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This is still the strongest apple advantage: design, engineering and build quality. Recently I wanted to buy a second notebook so I could leave my MBPro at hom

This is still the strongest apple advantage: design, engineering and build quality. Recently I wanted to buy a second notebook so I could leave my MBPro at home in trips where I didn't want to work, but still had a machine that run linux and windows for some quick idea or even some light gaming. Decided for a Samsung Galaxy Book Pro. Expensive machine, but slightly cheaper than a MacBook Air. good i7 11gen processor, excellent battery life, very light but with surprisingly good thermals, 1tb SSD, but unfortunately no option to have it with more than 16GB RAM. Anyway, was very satisfied with it, and it was so light that I was even booting it with linux and doing some programming on it. But, one day I just opened the lid by the sides, heard a crack, and the gorgeous OLED screen had cracked. Of course I didnt abuse it, I just opened it, without excessive force or speed. But the screen is very fragile, the lid is paper thin, but not rigid enough, it seems, to avoid this problem. And of course, Samsung says it was my fault, and I will have to pay the fix. And yes, I know people have plenty of complaints about apple, but I never had encountered such an obvious problem with an Apple product. Have they not stress-tested this stuff?

NalNezumi 5y ago
I don't remember which iPhone it was, but didn't one launch with the problem that the entire phone could be "bent" by having it in the back pocket and sitting down? (or similarly putting some force) And their reactions to it was "its your own damn fault"?
- saagarjha 5y ago
  iPhone 6 (Plus).
sangnoir 5y ago
I guess you didn't purchase the iPhone 6, or perhaps you had very large pockets. A phone that bends semi-/permanently when placed in pockets was a ridiculous oversight.
- dereg 5y ago
  Apple replaced the bent iPhones on the spot for free. That said, the iPhone 6 represented peak Jony Ive. I'm glad he's gone. Apple has walked back their obsession with thinness in favor of maximizing utility, all to the benefit of the user.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    No, they eventually admitted it was their fault, they didn’t admit fault when the iPad came bent recently, or the MacBook Pro had failures. But with Steve Jobs alive it wasn’t hard to get your handhelds like the iPhone or iPod replaced, now they blame you or make you wait forever. I agree about Jony, the iPhone 5 was peak Apple design, and it comes back with no headphone jack in the 12.
    - dereg 5y ago
      The generosity of Apple's support during Steve's era was unparalleled. It created a great deal of goodwill for the company within the iPhone/Mac community. Like you said, supports now is delayed, difficult, rigid, and merciless. Somewhere along the line, Apple forgot that its retail stores and support were products in and of themselves.
      - GhettoComputers 5y ago
        Yeah it was so easy to walk in with a problem knowing Apple was gonna take care of it (except the MacBook problem but I didn’t use a MacBook). You knew you didn’t need an appointment, 20 mins in to get a nice person who looked at it, saw your problem and said ok well take care of it, here’s another one. Incredible service at that time, something that Samsung and others didn’t have. Now I get some asshole that says it’s not an issue or it’ll take 2hr to fix the screen, then they break it anyway and give me another phone that isn’t unlocked and I have to go again or call the carrier because Apple fucked up.
        rvnx 5y ago
mmgutz 5y ago
I buy Windows laptops for the purpose of running Linux. Little things do happen like bezels coming loose, coil whine and fan noise. I have been happy with Apple for over a decade. My MBP 2018 was an exception. The rubber seal around the screen deteriorated. The touch bar has a dead area ($750 to fix, not fixing). Bulging batteries had to get replaced. That generation of MBP was GARBAGE based on my research trying to fix mine. Waiting to see if new M-based MBP have the quality pre previous generations of MBP had.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  My friend uses an M1 as a power user for about a year. Great battery life, almost never uses the fan, super fast, no battery issues, no Linux support with graphics acceleration yet and he cracked his screen and Apple care fixed it. I don’t think the butterfly keyboard is around anymore. It’s fabulous but so is my much worst Lenovo x250 with 16GB I got, and a new 1080p screen on recently, still very happy with it.
  - kataklasm 5y ago
    Same here! Running an X250 with 8GB of memory and an i3 for engineering in university. Of ciurse I'm not doing any simulations or computations with it but for everything else it's an absolute dream. One of the last ThinkPads to have the hot swappable battery system and it's highly repairable. 12" screen size is perfect for an on-the-go laptop in my opinion. I'm running Fedora with i3 on it to maximize the screen real estate I can get out of it and it's lovely. Even compiling programs and similar sctivities aren't a bother to be honest. Very happy, let's hope it stays with me for a few more years!
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      I regret getting the 12.5in screen, it’s terrible for posture. The t460s is about the same weight with a 14in screen. I am sure it will perform fine, but the screen is really small and bad for posture I hope you’re using the dock and not using it too often as a laptop. I love it as the epitome of the best half netbook/ultrabook with excellent performance with a few tradeoffs like 1 ram slot.
treve 5y ago
Yet I know lots of people with defects in Apple products. I replaced multiple laptops. Is there real evidence of fewer defects?
- snapcore 5y ago
  No, they are the same as everything else, people constantly say they are superb on here, but looking up reliability surveys says otherwise: https://www.geckoandfly.com/6311/the-most-reliable-laptop-survey-best-netbook-reliability-comparison/ https://www.geckoandfly.com/6311/the-most-reliable-laptop-su...
  - deep-root 5y ago
    This link states in 2018 Apple (1st place on reliability with 665 pts) was 2-3x more reliable than Samsung (2nd place 270 pts). Then in 2019 Apple suddenly became half as reliable (now 130pts) as Samsung? Seems suspect at best. They seem to rank based on all service calls to their third party IT firm. Apple's top service calls were printer and email help (40% between them) and hardware was 0.53%.[1] [1] https://www.rescuecom.com/news-press-releases/apple-mac-2021-rescuecom-computer-repair-report.aspx https://www.rescuecom.com/news-press-releases/apple-mac-2021...
    - rajivm 5y ago
      That reliability matches my anecdotal experience. I've had multiple failures of the 2019-2020 MacBook Pro 15" & 16" models. Gone through 4 machines, and these mostly sat on desks during the pandemic. One machine due to keyboard stickiness to the point of unusability (this of course is the most known issue). Two slow logic board failures (increasingly frequent kernel panics until the machine no longer worked); the second one I didn't wait until it fully failed. One display failure. I just switched to the new M1 Pro 16" which I'm hopeful has resilience that matches my earlier Macs that would last 4+ years -- it seems like Apple has reverted 5 years of design choices with this model (ports, MagSafe, weight, thickness, edges, keyboard -- of course with better battery/performance/screen).
- BoorishBears 5y ago
pushrax 5y ago
I’ve destroyed two MacBook Air screens, also because the lid isn’t particularly rigid. The MacBook Pro is definitely more durable, no issues after 12 years of owning them. I’m now much more careful with my MBA.
- Lammy 5y ago
  The virgin Macbook screen vs the chad grain of brown rice https://twitter.com/kaxamdays/status/1438403620391763971 https://twitter.com/kaxamdays/status/1438403620391763971
jimmaswell 5y ago
Aren't their recent laptops an overheating mess, not to mention needing dongles to plug anything in? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29197975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29197975
- alex_young 5y ago
  That seems to be a reference to the previous iteration right?
- pushrax 5y ago
  Their recent laptops use Apple silicon and are anything but an overheating mess. There are plenty of things to complain about but heat has been solved.
- marcan_42 5y ago
  Their latest laptops barely if ever turn on their fans. Your link references the prior Intel generation.
  - stouset 5y ago
    I’ve run my M1 Max all night blasting every core doing heavily vectorized math computations and when I come back in the morning the small room it was in isn’t even noticeably warmer than ambient temperature and the fans aren’t even on.
    - eertami 5y ago
      Isn't the M1 Max pulling like 30-40W tops? I don't understand why that would ever be expected to create a noticeable temperature change. I doubt any laptop CPU would create a noticeable difference.
      - jquery 5y ago
        Yeah, low power draw is kind of the M1 Max’s thing. My desktop PC crushes the M1 Max when doing workstation type tasks. But for content consumption and even light workloads it’s very efficient.
CamperBob2 5y ago
Those are 3 advantages
kiwijamo 5y ago
Funnily enough the exact same thing happened to my work Macbook. Display just stopped working one day. Work sent it back to Apple to repair which took them a few weeks. I once owned a iBook (back in the PowerPC days) that had to go back to Apple on no less than four different occasions to fix faults. All repaired under AppleCare as I fortunately had the foresight to pay for it at the time of purchase. I've also owned other brands of laptops and I've not had any with the amount nor the severity of faults I've observed on Apple laptops. I write this on my own ex-lease Lenovo X1 Carbon which has survived a 1m drop with a corner hitting a hard surface. Thankfully the only issue is the occasional black/darkening of an area of pixels on the lower-right corner of the LCD. I can 100% guarantee if it was a Macbook it would have been the end of it, no question whatsoever (given I've seen Macbook die from much less impact).
- sundvor 5y ago
  The engineering of the X1 Carbon is amazing. Durability is a design goal, it even has channels for directing liquid ingress away from the most vulnerable parts. Whilst not a guarantee against failures, it certainly doesn't hurt! My own OG X1 Carbon (i7/8/256) still works today, and, amazingly, receives firmware updates. It is 9 years old.
  - texasbigdata 5y ago
    Hah just cracked an X1 extreme gen1. And because it's "custom" (64gb ram), Lenovo is struggling to fix the screen. Guess there's an anecdote for anything :) P.S. MacBook pro still works ;)
  - james_in_the_uk 5y ago
    Lenovo have massive presence in the corporate market. My experience of their ThinkPad range is that they are built to withstand the type of abuse that comes from being used by people who have no emotional attachment to them whatsoever. My shop has started refurbing and recycling machines between staff, as a cost cutting measure. My last device came complete with someone else's Coca-Cola residue all over the internal case and fan vents. Clearly a Friday afternoon job at the refurb outfit. Liberally doused with IPA, dried off and reassembled by my own hands, and it’s still running fine. Good design channeled the liquid away from anything valuable.
zuj 5y ago
While my entire friends circle are apple fanboys I stayed away from it because of the cost. Once I had the resources tried MacBook air and now all the devices in my home are replaced by apple one by one. Except for Alexa, never got used to Siri.
- bodge5000 5y ago
  Out of interest, what would you say is better about a Mac specifically (both the hardware and software) compared to a standard windows or linux pc/laptop, aside from build quality (my thinkpads have never let me down)? I've been tempted by a mac for a few years but never close enough to pull the trigger
  - zuj 5y ago
    Frankly, it's not just one thing. It's the seamless experience. Your experience might be different but coming from bulky Lenovo laptop with windows on it to the sleek machine which you are able to just open the lid and get to work is mind blowing for me. On Mac, I don't remember the last time I shut down my machine or close the applications. All with out sacrificing the battery time. It's just there for me when ever I want to get back to work. If you are on the fence, give it a try.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
      Battery life and hibernate behaviour is unmatched on a Mac. Nothing else comes close. I’ve never rebooted less.
      - BoxOfRain 5y ago
        The trackpads are absolutely the best by a long way in my experience too, every other laptop's trackpad feels like cheap crap once you've tried a MacBook's one in my opinion. I even replaced my mouse with an external trackpad, I've not used a traditional mouse in a year.
        5y ago
oblio 5y ago
> This is still the strongest apple advantage: design, engineering and build quality. The thing is, Appple's hype wave is huge. I NEVER see this kind of blog post about Samsung or Huawei or Sony devices. Yet many of their devices are marvels of engineering, too. Look at the tone of this article: > The construction would make an origamist blush. Make we can get an experienced electronics comment on this kind of congratulatory comment: are Apple devices that special? (I doubt it) Or do they just have an awesome grassroots marketing environment or are great at astroturfing? I get the impression that part of this is also caused by Apple being American. The US is great at marketing and there is a degree of nationalism involved since there aren't that many American consumer electronics companies left. I remember going to some attractions in the US and thinking: this is hot garbage but for sure they're awesome at promoting it in movies and TV series and whatever.
- 72deluxe 5y ago
  Yes, it seems bizarre that the dismissal of various other devices as Chinese (Huawei laptops?) doesn't impact Macbooks, which are also all made in China. The Huawei laptops look excellent Apple copies from what I can see.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  No. In practice the samsung cutting edge stuff that looked like a marvel of engineering was just fluff with small irritating stuff that compounds over time. Samsung is obsessed with features, not with perfecting them.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    I agree, the iPhone was a handheld Unix computer, the Samsung Galaxy looked like it could do the same things but it was just worst.
  - oblio 5y ago
    I'm strictly talking about tech and assembly here. We have a custom website fawning over Apple internal electronics being folded a certain way. I doubt Samsung's internal engineering is worse. Especially since they make components for everyone else. For example they have the best screens in the smartphone world.
schleck8 5y ago
Trust me, the Flexgate was just as bad and Apple tried to cheat their customers, including me. My MB Pro had both design flaws with its screen connection (750 € for a faulty 5 € display cable, look it up) and key switches. And don't even get me started on my iPad Pro, that thing had to be replaced two times because the area around the home button isn't stabile enough. Now on the third one I am having pretty bad screen bleeding. On the contrary my workstation PC has not failed me once in two years. Never again I will buy an Apple product.
quickthrower2 5y ago
I chose the iPhone because of the “just works” nature but now they’ve made it impossible to get photos off using Windows (disconnects in copy, iTunes or DCIM, tried workarounds, due to heavily walled garden no other app can be used to get 500 photos off). Lots of people online with same issue. If I can take photos and copy them off I might as well go back to androids.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >If I can take photos and copy them off I might as well go back to androids. You're not supposed to connect your iPhone to a PC via cable like a caveman. You're supposed to buy a Mac and pay for an an iCloud subscription and then everything just works automagically via the cloud. /s
- mceachen 5y ago
  I feel your pain. Two different possible solutions: 1. Turn off automatic image conversion, and then retry copying over USB: it takes a while to convert HEIC to JPEG, and an eternity to convert HEIC to MP4. It's something like Settings > Photos > Transfer to Mac or PC > keep original format 2. Install a file transfer app on your phone and computer, like Resilio Sync or Photo Sync. My family's phones use Resilio Sync that sync with a NAS on the bookshelf and PhotoStructure (I'm the author).
- dbspin 5y ago
  That sounds annoying, but honestly pretty much any cloud backup service will sort this for you iCloud's not great, but Google One, Dropbox etc all work fine on iPhone.
  - quickthrower2 5y ago
    I’m using MS and while it has copied a lot I’m not convinced it copied everything. Renaming and reformatting means I’ll spend some time making sure
dncornholio 5y ago
I remember my Macbook screen getting damaged from the keyboard. Was a 2013 model. Their charging block also give up after a few years. The harness of the cable have failed on most of my magsafes. I also remember my phonecalls kept disconnecting because I held my iPhone the wrong way so it blocked the reception. Saying Apple doesn't have design flaws is quite ignorant.
codesnik 5y ago
I mean, there were some mishaps in apple line too. First macbook airs had faulty hinges. Mine broke, and I was using my mbair as a "mobile desktop", rarely opening it between home and office, because I was afraid it will broke off completely. I had to wait for replacement lid (which was free) for half a year.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
hnlmorg 5y ago
> And yes, I know people have plenty of complaints about apple, but I never had encountered such an obvious problem with an Apple product. Have they not stress-tested this stuff? I'm not going to argue that many of Apples products aren't well built but MBPs have had their share of problems too. Such as - The butterfly keys being extremely easy to break? (I have a few keys on mine that don't work properly any more) - Or USB-C right side of the MBP causing the thermals to increase so much that the CPU throttles? (this also affects me) - Or the ribbon cable that connects the screen getting worn down with repeated opening/closing that it breaks? (happened to a friend) In fact, I've had more issues with my current MBP than I have with any of my previous laptops and thus cannot wait to decommission in January. I do also have an iPhone and Apple Watch. My iPhones have always been flawless but my Apple Watch is around 18 months old and the speaker is already failing. The watch and iPhone experience has been fantastic (even with the failing speaker) but I really can't see me getting another MBP. Not just because of the hardware problems I've had but also because I just don't think macOS is particularly good these days either. The OS panics far too often (MBPs really don't like to be docked and on docked regularly), it handles ageing batteries the worst (to the extent that a failing battery will brick the device where as at least with Linux you can still run the machine off the mains), it takes forever to verify applications on launch (sure I can turn that off) and it's nowhere near as performant as it once was. Frankly it's left me craving a Linux workhorse again. I feel Apples love for IT professionals has diminished over the last decade and all the emphasis in build quality has gone towards their range of gadgets.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Try cleaning the speaker with distilled water and the speaker cleaning feature that pumps the water out of the watch.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    Thanks, I will try that
  - gimmeThaBeet 5y ago
    is that this water lock thing for when you swim with it? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210931 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210931 May be brash of me, I would assume all water resistant watches have water lock, but the speaker thing sounds so apple-y.
floatingatoll 5y ago
The last time I cracked an Apple display doing something like that was fifteen-ish years ago, when the plastic hinges were seizing and crimping the lower display panel. It’s not the sort of thing that they have problems with anymore. They do, of course, have new problems, but it supports your point that they have been here and done that over a decade ago.
nvarsj 5y ago
Samsung has never had great build quality in my experience - they seem to focus on looks above all else, with throwaway hardware that never gets software updates. I wonder why you went for a galaxy book pro? Why not buy a Thinkpad or Dell? They can have their own issues but the build quality should be much better.
- elzbardico 5y ago
  I wanted a second machine, and the main criterias where 1) Run linux fine. 2) Intel Evo 3) As light and thin as possible. Yeah, I was stupid :-(
wiliaonson 5y ago
I agree with what you have said, I have my fair share of Apple products, and they didn't disappoint me.
eptcyka 5y ago
A lot of the M1 macbooks had similar issues where displays would crack seemingly without any abuse. All in the name of thinness. I wouldn't suppose that it's the users or horrible design at fault, but rather an issue where some tolerances were not met, so some of the parts in production are less durable than what is needed to execute the design.
sombremesa 5y ago
I recently pulled out my 2018 13" Macbook pro after quitting my job and not having touched this laptop in a while. The keyboard had a couple of issues with repeating keys...and I was out of the warranty period. Thankfully, Apple has a keyboard service program, and they fixed it for free — in late 2021. No questions asked. With a one year warranty on their fix. This was just before thanksgiving and it took them just about 3 days to fix from when I dropped it off to when I picked it up, even though it was shipped to a repair center. That being said, I might not buy a new one for a while because I like having bootcamp to play games and the M1 makes that impossible.

NalNezumi 5y ago

I don't remember which iPhone it was, but didn't one launch with the problem that the entire phone could be "bent" by having it in the back pocket and sitting down? (or similarly putting some force) And their reactions to it was "its your own damn fault"?

saagarjha 5y ago
iPhone 6 (Plus).

sangnoir 5y ago

I guess you didn't purchase the iPhone 6, or perhaps you had very large pockets. A phone that bends semi-/permanently when placed in pockets was a ridiculous oversight.

dereg 5y ago
Apple replaced the bent iPhones on the spot for free. That said, the iPhone 6 represented peak Jony Ive. I'm glad he's gone. Apple has walked back their obsession with thinness in favor of maximizing utility, all to the benefit of the user.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  No, they eventually admitted it was their fault, they didn’t admit fault when the iPad came bent recently, or the MacBook Pro had failures. But with Steve Jobs alive it wasn’t hard to get your handhelds like the iPhone or iPod replaced, now they blame you or make you wait forever. I agree about Jony, the iPhone 5 was peak Apple design, and it comes back with no headphone jack in the 12.
  - dereg 5y ago
    The generosity of Apple's support during Steve's era was unparalleled. It created a great deal of goodwill for the company within the iPhone/Mac community. Like you said, supports now is delayed, difficult, rigid, and merciless. Somewhere along the line, Apple forgot that its retail stores and support were products in and of themselves.
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      Yeah it was so easy to walk in with a problem knowing Apple was gonna take care of it (except the MacBook problem but I didn’t use a MacBook). You knew you didn’t need an appointment, 20 mins in to get a nice person who looked at it, saw your problem and said ok well take care of it, here’s another one. Incredible service at that time, something that Samsung and others didn’t have. Now I get some asshole that says it’s not an issue or it’ll take 2hr to fix the screen, then they break it anyway and give me another phone that isn’t unlocked and I have to go again or call the carrier because Apple fucked up.
      - rvnx 5y ago

mmgutz 5y ago

I buy Windows laptops for the purpose of running Linux. Little things do happen like bezels coming loose, coil whine and fan noise. I have been happy with Apple for over a decade. My MBP 2018 was an exception. The rubber seal around the screen deteriorated. The touch bar has a dead area ($750 to fix, not fixing). Bulging batteries had to get replaced. That generation of MBP was GARBAGE based on my research trying to fix mine. Waiting to see if new M-based MBP have the quality pre previous generations of MBP had.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
My friend uses an M1 as a power user for about a year. Great battery life, almost never uses the fan, super fast, no battery issues, no Linux support with graphics acceleration yet and he cracked his screen and Apple care fixed it. I don’t think the butterfly keyboard is around anymore. It’s fabulous but so is my much worst Lenovo x250 with 16GB I got, and a new 1080p screen on recently, still very happy with it.
- kataklasm 5y ago
  Same here! Running an X250 with 8GB of memory and an i3 for engineering in university. Of ciurse I'm not doing any simulations or computations with it but for everything else it's an absolute dream. One of the last ThinkPads to have the hot swappable battery system and it's highly repairable. 12" screen size is perfect for an on-the-go laptop in my opinion. I'm running Fedora with i3 on it to maximize the screen real estate I can get out of it and it's lovely. Even compiling programs and similar sctivities aren't a bother to be honest. Very happy, let's hope it stays with me for a few more years!
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    I regret getting the 12.5in screen, it’s terrible for posture. The t460s is about the same weight with a 14in screen. I am sure it will perform fine, but the screen is really small and bad for posture I hope you’re using the dock and not using it too often as a laptop. I love it as the epitome of the best half netbook/ultrabook with excellent performance with a few tradeoffs like 1 ram slot.

treve 5y ago

Yet I know lots of people with defects in Apple products. I replaced multiple laptops. Is there real evidence of fewer defects?

snapcore 5y ago
No, they are the same as everything else, people constantly say they are superb on here, but looking up reliability surveys says otherwise: https://www.geckoandfly.com/6311/the-most-reliable-laptop-survey-best-netbook-reliability-comparison/ https://www.geckoandfly.com/6311/the-most-reliable-laptop-su...
- deep-root 5y ago
  This link states in 2018 Apple (1st place on reliability with 665 pts) was 2-3x more reliable than Samsung (2nd place 270 pts). Then in 2019 Apple suddenly became half as reliable (now 130pts) as Samsung? Seems suspect at best. They seem to rank based on all service calls to their third party IT firm. Apple's top service calls were printer and email help (40% between them) and hardware was 0.53%.[1] [1] https://www.rescuecom.com/news-press-releases/apple-mac-2021-rescuecom-computer-repair-report.aspx https://www.rescuecom.com/news-press-releases/apple-mac-2021...
  - rajivm 5y ago
    That reliability matches my anecdotal experience. I've had multiple failures of the 2019-2020 MacBook Pro 15" & 16" models. Gone through 4 machines, and these mostly sat on desks during the pandemic. One machine due to keyboard stickiness to the point of unusability (this of course is the most known issue). Two slow logic board failures (increasingly frequent kernel panics until the machine no longer worked); the second one I didn't wait until it fully failed. One display failure. I just switched to the new M1 Pro 16" which I'm hopeful has resilience that matches my earlier Macs that would last 4+ years -- it seems like Apple has reverted 5 years of design choices with this model (ports, MagSafe, weight, thickness, edges, keyboard -- of course with better battery/performance/screen).
BoorishBears 5y ago

pushrax 5y ago

I’ve destroyed two MacBook Air screens, also because the lid isn’t particularly rigid. The MacBook Pro is definitely more durable, no issues after 12 years of owning them. I’m now much more careful with my MBA.

Lammy 5y ago
The virgin Macbook screen vs the chad grain of brown rice https://twitter.com/kaxamdays/status/1438403620391763971 https://twitter.com/kaxamdays/status/1438403620391763971

jimmaswell 5y ago

Aren't their recent laptops an overheating mess, not to mention needing dongles to plug anything in? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29197975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29197975

alex_young 5y ago
That seems to be a reference to the previous iteration right?
pushrax 5y ago
Their recent laptops use Apple silicon and are anything but an overheating mess. There are plenty of things to complain about but heat has been solved.
marcan_42 5y ago
Their latest laptops barely if ever turn on their fans. Your link references the prior Intel generation.
- stouset 5y ago
  I’ve run my M1 Max all night blasting every core doing heavily vectorized math computations and when I come back in the morning the small room it was in isn’t even noticeably warmer than ambient temperature and the fans aren’t even on.
  - eertami 5y ago
    Isn't the M1 Max pulling like 30-40W tops? I don't understand why that would ever be expected to create a noticeable temperature change. I doubt any laptop CPU would create a noticeable difference.
    - jquery 5y ago
      Yeah, low power draw is kind of the M1 Max’s thing. My desktop PC crushes the M1 Max when doing workstation type tasks. But for content consumption and even light workloads it’s very efficient.

CamperBob2 5y ago

Those are 3 advantages

kiwijamo 5y ago

Funnily enough the exact same thing happened to my work Macbook. Display just stopped working one day. Work sent it back to Apple to repair which took them a few weeks. I once owned a iBook (back in the PowerPC days) that had to go back to Apple on no less than four different occasions to fix faults. All repaired under AppleCare as I fortunately had the foresight to pay for it at the time of purchase. I've also owned other brands of laptops and I've not had any with the amount nor the severity of faults I've observed on Apple laptops. I write this on my own ex-lease Lenovo X1 Carbon which has survived a 1m drop with a corner hitting a hard surface. Thankfully the only issue is the occasional black/darkening of an area of pixels on the lower-right corner of the LCD. I can 100% guarantee if it was a Macbook it would have been the end of it, no question whatsoever (given I've seen Macbook die from much less impact).

sundvor 5y ago
The engineering of the X1 Carbon is amazing. Durability is a design goal, it even has channels for directing liquid ingress away from the most vulnerable parts. Whilst not a guarantee against failures, it certainly doesn't hurt! My own OG X1 Carbon (i7/8/256) still works today, and, amazingly, receives firmware updates. It is 9 years old.
- texasbigdata 5y ago
  Hah just cracked an X1 extreme gen1. And because it's "custom" (64gb ram), Lenovo is struggling to fix the screen. Guess there's an anecdote for anything :) P.S. MacBook pro still works ;)
- james_in_the_uk 5y ago
  Lenovo have massive presence in the corporate market. My experience of their ThinkPad range is that they are built to withstand the type of abuse that comes from being used by people who have no emotional attachment to them whatsoever. My shop has started refurbing and recycling machines between staff, as a cost cutting measure. My last device came complete with someone else's Coca-Cola residue all over the internal case and fan vents. Clearly a Friday afternoon job at the refurb outfit. Liberally doused with IPA, dried off and reassembled by my own hands, and it’s still running fine. Good design channeled the liquid away from anything valuable.

zuj 5y ago

While my entire friends circle are apple fanboys I stayed away from it because of the cost. Once I had the resources tried MacBook air and now all the devices in my home are replaced by apple one by one. Except for Alexa, never got used to Siri.

bodge5000 5y ago
Out of interest, what would you say is better about a Mac specifically (both the hardware and software) compared to a standard windows or linux pc/laptop, aside from build quality (my thinkpads have never let me down)? I've been tempted by a mac for a few years but never close enough to pull the trigger
- zuj 5y ago
  Frankly, it's not just one thing. It's the seamless experience. Your experience might be different but coming from bulky Lenovo laptop with windows on it to the sleek machine which you are able to just open the lid and get to work is mind blowing for me. On Mac, I don't remember the last time I shut down my machine or close the applications. All with out sacrificing the battery time. It's just there for me when ever I want to get back to work. If you are on the fence, give it a try.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    Battery life and hibernate behaviour is unmatched on a Mac. Nothing else comes close. I’ve never rebooted less.
    - BoxOfRain 5y ago
      The trackpads are absolutely the best by a long way in my experience too, every other laptop's trackpad feels like cheap crap once you've tried a MacBook's one in my opinion. I even replaced my mouse with an external trackpad, I've not used a traditional mouse in a year.
      - 5y ago

oblio 5y ago

> This is still the strongest apple advantage: design, engineering and build quality. The thing is, Appple's hype wave is huge. I NEVER see this kind of blog post about Samsung or Huawei or Sony devices. Yet many of their devices are marvels of engineering, too. Look at the tone of this article: > The construction would make an origamist blush. Make we can get an experienced electronics comment on this kind of congratulatory comment: are Apple devices that special? (I doubt it) Or do they just have an awesome grassroots marketing environment or are great at astroturfing? I get the impression that part of this is also caused by Apple being American. The US is great at marketing and there is a degree of nationalism involved since there aren't that many American consumer electronics companies left. I remember going to some attractions in the US and thinking: this is hot garbage but for sure they're awesome at promoting it in movies and TV series and whatever.

72deluxe 5y ago
Yes, it seems bizarre that the dismissal of various other devices as Chinese (Huawei laptops?) doesn't impact Macbooks, which are also all made in China. The Huawei laptops look excellent Apple copies from what I can see.
elzbardico 5y ago
No. In practice the samsung cutting edge stuff that looked like a marvel of engineering was just fluff with small irritating stuff that compounds over time. Samsung is obsessed with features, not with perfecting them.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  I agree, the iPhone was a handheld Unix computer, the Samsung Galaxy looked like it could do the same things but it was just worst.
- oblio 5y ago
  I'm strictly talking about tech and assembly here. We have a custom website fawning over Apple internal electronics being folded a certain way. I doubt Samsung's internal engineering is worse. Especially since they make components for everyone else. For example they have the best screens in the smartphone world.

schleck8 5y ago

Trust me, the Flexgate was just as bad and Apple tried to cheat their customers, including me. My MB Pro had both design flaws with its screen connection (750 € for a faulty 5 € display cable, look it up) and key switches. And don't even get me started on my iPad Pro, that thing had to be replaced two times because the area around the home button isn't stabile enough. Now on the third one I am having pretty bad screen bleeding. On the contrary my workstation PC has not failed me once in two years. Never again I will buy an Apple product.

quickthrower2 5y ago

I chose the iPhone because of the “just works” nature but now they’ve made it impossible to get photos off using Windows (disconnects in copy, iTunes or DCIM, tried workarounds, due to heavily walled garden no other app can be used to get 500 photos off). Lots of people online with same issue. If I can take photos and copy them off I might as well go back to androids.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>If I can take photos and copy them off I might as well go back to androids. You're not supposed to connect your iPhone to a PC via cable like a caveman. You're supposed to buy a Mac and pay for an an iCloud subscription and then everything just works automagically via the cloud. /s
mceachen 5y ago
I feel your pain. Two different possible solutions: 1. Turn off automatic image conversion, and then retry copying over USB: it takes a while to convert HEIC to JPEG, and an eternity to convert HEIC to MP4. It's something like Settings > Photos > Transfer to Mac or PC > keep original format 2. Install a file transfer app on your phone and computer, like Resilio Sync or Photo Sync. My family's phones use Resilio Sync that sync with a NAS on the bookshelf and PhotoStructure (I'm the author).
dbspin 5y ago
That sounds annoying, but honestly pretty much any cloud backup service will sort this for you iCloud's not great, but Google One, Dropbox etc all work fine on iPhone.
- quickthrower2 5y ago
  I’m using MS and while it has copied a lot I’m not convinced it copied everything. Renaming and reformatting means I’ll spend some time making sure

dncornholio 5y ago

I remember my Macbook screen getting damaged from the keyboard. Was a 2013 model. Their charging block also give up after a few years. The harness of the cable have failed on most of my magsafes. I also remember my phonecalls kept disconnecting because I held my iPhone the wrong way so it blocked the reception. Saying Apple doesn't have design flaws is quite ignorant.

codesnik 5y ago

I mean, there were some mishaps in apple line too. First macbook airs had faulty hinges. Mine broke, and I was using my mbair as a "mobile desktop", rarely opening it between home and office, because I was afraid it will broke off completely. I had to wait for replacement lid (which was free) for half a year.

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hnlmorg 5y ago

> And yes, I know people have plenty of complaints about apple, but I never had encountered such an obvious problem with an Apple product. Have they not stress-tested this stuff? I'm not going to argue that many of Apples products aren't well built but MBPs have had their share of problems too. Such as - The butterfly keys being extremely easy to break? (I have a few keys on mine that don't work properly any more) - Or USB-C right side of the MBP causing the thermals to increase so much that the CPU throttles? (this also affects me) - Or the ribbon cable that connects the screen getting worn down with repeated opening/closing that it breaks? (happened to a friend) In fact, I've had more issues with my current MBP than I have with any of my previous laptops and thus cannot wait to decommission in January. I do also have an iPhone and Apple Watch. My iPhones have always been flawless but my Apple Watch is around 18 months old and the speaker is already failing. The watch and iPhone experience has been fantastic (even with the failing speaker) but I really can't see me getting another MBP. Not just because of the hardware problems I've had but also because I just don't think macOS is particularly good these days either. The OS panics far too often (MBPs really don't like to be docked and on docked regularly), it handles ageing batteries the worst (to the extent that a failing battery will brick the device where as at least with Linux you can still run the machine off the mains), it takes forever to verify applications on launch (sure I can turn that off) and it's nowhere near as performant as it once was. Frankly it's left me craving a Linux workhorse again. I feel Apples love for IT professionals has diminished over the last decade and all the emphasis in build quality has gone towards their range of gadgets.

mensetmanusman 5y ago
Try cleaning the speaker with distilled water and the speaker cleaning feature that pumps the water out of the watch.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  Thanks, I will try that
- gimmeThaBeet 5y ago
  is that this water lock thing for when you swim with it? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210931 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210931 May be brash of me, I would assume all water resistant watches have water lock, but the speaker thing sounds so apple-y.

floatingatoll 5y ago

The last time I cracked an Apple display doing something like that was fifteen-ish years ago, when the plastic hinges were seizing and crimping the lower display panel. It’s not the sort of thing that they have problems with anymore. They do, of course, have new problems, but it supports your point that they have been here and done that over a decade ago.

nvarsj 5y ago

Samsung has never had great build quality in my experience - they seem to focus on looks above all else, with throwaway hardware that never gets software updates. I wonder why you went for a galaxy book pro? Why not buy a Thinkpad or Dell? They can have their own issues but the build quality should be much better.

elzbardico 5y ago
I wanted a second machine, and the main criterias where 1) Run linux fine. 2) Intel Evo 3) As light and thin as possible. Yeah, I was stupid :-(

wiliaonson 5y ago

I agree with what you have said, I have my fair share of Apple products, and they didn't disappoint me.

eptcyka 5y ago

A lot of the M1 macbooks had similar issues where displays would crack seemingly without any abuse. All in the name of thinness. I wouldn't suppose that it's the users or horrible design at fault, but rather an issue where some tolerances were not met, so some of the parts in production are less durable than what is needed to execute the design.

sombremesa 5y ago

I recently pulled out my 2018 13" Macbook pro after quitting my job and not having touched this laptop in a while. The keyboard had a couple of issues with repeating keys...and I was out of the warranty period. Thankfully, Apple has a keyboard service program, and they fixed it for free — in late 2021. No questions asked. With a one year warranty on their fix. This was just before thanksgiving and it took them just about 3 days to fix from when I dropped it off to when I picked it up, even though it was shipped to a repair center. That being said, I might not buy a new one for a while because I like having bootcamp to play games and the M1 makes that impossible.