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I agree with you completely and yet it's practically impossible finding a worthwhile alternative. I've tried finding alternatives on my last upgrade cycle and i

I agree with you completely and yet it's practically impossible finding a worthwhile alternative. I've tried finding alternatives on my last upgrade cycle and it's like having to live with endless amounts of compromises just to get away from Apple. For the iPhone, I tried looking at the Pixel for the Vanilla Android experience and long support, yet it seems like people are fighting battery life issues all the time. Not to mention the polish of the software, app ecosystem and stability. Also, couldn't find anything coming near the value of a baseline Macbook Air M1 as far as build quality, battery life, stability etc. is concerned. I like to also read comics and magazines on the iPad and that's also a market where I have no idea what an alternative would be. And that's the state of the tablet market for years now. Maybe I could get rid of my Apple Watch, but it just works and has endless amounts of third party accessories. I've been looking at Fossil Hybrid Smartwatches and it seems like they are a hot mess of instability and bad support. At the end of the day, it's about stability and ease of use. I'm way past the time where I had the time and found it really cool to try every new ROM coming out ("daily driver", "What isn't working? You tell me") and it seems like Apple still can't be beat at this front. Sadly.

eru 3y ago
> Also, couldn't find anything coming near the value of a baseline Macbook Air M1 as far as build quality, battery life, stability etc. is concerned. The ThinkPads are pretty good laptops, especially if you put Linux on them.
- selectodude 3y ago
  My brand new work thinkpad is total garbage compared to my two year old MacBook Pro. Only laptop where I need to use an external mouse.
  - lostdog 3y ago
    Agreed. I got a gen10 thinkpad (with Linux). The power supply makes a crackling noise. After 6 months the fan starting making grinding. The screen flickers when the CPU is loaded, and once a week the whole thing just locks up. Worst laptop I've owned.
  - mfink 3y ago
    Yes, and the fan blows directly onto your mouse hand, making mouse usage awkward as well.
    - ixmerof 3y ago
      Actually this is my favourite feature of my work thinkpad. Especially during winter. Really. Besides tons of disadvantages of the platform for the price.
  - eru 3y ago
    Did work install any crapware on the laptop? Or is it bad even without?
    - selectodude 3y ago
      The software is fine. The computer isn’t slow at all. It’s just not a well designed computer.
- jasonjmcghee 3y ago
  Use to be 100% linux person. I've gone through many thinkpads. M1 Air is so far beyond them it's not even close. Battery life is (not exaggerating) 5x or more in my experience. It's honest to god, much faster. Completely silent and cool. (one of my thinkpads almost burned me it got so hot, and the fans get so loud) I've never had a single crash, random restart, failure to sleep, failure to charge, driver problem, touchpad randomly not working, wifi failing, all of which I've had with thinkpads.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >driver problem, touchpad randomly not working, wifi failing, all of which I've had with thinkpads. Those are Linux driver issues, not HW issues.
    - organsnyder 3y ago
      > Those are Linux issues, not HW issues. The touchpads on my wife's T470 and my T480 have very similar intermittent issues, despite her running Windows and me running Linux.
    - dlivingston 3y ago
      That only matters in a technical sense -- as a consumer, I want a flawless out-of-the-box experience. I don't care if X isn't working because of Y or Z; I only care that it isn't working.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      Incompatibility is a two-sided issue, there are enough laptops out there that work perfectly fine in Linux. But a brand isn’t a technical promise, they’ll miss with some models and hit with others. People always complain about Lenovo in these threads, I think because they are held up as the “good non-Apple laptop” brand for whatever reason. I suspect this reputation makes people assume they can just grab any random model and it will work perfectly. That’s just a roll of the dice, maybe weighted in favor of working, but still random.
      - 3y ago
- nicce 3y ago
  > The ThinkPads are pretty good laptops, especially if you put Linux on them I used ThinkPads for 7 years until getting new M2 Pro, mostly with Linux. Touchpads on Thinkpads are not getting even close to Macbooks. You need external mouse. Also the the basic screen quality on current Macbook Pros is beyond their top quality products. Try to look for 1000 nits screen? Not even gaming laptops have quality ones. And battery life... And performance... When you have enough performance on your machine, the physical touch, screen and overall stability goes beyond everything else. Thinkpads have better durability on keyboard tho. I also used to have one of those OLED Thinkpads and that was the biggiest mess I ever hard. They even cancelled OLED screens on all products for 4 years after that. The screen just broke every one month.
  - hgomersall 3y ago
    The nipple on the ThinkPad is unsurpassed. It's basically the reason I can't migrate away from them.
    - nicce 3y ago
      I have tried to use nipple many times but maybe I was unfortunate with it. I was not able to get good enough drivers on Linux for it, and as a result it was never accurate, but very clunky instead.
      - hgomersall 3y ago
        This was on Linux. It takes a bit of getting used to, but I won't go back unless I'm absolutely forced to.
        nicce 3y ago
        I agree that I liked it on Windows. But I was not able to get the same experience on Linux.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  I've used Linux+Thinkpads for years. W-series, P-series, top of the line Switched to Mac M1 this year, and....longer battery life, better performance, higher resolution, brighter screen...it's not even close.
  - sbuk 3y ago
    I have an M1 Pro 14 and a work-issued P14s, which is awful. Creaky plastic, the worst trackpad I've ever used, has a terrible display, spongey keys and runs unfathomably hot. All. The. Time. Every time I see someone recommending Lenovo, I cringe. It is night and day when compared to the MacBook Pro.
    - nullwarp 3y ago
      Weirdly I have both of these as well and feel total opposite. Give me the Thinkpad keyboard any day of the week. The mac keyboard feels down right anemic. I wish mac would stop making the track pad so damn big though, the amount of palm activations I have on that thing drive me bonkers.
      - sbuk 3y ago
        I'm intrigued by this. I'm typing this one-handed on the MacBook with my other hand resting on the trackpad without interference of any kind. The hinged trackpad on the P14s takes between 5-10 minutes to be useable from a cold start (these happen often due to the combination of an anaemic battery and power-hungry Intel processor); it's as though it needs to warm up. It is a pile of overpriced junk not worth the value of the parts it's made with. I've had other ThinkPads and generally disliked them - even the X series, but that boiled down to personal taste - not a fan of the aesthetic - and a crap trackpad. This P14s, though, is unmitigated shite. My experience of the P14s says that either I have a dud (other colleagues complain vociferously about them, too), your MacBook is defective, or both. None of which are ideal!
      - paulddraper 3y ago
        I have zero love for the trackpad+keyboard. But 80% of my usage with external keyboard and mouse.
- deleted 3y ago
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- davidgerard 3y ago
  I've found Thinkpads to be trash for the past few years. Could be bad batches, but I sent back my X390 three times for warranty repairs and its replacement T14gen3 once so far.
paulddraper 3y ago
> yet it seems like people are fighting battery life issues all the time I miss the days when I charged my cell phone twice a week. It didn't take 100 mexapixel photos or display 4K cat GIFs, so I understand why. But I miss that battery life nonetheless.
- jamincan 3y ago
  I have found that my newest phone (Samsung S23) has significantly better battery life than my old Pixel 3a ever did. I really have to try hard to run the battery down and with my normal usage it easily lasts two days.
  - josephg 3y ago
    I only charge my iPhone 12 about every 2 days as well - at least with normal usage. But I can also easily run it down with an audiobook playing all afternoon over Bluetooth. No idea why that uses so much power. When I’m at home I’m so close to charge points all day that I don’t worry about it. And when I’m travelling, I bring an external usb-c battery pack that can fully charge my phone about 6 more times or give my laptop another few hours of use. Sure, more battery life would be strictly better. But I’m happy with the state of things right now. Apparently the EU has legislated toolless user replaceable phone batteries by 2027. I’m curious if apple plays ball and if so, what iPhones will look like in a few years.
    - sbuk 3y ago
      > Apparently the EU has legislated toolless user replaceable phone batteries by 2027. The legislation calls for phone owners to be able to remove batteries “with the use of commercially available tools and without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless they are provided free of charge, or proprietary tools, thermal energy, or solvents to disassemble it.” Essentially, no glueing the screen to the battery, which is sensible. I take umbrage with the "without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless they are provided free of charge". Manufacturers should make available specialised tools commercially and be allowed to request deposits for specialised tools by individuals looking to perform one-off repairs to ensure return. Otherwise, it's reasonable. I doubt we'll see a significant change in the form factor.
therealmarv 3y ago
I still don't understand why people think in 2023 that Android can not be a viable alternative to an iPhone. I would never use an iPhone for certain software and UX related issues (biggest is the missing back gesture/button). My Pixel does better photos than ANY iPhone on the market. Macbook Air M1, just look at Dell XPS series. Samsung S9 tablets have an OLED display. OLED... you don't get that on any iPad. Apple Watch really has no competitor which matches 100%. On certain areas like fitness (Fitbit) or hiking (Garmin) there can be also some good and better alternatives but it does not match 100% of the features. I think there is always a choice except when looking at the Apple Watch.
- kaba0 3y ago
  If you care about privacy, then the only choice within the Android-sphere is GrapheneOS, which limits you to pixels, which arguably are not on the same level in hardware than iphones.
- buildbot 3y ago
  Stuff like the 911 calling bug is a great example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32713375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32713375
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- sneak 3y ago
  I had a top of the line XPS. Battery life is less than half that of the Air. The speakers in the XPS sound like they are from the 90s. It gets painfully hot on the bottom case. The keyboard wrist rest area is cheap plastic. It was thicker and heavier than the MBA. Intel Iris GPU (ie slow af) versus M1/M2 GPU. One point to the XPS: the pixel density of the 4k 13" was absolutely LOVELY. I have never seen a screen so nice. There is really no comparison overall, though: the Apple laptops blow them (and everything else in that category) out of the water. The top end iPhones are similarly 2-3 years ahead of the flagship Pixel devices in build quality, too. I tried, really I did.
  - 3y ago
post-it 3y ago
> Also, couldn't find anything coming near the value of a baseline Macbook Air M1 as far as build quality, battery life, stability etc. is concerned. And the trackpad! I always evangelize the Macbook trackpad because that shit is bananas, as it were.
- gilbetron 3y ago
  I used to think that, but my latest Asus laptop has a trackpad just as good as the macbook (which I use professionally). Actually, I like PC trackpads more, just because they tend to be reasonably sized rather than the monster trackpads on most macbooks (although, fortunately, they seemed to not be quite as big in the M1/M2 iterations!).
  - Klonoar 3y ago
    I'm sorry, but I just don't buy that it's as good as the MacBook. Can you detail what model Asus laptop you're using? I'm legitimately curious what the hardware is. The only trackpads I've found that feel close to Apple's on a hardware level are the ones produced by Sensel (https://sensel.com https://sensel.com), and those aren't in every laptop. Then you have the driver situaton on top of it, and Apple's tight vertical integration just always seems to give it the edge - I literally never experience invalid taps or movement, etc.
    - gilbetron 3y ago
      https://rog.asus.com/us/laptops/rog-strix/2021-rog-strix-scar-15-series/ https://rog.asus.com/us/laptops/rog-strix/2021-rog-strix-sca... Not only does it have a great trackpad (with an ability to become a numberpad), it also has an optomechanical keyboard, with "blue key" like feel. Plus a 3080 in it for games. It also has great cooling, so the fan only is on if you're hitting the 3080 hard. It is certainly the most fun laptop I've owned (it has led backlights for the keyboard, too)! Granted, it runs windows, but win11 is pretty nice, honestly. No idea how amenable it is to putting linux on.
jwells89 3y ago
On the app development side of mobile, I find Android so much more messy to develop for. It has its perks like the Jetbrains IDE and ability to use bleeding edge libraries (Jetpack), but those don’t counteract the downsides like needing a laundry list of third party libraries to do practically anything, there being no well-supported vendor-preferred “happy path” for various things, Java ecosystem baggage, fighting Proguard, etc. And that doesn’t even get into the “fun” of there being differences between the versions of Android shipped by different vendors significant enough that maker and model-specific bugs and behavior inconsistencies are a concern, which is only a thing because of manufacturer insistence on deep customization (compare to Windows where if it runs on fine your PC, it probably does for 99%+ of other PCs too).
cfiggers 3y ago
> Also, couldn't find anything coming near the value of a baseline Macbook Air M1 as far as build quality, battery life, stability etc. is concerned. I have a Surface Laptop 4 with an AMD processor and 16GB of RAM. I'm extremely happy with it, though I'll concede that the build quality is a click lower than a M1 MacBook Air (two of the rubber feet have fallen off of mine, being my main ding against it) and nobody can touch Apple Silicon's battery life. But aside from that, it's definitely in the same arena for build quality as an M1 MacBook Air (my wife's daily driver, so I'm not just saying that out of ignorance) with, IMHO, a better keyboard and a touch screen if you're into that sort of thing. Oh, and the facial recognition unlock is the best. I've had zero issues with stability—Microsoft pays more attention to squashing Windows bugs on their own hardware, it seems like. Surface Laptop 5 has been out for about a year, but it was a totally microscopic incremental refresh. That means the Laptop 4's have dropped in price a lot, even though it's still 95% the same laptop. My exact model of Laptop 4 can be had on periodic sale, refurbished on Woot.com for ~$700 or less, which is a screaming good deal IMHO for what you get. You could almost get two of these things for the price of one new M1 MacBook Air once you factor in the (IMHO mandatory) RAM upgrade.
- vuln 3y ago
  > Oh, and the facial recognition unlock is the best. This is scary as fuck. Combined with all the telemetry and tracking M$ is now doing without care from within its operating system. Windows and Android are subsidized data collection applications which run on subsidized hardware. Simple as.
  - blackoil 3y ago
    LOL, How would you unlock iPhone?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - astrange 3y ago
    There's nothing valuable about your Windows telemetry. It just means if you hit a crash it's possible it'll get fixed.
benreesman 3y ago
Apple has enjoyed, and seems set to enjoy for awhile longer, a full process node advantage over everyone. People whiff that (cough RDNA3), and people overcome it kinda (Raptor Lake), but ceteris paribus, their shit is just from the future. Having a bone to pick with Apple is a very reasonable thing, I’ve got a few gripes myself, but that’s why you buy something 2-3 years behind the cutting edge. It’s not because it’s better.
tracker1 3y ago
Probably the closest option to M1 on build quality and battery will be the AMD version of the Framework laptop... if you want can run Windows or Linux without issue. Will probably go that direction on my next purchase. Later this year and next year AMD are releasing new laptop CPU/APU that will absolutely kill on performance:watt, while they're a bit ahead of Intel at the moment, they're going to leap a bit further ahead if GPU perf matters to you. Not that Intel is asleep, just behind. On the phone, I started with Android, so just kind of used to it... I've bought about every 2-3 generations for a while, currently on a Pixel 4a. I tend to avoid the high end, and find if you wait 3 months or so after a new release, the kinks are usually worked out by then. As to the iPad, there really isn't a good alternative that I'm aware of... there are still a few Android options, none are great... the MS surface tablet and other convertable laptops are okay, but still not as nice a UX, it's not my thing so doesn't bother me, but can understand why if it works, it really works for you. Watch is about on par, from what I understand.. again, not something I'm into personally. I tend to take the Apple option for work (software dev, mostly web/svc oriented) only because corp Apple experience is generally better than corp windows.
- gorjusborg 3y ago
  I vote with my wallet. The Framework laptop is my choice. It is not the best in every category, but it is mine. I didn't like the weak hinges, I replaced them. I can replace the battery when I need. I can upgrade the memory or hard disk, or motherboard or screen when I need. The thing with Apple is that their way of vertical tech integration results in highly polished, non-standard, unservicable machines. They are nice, but not worth the trade of ownership for me.
  - dreamcompiler 3y ago
    I feel exactly the same about Apple's software. It's great as long as your preferred workflow matches the Apple-blessed workflow. But if it doesn't, you're pretty much hosed. Desktop Linux is not as nice or facile or polished, but it feels like "my" desktop because I can modify it. When I use MacOS, it feels like I'm just renting somebody else's computer. It's a very nice computer, but it can never be mine.
huijzer 3y ago
Based on reading Taleb, I have a theory and love to hear counterarguments if there are any: Products are as good as the worst part. Apple‘s complete integration allows them to more easily fix the worst part since they have control over almost everything. Historically, "open" systems, as Bill Gates would call Windows together with the suppliers such as Intel and Dell, could get away with some bad aspects as long as they just threw in new CPUs with smaller transistors. Now that Moore‘s law and Dennard scaling have slowed down, fixing the worst part is the only way to find good improvements.
insanitybit 3y ago
I've found that ChromeOS + Pixel 6 is fine. I have a Fitbit Sense 2 for a watch (I hate the idea of my watch telling me I have a meeting coming up lol). ChromeOS is great. The host OS "just works" and I have a VM/container env to do development in. It feels secure, operationally straightforward, and low maintenance. I don't really care a ton about my phone. It works, battery is fine. It makes phone calls, plays music. idk. I care way more about my laptop.
msp26 3y ago
Tachiyomi makes Android significantly better for comics/manga than iOS. It's one of the reasons I sold my iPad for a galaxy tab s7+. Every alternative I tried on iOS was just shit in comparison, paperback especially.
nwallin 3y ago
> I tried looking at the Pixel for the Vanilla Android experience and long support, yet it seems like people are fighting battery life issues all the time. I have the opposite experience. A few months ago a friend of mine had to buy a new iphone because their phone couldn't hold a charge. Shortly after they received their new phone, towards the evening, they remarked how happy they were that their new iphone (literally a few days old) still had 36% charge after most of a day's usage. I looked at my 2.5 year old (at the time) pixel 4a and I still had 84% charge. > having to live with endless amounts of compromises just to get away from Apple. Having basic system functionality, such as GPU accelerated OpenGL, Vulkan, or OpenGL ES, seems like a catastrophic compromise. Like I can compromise about how the widgets of application foo and the widgets of application bar don't match each other, I couldn't care less. But no Vulkan support? Forgetaboutit.
shoffmeister 3y ago
> I've tried finding alternatives on my last upgrade cycle and it's like having to live with endless amounts of compromises just to get away from Apple. Everything is a compromise. A while ago, I wanted a new notebook: I looked very hard at a 16" M1 Pro with 64 GB of RAM, at approximately USD 4000, tiniest storage possible. I really really wanted to run this with Asahi Linux. I purchased a Dell Inspiron 7610 with 16" display (and known design touchpad design defects), 3K resolution, sort of light-weight, Tiger Lake 11800H CPU, Intel + Nvidia hybrid graphics, now running at 64 GB of DDR4 RAM, 2 TB of very fast PCIe 4 SSD, 1 TB of PCIe 3 SSD. Professionally I run this with Windows 11 Professional + VMware Workstation -> Fedora 38 because of an Azure VPN; in my private life this is plain Fedora 38 dual-booted. Why? USD 1700. Less than half the cost. Native podman / docker. CUDA. The (still) dominant architecture (x86). I am typing on Proper Keyboards anyway.
thinkingemote 3y ago
Apple is an ecosystem much more than windows is. Devices work together and enhance each other. So jumping to Linux isn't as easy as Everything has to change. It's more like emigration or a divorce it will hurt and it's a big change. For most it's not worth the bother.
nortonham 3y ago
>I tried looking at the Pixel for the Vanilla Android experience and long support, yet it seems like people are fighting battery life issues all the time. my pixel has good battery life.....I know it's anecdotal but it's been fine. I've always been an android user on smartphones. Was samsung in the past but now I have a pixel. I like the pixel and vanilla android experience overall. Android allows some freedom to customize, I like their call screening, and the wide choice of apps. Pixels are also starting to be supported for longer; maybe not as long as iphones but it's always been an android issue and they're finally starting to address it. Stability is there imo. I have all the apps I need to do what I do everyday but obviously everyone is different. I own a variety of different hardware including apple products, but I'm not 100% reliant on their ecosystem, so I'm keeping the pixel for now. >Also, couldn't find anything coming near the value of a baseline Macbook Air M1 as far as build quality, battery life, stability etc. is concerned. Agreed
rewgs 3y ago
My strategy is to go all-in on Apple as my daily drivers, and then to tinker with Linux in my spare time. For example, my main phone is an iPhone, but I recently bought a used OnePlus 6 with the intention of installing NixOS on it. My laptop is an M1 MacBook Air, but I code in Linux VMs, and have a Linux NAS at home. As many of my services as possible are self-hosted, and as many of my apps as possible are FOSS, but I access them with Apple hardware. And as my M-series Macs age, they'll become Asahi machines. This is the best compromise I've found. The truth is, Apple stuff still does Just Work, and having an actual Unix base is nice too. Open standards and protocols can get you a long way away from the walled garden aspect of Apple to the point where really they're just nice computers that don't really infringe on my life in any way.

eru 3y ago

> Also, couldn't find anything coming near the value of a baseline Macbook Air M1 as far as build quality, battery life, stability etc. is concerned. The ThinkPads are pretty good laptops, especially if you put Linux on them.

selectodude 3y ago
My brand new work thinkpad is total garbage compared to my two year old MacBook Pro. Only laptop where I need to use an external mouse.
- lostdog 3y ago
  Agreed. I got a gen10 thinkpad (with Linux). The power supply makes a crackling noise. After 6 months the fan starting making grinding. The screen flickers when the CPU is loaded, and once a week the whole thing just locks up. Worst laptop I've owned.
- mfink 3y ago
  Yes, and the fan blows directly onto your mouse hand, making mouse usage awkward as well.
  - ixmerof 3y ago
    Actually this is my favourite feature of my work thinkpad. Especially during winter. Really. Besides tons of disadvantages of the platform for the price.
- eru 3y ago
  Did work install any crapware on the laptop? Or is it bad even without?
  - selectodude 3y ago
    The software is fine. The computer isn’t slow at all. It’s just not a well designed computer.
jasonjmcghee 3y ago
Use to be 100% linux person. I've gone through many thinkpads. M1 Air is so far beyond them it's not even close. Battery life is (not exaggerating) 5x or more in my experience. It's honest to god, much faster. Completely silent and cool. (one of my thinkpads almost burned me it got so hot, and the fans get so loud) I've never had a single crash, random restart, failure to sleep, failure to charge, driver problem, touchpad randomly not working, wifi failing, all of which I've had with thinkpads.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >driver problem, touchpad randomly not working, wifi failing, all of which I've had with thinkpads. Those are Linux driver issues, not HW issues.
  - organsnyder 3y ago
    > Those are Linux issues, not HW issues. The touchpads on my wife's T470 and my T480 have very similar intermittent issues, despite her running Windows and me running Linux.
  - dlivingston 3y ago
    That only matters in a technical sense -- as a consumer, I want a flawless out-of-the-box experience. I don't care if X isn't working because of Y or Z; I only care that it isn't working.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    Incompatibility is a two-sided issue, there are enough laptops out there that work perfectly fine in Linux. But a brand isn’t a technical promise, they’ll miss with some models and hit with others. People always complain about Lenovo in these threads, I think because they are held up as the “good non-Apple laptop” brand for whatever reason. I suspect this reputation makes people assume they can just grab any random model and it will work perfectly. That’s just a roll of the dice, maybe weighted in favor of working, but still random.
    - 3y ago
nicce 3y ago
> The ThinkPads are pretty good laptops, especially if you put Linux on them I used ThinkPads for 7 years until getting new M2 Pro, mostly with Linux. Touchpads on Thinkpads are not getting even close to Macbooks. You need external mouse. Also the the basic screen quality on current Macbook Pros is beyond their top quality products. Try to look for 1000 nits screen? Not even gaming laptops have quality ones. And battery life... And performance... When you have enough performance on your machine, the physical touch, screen and overall stability goes beyond everything else. Thinkpads have better durability on keyboard tho. I also used to have one of those OLED Thinkpads and that was the biggiest mess I ever hard. They even cancelled OLED screens on all products for 4 years after that. The screen just broke every one month.
- hgomersall 3y ago
  The nipple on the ThinkPad is unsurpassed. It's basically the reason I can't migrate away from them.
  - nicce 3y ago
    I have tried to use nipple many times but maybe I was unfortunate with it. I was not able to get good enough drivers on Linux for it, and as a result it was never accurate, but very clunky instead.
    - hgomersall 3y ago
      This was on Linux. It takes a bit of getting used to, but I won't go back unless I'm absolutely forced to.
      - nicce 3y ago
        I agree that I liked it on Windows. But I was not able to get the same experience on Linux.
paulddraper 3y ago
I've used Linux+Thinkpads for years. W-series, P-series, top of the line Switched to Mac M1 this year, and....longer battery life, better performance, higher resolution, brighter screen...it's not even close.
- sbuk 3y ago
  I have an M1 Pro 14 and a work-issued P14s, which is awful. Creaky plastic, the worst trackpad I've ever used, has a terrible display, spongey keys and runs unfathomably hot. All. The. Time. Every time I see someone recommending Lenovo, I cringe. It is night and day when compared to the MacBook Pro.
  - nullwarp 3y ago
    Weirdly I have both of these as well and feel total opposite. Give me the Thinkpad keyboard any day of the week. The mac keyboard feels down right anemic. I wish mac would stop making the track pad so damn big though, the amount of palm activations I have on that thing drive me bonkers.
    - sbuk 3y ago
      I'm intrigued by this. I'm typing this one-handed on the MacBook with my other hand resting on the trackpad without interference of any kind. The hinged trackpad on the P14s takes between 5-10 minutes to be useable from a cold start (these happen often due to the combination of an anaemic battery and power-hungry Intel processor); it's as though it needs to warm up. It is a pile of overpriced junk not worth the value of the parts it's made with. I've had other ThinkPads and generally disliked them - even the X series, but that boiled down to personal taste - not a fan of the aesthetic - and a crap trackpad. This P14s, though, is unmitigated shite. My experience of the P14s says that either I have a dud (other colleagues complain vociferously about them, too), your MacBook is defective, or both. None of which are ideal!
    - paulddraper 3y ago
      I have zero love for the trackpad+keyboard. But 80% of my usage with external keyboard and mouse.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
davidgerard 3y ago
I've found Thinkpads to be trash for the past few years. Could be bad batches, but I sent back my X390 three times for warranty repairs and its replacement T14gen3 once so far.

paulddraper 3y ago

> yet it seems like people are fighting battery life issues all the time I miss the days when I charged my cell phone twice a week. It didn't take 100 mexapixel photos or display 4K cat GIFs, so I understand why. But I miss that battery life nonetheless.

jamincan 3y ago
I have found that my newest phone (Samsung S23) has significantly better battery life than my old Pixel 3a ever did. I really have to try hard to run the battery down and with my normal usage it easily lasts two days.
- josephg 3y ago
  I only charge my iPhone 12 about every 2 days as well - at least with normal usage. But I can also easily run it down with an audiobook playing all afternoon over Bluetooth. No idea why that uses so much power. When I’m at home I’m so close to charge points all day that I don’t worry about it. And when I’m travelling, I bring an external usb-c battery pack that can fully charge my phone about 6 more times or give my laptop another few hours of use. Sure, more battery life would be strictly better. But I’m happy with the state of things right now. Apparently the EU has legislated toolless user replaceable phone batteries by 2027. I’m curious if apple plays ball and if so, what iPhones will look like in a few years.
  - sbuk 3y ago
    > Apparently the EU has legislated toolless user replaceable phone batteries by 2027. The legislation calls for phone owners to be able to remove batteries “with the use of commercially available tools and without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless they are provided free of charge, or proprietary tools, thermal energy, or solvents to disassemble it.” Essentially, no glueing the screen to the battery, which is sensible. I take umbrage with the "without requiring the use of specialised tools, unless they are provided free of charge". Manufacturers should make available specialised tools commercially and be allowed to request deposits for specialised tools by individuals looking to perform one-off repairs to ensure return. Otherwise, it's reasonable. I doubt we'll see a significant change in the form factor.

therealmarv 3y ago

I still don't understand why people think in 2023 that Android can not be a viable alternative to an iPhone. I would never use an iPhone for certain software and UX related issues (biggest is the missing back gesture/button). My Pixel does better photos than ANY iPhone on the market. Macbook Air M1, just look at Dell XPS series. Samsung S9 tablets have an OLED display. OLED... you don't get that on any iPad. Apple Watch really has no competitor which matches 100%. On certain areas like fitness (Fitbit) or hiking (Garmin) there can be also some good and better alternatives but it does not match 100% of the features. I think there is always a choice except when looking at the Apple Watch.

kaba0 3y ago
If you care about privacy, then the only choice within the Android-sphere is GrapheneOS, which limits you to pixels, which arguably are not on the same level in hardware than iphones.
buildbot 3y ago
Stuff like the 911 calling bug is a great example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32713375 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32713375
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sneak 3y ago
I had a top of the line XPS. Battery life is less than half that of the Air. The speakers in the XPS sound like they are from the 90s. It gets painfully hot on the bottom case. The keyboard wrist rest area is cheap plastic. It was thicker and heavier than the MBA. Intel Iris GPU (ie slow af) versus M1/M2 GPU. One point to the XPS: the pixel density of the 4k 13" was absolutely LOVELY. I have never seen a screen so nice. There is really no comparison overall, though: the Apple laptops blow them (and everything else in that category) out of the water. The top end iPhones are similarly 2-3 years ahead of the flagship Pixel devices in build quality, too. I tried, really I did.
- 3y ago

post-it 3y ago

> Also, couldn't find anything coming near the value of a baseline Macbook Air M1 as far as build quality, battery life, stability etc. is concerned. And the trackpad! I always evangelize the Macbook trackpad because that shit is bananas, as it were.

gilbetron 3y ago
I used to think that, but my latest Asus laptop has a trackpad just as good as the macbook (which I use professionally). Actually, I like PC trackpads more, just because they tend to be reasonably sized rather than the monster trackpads on most macbooks (although, fortunately, they seemed to not be quite as big in the M1/M2 iterations!).
- Klonoar 3y ago
  I'm sorry, but I just don't buy that it's as good as the MacBook. Can you detail what model Asus laptop you're using? I'm legitimately curious what the hardware is. The only trackpads I've found that feel close to Apple's on a hardware level are the ones produced by Sensel (https://sensel.com https://sensel.com), and those aren't in every laptop. Then you have the driver situaton on top of it, and Apple's tight vertical integration just always seems to give it the edge - I literally never experience invalid taps or movement, etc.
  - gilbetron 3y ago
    https://rog.asus.com/us/laptops/rog-strix/2021-rog-strix-scar-15-series/ https://rog.asus.com/us/laptops/rog-strix/2021-rog-strix-sca... Not only does it have a great trackpad (with an ability to become a numberpad), it also has an optomechanical keyboard, with "blue key" like feel. Plus a 3080 in it for games. It also has great cooling, so the fan only is on if you're hitting the 3080 hard. It is certainly the most fun laptop I've owned (it has led backlights for the keyboard, too)! Granted, it runs windows, but win11 is pretty nice, honestly. No idea how amenable it is to putting linux on.

jwells89 3y ago

On the app development side of mobile, I find Android so much more messy to develop for. It has its perks like the Jetbrains IDE and ability to use bleeding edge libraries (Jetpack), but those don’t counteract the downsides like needing a laundry list of third party libraries to do practically anything, there being no well-supported vendor-preferred “happy path” for various things, Java ecosystem baggage, fighting Proguard, etc. And that doesn’t even get into the “fun” of there being differences between the versions of Android shipped by different vendors significant enough that maker and model-specific bugs and behavior inconsistencies are a concern, which is only a thing because of manufacturer insistence on deep customization (compare to Windows where if it runs on fine your PC, it probably does for 99%+ of other PCs too).

cfiggers 3y ago

> Also, couldn't find anything coming near the value of a baseline Macbook Air M1 as far as build quality, battery life, stability etc. is concerned. I have a Surface Laptop 4 with an AMD processor and 16GB of RAM. I'm extremely happy with it, though I'll concede that the build quality is a click lower than a M1 MacBook Air (two of the rubber feet have fallen off of mine, being my main ding against it) and nobody can touch Apple Silicon's battery life. But aside from that, it's definitely in the same arena for build quality as an M1 MacBook Air (my wife's daily driver, so I'm not just saying that out of ignorance) with, IMHO, a better keyboard and a touch screen if you're into that sort of thing. Oh, and the facial recognition unlock is the best. I've had zero issues with stability—Microsoft pays more attention to squashing Windows bugs on their own hardware, it seems like. Surface Laptop 5 has been out for about a year, but it was a totally microscopic incremental refresh. That means the Laptop 4's have dropped in price a lot, even though it's still 95% the same laptop. My exact model of Laptop 4 can be had on periodic sale, refurbished on Woot.com for ~$700 or less, which is a screaming good deal IMHO for what you get. You could almost get two of these things for the price of one new M1 MacBook Air once you factor in the (IMHO mandatory) RAM upgrade.

vuln 3y ago
> Oh, and the facial recognition unlock is the best. This is scary as fuck. Combined with all the telemetry and tracking M$ is now doing without care from within its operating system. Windows and Android are subsidized data collection applications which run on subsidized hardware. Simple as.
- blackoil 3y ago
  LOL, How would you unlock iPhone?
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- astrange 3y ago
  There's nothing valuable about your Windows telemetry. It just means if you hit a crash it's possible it'll get fixed.

benreesman 3y ago

Apple has enjoyed, and seems set to enjoy for awhile longer, a full process node advantage over everyone. People whiff that (cough RDNA3), and people overcome it kinda (Raptor Lake), but ceteris paribus, their shit is just from the future. Having a bone to pick with Apple is a very reasonable thing, I’ve got a few gripes myself, but that’s why you buy something 2-3 years behind the cutting edge. It’s not because it’s better.

tracker1 3y ago

Probably the closest option to M1 on build quality and battery will be the AMD version of the Framework laptop... if you want can run Windows or Linux without issue. Will probably go that direction on my next purchase. Later this year and next year AMD are releasing new laptop CPU/APU that will absolutely kill on performance:watt, while they're a bit ahead of Intel at the moment, they're going to leap a bit further ahead if GPU perf matters to you. Not that Intel is asleep, just behind. On the phone, I started with Android, so just kind of used to it... I've bought about every 2-3 generations for a while, currently on a Pixel 4a. I tend to avoid the high end, and find if you wait 3 months or so after a new release, the kinks are usually worked out by then. As to the iPad, there really isn't a good alternative that I'm aware of... there are still a few Android options, none are great... the MS surface tablet and other convertable laptops are okay, but still not as nice a UX, it's not my thing so doesn't bother me, but can understand why if it works, it really works for you. Watch is about on par, from what I understand.. again, not something I'm into personally. I tend to take the Apple option for work (software dev, mostly web/svc oriented) only because corp Apple experience is generally better than corp windows.

gorjusborg 3y ago
I vote with my wallet. The Framework laptop is my choice. It is not the best in every category, but it is mine. I didn't like the weak hinges, I replaced them. I can replace the battery when I need. I can upgrade the memory or hard disk, or motherboard or screen when I need. The thing with Apple is that their way of vertical tech integration results in highly polished, non-standard, unservicable machines. They are nice, but not worth the trade of ownership for me.
- dreamcompiler 3y ago
  I feel exactly the same about Apple's software. It's great as long as your preferred workflow matches the Apple-blessed workflow. But if it doesn't, you're pretty much hosed. Desktop Linux is not as nice or facile or polished, but it feels like "my" desktop because I can modify it. When I use MacOS, it feels like I'm just renting somebody else's computer. It's a very nice computer, but it can never be mine.

huijzer 3y ago

Based on reading Taleb, I have a theory and love to hear counterarguments if there are any: Products are as good as the worst part. Apple‘s complete integration allows them to more easily fix the worst part since they have control over almost everything. Historically, "open" systems, as Bill Gates would call Windows together with the suppliers such as Intel and Dell, could get away with some bad aspects as long as they just threw in new CPUs with smaller transistors. Now that Moore‘s law and Dennard scaling have slowed down, fixing the worst part is the only way to find good improvements.

insanitybit 3y ago

I've found that ChromeOS + Pixel 6 is fine. I have a Fitbit Sense 2 for a watch (I hate the idea of my watch telling me I have a meeting coming up lol). ChromeOS is great. The host OS "just works" and I have a VM/container env to do development in. It feels secure, operationally straightforward, and low maintenance. I don't really care a ton about my phone. It works, battery is fine. It makes phone calls, plays music. idk. I care way more about my laptop.

msp26 3y ago

Tachiyomi makes Android significantly better for comics/manga than iOS. It's one of the reasons I sold my iPad for a galaxy tab s7+. Every alternative I tried on iOS was just shit in comparison, paperback especially.

nwallin 3y ago

> I tried looking at the Pixel for the Vanilla Android experience and long support, yet it seems like people are fighting battery life issues all the time. I have the opposite experience. A few months ago a friend of mine had to buy a new iphone because their phone couldn't hold a charge. Shortly after they received their new phone, towards the evening, they remarked how happy they were that their new iphone (literally a few days old) still had 36% charge after most of a day's usage. I looked at my 2.5 year old (at the time) pixel 4a and I still had 84% charge. > having to live with endless amounts of compromises just to get away from Apple. Having basic system functionality, such as GPU accelerated OpenGL, Vulkan, or OpenGL ES, seems like a catastrophic compromise. Like I can compromise about how the widgets of application foo and the widgets of application bar don't match each other, I couldn't care less. But no Vulkan support? Forgetaboutit.

shoffmeister 3y ago

> I've tried finding alternatives on my last upgrade cycle and it's like having to live with endless amounts of compromises just to get away from Apple. Everything is a compromise. A while ago, I wanted a new notebook: I looked very hard at a 16" M1 Pro with 64 GB of RAM, at approximately USD 4000, tiniest storage possible. I really really wanted to run this with Asahi Linux. I purchased a Dell Inspiron 7610 with 16" display (and known design touchpad design defects), 3K resolution, sort of light-weight, Tiger Lake 11800H CPU, Intel + Nvidia hybrid graphics, now running at 64 GB of DDR4 RAM, 2 TB of very fast PCIe 4 SSD, 1 TB of PCIe 3 SSD. Professionally I run this with Windows 11 Professional + VMware Workstation -> Fedora 38 because of an Azure VPN; in my private life this is plain Fedora 38 dual-booted. Why? USD 1700. Less than half the cost. Native podman / docker. CUDA. The (still) dominant architecture (x86). I am typing on Proper Keyboards anyway.

thinkingemote 3y ago

Apple is an ecosystem much more than windows is. Devices work together and enhance each other. So jumping to Linux isn't as easy as Everything has to change. It's more like emigration or a divorce it will hurt and it's a big change. For most it's not worth the bother.

nortonham 3y ago

>I tried looking at the Pixel for the Vanilla Android experience and long support, yet it seems like people are fighting battery life issues all the time. my pixel has good battery life.....I know it's anecdotal but it's been fine. I've always been an android user on smartphones. Was samsung in the past but now I have a pixel. I like the pixel and vanilla android experience overall. Android allows some freedom to customize, I like their call screening, and the wide choice of apps. Pixels are also starting to be supported for longer; maybe not as long as iphones but it's always been an android issue and they're finally starting to address it. Stability is there imo. I have all the apps I need to do what I do everyday but obviously everyone is different. I own a variety of different hardware including apple products, but I'm not 100% reliant on their ecosystem, so I'm keeping the pixel for now. >Also, couldn't find anything coming near the value of a baseline Macbook Air M1 as far as build quality, battery life, stability etc. is concerned. Agreed

rewgs 3y ago

My strategy is to go all-in on Apple as my daily drivers, and then to tinker with Linux in my spare time. For example, my main phone is an iPhone, but I recently bought a used OnePlus 6 with the intention of installing NixOS on it. My laptop is an M1 MacBook Air, but I code in Linux VMs, and have a Linux NAS at home. As many of my services as possible are self-hosted, and as many of my apps as possible are FOSS, but I access them with Apple hardware. And as my M-series Macs age, they'll become Asahi machines. This is the best compromise I've found. The truth is, Apple stuff still does Just Work, and having an actual Unix base is nice too. Open standards and protocols can get you a long way away from the walled garden aspect of Apple to the point where really they're just nice computers that don't really infringe on my life in any way.