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> It might be a long time before it makes sense to buy a non-Apple laptop. ...if you only care about the things that Apple laptops are good at. Almost nobody n

> It might be a long time before it makes sense to buy a non-Apple laptop. ...if you only care about the things that Apple laptops are good at. Almost nobody needs a top-of-the-line laptop to do their tasks. Most things that people want to do with computers can be done on a machine that is five to ten years old without any trouble at all. For example I use a ThinkPad T460p, and while the geekbench scores for its processor are maybe half of what Apple achieves here (even worse for multicore!), it does everything I need faster than I need it. Battery life, screen quality, and ergonomics are the only thing most consumers need to care about. And while Macs are certainly doing well in those categories, there are much cheaper options available that are also good enough.

dijit 5y ago
This is a really useless comparison. A 10 year old laptop will be extremely slow compared to any modern laptop and the battery will have degraded. The T460 has knock off battery replacements floating around but that’s not exactly reassuring. Granted: it works for you (and me, actually, I’m one of those people who likes to use an old thinkpad; x201s in my case though I mostly use a dell precision these days) but people will buy new laptops- that’s a thing. The ergonomics of a Mac are pretty decent and the support side of it is excellent. If you don’t need all that power: that’s what the MacBook Air is for, which is basically uncontested at its performance/battery life/weight. If you need the grunt, most of the m1 pro and max offer is GPU. You’re going to think it’s Apple shills downvoting you: it’s not likely to be that. The argument against good low wattage cpus is just an inane and boring one.
- diffeomorphism 5y ago
  Define "extremely". You get maybe a factor 2 or so, not 10 or 100. Is that nicer? Yes, sure. Is it necessary? No, older stuff is perfectly sufficient for most people. Also, it is "if you need that power and need it with laptop formfactor". Again, impressive, but desktops/servers work just as well for most people.
  - dijit 5y ago
    2011 desktop CPUs will perform about half as well as a modern laptop one. I don’t even think Sandybridge (Intel 2011) CPUs support h264 decode- a pretty common requirement these days for zoom, slack, teams and video streaming sites such as YouTube.
    - diffeomorphism 5y ago
      > about half Exactly, no 100x, no 10x, just half. That is very noticeable but "extreme" sounds like much more. > I don’t even think Sandybridge (Intel 2011) CPUs support h264 decode- Correct, but unrelated to CPU speed and instead an additional hardware component. That is a fair argument, just like missing suitable HDMI standards, usb c, etc.. However, again that is not about speed but features.
    - true_religion 5y ago
      Yes… only half as well as modern laptop. Back on the era of Moore’s law, a new machine would be 32x as fast as a ten year old model. That was a real difference. But in 2021, people still buy laptops 1/2 as slow as other models to do the same work. Heck people go out of their way to buy iPad pros which are half as slow as comparable laptops. Considering that, I think a ten year old machine is pretty competitive as an existing choice.
      - dijit 5y ago
        > iPad pros which are half as slow as comparable laptops. Uh, what? iPads are using comparable CPUs to the M1 (some even use the M1) and are some of the fastest CPUs for rendering JavaScript on the planet. I think you’re right that people buy slow laptops. But I think that often comes from a place of technical illiteracy and willingness to spend. Put simply: they can’t often comprehend the true value of a faster system and opt to be more financially conservative. Which I fully understand.
        true_religion 5y ago
        IPad Pro 2021: 1118 on geekbench[1] priced at @ 2,199.00 fully specced at the 12.9 inch model with keyboard. Macbook Air 2020: 1733 on geekbench[2]. Priced @ about 1,849.00 fully speced for 13-inch model. That's what I mean by comparable tablets are more expensive than laptops. You have to pay a lot more because it has a dual form factor (like the Microsoft Surfacebooks). [1]https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696 [2]https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696
- adrianN 5y ago
  Not everyone needs 15+ hours of battery life. I'd argue that most people don't. Laptops were extremely popular when the battery life was two hours. Now even older laptops get 5h+.
  - bertan 5y ago
    > The argument against good low wattage cpus is just an inane and boring one. > Not everyone needs 15+ hours of battery life. Low wattage is not only about battery life. It is mostly about requiring less power for the same work. However you look at it, it is good for everyone. Now that Apple has shown that this can be done, everyone else will do the same.
  - dijit 5y ago
    So what is the trade off you think you’re making? This is weird. I feel like I’m talking to someone who has a fixed opinion against something. It’s good for _everyone_ that these chips are as fast as the best chips on the market, have crazy low power consumption and the cost for new is comparable. Intel have been overcharging for more than a decade when innovation stagnated. Honestly, I’m not so hot on Apple (FD I am sending this from an iPhone), I prefer to run Linux on my machines but I would not advocate everyone to do that. Just like I wouldn’t advise people to buy old shoes because it’s cheaper. These machines are compelling even for me, a person who relishes the flexibility of a more open platform — I can not imagine myself not recommending them to someone who just uses office suites or communication software. The M1 is basically the best thing you can buy right now for the consumer; and the cost is equivalent for other business machines such as HPs elitebooks or dells latitude or xps lineup. And for power users: the only good argument you can make is that your tools don’t work for it or you don’t like macos. If you’re arguing a system to be worse: you’ve lost.
    - adrianN 5y ago
      The tradeoff I'm making is money vs capability. My argument is that most people don't need the capabilities offered by brand new, top of the line models. A used laptop that is a couple of years old is, I think, the best choice for most people.
aledthemathguy 5y ago
surprised by your experience with an older laptop. I have both a 4 years old dell (forget it's name right now, for biz uses) and a 2015 MBA (which makes it 6 years old now), and they are both getting SLOW. In a vacuum - they are fine, they pull through. but they are notably slow machines. (i prefer windows but can't stand the dell and find myself keep going back to the mba - although youtube sucks on that machine with chrome) edit: oh the mba battery is still a miracle compared to the dell's, btw
- adrianN 5y ago
  I bought the T460p last year. It replaced a 2009 Macbook pro with spinning rust. That machine was fine too, but it stopped getting updates years ago so I had to replace it. I hope that Linux will support the T460p for longer.
f6v 5y ago
> Most things that people want to do with computers can be done on a machine that is five to ten years old without any trouble at all. Please, browsing web has always been pain on old hardware.
- kergonath 5y ago
  You cannot win this argument because for some people Lynx in a terminal is an acceptable way of browsing the web. Also, people argue in bad faith all the time and a lot of people for whom it isn’t an acceptable way of browsing the web would pretend it is anyway to win an argument.
ho_schi 5y ago
The keyboard of the ThinkPad is and was always great and the TrackPoint is a bonus on top of it for some of us. The other part of Input/Output is a good screen. Only after I/O the performance is of matter. What I don't like about Apples devices is the keyboard, they don't provide a equally good trigger point (resistance and feedback) and the keycaps aren't concave (not leading fingers). The quality problems and the questionable Touchbar are problem, too. Lenovo did that before Apple and immediately stopped it, they accept mistake far quicker. I still suspect both - Apple and Lenvo - tried to save money with a cheap touchbar instead of more expensive keys. But there is the performance? First, Apple only claims to be fast. What matter are comparisons of portable applications and not synthetic benchmarks. Benchmarks never mattered. Secondly, Apple uses a lot of money (from the customers) to get the best chip quality in industry from TMSC. What we have are the choice between all-purpose computers from vendors like Lenovo, Dell or System67 or computing appliances from Apple. I say computing appliance and not all-purpose computer, because I'm not aware of official porting documentation for BSD, Linux or Windows. More importantly MacOS hinders free application shipment not as worse as iOS but it is already a pain for developers, you need to use Homebrew for serious computing tasks. Finally the money? Lenovo wants 1.000 - 1.700 Euro for a premium laptop like ThinkPad X13/T14 with replacement parts for five years, public maintenance manuals and official support for Linux and Windows. Apple wants 2.400 - 3.400 for no maintenance manuals, no public available replacement parts and you must use MacOS. Okay, the claim it is faster. Likely it is. You buy performance with an exorbitant amount of money but with multiple drawbacks? Currently I'm still using a eight year old ThinkPad X220 with Linux. The operating-system I want and need, excellent keyboard, comfortable trackpoint and a good IPS-Screen. I think the money was well spent - for me :)
ComSubVie 5y ago
I'm still using my 12 (!) year old 17" MacBook Pro as daily work machine. Yes, it's not the fastest computer but for my usage it works. Granted, starting IntelliJ needs some time, but coding still works well (and compiling big codebases isn't done locally). The one thing that really isn't usable anymore is Aperture/Lightroom. And missing docker because my CPU is too old (but docker it still works in VMs ...) is a pain.
- bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
  I'm still using my 2014 16" MacBook Pro too - the SSD has made such a dramatic difference to the performance of machines that I think in general they age much better than previously. I'm not a heavy user but that machine can easily handle xcode Objc/c++ programming quite handily.
vijucat 5y ago
> Battery life, screen quality, and ergonomics are the only thing most consumers need to care about. You, Sir, are a very utilitarian consumer. Most consumers care about being in the "In" crowd, i.e., owning the brand that others think is cool. Ideally, it comes in a shiny color. That's it. The exact details are just camouflage.
webmobdev 5y ago
> It might be a long time before it makes sense to buy a non-Apple laptop. They already don't make sense as the M1 isn't a "general purpose" CPU like Intel or AMD that support multiple operating systems, and even the development of new ones. Instead, the M1 is a black-box that only fully supports macOS - that's a crippling limitation for many of us.
lanza 5y ago
Yea I agree. Implicit in my statement is `for the people in the market Apple is targeting`. You aren't going to buy a $4000 computer and you'll be happy with a clunker. I, and many people in my situation, don't feel there are options for $4000 laptops right now.
throwntoday 5y ago
A lot of people don't have a desktop so a very powerful laptop that just works (tm) well for software development and can be lugged around effortlessly is ideal. I haven't owned a desktop myself in years and many engineers I know have been letting their rigs collect dust as the laptop just does it all. For the price, there isn't something comparable in all respects.

dijit 5y ago

This is a really useless comparison. A 10 year old laptop will be extremely slow compared to any modern laptop and the battery will have degraded. The T460 has knock off battery replacements floating around but that’s not exactly reassuring. Granted: it works for you (and me, actually, I’m one of those people who likes to use an old thinkpad; x201s in my case though I mostly use a dell precision these days) but people will buy new laptops- that’s a thing. The ergonomics of a Mac are pretty decent and the support side of it is excellent. If you don’t need all that power: that’s what the MacBook Air is for, which is basically uncontested at its performance/battery life/weight. If you need the grunt, most of the m1 pro and max offer is GPU. You’re going to think it’s Apple shills downvoting you: it’s not likely to be that. The argument against good low wattage cpus is just an inane and boring one.

diffeomorphism 5y ago
Define "extremely". You get maybe a factor 2 or so, not 10 or 100. Is that nicer? Yes, sure. Is it necessary? No, older stuff is perfectly sufficient for most people. Also, it is "if you need that power and need it with laptop formfactor". Again, impressive, but desktops/servers work just as well for most people.
- dijit 5y ago
  2011 desktop CPUs will perform about half as well as a modern laptop one. I don’t even think Sandybridge (Intel 2011) CPUs support h264 decode- a pretty common requirement these days for zoom, slack, teams and video streaming sites such as YouTube.
  - diffeomorphism 5y ago
    > about half Exactly, no 100x, no 10x, just half. That is very noticeable but "extreme" sounds like much more. > I don’t even think Sandybridge (Intel 2011) CPUs support h264 decode- Correct, but unrelated to CPU speed and instead an additional hardware component. That is a fair argument, just like missing suitable HDMI standards, usb c, etc.. However, again that is not about speed but features.
  - true_religion 5y ago
    Yes… only half as well as modern laptop. Back on the era of Moore’s law, a new machine would be 32x as fast as a ten year old model. That was a real difference. But in 2021, people still buy laptops 1/2 as slow as other models to do the same work. Heck people go out of their way to buy iPad pros which are half as slow as comparable laptops. Considering that, I think a ten year old machine is pretty competitive as an existing choice.
    - dijit 5y ago
      > iPad pros which are half as slow as comparable laptops. Uh, what? iPads are using comparable CPUs to the M1 (some even use the M1) and are some of the fastest CPUs for rendering JavaScript on the planet. I think you’re right that people buy slow laptops. But I think that often comes from a place of technical illiteracy and willingness to spend. Put simply: they can’t often comprehend the true value of a faster system and opt to be more financially conservative. Which I fully understand.
      - true_religion 5y ago
        IPad Pro 2021: 1118 on geekbench[1] priced at @ 2,199.00 fully specced at the 12.9 inch model with keyboard. Macbook Air 2020: 1733 on geekbench[2]. Priced @ about 1,849.00 fully speced for 13-inch model. That's what I mean by comparable tablets are more expensive than laptops. You have to pay a lot more because it has a dual form factor (like the Microsoft Surfacebooks). [1]https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696 [2]https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/10527696
adrianN 5y ago
Not everyone needs 15+ hours of battery life. I'd argue that most people don't. Laptops were extremely popular when the battery life was two hours. Now even older laptops get 5h+.
- bertan 5y ago
  > The argument against good low wattage cpus is just an inane and boring one. > Not everyone needs 15+ hours of battery life. Low wattage is not only about battery life. It is mostly about requiring less power for the same work. However you look at it, it is good for everyone. Now that Apple has shown that this can be done, everyone else will do the same.
- dijit 5y ago
  So what is the trade off you think you’re making? This is weird. I feel like I’m talking to someone who has a fixed opinion against something. It’s good for _everyone_ that these chips are as fast as the best chips on the market, have crazy low power consumption and the cost for new is comparable. Intel have been overcharging for more than a decade when innovation stagnated. Honestly, I’m not so hot on Apple (FD I am sending this from an iPhone), I prefer to run Linux on my machines but I would not advocate everyone to do that. Just like I wouldn’t advise people to buy old shoes because it’s cheaper. These machines are compelling even for me, a person who relishes the flexibility of a more open platform — I can not imagine myself not recommending them to someone who just uses office suites or communication software. The M1 is basically the best thing you can buy right now for the consumer; and the cost is equivalent for other business machines such as HPs elitebooks or dells latitude or xps lineup. And for power users: the only good argument you can make is that your tools don’t work for it or you don’t like macos. If you’re arguing a system to be worse: you’ve lost.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    The tradeoff I'm making is money vs capability. My argument is that most people don't need the capabilities offered by brand new, top of the line models. A used laptop that is a couple of years old is, I think, the best choice for most people.

aledthemathguy 5y ago

surprised by your experience with an older laptop. I have both a 4 years old dell (forget it's name right now, for biz uses) and a 2015 MBA (which makes it 6 years old now), and they are both getting SLOW. In a vacuum - they are fine, they pull through. but they are notably slow machines. (i prefer windows but can't stand the dell and find myself keep going back to the mba - although youtube sucks on that machine with chrome) edit: oh the mba battery is still a miracle compared to the dell's, btw

adrianN 5y ago
I bought the T460p last year. It replaced a 2009 Macbook pro with spinning rust. That machine was fine too, but it stopped getting updates years ago so I had to replace it. I hope that Linux will support the T460p for longer.

f6v 5y ago

> Most things that people want to do with computers can be done on a machine that is five to ten years old without any trouble at all. Please, browsing web has always been pain on old hardware.

kergonath 5y ago
You cannot win this argument because for some people Lynx in a terminal is an acceptable way of browsing the web. Also, people argue in bad faith all the time and a lot of people for whom it isn’t an acceptable way of browsing the web would pretend it is anyway to win an argument.

ho_schi 5y ago

The keyboard of the ThinkPad is and was always great and the TrackPoint is a bonus on top of it for some of us. The other part of Input/Output is a good screen. Only after I/O the performance is of matter. What I don't like about Apples devices is the keyboard, they don't provide a equally good trigger point (resistance and feedback) and the keycaps aren't concave (not leading fingers). The quality problems and the questionable Touchbar are problem, too. Lenovo did that before Apple and immediately stopped it, they accept mistake far quicker. I still suspect both - Apple and Lenvo - tried to save money with a cheap touchbar instead of more expensive keys. But there is the performance? First, Apple only claims to be fast. What matter are comparisons of portable applications and not synthetic benchmarks. Benchmarks never mattered. Secondly, Apple uses a lot of money (from the customers) to get the best chip quality in industry from TMSC. What we have are the choice between all-purpose computers from vendors like Lenovo, Dell or System67 or computing appliances from Apple. I say computing appliance and not all-purpose computer, because I'm not aware of official porting documentation for BSD, Linux or Windows. More importantly MacOS hinders free application shipment not as worse as iOS but it is already a pain for developers, you need to use Homebrew for serious computing tasks. Finally the money? Lenovo wants 1.000 - 1.700 Euro for a premium laptop like ThinkPad X13/T14 with replacement parts for five years, public maintenance manuals and official support for Linux and Windows. Apple wants 2.400 - 3.400 for no maintenance manuals, no public available replacement parts and you must use MacOS. Okay, the claim it is faster. Likely it is. You buy performance with an exorbitant amount of money but with multiple drawbacks? Currently I'm still using a eight year old ThinkPad X220 with Linux. The operating-system I want and need, excellent keyboard, comfortable trackpoint and a good IPS-Screen. I think the money was well spent - for me :)

ComSubVie 5y ago

I'm still using my 12 (!) year old 17" MacBook Pro as daily work machine. Yes, it's not the fastest computer but for my usage it works. Granted, starting IntelliJ needs some time, but coding still works well (and compiling big codebases isn't done locally). The one thing that really isn't usable anymore is Aperture/Lightroom. And missing docker because my CPU is too old (but docker it still works in VMs ...) is a pain.

bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
I'm still using my 2014 16" MacBook Pro too - the SSD has made such a dramatic difference to the performance of machines that I think in general they age much better than previously. I'm not a heavy user but that machine can easily handle xcode Objc/c++ programming quite handily.

vijucat 5y ago

> Battery life, screen quality, and ergonomics are the only thing most consumers need to care about. You, Sir, are a very utilitarian consumer. Most consumers care about being in the "In" crowd, i.e., owning the brand that others think is cool. Ideally, it comes in a shiny color. That's it. The exact details are just camouflage.

webmobdev 5y ago

> It might be a long time before it makes sense to buy a non-Apple laptop. They already don't make sense as the M1 isn't a "general purpose" CPU like Intel or AMD that support multiple operating systems, and even the development of new ones. Instead, the M1 is a black-box that only fully supports macOS - that's a crippling limitation for many of us.

lanza 5y ago

Yea I agree. Implicit in my statement is `for the people in the market Apple is targeting`. You aren't going to buy a $4000 computer and you'll be happy with a clunker. I, and many people in my situation, don't feel there are options for $4000 laptops right now.

throwntoday 5y ago

A lot of people don't have a desktop so a very powerful laptop that just works (tm) well for software development and can be lugged around effortlessly is ideal. I haven't owned a desktop myself in years and many engineers I know have been letting their rigs collect dust as the laptop just does it all. For the price, there isn't something comparable in all respects.