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> MacBooks are the best laptops in many respects I've never heard this before. I thought some people needed their proprietary software that could only be run

> MacBooks are the best laptops in many respects I've never heard this before. I thought some people needed their proprietary software that could only be run on Apple products, and that is what forces someone to buy a Macbook. What are they best in class for? EDIT: Thank you for the serious responses

Cyph0n 7y ago
Reliable, great hardware quality (keyboard aside), gorgeous Unix-based OS out of the box, excellent driver support. Edit: And the best trackpad ever designed imo
nicky0 7y ago
Best in class screens The trackpad is unsurpassed in the industry Low power consumption / good battery life
Razengan 7y ago
> What are they best in class for? The overall experience.
- robdachshund 7y ago
  Yeah forking over an extra grand to buy a poorly built computer that looks pretty to use a god awful OS on mediocre hardware... what a great experience. It doesn't sound like any of you have used a windows laptop in decades.
nottorp 7y ago
Trackpad, battery life, the OS.
asadkn 7y ago
Except for trackpad and a decent MacOS, nothing really. Low quality hardware, increasingly subpar battery life on newer MBPs, battery swellings too common. The hardware issues are common, but PR damage control teams, stakeholders, and fans will bury anyone who mentions it.
michaelt 7y ago
I've never heard this before. For several years (after the ThinkPad brand got sold to Lenovo who promptly started shipping it with spyware) there wasn't really a PC laptop brand with a rock solid reputation for high build quality. Lots of companies were putting their badges on inch-thick, mostly plastic 15" laptops with mediocre touchpads that never delivered the battery life they promised. And if your employer issued you with a Windows laptop, that was what you got. Remember laptop bags, when moving a laptop needed padding and a shoulder strap and pockets to carry your mouse and power brick? That's not to say there weren't some good products out there - there were some well designed Vaios, some pretty daring early tablet PCs and so on. But there wasn't a brand where you could say "Just buy an X" and know that you'd get a good quality product. Of course, in recent years a lot of PC manufacturers have stepped up their game (or maybe I'm just spending more money?) while Apple has had a few stumbles.
- Stratoscope 7y ago
  > ...the ThinkPad brand got sold to Lenovo who promptly started shipping it with spyware... That's incorrect. You're referring to SuperFish, which was only on Lenovo's consumer machines, not on ThinkPad. https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish
  - michaelt 7y ago
    Nonetheless, it cast a big shadow over the brand; you couldn't just advise someone to buy a Lenovo.
    - Stratoscope 7y ago
      Oh, I would never just advise someone to buy a Lenovo. They might end up choosing some mediocre IdeaPad! I only advise people to buy ThinkPads, and I make specific recommendations on what model to get and which options to choose after we talk about their needs. For example, most people are better off getting a better display instead of a faster CPU if they don't have the money for both. Everyone I've advised like this has been delighted with their ThinkPads. If there is any "shadow" over the brand, it hasn't affected them or me.
urbanjunkie 7y ago
> I've never heard this before. Try to dial down the BS.
Octoth0rpe 7y ago
> What are they best in class for? Best overall balance between performance/weight/battery life. Best trackpad, hands down, no caveats, no balancing against other concerns. It's just that good. Best integration with other devices (iphone, watch, etc). Making calls/sending text messages from a laptop is something I'm unwilling to give up at this point. And most importantly, it's _by far_ the best support for a commercial unix/unix-like OS on a laptop. Dell isn't too bad though. In the end, unix or a unix-like os is hard requirement for many of us, and I'm just too tired of fiddling with xorg/powertop to get decent battery life. I just want to get work done.
- colomon 7y ago
  The older (say 2008-2015) trackpad is best -- a dream to use. The newer one is too big, alas. It's shocking how often I accidentally press it when I'm just trying to rest my palms on my laptop. (But yes, the unix-like OS that doesn't require a lot of fiddling about and has nice GUI is the big thing for me, too.)
rahoulb 7y ago
The trackpad makes it impossible for me to use a non-Apple laptop (I particularly love the haptic ones) - if anything else comes close I would love to try it.
parasubvert 7y ago
Near-instant sleep/wake, best trackpad, Exceptional battery life, good weight/thinness balance for the power, industry-leading I/O performance with their SSD (which were PCIe years before the mainstream), very fast external ports (USB-C now) which can drive RAID disk arrays, fast flash drives, even eGPUs. After the hardware, the software: it's a GUI that just works with minimal fuss, supports most mainstream software, and also works with all the *nix stuff from Linux and BSD. AND I can dual boot to Linux, Free/Open BSD, or Windows AND I can run VMware or Parallels or the native Mac hypervisor (Docker) I've seriously given consideration to the Surface Book Performance Base and the Dell XPS 15, but there are a lot of tradeoffs that keep me coming back to Apple's choices. The touchbar is not very useful to me but it's a minor thing. The keyboard I've been lucky (for 2 years).

Cyph0n 7y ago

Reliable, great hardware quality (keyboard aside), gorgeous Unix-based OS out of the box, excellent driver support. Edit: And the best trackpad ever designed imo

nicky0 7y ago

Best in class screens The trackpad is unsurpassed in the industry Low power consumption / good battery life

Razengan 7y ago

> What are they best in class for? The overall experience.

robdachshund 7y ago
Yeah forking over an extra grand to buy a poorly built computer that looks pretty to use a god awful OS on mediocre hardware... what a great experience. It doesn't sound like any of you have used a windows laptop in decades.

nottorp 7y ago

Trackpad, battery life, the OS.

asadkn 7y ago

Except for trackpad and a decent MacOS, nothing really. Low quality hardware, increasingly subpar battery life on newer MBPs, battery swellings too common. The hardware issues are common, but PR damage control teams, stakeholders, and fans will bury anyone who mentions it.

michaelt 7y ago

I've never heard this before. For several years (after the ThinkPad brand got sold to Lenovo who promptly started shipping it with spyware) there wasn't really a PC laptop brand with a rock solid reputation for high build quality. Lots of companies were putting their badges on inch-thick, mostly plastic 15" laptops with mediocre touchpads that never delivered the battery life they promised. And if your employer issued you with a Windows laptop, that was what you got. Remember laptop bags, when moving a laptop needed padding and a shoulder strap and pockets to carry your mouse and power brick? That's not to say there weren't some good products out there - there were some well designed Vaios, some pretty daring early tablet PCs and so on. But there wasn't a brand where you could say "Just buy an X" and know that you'd get a good quality product. Of course, in recent years a lot of PC manufacturers have stepped up their game (or maybe I'm just spending more money?) while Apple has had a few stumbles.

Stratoscope 7y ago
> ...the ThinkPad brand got sold to Lenovo who promptly started shipping it with spyware... That's incorrect. You're referring to SuperFish, which was only on Lenovo's consumer machines, not on ThinkPad. https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish
- michaelt 7y ago
  Nonetheless, it cast a big shadow over the brand; you couldn't just advise someone to buy a Lenovo.
  - Stratoscope 7y ago
    Oh, I would never just advise someone to buy a Lenovo. They might end up choosing some mediocre IdeaPad! I only advise people to buy ThinkPads, and I make specific recommendations on what model to get and which options to choose after we talk about their needs. For example, most people are better off getting a better display instead of a faster CPU if they don't have the money for both. Everyone I've advised like this has been delighted with their ThinkPads. If there is any "shadow" over the brand, it hasn't affected them or me.

urbanjunkie 7y ago

> I've never heard this before. Try to dial down the BS.

Octoth0rpe 7y ago

> What are they best in class for? Best overall balance between performance/weight/battery life. Best trackpad, hands down, no caveats, no balancing against other concerns. It's just that good. Best integration with other devices (iphone, watch, etc). Making calls/sending text messages from a laptop is something I'm unwilling to give up at this point. And most importantly, it's _by far_ the best support for a commercial unix/unix-like OS on a laptop. Dell isn't too bad though. In the end, unix or a unix-like os is hard requirement for many of us, and I'm just too tired of fiddling with xorg/powertop to get decent battery life. I just want to get work done.

colomon 7y ago
The older (say 2008-2015) trackpad is best -- a dream to use. The newer one is too big, alas. It's shocking how often I accidentally press it when I'm just trying to rest my palms on my laptop. (But yes, the unix-like OS that doesn't require a lot of fiddling about and has nice GUI is the big thing for me, too.)

rahoulb 7y ago

The trackpad makes it impossible for me to use a non-Apple laptop (I particularly love the haptic ones) - if anything else comes close I would love to try it.

parasubvert 7y ago

Near-instant sleep/wake, best trackpad, Exceptional battery life, good weight/thinness balance for the power, industry-leading I/O performance with their SSD (which were PCIe years before the mainstream), very fast external ports (USB-C now) which can drive RAID disk arrays, fast flash drives, even eGPUs. After the hardware, the software: it's a GUI that just works with minimal fuss, supports most mainstream software, and also works with all the *nix stuff from Linux and BSD. AND I can dual boot to Linux, Free/Open BSD, or Windows AND I can run VMware or Parallels or the native Mac hypervisor (Docker) I've seriously given consideration to the Surface Book Performance Base and the Dell XPS 15, but there are a lot of tradeoffs that keep me coming back to Apple's choices. The touchbar is not very useful to me but it's a minor thing. The keyboard I've been lucky (for 2 years).