11 ms·

ThinkPads make better MacBook Pros than Apple-official products - by far and large. I’ve got a 2017 MacBook Pro and a 2016 Lenovo ThinkPad and the ThinkPad run

ThinkPads make better MacBook Pros than Apple-official products - by far and large. I’ve got a 2017 MacBook Pro and a 2016 Lenovo ThinkPad and the ThinkPad runs circles around it. It’s also literally a hybrid drawing tablet laptop running MacOS - so unimaginably useful as a creative - and something Apple doesn’t offer, unless you want half-baked iOS software (no Illustrator, no Animate, no Blender) on an iPad Pro. Even if it wasn’t for that awful keyboard (went to the Apple Store, tried the 16” keyboard, still not impressed) - there’s a ton of other factors. (Not to mention the ThinkPad keyboard is so tried and true my 2016’s keyboard is nearly identical to my 1996 ThinkPad...) From the awesome amount of ports, tablet/ink support (if your ThinkPad has it), great battery life, native updates (I‘ve not had an issue with .x updates on Mojave or Sierra/High Sierra), and about half the price for the equivalent specs, it’s, IMHO, the literal best of both worlds. Even the build quality of ThinkPad laptops is lovely. I’ve never had a single issue with MacOS not running as well or significantly better than the equivalent Apple hardware, with the exception of SSD write speeds. EDIT: Forgot to mention the #1 benefit - replaceable HDD/SSD and upgradable RAM. I will not, on principle, buy a computer whose hard drive I cannot remove with a basic computing toolkit. And I will also not, on principle, buy a computer that cannot be internally upgraded. The environmental impact alone is preposterous. So what if you make your computers out of aluminum instead of plastic if you design them to have no future? I think, specifically, of the ludicrously-limited 128GB SSD models of the 2016/2017 MacBook/Pro. Using that, for basic development - (it was sadly what we were given at the startup I was working at during the time) - was useless, by the time I put Unity and XCode on it, and started making builds, I daily saw the ‘your hard disk is almost full’ message - and what is there to do about that, except get a whole brand new computer?

asveikau 7y ago
> Forgot to mention the #1 benefit - replaceable HDD/SSD and upgradable RAM. Need to capture this rant here about part selection. My x1 carbon 6th gen shipped with a crappy SSD which showed random errors in dmesg and would occasionally cause the machine to reboot randomly. Then a few weeks ago after about a year of use it totally died. I googled the model number of the drive and found I was not the only one to experience that. Seems like Lenovo was not adequately testing that part for its impact on overall machine stability. OTOH I was pleasantly surprised that it was replaceable, even though this is the "ultrathin" model meant to compete against Apple's soldered-in components. Replaced with a third party m.2 SSD and now the system works smoother than it ever has.
- aortega 7y ago
  The X1 is a work of art. The lightest, tinnest laptop and is also one of the easiest to upgrade. Except for RAM...that would make it perfect.
  - nextos 7y ago
    It's a very good machine, but I would not call it a work of art. The touchpad is not very good and has QC problems. The coating is uneven and/or rough in some units. There's also too much glue in the internal assembly. The wireless card could perform better.
    - asveikau 7y ago
      Not to mention my complaint, they sell it with a bunk SSD. Googling around it seems not to be an isolated case. I like the machine a lot though, it's pretty close to my ideal. I hope that nothing breaks on me again.
westoque 7y ago
> Forgot to mention the #1 benefit - replaceable HDD/SSD and upgradable RAM. Also this. I just bought a new 16" Macbook Pro because I just maxed out the SSD in my 2015 Macbook Pro due to all the Docker images and generally all the data that I have. It was running perfectly and I wouldn't even think about upgrading if the storage was upgradable. The next best thing to buy an upgrade kit from iFixit and spend some precious time just to upgrade the SSD.
- lostgame 7y ago
  Fortunately with the 2015 models, this is still an option. For anything past that - you’re just SOL. At this point, 2015 models are actually going for insane values second-hand; fans understand this may be the last great laptop Apple ever makes - from the ports (built-in HDMI and SD card slots!), to the keyboard, to the ability to replace the SSD post-market - people are already certainly catching on. I seriously shake my head every time I think about it. It blows my mind. Think about the environmental waste. :( Shameful.
- zelly 7y ago
  I don't know what people do with laptops with soldered-on <256GB SSDs. Just your OS and swap will take up half that. Your option is then to remote into some other machine to do your work, but you can't do that on the go without internet access, kind of defeating the point of having a laptop. Disk space is so important these days with Docker, node_modules, venv, bazel, etc. where every directory basically has its own OS. We all should have >10TB on laptops.
  - Seirdy 7y ago
    Mastodon is currently using this comment to poke fun at Orange Website: https://bikeshed.party/objects/35fccbd6-b611-46b5-8e15-8480707a6f2a https://bikeshed.party/objects/35fccbd6-b611-46b5-8e15-84807... Just thought you should know. :)
whatsmyusername 7y ago
We buy refurb MacBook pros. Our specs are 256g ssd, 16g memory, hexcore + Applecare. We buy 15in machines because the vast majority of the company wanted 15in machines and I'm barely going to put the brain juice in to support one line of machines let alone two. You're paying around $2.2/2.5k a piece. We buy 1 or 2 every month depending on hiring or whenever I find someone who has a machine like the one you describe (128g/8g ew). Similar x1 carbon off amazon is maybe $1.2k with taxs, no apple care. Say we buy 15 in a year, math: Apple/applecare = $2.5k * 15 = $37.5k Lenovo = $1.2k * 15 = $18k + say $50kish for a decent help desk employee because there's no way in hell I'm working 60 hour weeks on product AND dealing with laptops beyond, 'run diagnostics and take it to the apple store.' The value proposition isn't hard. We're going with the MacBook Pros. For the grand total of 5 people who have to have windows for reasons we just run bootcamp.
- jpalomaki 7y ago
  Typically for corporate use you would pick a Lenovo model with next business day onsite warranty. So in case it breaks, somebody will come over to fix it. (This is why the components are easy to replace in those laptops)
  - whatsmyusername 7y ago
    Corporation that size isn't going to put up with Linux on the desktop if they're not FAANG and fuck deving on Windows.
    - panpanna 7y ago
      I respectfully disagree with you on all accounts :) Anyway, Lenovo care service (whatever its called) costs about $400-500 for three years and they send a technician to your place within 24 hours. We have a fleet of Macs and thinkpads and the thinkpads last more and cost less in total.
      - whatsmyusername 7y ago
        I can take a macbook to the apple store today if I'm willing to wait an hour. And they're proven rock solid to me, Lenovo isn't.
simscitizen 7y ago
What tablet do you have? My wife had a nearly top-spec X1 3rd gen tablet and the stylus lag is terrible compared to something like an iPad Pro with the pencil.
sail0rm00n 7y ago
Are you running macOS on your thinkpads? Do you have details on how to do so? Super curious if that’s the case.
- lostgame 7y ago
  Super, super easy. Linux-distro-install level easy. Since Catalina randomly decided to destroy access to about 1/3rd of my software (I rely on old-school music plugins that won’t be updated) - I’m gonna link you here to the Mojave tool: http://dosdude1.com/mojave/ http://dosdude1.com/mojave/ This is not my tool, it does require a Mac to use, in order to create the USB boot key you put in your PC. I have successfully patched about a dozen ThinkPads and Dell computers with this. Due to the ThinkPad’s popularity - support for virtually every unit that can support it hardware-wise exists. If you have any issues, there’s a great community around it, and personally, after patching, I don’t even worry about .x upgrades anymore and leave auto-update on - that’s how far it’s come. I literally prefer the Lenovo to the Apple hardware.
  - missjellyfish 7y ago
    dosdudes Tool is for running macOS on Apple Hardware That is unsupported (e.g. too old). Still not that hard, check out /r/hackintosh. And be prepared to swap your WiFi card, intel cards are unsupported, so are nvidia graphics.
    - gowld 7y ago
      > so are nvidia graphics. Is there a workaround (replaceable card?), or does running Mac OS mean you can't use discrete graphics (which is a major degradation)?
      - missjellyfish 7y ago
        You can use Radeon cards, some are supported and when they are they run decently. But anything other than a GTX760 is not going to work, and I can assure you that the drivers Apple ships for this card are absymal.
SahAssar 7y ago
Do they still only have lackluster displays? Thinkpads maxed out at 1080p long after other premium laptops offered 4k.
- nextos 7y ago
  They improved that. The X1C Extreme can be had with a great OLED panel for instance. 400 nits matte displays in other models are also excellent.
- LeifCarrotson 7y ago
  They're not all gorgeous - 1080p displays with pretty poor color gamut are the default, and they still offer comically bad 1366x768 options for a base model. But some models do have 2560x1440 IPS glossy, 3480x2160 IPS anti-glare, or 3840x2160 OLED displays with 400/500 nit brightness and decent color gamut coverage (100% Adobe or 100% DCI, depending on the model). Check http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/i_pdf/ThinkPad.pdf http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/i_pdf/ThinkPad.pdf for the specs of currently-public models. Most of the models after October 2019 in the linked document are not yet public. If current trends hold, the not-yet-released T14/T15/P15 will all have an optional screen available that's pretty good. Some of the lower-price L14/E14/AMD options will only have options for crappy screens. And, the point that's most important for Thinkpad enthusiasts, the majority of the business-lease sales that end up on eBay for $400 in 2023 will have the crappy screens and/or L and E series devices. Still, I'm curious what the "ThinkPad Thor-TP" might be.
  - aortega 7y ago
    > they still offer comically bad 1366x768 options for a base model. Believe it or not, there are still corporate legacy apps that run on DOS and looks great on 1366x768 and look like crap in 4k. In fact, Linux still look like crap in 4K today.
    - SahAssar 7y ago
      I use a 4k 13" (an XPS 13) laptop for 8 hours everyday under linux, and as long as I use wayland with firefox and VScode (my two main apps) they look pretty good, even comparing to my macbook using colleagues. Not sure if it is because of the apps or wayland or the laptop, but it works for me.
ksec 7y ago
>(went to the Apple Store, tried the 16” keyboard, still not impressed) Thank You, along with the rant from Taika Waititi at Oscar. There is still hope the old keyboard with more key depth will come back. There hasn't been a single improvement I like about the Mac both in terms of Hardware and software since 2015. ( Edit: Ok there was Mac Pro ) Sadly Windows hasn't made much improvement in 5 years either.
- dasKrokodil 7y ago
  What did Taika Waititi say about Apple keyboards?
  - ksec 7y ago
    https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/taika-waititi-oscar-2020-apple-keyboards-macbook-iphone-a9326546.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...
fumar 7y ago
I was in your shoes 2 years ago. I had two ThinkPads one was a hackintosh. I needed MacOS for work. I loved having the trackpoint, thinkpad keyboard, and user replaceable parts. Work eventually upgraded everyone to new MacBook Pros and I did the switch too. I found myself using the MacBook over my ThinkPad due to longer battery life, better trackpad experience, and worryfree use. My x230 had a bluetooth dongle that would fail occasionally and my x370 had touchscreen issues. The x370 also had a crummy PWM issues and was giving me headaches. On top of it, updates were less than ideal on the x230 hackintosh. I eventually sold both. I have an iPad Pro, iPad mini 5, and Macbook Pro now. They all work great together. I like running Juno notebook on my ipad to work through data science. If I need to, I travel with the iPad and remote into the macbook. ymmv I do miss the trackpoint and keyboard a little...
idoescompooters 7y ago
Aaand this is why I just bought a 2015 MacBook Pro from Amazon refurbished with maxed out specs for $1k.
- pragmaticpirate 7y ago
  Does the 2015 model have better keyboard than the newer models ?
dangus 7y ago
Don’t assume RAM is upgradable. Many or even most common MacBook Pro competitors like The X1 and XPS 13 have a replaceable SSD but not RAM.

asveikau 7y ago

> Forgot to mention the #1 benefit - replaceable HDD/SSD and upgradable RAM. Need to capture this rant here about part selection. My x1 carbon 6th gen shipped with a crappy SSD which showed random errors in dmesg and would occasionally cause the machine to reboot randomly. Then a few weeks ago after about a year of use it totally died. I googled the model number of the drive and found I was not the only one to experience that. Seems like Lenovo was not adequately testing that part for its impact on overall machine stability. OTOH I was pleasantly surprised that it was replaceable, even though this is the "ultrathin" model meant to compete against Apple's soldered-in components. Replaced with a third party m.2 SSD and now the system works smoother than it ever has.

aortega 7y ago
The X1 is a work of art. The lightest, tinnest laptop and is also one of the easiest to upgrade. Except for RAM...that would make it perfect.
- nextos 7y ago
  It's a very good machine, but I would not call it a work of art. The touchpad is not very good and has QC problems. The coating is uneven and/or rough in some units. There's also too much glue in the internal assembly. The wireless card could perform better.
  - asveikau 7y ago
    Not to mention my complaint, they sell it with a bunk SSD. Googling around it seems not to be an isolated case. I like the machine a lot though, it's pretty close to my ideal. I hope that nothing breaks on me again.

westoque 7y ago

> Forgot to mention the #1 benefit - replaceable HDD/SSD and upgradable RAM. Also this. I just bought a new 16" Macbook Pro because I just maxed out the SSD in my 2015 Macbook Pro due to all the Docker images and generally all the data that I have. It was running perfectly and I wouldn't even think about upgrading if the storage was upgradable. The next best thing to buy an upgrade kit from iFixit and spend some precious time just to upgrade the SSD.

lostgame 7y ago
Fortunately with the 2015 models, this is still an option. For anything past that - you’re just SOL. At this point, 2015 models are actually going for insane values second-hand; fans understand this may be the last great laptop Apple ever makes - from the ports (built-in HDMI and SD card slots!), to the keyboard, to the ability to replace the SSD post-market - people are already certainly catching on. I seriously shake my head every time I think about it. It blows my mind. Think about the environmental waste. :( Shameful.
zelly 7y ago
I don't know what people do with laptops with soldered-on <256GB SSDs. Just your OS and swap will take up half that. Your option is then to remote into some other machine to do your work, but you can't do that on the go without internet access, kind of defeating the point of having a laptop. Disk space is so important these days with Docker, node_modules, venv, bazel, etc. where every directory basically has its own OS. We all should have >10TB on laptops.
- Seirdy 7y ago
  Mastodon is currently using this comment to poke fun at Orange Website: https://bikeshed.party/objects/35fccbd6-b611-46b5-8e15-8480707a6f2a https://bikeshed.party/objects/35fccbd6-b611-46b5-8e15-84807... Just thought you should know. :)

whatsmyusername 7y ago

We buy refurb MacBook pros. Our specs are 256g ssd, 16g memory, hexcore + Applecare. We buy 15in machines because the vast majority of the company wanted 15in machines and I'm barely going to put the brain juice in to support one line of machines let alone two. You're paying around $2.2/2.5k a piece. We buy 1 or 2 every month depending on hiring or whenever I find someone who has a machine like the one you describe (128g/8g ew). Similar x1 carbon off amazon is maybe $1.2k with taxs, no apple care. Say we buy 15 in a year, math: Apple/applecare = $2.5k * 15 = $37.5k Lenovo = $1.2k * 15 = $18k + say $50kish for a decent help desk employee because there's no way in hell I'm working 60 hour weeks on product AND dealing with laptops beyond, 'run diagnostics and take it to the apple store.' The value proposition isn't hard. We're going with the MacBook Pros. For the grand total of 5 people who have to have windows for reasons we just run bootcamp.

jpalomaki 7y ago
Typically for corporate use you would pick a Lenovo model with next business day onsite warranty. So in case it breaks, somebody will come over to fix it. (This is why the components are easy to replace in those laptops)
- whatsmyusername 7y ago
  Corporation that size isn't going to put up with Linux on the desktop if they're not FAANG and fuck deving on Windows.
  - panpanna 7y ago
    I respectfully disagree with you on all accounts :) Anyway, Lenovo care service (whatever its called) costs about $400-500 for three years and they send a technician to your place within 24 hours. We have a fleet of Macs and thinkpads and the thinkpads last more and cost less in total.
    - whatsmyusername 7y ago
      I can take a macbook to the apple store today if I'm willing to wait an hour. And they're proven rock solid to me, Lenovo isn't.

simscitizen 7y ago

What tablet do you have? My wife had a nearly top-spec X1 3rd gen tablet and the stylus lag is terrible compared to something like an iPad Pro with the pencil.

sail0rm00n 7y ago

Are you running macOS on your thinkpads? Do you have details on how to do so? Super curious if that’s the case.

lostgame 7y ago
Super, super easy. Linux-distro-install level easy. Since Catalina randomly decided to destroy access to about 1/3rd of my software (I rely on old-school music plugins that won’t be updated) - I’m gonna link you here to the Mojave tool: http://dosdude1.com/mojave/ http://dosdude1.com/mojave/ This is not my tool, it does require a Mac to use, in order to create the USB boot key you put in your PC. I have successfully patched about a dozen ThinkPads and Dell computers with this. Due to the ThinkPad’s popularity - support for virtually every unit that can support it hardware-wise exists. If you have any issues, there’s a great community around it, and personally, after patching, I don’t even worry about .x upgrades anymore and leave auto-update on - that’s how far it’s come. I literally prefer the Lenovo to the Apple hardware.
- missjellyfish 7y ago
  dosdudes Tool is for running macOS on Apple Hardware That is unsupported (e.g. too old). Still not that hard, check out /r/hackintosh. And be prepared to swap your WiFi card, intel cards are unsupported, so are nvidia graphics.
  - gowld 7y ago
    > so are nvidia graphics. Is there a workaround (replaceable card?), or does running Mac OS mean you can't use discrete graphics (which is a major degradation)?
    - missjellyfish 7y ago
      You can use Radeon cards, some are supported and when they are they run decently. But anything other than a GTX760 is not going to work, and I can assure you that the drivers Apple ships for this card are absymal.

SahAssar 7y ago

Do they still only have lackluster displays? Thinkpads maxed out at 1080p long after other premium laptops offered 4k.

nextos 7y ago
They improved that. The X1C Extreme can be had with a great OLED panel for instance. 400 nits matte displays in other models are also excellent.
LeifCarrotson 7y ago
They're not all gorgeous - 1080p displays with pretty poor color gamut are the default, and they still offer comically bad 1366x768 options for a base model. But some models do have 2560x1440 IPS glossy, 3480x2160 IPS anti-glare, or 3840x2160 OLED displays with 400/500 nit brightness and decent color gamut coverage (100% Adobe or 100% DCI, depending on the model). Check http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/i_pdf/ThinkPad.pdf http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/i_pdf/ThinkPad.pdf for the specs of currently-public models. Most of the models after October 2019 in the linked document are not yet public. If current trends hold, the not-yet-released T14/T15/P15 will all have an optional screen available that's pretty good. Some of the lower-price L14/E14/AMD options will only have options for crappy screens. And, the point that's most important for Thinkpad enthusiasts, the majority of the business-lease sales that end up on eBay for $400 in 2023 will have the crappy screens and/or L and E series devices. Still, I'm curious what the "ThinkPad Thor-TP" might be.
- aortega 7y ago
  > they still offer comically bad 1366x768 options for a base model. Believe it or not, there are still corporate legacy apps that run on DOS and looks great on 1366x768 and look like crap in 4k. In fact, Linux still look like crap in 4K today.
  - SahAssar 7y ago
    I use a 4k 13" (an XPS 13) laptop for 8 hours everyday under linux, and as long as I use wayland with firefox and VScode (my two main apps) they look pretty good, even comparing to my macbook using colleagues. Not sure if it is because of the apps or wayland or the laptop, but it works for me.

ksec 7y ago

>(went to the Apple Store, tried the 16” keyboard, still not impressed) Thank You, along with the rant from Taika Waititi at Oscar. There is still hope the old keyboard with more key depth will come back. There hasn't been a single improvement I like about the Mac both in terms of Hardware and software since 2015. ( Edit: Ok there was Mac Pro ) Sadly Windows hasn't made much improvement in 5 years either.

dasKrokodil 7y ago
What did Taika Waititi say about Apple keyboards?
- ksec 7y ago
  https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/taika-waititi-oscar-2020-apple-keyboards-macbook-iphone-a9326546.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...

fumar 7y ago

I was in your shoes 2 years ago. I had two ThinkPads one was a hackintosh. I needed MacOS for work. I loved having the trackpoint, thinkpad keyboard, and user replaceable parts. Work eventually upgraded everyone to new MacBook Pros and I did the switch too. I found myself using the MacBook over my ThinkPad due to longer battery life, better trackpad experience, and worryfree use. My x230 had a bluetooth dongle that would fail occasionally and my x370 had touchscreen issues. The x370 also had a crummy PWM issues and was giving me headaches. On top of it, updates were less than ideal on the x230 hackintosh. I eventually sold both. I have an iPad Pro, iPad mini 5, and Macbook Pro now. They all work great together. I like running Juno notebook on my ipad to work through data science. If I need to, I travel with the iPad and remote into the macbook. ymmv I do miss the trackpoint and keyboard a little...

idoescompooters 7y ago

Aaand this is why I just bought a 2015 MacBook Pro from Amazon refurbished with maxed out specs for $1k.

pragmaticpirate 7y ago
Does the 2015 model have better keyboard than the newer models ?

dangus 7y ago

Don’t assume RAM is upgradable. Many or even most common MacBook Pro competitors like The X1 and XPS 13 have a replaceable SSD but not RAM.