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I love Windows Arm. My latest machine, an Asus Zenbook A16 is great. 18 core Snapdragon X2 extreme, 48 GB of memory, and OLED screen--all for $1699. It feels ve

I love Windows Arm. My latest machine, an Asus Zenbook A16 is great. 18 core Snapdragon X2 extreme, 48 GB of memory, and OLED screen--all for $1699. It feels very fast, faster than my 24-core Xeon desktop (though benchmarks would put my Xeon ahead) and has great "all-day" battery life. You can remove the screws on the bottom and replace the battery (which is screwed in, too, no glue to peel) or the M.2 NVME which is enough "servicability" for me....

embedding-shape 5mo ago
You should try Linux on it someday, to really see what the CPU can do, night and day difference :) With that said, I'd probably prefer a Windows laptop over a MacBook too, their hardware is great, but the software is just so awful. But whatever you do, don't get Microsoft's hardware, I got a Surface Pro 8 some years ago and throughout my ~25 years of computing I've never had a worse laptop, and just 2-3 weeks after the warranty went out, the entire machine bricked itself during an update and it no longer boots at all, basically threw 1500 EUR into the sea with nothing to show for it.
- dijit 5mo ago
  last time I tried Linux on ARM (a month ago) nothing worked. No sound, no webcam, no USB-C(iirc) and no video hardware acceleration. It was a Thinkpad T14s with Snapdragon Elite X-2 if it matters.
  - youre-wrong3 5mo ago
    Had a similar issue and just pointed codex at my laptop and it got everything working.
    - regexorcist 5mo ago
      Same. By the time I got back it had even upstreamed a few device drivers to mainline Linux, all on its own.
    - dijit 5mo ago
      how'd you do that when wifi and USB wasn't working?
- SXX 5mo ago
  Unfortubately Qualcomm killed open source support efforts for Snapdragon X*
  - kombine 5mo ago
    When did that happen?
    - SXX 5mo ago
      In March on Github and their Discord server. https://github.com/qualcomm/fastrpc/issues/193 https://github.com/qualcomm/fastrpc/issues/193 https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1ryv59a/qualcomm_sabotages_linux_gaming_proprietary_dsp/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1ryv59a/qualc... This is not super popular Macbook hardware so chances that someone will reverse engineer their firmware are very small.
- noxvilleza 5mo ago
  I got a Surface Pro 7 soon after it was released and it was really great for the price. A good size to work on, decent battery, and actually worked well as a 2-in-1 device. The keyboard was a bit flimsy but still good enough for on-the-go work. Ran Windows on it for a few years then installed Linux and made it be a manager for my media setup, still working fine today.

embedding-shape 5mo ago

You should try Linux on it someday, to really see what the CPU can do, night and day difference :) With that said, I'd probably prefer a Windows laptop over a MacBook too, their hardware is great, but the software is just so awful. But whatever you do, don't get Microsoft's hardware, I got a Surface Pro 8 some years ago and throughout my ~25 years of computing I've never had a worse laptop, and just 2-3 weeks after the warranty went out, the entire machine bricked itself during an update and it no longer boots at all, basically threw 1500 EUR into the sea with nothing to show for it.

dijit 5mo ago
last time I tried Linux on ARM (a month ago) nothing worked. No sound, no webcam, no USB-C(iirc) and no video hardware acceleration. It was a Thinkpad T14s with Snapdragon Elite X-2 if it matters.
- youre-wrong3 5mo ago
  Had a similar issue and just pointed codex at my laptop and it got everything working.
  - regexorcist 5mo ago
    Same. By the time I got back it had even upstreamed a few device drivers to mainline Linux, all on its own.
  - dijit 5mo ago
    how'd you do that when wifi and USB wasn't working?
SXX 5mo ago
Unfortubately Qualcomm killed open source support efforts for Snapdragon X*
- kombine 5mo ago
  When did that happen?
  - SXX 5mo ago
    In March on Github and their Discord server. https://github.com/qualcomm/fastrpc/issues/193 https://github.com/qualcomm/fastrpc/issues/193 https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1ryv59a/qualcomm_sabotages_linux_gaming_proprietary_dsp/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1ryv59a/qualc... This is not super popular Macbook hardware so chances that someone will reverse engineer their firmware are very small.
noxvilleza 5mo ago
I got a Surface Pro 7 soon after it was released and it was really great for the price. A good size to work on, decent battery, and actually worked well as a 2-in-1 device. The keyboard was a bit flimsy but still good enough for on-the-go work. Ran Windows on it for a few years then installed Linux and made it be a manager for my media setup, still working fine today.