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The number of people recommending MacBooks makes me cringe a little. Sure the build quality is good, but I can't live with the keyboard's crippling lack of keys

by Daneel_ 11y ago

The number of people recommending MacBooks makes me cringe a little. Sure the build quality is good, but I can't live with the keyboard's crippling lack of keys and the need to constantly use the mouse in OSX. Lenovo isn't fairing much better these days - I have a T440p, and the lack of the 'menu' key (between right-alt and right-ctrl) drives me nuts. The lack of Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Delete on the Mac also drives me crazy. For those of us who live on the keyboard and hate to touch the mouse (too slow and inefficient), these days are dark times.. Also: why aren't we seeing >16 GB of ram in laptops yet? I realise workstation laptops are at 32, and possibly 64 GB now, but why are some brands going backwards from 16GB down to 12 and even 8? As for my recommendation? There isn't a single laptop on the market that I like, I'm sad to say. Lenovo dropped the ball, and dell's build quality isn't up to par. I'd look at an HP workstation, or maybe one of the Lenovo W541's, although the keyboard isn't much better than on a MacBook. The Chromebook Pixel 2 (the top spec one) is such a tantalising glimpse of what could be - just shoehorn in more hard drive space, add a mini-DP port and an RJ-45, and most people would be good to go...if they fixed the keyboard. Sorry for the rant! Just overly frustrated with the state of the market.. Won't someone just release a standard workstation laptop without following all the keyboard/mouse trends?!?

robotpony 11y ago
FWIW, the RAM trend is related to power, heat, and the increased speed of disk. SSD performance offsets some of the reduction in RAM, at a much better heat/power cost. Swap is much more viable on SSD than spinning disks, making huge RAM sizes less important for most user tasks.
- Daneel_ 11y ago
  Power consumption is a valid reason, however most T- or W- laptops from Lenovo aren't aimed at the mobile user - they're aimed at the power user. I know I'd gladly trade an hour of battery life or an extra 500 grams of battery for another 16 gigs of ram. At least screen resolution and panel quality is being taken much more seriously these days.. It was a nightmare for nearly 10 years there.
cjoelrun 11y ago
Have you tried to make OS X keyboard friendly? Window Management - Spectacle: http://spectacleapp.com http://spectacleapp.com, App Launcher - Quicksilver: http://qsapp.com http://qsapp.com, also just learning each app's keybindings as I incorporate them into work. OS X also has some of the best text manipulation in apps: https://coderwall.com/p/usc8qg/use-emacs-readline-key-bindings-in-os-x https://coderwall.com/p/usc8qg/use-emacs-readline-key-bindin.... As a Emacs/Bash user, I haven't found anything as consistent, even in Linux. For your missing keys Home = Cmd + Up, End = Cmd + Down, PgUp = Shift + Space, PgDn = Space, Delete = control + d
- Daneel_ 11y ago
  Thanks for the good advice. Yes, I've tried most of these (spectacle is new to me though), but I've found that shortcuts aren't very consistent between apps, plus there's no shortcuts for manipulating windows; eg, [alt+space, x] for maximize. Maximising windows is a whole other problem (rightzoom mostly fixes this.. mostly). It's little workflow issues like that which put me off OSX. I used it for work for three months before I couldn't take it any more, despite learning a lot of shortcuts and 'fixer' apps in the mean time. These days, I like windows as my main OS, with a linux VM for real work.
  - rsmith05 11y ago
    There's nothing wrong with your setup. I personally just got a Macbook Pro 13 inch because I wanted to become familiar with the Apple ecosystem, coming from mainly Windows and Linux worlds. I can honestly say given a couple of weeks, I could be productive on any of the platforms. But it just comes down to preference here. The issues you mention for manipulating windows - that is "fixed" by installing a Window Manager such as one of the following (some free, some paid); Free: Spectacle http://spectacleapp.com/ http://spectacleapp.com/ Paid: Divvy http://mizage.com/divvy/ http://mizage.com/divvy/ BetterSnapTool https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bettersnaptool/id417375580?mt=12 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bettersnaptool/id417375580?m... ===== It sounds like you gave it a fair shot though, which is fine. Use whatever you are most productive in :)

by Daneel_ 11y ago

robotpony 11y ago

FWIW, the RAM trend is related to power, heat, and the increased speed of disk. SSD performance offsets some of the reduction in RAM, at a much better heat/power cost. Swap is much more viable on SSD than spinning disks, making huge RAM sizes less important for most user tasks.

Daneel_ 11y ago
Power consumption is a valid reason, however most T- or W- laptops from Lenovo aren't aimed at the mobile user - they're aimed at the power user. I know I'd gladly trade an hour of battery life or an extra 500 grams of battery for another 16 gigs of ram. At least screen resolution and panel quality is being taken much more seriously these days.. It was a nightmare for nearly 10 years there.

cjoelrun 11y ago

Have you tried to make OS X keyboard friendly? Window Management - Spectacle: http://spectacleapp.com http://spectacleapp.com, App Launcher - Quicksilver: http://qsapp.com http://qsapp.com, also just learning each app's keybindings as I incorporate them into work. OS X also has some of the best text manipulation in apps: https://coderwall.com/p/usc8qg/use-emacs-readline-key-bindings-in-os-x https://coderwall.com/p/usc8qg/use-emacs-readline-key-bindin.... As a Emacs/Bash user, I haven't found anything as consistent, even in Linux. For your missing keys Home = Cmd + Up, End = Cmd + Down, PgUp = Shift + Space, PgDn = Space, Delete = control + d

Daneel_ 11y ago
Thanks for the good advice. Yes, I've tried most of these (spectacle is new to me though), but I've found that shortcuts aren't very consistent between apps, plus there's no shortcuts for manipulating windows; eg, [alt+space, x] for maximize. Maximising windows is a whole other problem (rightzoom mostly fixes this.. mostly). It's little workflow issues like that which put me off OSX. I used it for work for three months before I couldn't take it any more, despite learning a lot of shortcuts and 'fixer' apps in the mean time. These days, I like windows as my main OS, with a linux VM for real work.
- rsmith05 11y ago
  There's nothing wrong with your setup. I personally just got a Macbook Pro 13 inch because I wanted to become familiar with the Apple ecosystem, coming from mainly Windows and Linux worlds. I can honestly say given a couple of weeks, I could be productive on any of the platforms. But it just comes down to preference here. The issues you mention for manipulating windows - that is "fixed" by installing a Window Manager such as one of the following (some free, some paid); Free: Spectacle http://spectacleapp.com/ http://spectacleapp.com/ Paid: Divvy http://mizage.com/divvy/ http://mizage.com/divvy/ BetterSnapTool https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bettersnaptool/id417375580?mt=12 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bettersnaptool/id417375580?m... ===== It sounds like you gave it a fair shot though, which is fine. Use whatever you are most productive in :)