I have a lot of friends that use the Surface due to work. I believe one guy is on his 4 Surface 3 now, due to repeated quality problems in hardware. I am on my 2 Surface 3 now. The list of hardware issues for Surface 2 and Surface 3 is long and painful. I dont have insight into 4 yet, but I am told it is better.

PhasmaFelis 10y ago

Can I ask what your MacBook's current specs are? I love my 5-year-old 13" MBP, but IIRC $3000 was close to the cost of a fully-upgraded top-end 17" MBP in 2011. It's hard to imagine how a similarly-specced machine could cost the same five years later.

GabeRicard 10y ago

I have a 15" 2012 MBP Retina that still works amazingly well. But... I wanted to do side project work on the train ride to/from work and the MBP is just too big for my backpack and cumbersome to use if I'm sitting next to someone else. I picked up a Chromebook so I'd have a smaller (11") device to work on. I did a bunch of research and ended up with an Acer C720-3404 (a specific model that has 4GB of RAM, when most only have 2GB, and has a legit Core i3 CPU instead of a Celeron, so it actually had great horsepower. And I managed to find one with an upgraded 128GB SSD for $150 on craigslist. I spent a bunch of time messing around with it and ended up with an EFI boot system, Clover bootloader, and a triple boot setup with Windows 10, Ubuntu 16.10 & Mac OS X El Capitan. Sounds great, but it has its downsides. Win10 has to run in some test mode so the custom drivers will work, OSX wifi is flakey and stops working periodically, Linux would randomly crash and I was never able to get the trackpad setup juuuuuuust right so I can use the smaller keyboard without my palms causing issues. I was able to get some work done with it, but eventually it turned into me spending more time maintaining the system than being productive. So I'm selling the Chromebook and I bought a 2013 MacBook Air to replace it. I spent probably 4x as much on the Air, but it just works, I can triple boot it the same way if I want, and it has a Core i7 and 8GB of RAM, and the battery life is like 10+ hours. That and the overall quality is just better. The Chromebook was fun to mess around with, but I'm more productive with a Mac.

douche 10y ago
I just can't wrap my head around the idea of a 15" laptop being too big to fit in a backpack or work on comfortably. On the other hand, these tiny laptops that people wax poetically about seem comically small to me. In college, I had a 10" Asus eeePC that I picked up cheap to take to class, since my main computer was a beastly 17" HP, and there was no way in hell that that would balance on the tiny little flip-up desk arms on lecture auditorium seats. I couldn't physically fit both hands on the keyboard, and had to learn how to type with just my left hand. It was passable for typing a few notes and dicking around on the internet, but I cannot fathom trying to actually do work on it, simply because of the ergonomics of something that tiny. Even going up to the 13" form-factor that appears to be all the rage these days, it's tough when I hold one up next to one of the 27" monitors attached to my desktop, and notice that it is only one quarter of the screen area. And I've got four of those arranged 2x2 at my desk.

tbrock 10y ago

Yeah that's just not correct. The CPUs and GPUs from 5 years ago were good but the current generation of intel cpus are much faster and the video cards are in an entirely different realm. Source: owned 2011 MacBook Pro that was decked out, own current MacBook Pro

jsz0 10y ago

> less I/O functionality ThunderBolt 3 is certainly not less IO functionality. It provides the highest performing / most versatile IO that's ever been available in a laptop before. I get your point that it's not exactly the physical connector you need but that's a small price to pay for what is pretty close to desktop level expansion on a laptop. > maybe I'll just start paying for a cloud-based dev environment That's really the best option for developers in most cases. I can't imagine ever going back to being limited by the resources of any individual computer (much less a laptop) when cloud resources are so inexpensive and offer so many other advantages.

40_pending 10y ago

Have to agree with you. I'm still lugging around my 2011 17" MBP. For work I've been issued a recent 13"(not the newest MBP) and it does not perform significantly better than my 2011. I'd have long ago just settled on a linux laptop if I wasn't dependent on the media apps on the mac(Logic Pro & FCPX). I might look at Windows a little more seriously depending on how Bash for Windows development comes a long. Currently it is not feasible to develop in my stack on Windows though without a VM.