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Ask HN: Which Laptop to Switch to from Macbook?

28 points by poushkar 7y ago

Reached the 2000 characters limit, please read the full text in the comment below. Thank you

rixed 7y ago
I would recommend to consider tuxedo laptops, especially the 14" which is robust enough, reasonably priced and fanless. And all their machines come preinstalled with Linux. https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Notebooks/10-14-inch/TUXEDO-InfinityBook-14-v2-passive-/-fanless.tuxedo# https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Note...
univalent 7y ago
A vote for the Thinkpad P51. For those that get headaches from laptops and other displays, I found this one that you can spec up and does not use pulse width modulation.
- paulddraper 7y ago
  And it doesn't have that damned unibutton touchpad that every laptop seems to have nowadays.
DanBC 7y ago
Reading your post below I believe a Dell Latitude would fit what you want. Something like the E7440 is cheap, reliable, repairable, expandable, etc. They cost about £200 if you're not fussy. That doesn't fit your display requirements though, so you'll probably need to look around at newer models. Dell, as far as I can tell, make it hard to search their laptops by display resolution.
- bklaasen 7y ago
  Dell Latitude 7440s are terrific machines which run Linux beautifully. They're better Linux machines than the XPS, which is severely over-rated in my opinion. I've had an XPS laptop as my main machine since 2014 and I recently replaced it with a generic small-form factor PC (I mean tiny) from AliExpress. Delighted to be shot of the XPS.
poushkar 7y ago
I am selling my gaming desktop and considering buying something for work/study purposes only, preferably (I am 80% sure about it) a laptop. Having a 2017 MBP at work, I am really disappointed in it's keyboard. To the point that I don't want to buy a Macbook for personal use. Having used Macbook laptops for years, I was sure I will be able to quickly find some good alternatives. But after spending some time on Google and Youtube, I am really confused at this point. Let me explain why. All I need is a laptop with around-the-house mobility to browse Web, to learn and experiment with different programming languages, and to work on some side projects (web/backend) of mine. No heavy video/photo editing, no more gaming. I need it to be able to connect to an external screen without any weird dongles, to have a really good, comfortable keyboard and touchpad and not to cost a fortune. It should run Linux smoothly, but maybe I could also use WLS on Windows as I don't have any strong preferences for UI because in the end it's only me, browser, terminal and an editor. Now, it has confused me a lot that these simple requirements are very hard to satisfy, apparently! What I've found so far: 1. Thinkpads X/T series Seem to be very solid machines, nice keyboard and specs. But in the new generation, Lenovo went the "anorexia" path which not only increases the price but also makes them less upgradable with the solidified RAM slot. Also, the line of T machines with the "s" suffix doesn't make sense to me as they are so similar to the X series. I don't get the point. The price tag easily climbs up to almost 2k euro with i5, 16Gb RAM, 512Gb SSD and WQHD (2560 x 1440) display . 2. Surface Book 2 Looks super good, but as I've mentioned above I am still not sure about developing on Windows with the WSL and considering that realistically prices start from 2k for this laptop - it simply is too much for a machine that I am going to use at home for a few hours a day. 3. Dell XPS Seem to be solid machines, mostly. But same issues as with Thinkpads - everything is optimized for the size and weight, which makes it less upgradable and more expensive. And let me tell you that I owned Macbook Air for 5 years - I know that a low thickness is a very nice quality, but it's nowhere in the list of my priorities. I can easily trade it off for better specs. Also, I keep reading about their coil whine problem. Price gets easily close to 1,7k euro for the 4k version, which is much better than others on this list, but how good is Linux handling 4k if I decided to go with it?.. 4. System76 Not expensive, a bit boring looking (not necessarily a problem but counts), and I am reading a lot about a not so good keyboard which collects dirt and is hard to clean. Don't know how true it is, though. Battery life is also rumored to not to be good, even though it's not that important to me. Not convinced by what I've learn about them so far. 5. Purism I really like the idea but at 1.5k euro with specs matching those of others mentioned above, I am actually not sure it's a good deal, considering the low battery life and an average display quality. Is it? It's probably not a full list but as you noticed, no laptop here costs less than 1,5k for very unimpressive specs as for today's standards. Maybe I am just spoiled but a Macbook Pro with such specs costs ~2k. And if the keyboard hasn't ruined it - it's a very high quality machine made of solid aluminum with 4k display and superb trackpad. So how can these alternatives cost almost the same with their 1080p screens?.. But it's ok, I would go with the price if it was a work laptop that I need to use for 8+ hours a day. But as for a secondary machine, sitting at home for most of the time, I really don't want to spend this much! If you had needs and struggles similar to mine, what have you gone with? And how happy are you with your choice?
Tomte 7y ago
> it simply is too much for a machine that I am going to use at home for a few hours a day. A used Thinkpad. Maybe even one for as low as two or three hundred Euros. Upgrade RAM, install an SSD (If not already present), and you've got a "good enough" machine.
- rchaud 7y ago
  What about the battery? Does Lenovo still sell OEM batteries or will you have to try your luck with Ebay, where most of those being sold by unofficial sellers are straight up fakes?
  - throwaway3627 7y ago
    Original battery for many generations older Thinkpads: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/accessories-and-monitors/chargers-and-batteries/batteries/BATT-BO-Thinkpad-Battery-68/p/0C52862 https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/accessories-and-monitors/charge... Try Googling next time.
    - throwaway082729 7y ago
      Googling will mostly result in ads or shady sites. OP was trying to get assurance for HNers that it wouldn't be a problem. Please avoid being snarky.
- throwaway3627 7y ago
  Thinkpad T440 - T480 T490 is no good: soldered-in things and no dual batteries.
  - tutfbhuf 7y ago
    Some more hints: T440 has a bad touchpad, but it can be replaced with the one from T450. Get the s variant, e.g. T450s if you need it a bit thinner and lighter. Get the FHD (or higher res) IPS variant, the low res TN panels are very bad. Join /r/thinkpad.
  - 7y ago
Railsify 7y ago
Thinkpad P51
ajflores1604 7y ago
+1 for Thinkpad. I have an older yoga from Best buy back when they still came with discrete graphics. Poor thing has taken a beating from me but still works great. And thinkpads in general have great support for Linux. Even for the pen input, which I use more than I thought I would. Usually for signing documents or quickly mapping out an idea. Also, they're so ubiquitous, I was able to go to several local tech recycling places and pick up spare chargers for super cheap. I dont stress about keeping track of the charger now. Just leave one in my bag, one by my desk, one in bed, one by the couch. It's a small thing but it's changed my workflow a lot. Let's me treat the laptop more as a free mobile device and less like a clunky combo laptop with rats nest to awkwardly carry around. Also big fan of the track point and the secondary buttons at the top of the track pad. It's a meme for a lot of ppl but they definitely have their place. When in the flow of typing, it helps a lot to not have to move your hands back and forth off the keyboard. And most importantly, having a middle click button right below the space bar makes it dead simple and quickly to open up a set of links in a new tabs. That's a functionality that would be hard for me to give up by going to another platform. As for gripes, the one thing that makes me jealous of laptops like the MacBook, surface book, and matebook x, is the screen aspect ratio. For being "productivity machines" I wish Lenovo would put a 3:2 screen that gave more vertical space to see more code or spreadsheet cells. It's absurd to me that they still have consumption oriented 16:9. It's especially painful when using the tablet mode in portrait. The only thing I can do is full screen an application if it really starts to bother me.
dhruvkar 7y ago
I just got a Thinkpad P52S after using a 2012 Macbook for 7.5 years. Installed Pop_OS! on it. Despite the quirky name, it's the stablest, least needed configuration Ubuntu flavor, I've ever used and very similar to macOS and very shortcut friendly.
xrd 7y ago
I love my System76 KUDU 17". PopOs is surprisingly awesome.
- xrd 7y ago
  And I love this keyboard. I have a work MBP that gives me cramps after an hour of use, but this one (System 76) is spacious and feels great. The biggest downside is I had to buy a new backpack from Chrome since it didn't fit in anything I already owned!
maximente 7y ago
i have a purism librem 13v2 it's expensive for the stuff inside, but: - i wanted to financially support a company aligned with values i share (privacy, open everything) - because everything is open including hardware, there's no hardware/driver issues with linux; things work nicely out of the box - it has a TPM which may or may not be fun to play around with in the future - because of its open nature it's easy to add memory and NVE disk - increased clock speeds don't really affect me - the most computationally intensive things i do are software builds and parallel test suites, which use all cores; servers do the actual experiments/compute
- turblety 7y ago
  I have the 15v3 and can confirm it's a great laptop too. Really looking forward to their Librem 5 phone too. The companies really going in a good direction.
igolden 7y ago
Just bought a Thinkpad T480, put 32GB ram and an SSD in it. Runs amazing with linux and the keyboard is a huge upgrade from my 2016 MBP.
infiniteseeker 7y ago
An older Thinkpad till some decent Ryzen based 4K laptops come out next year. I just got me a T440P. Put in 16G, SSD (can put 2 more SSDs for a total of 3), its got a socketed i7 and a removable 9 cell battery for easier upgrades. I upgraded the default display (garbage) to a 1080p display (really simple ..done with a screwdriver) and this thing is a beast with Manjaro Linux and KDE or i3. I also have an x230 with OpenBSD. My old 2015 retina MBP is going to my dad who has a shitty old windows 10 spyware laptop.
saluki 7y ago
Go with a macbook air, last generation has the old style keyboards, it's light, 12 hour battery life and plenty of power for programming.
lukaszkups 7y ago
ASUS Zenbook series - got one (UX32LN) and worked flawlessly for many years (on linux) - it still works, but now my wife has it (with Windows installed) I switched to Surface Book 2 - it's awesome machine and development with WSL works amazingly good (no issues found yet), but I wouldn't recommend this machine to anyone who wants to travel with it due to its lids mechanism (I would be scared of breaking it while keeping it in the backpack )

28 points by poushkar 7y ago

Reached the 2000 characters limit, please read the full text in the comment below. Thank you

I would recommend to consider tuxedo laptops, especially the 14" which is robust enough, reasonably priced and fanless. And all their machines come preinstalled with Linux. https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Notebooks/10-14-inch/TUXEDO-InfinityBook-14-v2-passive-/-fanless.tuxedo# https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-Note...

univalent 7y ago

A vote for the Thinkpad P51. For those that get headaches from laptops and other displays, I found this one that you can spec up and does not use pulse width modulation.

paulddraper 7y ago
And it doesn't have that damned unibutton touchpad that every laptop seems to have nowadays.

DanBC 7y ago

Reading your post below I believe a Dell Latitude would fit what you want. Something like the E7440 is cheap, reliable, repairable, expandable, etc. They cost about £200 if you're not fussy. That doesn't fit your display requirements though, so you'll probably need to look around at newer models. Dell, as far as I can tell, make it hard to search their laptops by display resolution.

bklaasen 7y ago
Dell Latitude 7440s are terrific machines which run Linux beautifully. They're better Linux machines than the XPS, which is severely over-rated in my opinion. I've had an XPS laptop as my main machine since 2014 and I recently replaced it with a generic small-form factor PC (I mean tiny) from AliExpress. Delighted to be shot of the XPS.

poushkar 7y ago

I am selling my gaming desktop and considering buying something for work/study purposes only, preferably (I am 80% sure about it) a laptop. Having a 2017 MBP at work, I am really disappointed in it's keyboard. To the point that I don't want to buy a Macbook for personal use. Having used Macbook laptops for years, I was sure I will be able to quickly find some good alternatives. But after spending some time on Google and Youtube, I am really confused at this point. Let me explain why. All I need is a laptop with around-the-house mobility to browse Web, to learn and experiment with different programming languages, and to work on some side projects (web/backend) of mine. No heavy video/photo editing, no more gaming. I need it to be able to connect to an external screen without any weird dongles, to have a really good, comfortable keyboard and touchpad and not to cost a fortune. It should run Linux smoothly, but maybe I could also use WLS on Windows as I don't have any strong preferences for UI because in the end it's only me, browser, terminal and an editor. Now, it has confused me a lot that these simple requirements are very hard to satisfy, apparently! What I've found so far: 1. Thinkpads X/T series Seem to be very solid machines, nice keyboard and specs. But in the new generation, Lenovo went the "anorexia" path which not only increases the price but also makes them less upgradable with the solidified RAM slot. Also, the line of T machines with the "s" suffix doesn't make sense to me as they are so similar to the X series. I don't get the point. The price tag easily climbs up to almost 2k euro with i5, 16Gb RAM, 512Gb SSD and WQHD (2560 x 1440) display . 2. Surface Book 2 Looks super good, but as I've mentioned above I am still not sure about developing on Windows with the WSL and considering that realistically prices start from 2k for this laptop - it simply is too much for a machine that I am going to use at home for a few hours a day. 3. Dell XPS Seem to be solid machines, mostly. But same issues as with Thinkpads - everything is optimized for the size and weight, which makes it less upgradable and more expensive. And let me tell you that I owned Macbook Air for 5 years - I know that a low thickness is a very nice quality, but it's nowhere in the list of my priorities. I can easily trade it off for better specs. Also, I keep reading about their coil whine problem. Price gets easily close to 1,7k euro for the 4k version, which is much better than others on this list, but how good is Linux handling 4k if I decided to go with it?.. 4. System76 Not expensive, a bit boring looking (not necessarily a problem but counts), and I am reading a lot about a not so good keyboard which collects dirt and is hard to clean. Don't know how true it is, though. Battery life is also rumored to not to be good, even though it's not that important to me. Not convinced by what I've learn about them so far. 5. Purism I really like the idea but at 1.5k euro with specs matching those of others mentioned above, I am actually not sure it's a good deal, considering the low battery life and an average display quality. Is it? It's probably not a full list but as you noticed, no laptop here costs less than 1,5k for very unimpressive specs as for today's standards. Maybe I am just spoiled but a Macbook Pro with such specs costs ~2k. And if the keyboard hasn't ruined it - it's a very high quality machine made of solid aluminum with 4k display and superb trackpad. So how can these alternatives cost almost the same with their 1080p screens?.. But it's ok, I would go with the price if it was a work laptop that I need to use for 8+ hours a day. But as for a secondary machine, sitting at home for most of the time, I really don't want to spend this much! If you had needs and struggles similar to mine, what have you gone with? And how happy are you with your choice?

Tomte 7y ago

> it simply is too much for a machine that I am going to use at home for a few hours a day. A used Thinkpad. Maybe even one for as low as two or three hundred Euros. Upgrade RAM, install an SSD (If not already present), and you've got a "good enough" machine.

rchaud 7y ago
What about the battery? Does Lenovo still sell OEM batteries or will you have to try your luck with Ebay, where most of those being sold by unofficial sellers are straight up fakes?
- throwaway3627 7y ago
  Original battery for many generations older Thinkpads: https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/accessories-and-monitors/chargers-and-batteries/batteries/BATT-BO-Thinkpad-Battery-68/p/0C52862 https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/accessories-and-monitors/charge... Try Googling next time.
  - throwaway082729 7y ago
    Googling will mostly result in ads or shady sites. OP was trying to get assurance for HNers that it wouldn't be a problem. Please avoid being snarky.
throwaway3627 7y ago
Thinkpad T440 - T480 T490 is no good: soldered-in things and no dual batteries.
- tutfbhuf 7y ago
  Some more hints: T440 has a bad touchpad, but it can be replaced with the one from T450. Get the s variant, e.g. T450s if you need it a bit thinner and lighter. Get the FHD (or higher res) IPS variant, the low res TN panels are very bad. Join /r/thinkpad.
- 7y ago

Railsify 7y ago

Thinkpad P51

ajflores1604 7y ago

+1 for Thinkpad. I have an older yoga from Best buy back when they still came with discrete graphics. Poor thing has taken a beating from me but still works great. And thinkpads in general have great support for Linux. Even for the pen input, which I use more than I thought I would. Usually for signing documents or quickly mapping out an idea. Also, they're so ubiquitous, I was able to go to several local tech recycling places and pick up spare chargers for super cheap. I dont stress about keeping track of the charger now. Just leave one in my bag, one by my desk, one in bed, one by the couch. It's a small thing but it's changed my workflow a lot. Let's me treat the laptop more as a free mobile device and less like a clunky combo laptop with rats nest to awkwardly carry around. Also big fan of the track point and the secondary buttons at the top of the track pad. It's a meme for a lot of ppl but they definitely have their place. When in the flow of typing, it helps a lot to not have to move your hands back and forth off the keyboard. And most importantly, having a middle click button right below the space bar makes it dead simple and quickly to open up a set of links in a new tabs. That's a functionality that would be hard for me to give up by going to another platform. As for gripes, the one thing that makes me jealous of laptops like the MacBook, surface book, and matebook x, is the screen aspect ratio. For being "productivity machines" I wish Lenovo would put a 3:2 screen that gave more vertical space to see more code or spreadsheet cells. It's absurd to me that they still have consumption oriented 16:9. It's especially painful when using the tablet mode in portrait. The only thing I can do is full screen an application if it really starts to bother me.

dhruvkar 7y ago

I just got a Thinkpad P52S after using a 2012 Macbook for 7.5 years. Installed Pop_OS! on it. Despite the quirky name, it's the stablest, least needed configuration Ubuntu flavor, I've ever used and very similar to macOS and very shortcut friendly.

xrd 7y ago

I love my System76 KUDU 17". PopOs is surprisingly awesome.

xrd 7y ago
And I love this keyboard. I have a work MBP that gives me cramps after an hour of use, but this one (System 76) is spacious and feels great. The biggest downside is I had to buy a new backpack from Chrome since it didn't fit in anything I already owned!

maximente 7y ago

i have a purism librem 13v2 it's expensive for the stuff inside, but: - i wanted to financially support a company aligned with values i share (privacy, open everything) - because everything is open including hardware, there's no hardware/driver issues with linux; things work nicely out of the box - it has a TPM which may or may not be fun to play around with in the future - because of its open nature it's easy to add memory and NVE disk - increased clock speeds don't really affect me - the most computationally intensive things i do are software builds and parallel test suites, which use all cores; servers do the actual experiments/compute

turblety 7y ago
I have the 15v3 and can confirm it's a great laptop too. Really looking forward to their Librem 5 phone too. The companies really going in a good direction.

igolden 7y ago

Just bought a Thinkpad T480, put 32GB ram and an SSD in it. Runs amazing with linux and the keyboard is a huge upgrade from my 2016 MBP.

infiniteseeker 7y ago

An older Thinkpad till some decent Ryzen based 4K laptops come out next year. I just got me a T440P. Put in 16G, SSD (can put 2 more SSDs for a total of 3), its got a socketed i7 and a removable 9 cell battery for easier upgrades. I upgraded the default display (garbage) to a 1080p display (really simple ..done with a screwdriver) and this thing is a beast with Manjaro Linux and KDE or i3. I also have an x230 with OpenBSD. My old 2015 retina MBP is going to my dad who has a shitty old windows 10 spyware laptop.

saluki 7y ago

Go with a macbook air, last generation has the old style keyboards, it's light, 12 hour battery life and plenty of power for programming.

lukaszkups 7y ago

ASUS Zenbook series - got one (UX32LN) and worked flawlessly for many years (on linux) - it still works, but now my wife has it (with Windows installed) I switched to Surface Book 2 - it's awesome machine and development with WSL works amazingly good (no issues found yet), but I wouldn't recommend this machine to anyone who wants to travel with it due to its lids mechanism (I would be scared of breaking it while keeping it in the backpack )