7 ms·

Ask HN: What to replace my MacBook with?

• bovermyer 9y ago
  Asus Zenbook works well for me. I'm running Kubuntu.
  • craftkiller 9y ago
    I'd caution against Asus Zenbooks. My friend and I both got ux303ln's and another friend got a different model with the same body. All 3 of us had broken hinges (fully snapped) in less than a year. They put cheap plastic in their hinges according to some videos on YouTube. Premium laptops should last more than a year.
• sigmonsays 9y ago
  I too am interested in this. Not sure what your platform choice is, linux or windows, but this post is all with a linux bias. I have a 15" macbook pro from late 2013. I do not upgrade computers very often and expect them to last a long time. Laptops are especially hard because I am also a linux user who has never operated a linux laptop. The departure from Mac leaves me with Windows which I will not ever operate. I've looked into this before am currently considering these Thought about getting a super light weight low spec cheap laptop like a thinkpad x220 or even a dell. Most the time my laptops are used as clients, so I do not need too much. Running a web browser is the most intensive need these days. System76 - Gazelle or better. These look nice and are linux compatible. Also, an article I saved to read later and still havn't found time https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/11/2/13497094/best-macbook-pro-alternative-windows-laptops https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/11/2/13497094/b...
  • krutzger 9y ago
    You can get a refurbished x220 for $200. It won't be the best laptop ever, but probably enough to learn Linux. Had multiple co-workers going this route and now they are full-time ThinkPad users.
  • CyberFonic 9y ago
    As a programmer, I find going from OS X to Linux to be smoother due to both being *nix derived. I know Windows now has Linux facilities, but from a programming perspective the library situation is still a bit sloppy. Linux ecosystem (I prefer Debian based, e.g. Ubuntu) is far more mature. Of course if you are looking at playing games and being able to plug in just about any piece of USB hardware, then Windows is always going to be better supported.
• noir_lord 9y ago
  I have a T470P, Core i7-7700HQ, 32GB RAM, NVMe SSD. 2560x1440 matt IPS (excellent screen) with the larger 72whr battery. Cracking machine for the price works great with Linux.
• bproven 9y ago
  If you can get something preloaded with Linux it is probably best. System 76 or the Dell precision line of laptops are good options. In the case of dell I would go precision over XPS - I believe you get better support and a better tested product with the business line. I have an XPS and have had a few QA issues with it. However, once I got it sorted it has been great running Ubuntu - but it was a ..... journey to say the least ;) EDIT: another good option is probably XPS 13 Dev editions that give you ubuntu preloaded as well
  • mmanulis 9y ago
    I switched to Dell Precision Develop Edition 15" at the start of the year. It comes preloaded with Ubuntu 16.04. I have really enjoyed this machine and don't miss my MacBook Pro at all. The machine worked great out of the box, I made a few minor changes to how I like to work. The two major changes I made were: * Install a libinput and get rid of synaptics driver * Install the latest kernel I run with a bunch of proprietary drivers (nvidia, intel, etc.) and don't have any problems The only thing that I miss having is Sketch. But I just run a small Windows VM and use PS when I need it. Majority of my time is spent in Chrome/Firefox, Terminal, gVim and Slack, so I don't miss anything Mac-specific. If you're looking for help on how to get yours configured, there are plenty of guides if you search for: Dell XPS 15 Ubuntu or variants of that.
    • krutzger 9y ago
      How well does the precision work out of the box? I would prefer to run standard Ubuntu with no modifications or proprietary drivers of possible.
      • mmanulis 9y ago
        It works fine except for the touchpad, hence the switch to libinput. Keep in mind, it comes with a bunch of stuff enabled by Dell and using their own repos. I upgraded the kernel as I'm using the WD15 dock and the thunderbolt firmware/drivers are flaky on older kernels and will lock up the system. If you've never ran Linux as your primary machine, be prepared for occasional snags, especially around suspend. Overall, it's an easy system to fiddle with with lots and lots of online resources and how-to's.
• thecrumb 9y ago
  Thinkpad. If you hit the Lenovo outlet you can occasionally find a really good deal.
• blibb 9y ago
  Wait for thinkpad x1 carbon 2018, should be presented at CES in 2 weeks ...
• orionstein 9y ago
  I'm running Arch on my Surface Pro 3 for work. It works pretty well for me. Some hurdles, but it's nice to have the control.
  • CyberFonic 9y ago
    Did you wipe off Windows and install Arch from scratch? I have been considering that, but haven't yet found any encouraging reviews on how well that goes. Especially: can you use the pen?
• dabockster 9y ago
  Buy a used IT laptop from eBay and install your favorite Linux flavor on it.
• yarinr 9y ago
  I'd look into the Dell XPS. Its build quality competes with the MacBook, it's one of the smallest laptops of it size (either 13 or 15) and the 4k screen is absolutely stunning (although some prefer fhd for the improved battery life). I got mine recently and I'm loving it.
  • npolet 9y ago
    I've got a little 13" XPS Developer Edition and it's a really solid option. The build quality is perfect and I've yet to come across any issues with it. Use daily for web development in work and for personal projects. With an i7 it runs really smooth. I opted for the FHD option for the longer battery life, but would have gone UHD if I didn't mind about battery life. It's really nice to see Dell make Linux part of it's line-up. Part of me bought it as a little heads-up to Dell that Linux laptops are a good thing. I've always just installed Ubuntu over existing windows laptops, but it's nice to see it somewhat as a first class citizen with Dell.
    • krutzger 9y ago
      I think the Linux version of XPS is also $100 cheaper
  • switch007 9y ago
    Curious if you had a Macbook Pro retina before the XPS? My annoyances with the XPS 9360 (mostly compared to my 2015 rMBP 13"): i7 throttled all the time, coil whine, the hinge pinches your legs on opening, can't open with one hand, terrible trackpad, the webcam position is a joke, one usb slot is misaligned, poor speakers, no graphics port (you need e.g. a USB C to HDMI adapter)
• drawnwren 9y ago
  I went from a stolen 2015 MBP to an X230 (modified with an X220 keyboard) to a new MBP. With the thinkpads, the smaller screen and lower resolution will take some getting used to. Running a customized window manager in Linux is the best solution when it works but you shouldn't discount the amount of time you will lose to tinkering and random breakages. My personal belief is that, for a working dev, MacOS is still the best deal running. The fact of the matter is that it will always work and any new software you want to install will have a well documented how to. Even if you don't want to run MacOS, I'd still probably recommend buying an MBP and dual booting linux on it. Thinkpads are great, the x220 keyboard is probably the best keyboard ever put on a laptop, but the screens are horrible, you will notice the RAM and CPU shortage, and battery life was an issue. Further, the form factor is not as small as an MBP. If you are going down the Thinkpad route, the X62 is an interesting option custom made by an enthusiast group in Shenzhen. [1] Otherwise, Hackaday wrote a fairly modern Thinkpad buyer's guide [2]. One thing I would note is that upgrading the x230 keyboard to the x220 keyboard is trivial and only requires a jeweler's screwdriver and a few new parts (about $70). You can also upgrade the x230 screen to an HD screen but that is a significantly more complicated upgrade. [1] https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/ https://geoff.greer.fm/2017/07/16/thinkpad-x62/ [2] https://hackaday.com/2016/10/28/apple-sucks-now-heres-a-thinkpad-buyers-guide/ https://hackaday.com/2016/10/28/apple-sucks-now-heres-a-thin...
  • dpark 9y ago
    > With the thinkpads, the smaller screen and lower resolution will take some getting used to What takes getting used to is that Thinkpad screens are trash. :( I’ve been so disappointed in them. They start mediocre and decline rapidly with blotching and ghosting. I’ve used Thinkpads for my personal laptop and my work laptop and refuse to own another. My manager has a recent Thinkpad with an OLED screen which seems pretty good but I’m not willing to try another. I fully expect that in 6 months his OLED will exhibit ghosting or burn in.
    • ajford 9y ago
      Gotta say, I've used a fair number of thinkpads across the last 10 years, and I've never seen any blotching or ghosting. I will admit that the older models had fairly crappy resolutions (I mean 1366x768 and 1600x800 was crap, and Lenovo held on to those resolutions far longer than they should), and pretty dim (I could barely use my X200t and X201 in the shade outside), but I feel most models in the last 2-3 years have made plenty of progress in that regard.
• contingencies 9y ago
  I just did this because my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) / 16GB / 1TB machine finally developed a hardware fault they want motherboard replacement money to fix (occasional but frequent hard resets). After checking the cost of a new MBP (basically almost same specs as the old one, plus touch bar!) and then noticing a Dell sale on before Xmas here in Sydney, I decided to replace it with a Dell XPS 15 9560 (laptop version, not the split-part "2-in-1" version, in black, with max memory and hard disk) for about ½ - ⅔ of the price of a Macbook Pro, but with better specs. The physical build of the machine takes some getting used to but I prefer the keyboard immensely, the black/carbon fiber finish is excellent and the high-grip "don't fall off table" feature is also great. As I have been focusing on family over Christmas and also have a company to run I am time short, so still setting up Gentoo, but set myself the somewhat uncharted goal of ZFS root (achieved!) and am enjoying the setup so far. Yet to finalize optimum video setup as the machine has two chips, X11 does not yet want to function correctly with the closed source nvidia-drivers on super-new kernels, but it works awesome for angband and X does work fine with the open source i915 drivers. Current notes on the Gentoo wiki at https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Dell_XPS_15_9560 https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Dell_XPS_15_9560
  • krutzger 9y ago
    Seriously, you went from osx to Gentoo? It's like going from using computers to designing your own cpus... Just install Ubuntu and be done with it
    • contingencies 9y ago
      Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. AFAIK, Gentoo is the best full-control Linux distro out there, possibly only rivalled by arch. It's not for everyone, but I do want that level of control. Using OSX I constantly run up against annoying irritations and have to spin up special VMs, which is tedious. I gave it a good go - almost seven years. Enough. IMHO ZFS root (snapshots and rewind) goes a long way towards resolving the worst irritations in using Gentoo as a desktop OS.
      • 9y ago
• acd 9y ago
  I would recommend Thinkpad T470s. I have used both Lenovo T460s, T470 laptops and Dell XPS developer edition with Linux. I personally prefer the Lenovo. Here is a detailed review of T470s https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T470s-Core-i7-WQHD-Laptop-Review.200880.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T470s-Core-i7-... Here is ranking of Laptop brands by Laptop mag, Lenovo rank best laptop brand. https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/laptop-brand-ratings https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/laptop-brand-ratings
  • pimeys 9y ago
    And they still sell the T25 model which is basically a maxed out T470 with the perfect seven row keyboard. A superb laptop with Linux. Soon though the T480 is out with the quad core ulv CPUs, so maybe waiting is also an option...
• krutzger 9y ago
  I see a lot of ThinkPads and Dells here, but how about hp? Are they good for Linux?
  • ajford 9y ago
    I've heard decent things about the HP Spectre, but it was fairly new, either a 2016 or 2017 model. Some minor quirks with Ubuntu and older kernels, but I think they got 16.04 or 16.10 working well.
    • krutzger 9y ago
      Sounds good. Spectre 360 looks as nice as the Dell XPS, if not better. I also think they are a bit cheaper, but I'm not sure about hps track record regarding quality and Linux support.
• ajford 9y ago
  I highly recommend a decently modern Lenovo Thinkpad. The T470 and T470s/p are pretty nice. I managed to get a good bargin on a T460 off Craigslist, and it runs like a dream. After some minute tweaks (mostly installing tlp), it's running Ubuntu 17.10 fantastically. If you want something a bit smaller, the X series is the line with a 12.5inch screen. Downside is the latest model (the X270) only has a FHD screen, with 1920x1080 max. The T470s and T470p both have a 14 inch WQHD screen with 2560x1440 max. The 15 inch T570 has a UHD screen with 3840x2160 max, which is definitely Retina-like.
• tonymet 9y ago
  .Dell XPS 15 4k with windows 10 pro. MS is all in on developers and releasing more goodies every quarter.
• O_H_E 9y ago
  I recommend checking out the "Galago Pro" from System 76, it comes preloaded with Linux (actually their whole company is built on Linux), Good customer support. They have been recommended various times in another HN threads BTW: They are currently addressing the Intel ME problem. https://system76.com/laptops/galago https://system76.com/laptops/galago