4 ms·

Some back story: I bought a top-of-the-line X1 Carbon ThinkPad for ~$3,000 3 years ago. Within 1 year of owning it: the USB-C charging port broke, the fans star

by dvt 4y ago

Some back story: I bought a top-of-the-line X1 Carbon ThinkPad for ~$3,000 3 years ago. Within 1 year of owning it: the USB-C charging port broke, the fans started whining, so I had to open/adjust the case, Windows Hello never worked (?), the fingerprint sensor was wonky, and the battery ended up lasting around 5 hours with a realistic workload. This was after owning just about every top PC laptop brand out there: Alienware, Razer, a nice ASUS I had when in college, etc. I bought my M1 MBP around a year ago. It's now 4:30pm, and I've been using it since 10am, sitting at 50% battery without plugging in at all. Everything just works. I even installed Steam and can play some games on it. I hated the idea of owning a Mac and have fought tooth and nail until I finally bit the bullet. It's literally the best laptop I've ever owned and I am never going back. My gaming rig is a different story, but for productivity on-the-go, there's no comparison.

Baeocystin 4y ago
Do you miss a touchscreen? I use a surface laptop 4 as my mobile workstation, and I like it overall, but the battery life leaves a lot to be desired. I'm OS agnostic, so the M1s caught my attention, but I use the touchscreen so much I'm not sure how happy I'd be with it unavailable to my workflow.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- spideymans 4y ago
  I’ve realized that the only reason I desired a touch screen on windows notebooks was because windows trackpads are so awful. Even on high end $3,000+ machines. The Mac trackpads are so responsive that they feel every bit as good as having a touch screen.
- superdug 4y ago
  I've switched to using an iPad pro for all of my productivity and media consumption needs. With stage manager and an external monitor, it's going to become a very capable workstation, as it already is for me.
- skydhash 4y ago
  I have an XPS with a touchscreen and I always forgot it’s there. UI elements are just too small for my finger
legalcorrection 4y ago
I wish I could buy a new Mac and run Windows on it. But I really dislike macOS. I've tried to like it, but it just feels like a crippled OS compared to Windows. I hate the lack of support for true fractional scaling, the comically bad window management (Windows 7 was miles ahead of where macOS is today), the shitty text rendering, the lack of configurability, the half-assed attempt to bring the iOS security model (which is not itself bad) to macOS, etc. etc. etc. The dock used to be better than the taskbar, but the Windows taskbar has been strictly better since Windows 7 too.
- darkteflon 4y ago
  Depends what you mean by “run Windows”. I run Win 11 on my M1 Pro MBP with great results. Even played a little Dark Souls last night.
  - muzani 4y ago
    I would like to have a MBP that just used Windows as an operating system, not in a VM.
    - darkteflon 4y ago
      Fair enough. This ain’t it then.
- muzani 4y ago
  Agree 100%, this was what kept me away from a Mac, and why I was happy to let go the old MBP. I've been at it for months now but still hate the scaling and window management. I believe there's some third party tools that handle this and it's time to look into them. The build times for a M1 are so fast that it's still a requirement for me though. The battery life for a MBP is amazing - it's almost a whole work day even on full compiling. So it's not really a choice.
  - kcartlidge 4y ago
    > I've been at it for months now but still hate the scaling and window management. I believe there's some third party tools that handle this and it's time to look into them. Don't know about the scaling, but for window management I find the Rectangle app quite helpful.
ayberk 4y ago
I am not sure what's wrong, but I've been underwhelmed with my 14" MBP's battery life. I was super excited to get one for work solely because of all the buzz about battery life. But here I'm getting 5 hours or so. Firefox and Chrome are by far the biggest offenders, but I don't do anything special. Just wanted to give another anecdote.
- Ancapistani 4y ago
  I doubt it’s the only issue, but I switched to Safari for most things years ago, back when I had an Intel Mac. It significantly extended my battery life.
- tmikaeld 4y ago
  Try with Safari and install an ad-blocker, both firefox and chrome keeps letting ads continue to animate (GPU) and use WebWorkers in the background, Safari basically freezes tabs that are not in use and don't drain the battery.
  - ayberk 4y ago
    I try to use Safari as much as possible, but I need something that works on Windows as well.
- cassianoleal 4y ago
  Firefox with uBO [0] and Auto Tab Discard [1] is pretty good on the battery. I often go 10h without a charge on my M1 Air and usually there's still a bit to spare. [0] https://ublockorigin.com/ https://ublockorigin.com/ [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-discard/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-disc...
  - ayberk 4y ago
    Thanks for the recommendations, but I have both and some more. I wish there were an easy way to drill down on what exactly is consuming power.
Buxato 4y ago
Yes there is comparison, but not with Lenovo, Lenovo is crap.

by dvt 4y ago

Baeocystin 4y ago

Do you miss a touchscreen? I use a surface laptop 4 as my mobile workstation, and I like it overall, but the battery life leaves a lot to be desired. I'm OS agnostic, so the M1s caught my attention, but I use the touchscreen so much I'm not sure how happy I'd be with it unavailable to my workflow.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
spideymans 4y ago
I’ve realized that the only reason I desired a touch screen on windows notebooks was because windows trackpads are so awful. Even on high end $3,000+ machines. The Mac trackpads are so responsive that they feel every bit as good as having a touch screen.
superdug 4y ago
I've switched to using an iPad pro for all of my productivity and media consumption needs. With stage manager and an external monitor, it's going to become a very capable workstation, as it already is for me.
skydhash 4y ago
I have an XPS with a touchscreen and I always forgot it’s there. UI elements are just too small for my finger

legalcorrection 4y ago

I wish I could buy a new Mac and run Windows on it. But I really dislike macOS. I've tried to like it, but it just feels like a crippled OS compared to Windows. I hate the lack of support for true fractional scaling, the comically bad window management (Windows 7 was miles ahead of where macOS is today), the shitty text rendering, the lack of configurability, the half-assed attempt to bring the iOS security model (which is not itself bad) to macOS, etc. etc. etc. The dock used to be better than the taskbar, but the Windows taskbar has been strictly better since Windows 7 too.

darkteflon 4y ago
Depends what you mean by “run Windows”. I run Win 11 on my M1 Pro MBP with great results. Even played a little Dark Souls last night.
- muzani 4y ago
  I would like to have a MBP that just used Windows as an operating system, not in a VM.
  - darkteflon 4y ago
    Fair enough. This ain’t it then.
muzani 4y ago
Agree 100%, this was what kept me away from a Mac, and why I was happy to let go the old MBP. I've been at it for months now but still hate the scaling and window management. I believe there's some third party tools that handle this and it's time to look into them. The build times for a M1 are so fast that it's still a requirement for me though. The battery life for a MBP is amazing - it's almost a whole work day even on full compiling. So it's not really a choice.
- kcartlidge 4y ago
  > I've been at it for months now but still hate the scaling and window management. I believe there's some third party tools that handle this and it's time to look into them. Don't know about the scaling, but for window management I find the Rectangle app quite helpful.

ayberk 4y ago

I am not sure what's wrong, but I've been underwhelmed with my 14" MBP's battery life. I was super excited to get one for work solely because of all the buzz about battery life. But here I'm getting 5 hours or so. Firefox and Chrome are by far the biggest offenders, but I don't do anything special. Just wanted to give another anecdote.

Ancapistani 4y ago
I doubt it’s the only issue, but I switched to Safari for most things years ago, back when I had an Intel Mac. It significantly extended my battery life.
tmikaeld 4y ago
Try with Safari and install an ad-blocker, both firefox and chrome keeps letting ads continue to animate (GPU) and use WebWorkers in the background, Safari basically freezes tabs that are not in use and don't drain the battery.
- ayberk 4y ago
  I try to use Safari as much as possible, but I need something that works on Windows as well.
cassianoleal 4y ago
Firefox with uBO [0] and Auto Tab Discard [1] is pretty good on the battery. I often go 10h without a charge on my M1 Air and usually there's still a bit to spare. [0] https://ublockorigin.com/ https://ublockorigin.com/ [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-discard/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-disc...
- ayberk 4y ago
  Thanks for the recommendations, but I have both and some more. I wish there were an easy way to drill down on what exactly is consuming power.

Buxato 4y ago

Yes there is comparison, but not with Lenovo, Lenovo is crap.