14 ms·

I hope my Macbook days would be over soon. After using Macbook Pro many years, I find good Windows machines are as reliable as Mac's ones. Apple products are u

• bradleyjg 9y ago
  Which laptop manufactures have you found to be as reliable and well put together as macbooks? I haven't had too much luck with dells or lenovos.
  • kristianov 9y ago
    Surface Book and Surface Laptop are quite good.
    • vvanders 9y ago
      +1 on Surface Book. Great build quality, good dev machine and decent gaming laptop as well.
      • cgb223 9y ago
        Was thinking about getting one for work, and gaming is a nice perk What kind of specs/graphics/resolution do you get on that for games?
        • vvanders 9y ago
          Just make sure to grab one with the discrete GPU(dGPU aka Performance Base). It's not going to be anything near a desktop(no laptop will) but I can run most things at 1080p pretty well and some of the lighter stuff(like Pyre) at 3Kx2k(native resolution).
        • FiveDegrees 9y ago
          I would strongly recommend the XPS 15 9560 over it, if you don't need it to be able to convert it to a tablet. More performant, cheaper, better screen.
    • reboog711 9y ago
      Just wait 6 months or so after release....
      • UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
        For what? I own a Surface Pro 3 and a Surface Book. Both have only been improved through firmware updates after release. There was actually some pain points on the SP3 right around release that caused some headaches.
        • reboog711 9y ago
          Generally the Surface products have a poor history of 'working' at launch. The reason for waiting is that the firmware improvements come out before you get the machine. My Surface Book was a spotchy experience for the first 6 months or so. by month 6 it was running acceptably.
    • m_mueller 9y ago
      Aren't they roughly the same price as Macbooks?
      • UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
        There's no way to answer that without a bias. It depends which Mac you feel is most comparable to the Surface Laptop, what value is placed on Touchbar (if any), what value is placed on a touchscreen (if any), how much value you place on a slightly faster integrated GPU or a slightly faster CPU (Macbook Pro 13" or Surface Laptop respectively), and numerous other metrics. Broadly speaking I'd likely say, "similar," but there might also be a $200 saving buying the Surface Laptop relative to a similarly spec-ed Macbook Pro 13". I don't consider that a significant saving when we're discussion laptops costing over $1200, but the savings grow as price increases.
    • mycall 9y ago
      I'd like to see 4 or 6 cores.
  • UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
    If you stick to the boring Thinkpads (T series and P series) they're fairly safe bets. Some of Dell's business grade laptops are also built like tanks. Neither company's consumer grade (read: cheap) I'd touch. Microsoft makes good hardware, but you'll pay borderline "Apple Prices" for it. Only big mistake Microsoft has made is trying to ship the Surface Laptop starting at $999 and topping out at $2199, with Windows 10 S, which you'll be able to "upgrade" "free" for a "limited time only." Meaning, when that promo runs out you may need to pay a $50 fee on your $999 Surface Laptop to get a full copy of Windows 10. To say that annoys me would be a huge understatement.
    • phr4ts 9y ago
      Yes it's annoying but forgivable when you consider that MS's first priority with its Surface Line is to run a profitable tech demo rather than competing its own foremost customers - Dell, HP...
    • Anechoic 9y ago
      If you stick to the boring Thinkpads (T series and P series) Anecdotal, but two out of three T series Thinkpads has sudden motherboard failures. No problems with 3 MacBooks or 3 Inspirons. We're done buying Lenovo.
      • zzalpha 9y ago
        Counter anecdata: My office is full of T and W series Lenovos. I myself have a first generation Carbon as my work machine. My personal machine was a T410 (and before that another T series) until I recently got a new Carbon. Absolutely zero reports of problems. None.
    • TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
      A maxed out ThinkPad P71 is AU$13,250 (about US$10,000), but still no option for on site warranty (through the AU store anyway).
  • petilon 9y ago
    I highly recommend Samsung ATIV Book 9. In my opinion they are better than macbooks. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X19MJZZ/ref=psdc_13896615011_t3_B019919RG8 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06X19MJZZ/ref=psdc_13896615011_t3...
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  • sangd 9y ago
    I really like the Surface Pro. It's a very nice combo of a tablet & a laptop with lots of power like a laptop. I've used Dell's XPS & Inspiron models. They've last quite long. Their hardware does fail after 4+ years, but acceptable and replaceable and they're inexpensive to replace. I do own a Windows desktop with Xeon core, and it's very powerful PC. Its price is probably 1/4 of the Mac Pro. Definitely not HPs, they're bad computers, both laptops and desktop. Thinkpads are good, but I've never tried one after Lenovo took over.
  • delhanty 9y ago
    For those considering MS Surface, be aware that, unlike Apple, support is limited to the country that you purchased the device in. See this comment from 2 months ago on HN [1]. Because of that negative point, I'm now considering one of the Ubuntu Dell Precision models and would appreciate any experiences on HN of Dell and international support for business class laptops. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14400873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14400873
    • nailer 9y ago
      Author of that comment here. Still being sent back and forth between Microsoft UK and Microsoft US with an occasionally unusable laptop.
      • mtl_usr 9y ago
        Such a good way to attract pro users. The number of Apple store and their world-wide support is one of the reason I see a lot of pro users reluctant to buy something else than a MacBook. This makes absolutely no sense since the only buyers of Surface products are as of now pretty much only "pro" users.
  • zzalpha 9y ago
    If your willing to pay MacBook prices I'd give Lenovo another look. The latest Carbon is just... a perfect laptop as far as I'm concerned.
    • matt_wulfeck 9y ago
      It may be MacBook prices but they certainly don't offer Apple support. I'm never going to go through that hassle again.
      • duncan_bayne 9y ago
        But sir, you did not purchase the extended accidental damage act of God fragile electronics warranty!
      • zzalpha 9y ago
        Yeah, fair point. Fortunately I've only once ever had to get service for a Lenovo in the 10+ years I've owned one. But you're not wrong.
• zionic 9y ago
  What happened? Did apple simultaneously fire all of it's hardware team along with it's QA dept? (we know the 2nd one happened). I love apple, but it feels like they have a CEO who's running it in "latter years" mode. Zero risk, minimize cost everywhere, maximize profit even if it results in absurd cash piles... This is what you get when bean counters run tech companies.
  • al452 9y ago
    I kind of agree, but feel a need to point out that the "absurd cash piles" are a byproduct of tax rules, not of (alleged) timidity on the part of Cook et al.
    • hsitz 9y ago
      What tax rule are you talking about? The cash in the "absurd pile" has already been taxed as income.
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      • downrightmike 9y ago
        US corp taxes in general
    • wahern 9y ago
      It's a stretch to say that it's a byproduct of tax rules. It's more a product of avoiding taxes, period. Apple could repatriate its overseas profits at any time. It would have to pay taxes on those profits, yes, but that would be no different than their domestic profits. Apple would be able to deduct foreign taxes, including foreign VAT payments[1], which would put their foreign profits in parity with their domestic profits in terms of tax burden. [1] Unlike foreign income you can't take a credit on VAT payments. But VAT payments are deductible like any other business expense. Because corporations are taxed at a fixed percentage (no progressive income brackets), it's a distinction without a difference.
  • 9y ago
• al452 9y ago
  > I find good Windows machines are as reliable as Mac's ones. Yes. But they are still fugly.
  • nabaraj 9y ago
    I am sorry I prefer an ugly device which is more powerful and provides more value for the money for less than half of the price of its competitor.
  • sangd 9y ago
    I don't think they're. There're many great ones, very powerful & slick designs. I think you fall into Apple's illusions.
  • wvenable 9y ago
    There are plenty of aluminum rectangle Windows machines now. I just bought a Lenovo gaming laptop (it was an amazing deal) and I'm actually surprised that it isn't super fugly. Gaming laptops are all a bit over-the-top design-wise but Lenovo actually used a little restraint. It also came with no bloatware.
• m_mueller 9y ago
  one thing I'd miss from Apple is service. Being ablr to walk into a store where they can fix simple things immediately is AFAIK unheard of with windows PCs.. maybe with MS Stores, but these are incredibly rare outside the US.
  • derekp7 9y ago
    For the Thinkpads, you can upgrade the 1-year warranty to on-site next business day for a few bucks. I think a 3-year onsite is a couple hundred, but you don't have to purchase it with the laptop, as long as you buy it before the base warranty runs out.
  • jongalloway2 9y ago
    I'm a Microsoft employee, but never tell them that when I go to the local store to get an idea how they treat everyone else. I've returned a few things and been shocked at how good and fast the service is.Basically it's Sorry! Here's a new one! Bye! Disclaimers: Inside the US, Microsoft employee, Nazgûl
    • bshacklett 9y ago
      I've had excellent experiences at the Microsoft store. In one case, I returned a Surface Pro and they really took the time to listen to why I decided to return it. Now, I don't know if that feedback ever made it outside of the store or not, but I felt like a valued customer, and that means a lot in this day and age.
• nikofeyn 9y ago
  same here. i got my first macbook in the windows xp days. mac os x was lightyears ahead of that OS and increased productivity many orders of magnitude. nowadays? i use my surface pro for any real work and basically use my macbook pro as a web browsing machine given that's it's slightly more lapable and has a nice big trackpad. but it can barely do that. so many (basically forced) upgrades have left it unusable for running anymore than an app at a time. mac os x has generally degraded and gotten worse and worse. i find you can get a lot more mileage of windows 7 and up out of computers than mac os x these days.
• Clubber 9y ago
  I tried that and got an HP Spectre 15" when my 2013 rMBP was having memory issues. I really wanted to like it and it was a beautiful machine, but the home/end key was in a weird place, and the zoom/scroll in the browser (Chrome) is still clunky, especially the zoom, compared to Safari. There were other little things like no right click dictionary, poor palm recognition, etc. I went back to the 2017 rMBP and really like it. I use Windows in a VM and have the Cmd -> as end and Cmd <- as home and it works great. I'd still buy a Thinkpad if they put their old keyboards back in service.
• mcappleton 9y ago
  Why not use Linux? Same price point advantage, and even better than mac for development because you can develop on the exact same distro you will use for your server.
  • grover_hartmann 9y ago
    Indeed, some advantages I can think of with Linux. * Containers (LXC, systemd-nspawn, Docker, etc. and native virtualization with QEMU/KVM), Apple doesn't even come close here. * Use the WM/DE of your choice. * Superior package management (pacman, apt, dnf, flatpak, etc). * Use the distro of your choice. * Use the latest GNU software unlike some crippled bash version like in Mac. * Decide if you want bleeding edge or not. * Use any hardware you want (older or new, Linux doesn't care and it will still perform well even with older hardware). * Get more performance with Linux.[1][2] * Freedom.[3] * Privacy, security and transparency. * Peace of mind, never be forced to upgrade your hardware or software. Your hardware is yours and you can use it until it literally breaks. You control your computer and not the other way around. IMO, GNOME 3 and i3/sway are way nicer than the GUI on macOS, and you can use all the same development tools and editors on Linux today, tmux, Vim/Neovim, Emacs, Atom, VS Code, Sublime Text, etc. There are so many other reasons.[4] Feel free to mention your reasons too. I don't see what's the appeal with Mac at all, it seems like you are just paying for a logo. [1] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macos-sierra-ubuntu&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macos-sie... [2] http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macos-10125-linux&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macos-101... [3] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH3v41JmyIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH3v41JmyIg
    • willtim 9y ago
      Great summary. I'd like to add the nix package manager to your list. It allows non-destructive updates, rollbacks, parallel installs of different app/library versions, development environments and much more.
    • majkinetor 9y ago