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Apple drops to fifth place in laptop brand survey
- plandis 10y agoLenovo has the best laptops? Is spyware a good thing now?
- Noctix 10y agoIIRC, the Thinkpad line was not affected, and wasn't it a external partner that planted the rootkit?
- lukas099 10y agoEven if so, it reflects poorly on Lenovo.
- citruspi 10y ago> the Thinkpad line was not affected Correct. > wasn't it a external partner that planted the rootkit? Nope. The first time it was 3rd party software, Superfish, but Lenovo installed it and installed a self-signing root certificate authority to MITM the traffic[0]. The second time it was Lenovo's own software, Lenovo Service Engine, which they also installed themselves[1]. [0]: http://www.zdnet.com/article/superfish-stop-using-your-lenovo-laptop-now/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/superfish-stop-using-your-lenov... [1]: http://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-rootkit-ensured-its-software-could-not-be-deleted/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-rootkit-ensured-its-soft...
- VT_Drew 10y agoI read that too. Lenovo the top spot? Aaaand we are done here. I am not going to trust any "review"/"ranking" system that doesn't put Lenovo dead last. They were caught 2 times preloading spyware/malware on their machines.
- interfixus 10y agoSomeone recently gifted me a ThinkPad. It is hands down the most awesomely satisfying piece of computing equipment I have ever owned. Of course, I wouldn't dream of running this or any other real computer with a pre-installed OS.
- glogla 10y agoIf only thinkpads had non-rubbish screens and touchpads. Actually, I could probably learn to use the nub, whatever. Just give me reasonable screens on something under 2000 USD.
- VT_Drew 10y agoDoesn't matter if you re-install the OS. They spyware was baked into the BIOS. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/12/lenovo_firmware_nasty/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/12/lenovo_firmware_nas...
- interfixus 10y agoI do not reinstall "the OS". One charm of this ThinkPad is it works superbly with some Arch Linux on it.
- VT_Drew 10y ago>I do not reinstall "the OS". >it works superbly with some Arch Linux on it. These 2 statements contradict each other. Either you reinstall the OS (OK maybe you didn't technically REinstall, but most people would call installing a different OS "reinstalling the OS") or you still running the default OS.
- interfixus 10y agoInstalling a different OS is not 'reinstalling' The BIOS thing was specifically targeted at Windows installations, a thing I havn't bothered with since the previous millenium.
- 10y ago
- Karliss 10y agoDell shiped laptops with custom root certificate that had private key available.
- rmmm 10y agoFor the lazy and/or mobile... "Lenovo, Asus, Dell, and HP. Acer tied Apple for fifth place."
- sneak 10y agoDell at 3rd and HP at 4th. Pretty sure whoever they surveyed doesn't use laptops.
- mi100hael 10y agoLink to actual ratings: http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/laptop-brand-ratings http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/laptop-brand-ratings
- culturestate 10y agoIf I'm reading this right, it seems that the results are from a survey of the Laptop Mag editorial staff, which is a little disappointing. I'm much more interested in seeing some third-party consumer data – very curious to hear how Joe Public's opinion of the current lineup compares to the tech industry's.
- tedmiston 10y agoAgreed. The description of why Lenovo is suddenly "#1" seems fairly arbitrary and subjective.
- zeveb 10y agoI think it's still relevant, because Apple has historically had great mindshare amongst thought leaders — now that it appears to have lost it, it's only a matter of time before it starts to lose mindshare amongst normal folks. A non-technical acquaintance who occasionally asks me for computer help recently switched from Android to iOS (at the behest of her daughter, indicating Apple's continuing mindshare amongst at least one segment), and she utterly hates it compared to Android. From what I can tell, it's not solely because of the pain of changing — it's also that iOS simply isn't as pleasant to use. And that says something, given that she was using a fairly terrible vendor Android previously. That's just one anecdote, but I wonder how many others there are. How many vi-users will seriously consider switching to Windows or Linux? How many power users will have to switch to Windows or Linux just for more RAM? At what point do people who used to be proud Apple fanatics become sheepish, and at what point do sheepish Apple users just switch to something else already?
- danieldk 10y agoA non-technical acquaintance who occasionally asks me for computer help recently switched from Android to iOS (at the behest of her daughter, indicating Apple's continuing mindshare amongst at least one segment), and she utterly hates it compared to Android. And I know as many people who went in the opposite direction, love iOS and love the integration with their Macs (hand-off, etc.). An anecdote is just an anecdote. At what point do people who used to be proud Apple fanatics become sheepish, and at what point do sheepish Apple users just switch to something else already? Until 'something else' offers: good retina support (including mixing retina and non-retina displays), hardware that works out of the box, long battery life as stated by the manufacturer [1], no spying on user behavior, proper GUI and application sandboxing, low weight, uniform application look & feel + shortcuts, etc. (I use Linux and Mac, switched from 3 years of Android back to iOS. So hardly a purist ;).) [1] http://www.which.co.uk/news/2017/03/which-laptop-battery-tests-manufacturers-overstate/ http://www.which.co.uk/news/2017/03/which-laptop-battery-tes...
- mi100hael 10y agoI believe it. Last summer I switched to a Dell M5510 (dev edition) from a MacBook Pro that was under a year old. Until then I had been a die-hard Mac user basically my entire life, but the MBP and new versions of the OS just had too many bugs: - Time machine backups being corrupted on a monthly basis - Audio occasionally not working after wake from sleep - Laptop failing to wake from sleep altogether - One or two kernel panics In contrast, the Dell has had absolutely no problems running Linux for the past 9 months other than the inability to hot-plug the ethernet dongle. It's truly been more stable than the Mac. And the physical build quality is 90% of the way there, too. Aluminum case, similar keyboard, rubberized CF palm rest, etc. No complaints.
- tedmiston 10y agoWhat made you realize that your Time Machine backups were getting corrupted? I've never seen that before and am curious to know if there's some kind of user notification.
- toyg 10y agoThe classic notification that "Time Machine must take a new backup". Usually that translates roughly to "Time Machine lost the plot and will now start from scratch, say bye to your old versions".
- tedmiston 10y agoI haven't seen this one -- just when the backup disk is full and Time Machine says "this backup will erase backups before date x".
- DigitalJack 10y agoI've gotten it 3 or 4 times in the last 6-8 months. It makes a new backup from scratch which takes forever. Very annoying. I use it for the times when I mess something up and want a file system level "undo" that goes back months. I'd be happy if it just used spare space on the drive. Which it does, but only if you are also backing up to an external drive.
- nxc18 10y agoI love my Surface and I tend to love the MS ecosystem, but they (and others) don't get enough flak for reliability. I have owned bunches of MS hardware, and only one device has made it through its life without needing warranty service. That includes my Zune 80, Xbox 360, Surface RT, a Nokia 920 (iirc), and a Surface 3 (which I will need to take in for service again after the semester ends). More and more professors are switching to Surface devices, and students are, too. Unfortunately, just about every one I've seen has come with a story about hardware or driver issues. On top of that, the relative abundance of bugs in Office and Windows 10 lately isn't a good look. While macOS has gotten worse over the last few releases, they're still nowhere near as bad as the Surface hardware in terms of reliability. It makes me sad, because I really love the devices but I just can't count on them to work 100%. 95% isn't good enough for a device that I use every day for hours per day; Apple seems to get that with their MBPs, and it seems the other manufacturers (notably Dell) are catching on.
- maxxxxx 10y agoI used to replace my Windows laptops around every two years because something broke or they just got painfully slow. My MB 13 now is now almost 3 years old still going strong. Everything works, I never had to reinstall the OS and it still looks great. So for me a Macbook is still the better option. I would agree, however, that Apple has lost interested in moving the platform forward so I am not sure what I'll do once my MBP breaks down. I would like to see a touchscreen for example. The touchbar seems pretty half assed. We have SP3 at work and they have a lot of little issues so I doubt they will last very long.
- tgb 10y agoJust as a counterpoint, I've kept my current window laptop for almost four years. My last was also kept for four years and I was still using it years after as a backup until just recently when the charger broke. That was seven years after purchase. The laptop itself still works and I could probably replace the charger if I cared to.
- 72deluxe 10y agoI never understand this. Why would a machine get painfully slow after a few years of use? Do you install rubbish on it? Do you not take care to ensure that everything in your process task list makes sense? Do you look to see what's gobbling up CPU, memory or startup time? I have had Windows machines for decades and never reach a state where the machine is slow or that it slows down since installation. The only thing to cause that is running endless taskbar apps or background services. What are you doing to make it slow?
- glogla 10y agoBut what can you do? If you want unix environment (and don't want support Microsoft with their telemetry spyware bullshit), and want retina quality text? You're stuck with Apple, because nothing else like that exists. XPS 13 is close, but the scaling on Linux just isn't good enough yet, and there's the coil whine, and there's the touchpad, etc. Apple has created a niche - high quality laptops with unix environment and HiDPI screens, and is the only one inside that niche and can do anything it wants with people who are in it. It's sad, but that's the way it is. Apple has developers by the balls and know is. EDIT: and this is really, really sad - and it's probably even worse on mobile, where you get to chose between Apple (bye bye jack) and giving all you data to Google 24/7, but I digress, sorry.
- nkantar 10y ago> XPS 13 is close, but the scaling on Linux just isn't good enough yet It isn't? A coworker has one and Fedora looks pretty stellar on it. What qualms do you still have with it?
- reitanqild 10y agoMac users will always find a reason to like Mac. They are possibly even more stubborn than me. Mac will always be better to them just like KDE is better to me. And I even liked KDE 4 - which I hardly used. Last time I found a new favourite desktop was with early Ubuntus and they were discontinued. Since then it has been mate, Gnome 3, Cinnamon and elementary until KDE 5 came and everything was back to normal with KDE being best (even if most people don't seem to be able to understand it ;-)
- nkantar 10y agoThat's all well and good, but glogla specifically mentioned scaling issues. The only thing I've still seen only work so-so is mixing HiDPI and non-HiDPI screens, like laptop + monitor, so I was curious if they were referring to that or something else.
- x220 10y ago
- exabrial 10y agoNow more than ever, would be the time to launch a new Unix based Operating System and hardware startup since Apple is so weak, especially with a focus on developers. Imagine a commercially supported laptop line running Linux or FreeBSD.... one can dream
- danieldk 10y agoThe problem is that Linux and it's ecosystem are completely fragmented. Say that you deliver the laptop with your own Linux distribution. People still expect that you support dozens of other distributions, desktop environments, etc. Providing support will probably blow away the relatively thin margins that most manufacturers have to work with. The only company well-positioned to take marketshare from macOS is Windows. They are doing extremely nice work with Windows Subsystem for Linux, which is quickly moving closer towards providing enough of Linux to be productive. At the same time, Windows provides good driver support for recent hardware, applications such as the Adobe Suit, etc. Unfortunately Microsoft has to screw up with telemetry, etc.
- arximboldi 10y agohttp://slimbook.es/ http://slimbook.es/
- exabrial 10y agowow that's pretty awesome actually!
- XiaomiFan 10y ago"A ranking doesn't confirm to my view of the world so it must be fake news!" Found the Trump supporter, and why America is going down the shitter.
- danieldk 10y agoExcept that it has been proven that Lenovo laptops had spyware, twice. In one case with a HTTPS-hijacking proxy server to inject ads. To add to the insult, the same private keys were used on multiple laptops allowing third parties to MITM HTTPS connections If that kind of user-hostility does not place you at the bottom of the list, what does?
- bostand 10y agoTwice? Wasn't the 2nd time proven to be FUD?
- VT_Drew 10y agoI never said it was fake news. I know that company X is garbage, reviewer Y says company X is great, why the hell would I trust reviewer Y? This isn't opinion or debate, they were caught 2 different times putting spyware on new machines, that is fact. Since I know this why would I listen to someone that says "Lenovo is great"? This isn't about "my view of the world", this is about the fact that a company has been caught using dubious practices. You want me to just ignore the facts and role over say "Well Lenovo was caught doing really shitty stuff, but this reviewer likes them so they must be an alright company after all!". Also I didn't, and would never, vote for Trump.
- sctb 10y agoWhoa, how did we get here from there? Please don't comment like this. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14080015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14080015 and marked it off-topic.
- Razengan 10y agoSales said different: http://fortune.com/2016/11/09/apple-macbook-pro-sales/ http://fortune.com/2016/11/09/apple-macbook-pro-sales/ And performance: http://www.computerworld.com/article/3136714/data-storage/apples-new-macbook-pro-may-be-the-worlds-fastest-stock-laptop.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/3136714/data-storage/ap... I have the 2016 15" MBP and it's a solid machine. The Touch Bar is also surprisingly pleasant once you get used to it and customize it a little.
- heavymark 10y agoIs this a real survey or just a random survey by the staff of some website? If so odd this is trending on HN. Otherwise where is the actual data and the number of people who actually made this ratings, the questions they were asked to see how statistically valid the results are.
- antisthenes 10y agoAny survey where Lenovo is at #1 should be taken with a grain of salt. Sorry, this is too generous; it must be taken with a huge truckload of salt. No way in hell would I equate a company who isn't able to maintain a functioning website with any sort of competency.