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I used PCs for decades before transitioning to Mac based laptops for work which I continued to use for the last 6 years. Due to the M1 laptops being poorly suit

I used PCs for decades before transitioning to Mac based laptops for work which I continued to use for the last 6 years. Due to the M1 laptops being poorly suited to my workflows, I have now changed back and am on a Linux powered Dell Precision laptop and am overall happy with the decision - though I had to compromise on a few things. I dislike Apple and find a lot of their choices distasteful - but I just haven't been able to find a laptop that I could use portably that feels as nice (I like to work from cafes/libraries, so the docked experience doesn't matter - the Dell crushes in that context). It's mostly the trackpad that does it, I can use a MBP trackpad for a full 8 hour work day and never think about reaching for a mouse. By contrast, my Dell is better for my workflow in every way. Aside from the battery life, it compiles things in literally half the time, IO bound tasks are, no exaggeration, an order of magnitude faster.... but it feels so horrible to use. The trackpad is physically exhausting to use and the speakers sound tinny like I am losing consciousness. The power adapter is enormous, heavy and essential. I wish someone would just make a shameless 1:1 rip off of the MBP with first class Linux support. Haha, why is it so hard for OEMs to get the hint? At the very least, OEMs like Dell could try using a MacBook and mimic the trackpad. Don't they have QA teams that tell them how bad it is?

aarmenaa 3y ago
> OEMs like Dell could try using a MacBook and mimic the trackpad. You know what's crazy about the trackpad situation? You can put Windows or Linux on a real live Macbook and the trackpad gets worse. Everybody except Apple just insists on being wrong about trackpads.
- dividedbyzero 3y ago
  I think the Windows philosophy for UX is just "good enough so enterprise don't ditch Windows", which given its enterprise monopoly and very strong lock-in and almost complete lack of viable alternatives means they can do almost whatever (and looking at Windows 11, seems they do make use of that freedom). They don't have strong incentives to make their OS fun, as long as it sort of does the job. And even if they did try to fix trackpads, at the price point lots of corporate drone Windows laptops sell at, could they possibly include decent trackpad hardware? Linux is kind of puzzling though, this has been a super glaring issue for what is now decades. Are the people who could fix this just set up to never ever leave the home row? Is it actually too hard for an open source endeavour like Desktop Linux?
- apatheticonion 3y ago
  With Bootcamp on the Intel MacBooks, Apple supplied trackpad drivers that made it about as good. There was also an open source trackpad driver that you could install.
nottorp 3y ago
> It's mostly the trackpad that does it, I can use a MBP trackpad for a full 8 hour work day and never think about reaching for a mouse. This. Plus battery life. I don't generally spend whole days on my laptop, and for meeting someone for work for a couple hours you can just take the laptop, no charger, no mouse. > I wish someone would just make a shameless 1:1 rip off of the MBP with first class Linux support. Haha, why is it so hard for OEMs to get the hint? Isn't that - theoretically - the Dell Developer Edition something? The problem is OEMs know to do hardware, not software. The trackpad in apples is made by the same manufacturer as in most of the oranges. It's the software that's different. Same for most of the other tweaks that make apples less annoying to use.
notepalf 3y ago
Great hardware held back by its software
- apatheticonion 3y ago
  Honestly, a MBP running Linux with full hardware support would be the best laptop on Earth
- leidenfrost 3y ago
  It's not "bad". It's that it's very opinionated towards its real target: Designers, "high level" developers (e.g. web), and office 365 users. Of course it won't do the trick if you want to do something like linux or bsd development
  - seanp2k2 3y ago
    MacBook Pros definitely “do the trick” for hundreds of thousands of us software developers in Silicon Valley every day. Docker works fine on M1 MBPs and it’s not much of a chore to target amd64 with a Dockerfile eg FROM --platform=linux/amd64 python:3.7-alpine Plenty of the software that runs the internet is written, compiled, and tested on MacBooks, even if it may get rebuilt for production on some x86_64 server or AWS instance (possibly even an ARM-based Graviton instance). I agree that MacBooks have gotten less “pro” and now seem to cater to college kids who probably don’t need them more than they do to folks like Digital Imaging Technicians working on movie sets, but they’re still quite popular for the latter, even if some level of Windows and Linux machines have started taking up some of the roles (especially for things like VFX, see eg https://vfxplatform.com/ https://vfxplatform.com/ ) and sound and music recording / production / editing (plus Windows has had Cubase for a very long time, and before that, plenty of studios had Cubase for the Atari 520ST and Atari 1040ST back in the late 80s).
  - eitland 3y ago
    I say some of it is still just plain bad - and I say it as someone who is considering a MacBook this year: For example: the keys that Macs have instead of page up, page down, home and end still feels like four different "surprise me" buttons in every app I tried them in.
leidenfrost 3y ago
This. Macbooks are okayish computers but terrific laptops. The MBP shines in things like screen quality, performance per watt and integration between every part of the laptop. And it doesn't take much knowledge to tweak things a little bit further to enhance the experience outside the Apple bubble.

aarmenaa 3y ago

> OEMs like Dell could try using a MacBook and mimic the trackpad. You know what's crazy about the trackpad situation? You can put Windows or Linux on a real live Macbook and the trackpad gets worse. Everybody except Apple just insists on being wrong about trackpads.

dividedbyzero 3y ago
I think the Windows philosophy for UX is just "good enough so enterprise don't ditch Windows", which given its enterprise monopoly and very strong lock-in and almost complete lack of viable alternatives means they can do almost whatever (and looking at Windows 11, seems they do make use of that freedom). They don't have strong incentives to make their OS fun, as long as it sort of does the job. And even if they did try to fix trackpads, at the price point lots of corporate drone Windows laptops sell at, could they possibly include decent trackpad hardware? Linux is kind of puzzling though, this has been a super glaring issue for what is now decades. Are the people who could fix this just set up to never ever leave the home row? Is it actually too hard for an open source endeavour like Desktop Linux?
apatheticonion 3y ago
With Bootcamp on the Intel MacBooks, Apple supplied trackpad drivers that made it about as good. There was also an open source trackpad driver that you could install.

nottorp 3y ago

> It's mostly the trackpad that does it, I can use a MBP trackpad for a full 8 hour work day and never think about reaching for a mouse. This. Plus battery life. I don't generally spend whole days on my laptop, and for meeting someone for work for a couple hours you can just take the laptop, no charger, no mouse. > I wish someone would just make a shameless 1:1 rip off of the MBP with first class Linux support. Haha, why is it so hard for OEMs to get the hint? Isn't that - theoretically - the Dell Developer Edition something? The problem is OEMs know to do hardware, not software. The trackpad in apples is made by the same manufacturer as in most of the oranges. It's the software that's different. Same for most of the other tweaks that make apples less annoying to use.

notepalf 3y ago

Great hardware held back by its software

apatheticonion 3y ago
Honestly, a MBP running Linux with full hardware support would be the best laptop on Earth
leidenfrost 3y ago
It's not "bad". It's that it's very opinionated towards its real target: Designers, "high level" developers (e.g. web), and office 365 users. Of course it won't do the trick if you want to do something like linux or bsd development
- seanp2k2 3y ago
  MacBook Pros definitely “do the trick” for hundreds of thousands of us software developers in Silicon Valley every day. Docker works fine on M1 MBPs and it’s not much of a chore to target amd64 with a Dockerfile eg FROM --platform=linux/amd64 python:3.7-alpine Plenty of the software that runs the internet is written, compiled, and tested on MacBooks, even if it may get rebuilt for production on some x86_64 server or AWS instance (possibly even an ARM-based Graviton instance). I agree that MacBooks have gotten less “pro” and now seem to cater to college kids who probably don’t need them more than they do to folks like Digital Imaging Technicians working on movie sets, but they’re still quite popular for the latter, even if some level of Windows and Linux machines have started taking up some of the roles (especially for things like VFX, see eg https://vfxplatform.com/ https://vfxplatform.com/ ) and sound and music recording / production / editing (plus Windows has had Cubase for a very long time, and before that, plenty of studios had Cubase for the Atari 520ST and Atari 1040ST back in the late 80s).
- eitland 3y ago
  I say some of it is still just plain bad - and I say it as someone who is considering a MacBook this year: For example: the keys that Macs have instead of page up, page down, home and end still feels like four different "surprise me" buttons in every app I tried them in.

leidenfrost 3y ago

This. Macbooks are okayish computers but terrific laptops. The MBP shines in things like screen quality, performance per watt and integration between every part of the laptop. And it doesn't take much knowledge to tweak things a little bit further to enhance the experience outside the Apple bubble.