The display on the Macbook Pro Retina is just flawless. The colors, the anti-glare, and the picture quality from all angles, it's just really well done. The brushed aluminum chassis makes it very cool and lightweight, great to travel with and keep on your lap. Excellent battery life. It's just a great machine to live with overall.
Most of the PC options are steel and plastic, so they're hot and heavy. They'll burn your legs, they have comparably poor battery life. The screen looks terrible if your viewing angle isn't perpendicular. The hardware I've had has tended to die faster, too.
I do spend most of my time in Linux on this old Dell, though. The OS is more important to me and I prefer Linux. But Macbooks are great, and I wish I could find something as good to install Linux on.
You can install Linux on a Macbook if that's what you want. Despite the marketing a Macbook these days is just an expensive, well-designed PC with particular software.
> Most of the PC options are steel and plastic, so they're hot and heavy. They'll burn your legs, they have comparably poor battery life. The screen looks terrible if your viewing angle isn't perpendicular. The hardware I've had has tended to die faster, too.
Not my experience for machines from the last couple of years, particularly if you look at similar price points.
Not that the community couldn't find a way to reverse-engineer and build an open source version... but a straight up Ubuntu install on a current-generation Mac Pro is probably the fastest way to kill a battery, processor, flash drive and miss out on taking advantage of the ambient sensors.
To use an unfitting analogy -- you might as well buy a sports car to retrofit it into a classic gremlin.
So if planning to run anything other than OS X via Bootcamp on a MBP, do beware this issue.
[0] https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/systemd-vgaswitcheroo-uni...
- MBPs have the best wifi of any notebooks - to my knowledge, they still are the only ones to have 3 MIMO streams. Right now, my TX rate is 585 MBit/s.
- Thunderbolt and I/O: we recently started to stream our tech meetups to Youtube. The two thunderbolt ports are processing two 1080p streams from BlackMagic Mini boxes - other laptops simply don't have the necessary ports or enough PCIe lanes to do this reliably.
- We just got Dell 4k/60Hz monitors. Most of our MBPs can drive them just fine via DisplayPort, others can only do it at 30Hz, if at all.
Intel claims that the i5-5200U included in the Zenbook UX305LA is capable of driving 3840x2160@60Hz over DP.
It's also ridiculously expensive. The cheapest option with 16GB of memory costs $200 more than a 15" Retina MBP.
Edit: I read reviews like this http://www.iretron.com/blog/posts/dell-xps-13-is-a-major-dis... cannot find the other ones though. It is better than I remember; I thought it was worse. Still; 6 hours is not really usable in my book.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/dell-xps-13-2015-review-batter...
which gives a rated battery life of 18 hours and a real-world use battery life of 9-10 hours
http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/dell-xps-13-battery-life-f...
This article suggests a battery life of 12 hours.
What kind of battery life are you expecting?
The application is perfect and resilient, and although it's "not the same", I will never ever go back to a glossy screen.
Glossy looks way better in stores (especially since Apple controls the lighting to make glare incredibly unlikely) and in pretty much any case where you do not have direct light. It's what the public wants.
Here's another one that always gets me about PC laptops: Air vents on the bottoms so I can't safely rest it on anything soft that would block them. On my MBP I only have to worry about the very back.
It seems really minor, but it's seriously prevented my Macbook from overheating probably dozens of times by now. I can't say the same for my PC, which has the flat ventilation panel on the side and has been killed by bedsheets many times.
A minor detail, but a really clever one. I like it.
I might need an additional laptop soon and would love to know about anything comparable to a MBP 13 retina but doesn't have any vents on the bottom.
https://support.lenovo.com/at/de/documents/pd025709
Don't think I'd be comfortable blocking those for extended periods.
On the Wintel side the more powerful machines seem to be more or less targeted to very specific use cases, like CAD and these computers are more like portable workstations than laptops.
Well, anyone that wears shorts and sandals and is over 20, deserves it.
>Current rMBP is unusable outside in summer due to hot chasis...
Maybe sit on a table? I use mine in a country that frequently gets 38-40 oC, and in a country that is constantly Lousiana-summer level heat and humidity (Singapore) and never had much of a problem.
Or one could use any kind of towel or pad below their laptop.
Kind of reminds me of the Louis CK routine about people complaining about trivial things (e.g. the food) while flying, sitting on a chair in the sky, across thousands of miles, in a few hours (something that just 3-4 generations ago took days or even months, discomfort and a few deaths along the way).
We now have undreamt-of power in our PCs or even mobile phones (power which used to take a device as big as a house and with its own cooling infrastructure), and we complain for them being uncomfortamble to have on our bare laps...
"lap"tops.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/11/22/man_burns_penis_with...
Also "laptop" is an american term. The rest of the world calls them something closer to "portable".
Because otherwise the polish term is "komputer przenośny" (portable, movable, etc computer).
He only said "shorts". You know, adults can wear shorts as well.
To decry shorts as juvenile is sympotmatic of simple minded attitudes that lead to people in warm climates spending the hottest part of the day wearing full suits in fully glazed boxes which need to be energy intensively air conditioned so that they don't die.
This is not a sensible path for society to take
There's more to shorts than this:
http://www.sandalandsoxer.co.uk/linus+andrew.jpg
I'm from Europe and especially during the summer you can see people dressed like this:
http://www.menfashionhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/men-...
Some of them even go to work like this, especially if they don't work directly with customers and their companies don't have business attire requirements.
On a side note, you've missed the retina thing, it's making a true difference.
You might not like the form compared to the Air. Very few won't like the retina compared to the Air's monitor.
I am still using a seemingly ancient macbook pro 15" 2009 model, simply because it has a matte screen, yet still runs the latest OSX. The super glossy screens make my eyes hurt after a while. I have been hoping that some day the glossiness gets down to a level that I can tolerate enough to get a newer macbook. However, if my laptop ends up giving up the ghost along the way though... I may look at using something like the matte screen zenbook discussed by the parent, and running FreeBSD or OpenBSD on it.
Still, I've just bought an XPS15; it has a better screen than the MBP and incredible specs. The only real downsides are 16:9 and not using the new Samsung 950 Pro PCIE-SSD (which is 25% faster). Upgradability, a massive amount of RAM, fantastic screen and a tiny shell more than make up for that :)
You then have the flexibility to just get up and walk into a meeting with it or walk out at the end of the day with everything just as you left it and carry on working on the train should you need.
The most recent ones also half a decade old and still quite expensive, so I can't imagine buying one, but Apple would tell you that they do have a first-party docking station, complete with monitor built-in!
When I was a die-hard Mac user, that was perhaps the only thing that I wish Macs had, minus the crashiness that docks caused on Windows.
Using an external keyboard and mouse solves the ergonomic problems of using a laptop for long periods. (Sad to say, I see very few people actually doing this.)
Of course, you don't get the benefits of running a faster, hotter processor, expandability etc, though Apple no longer offers a reasonably priced tower system anyway....
But moreover, a PC forces me to do my work in a place I have dedicated to work. People are now recognizing the importance of sanitary sleep habits. Well, my PC helps me maintain sanitary work habits. Well, it did when I was working from home a bunch.
I started a new job a couple months back, which has me working from their offices on a shiny new Mac Book Pro. I hate it. I've grown to love the efficiency and instantaneousness of everything on my utterly predictable libre *nix desktop. Plus, even if I don't plan to do work outside working hours, there's a strong corporate culture of taking your laptop home--I don't know, to maintain optics of always being working or something. Either way, my employer could have saved a few dollars and made me much happier by locking a workstation to my desk.
In less than two weeks I already have neck and back problems from hunching over my laptop all day. Thank god I only have two more days of this insanity.
As a side note: Asus's naming sure could use some help. If I search the Microsoft Store's website right now, there's a Zenbook UX305FA, 2 UX305CA's, UX303UB, and two Zenbook Pro UX501JW's. I'm sure if I searched Amazon I could find even more unique names. I consider myself a pretty savvy PC shopper and even I find that incredibly confusing.
I get 5-6 hours of battery life with real usage, close to 10 hours in "green" mode, I've got a 15.6" screen, a keypad, 16Gb of RAM, an i7 processor, and a 1Tb SSD. And it's just over 4 pounds and pretty thin. I have NVIDIA graphics. The Tecra Z has an available 3K touch display, and its HDMI port can power a 4K monitor at 60Hz (even while its internal monitor is still going, and its USB3 port is powering a third monitor; that's my office development setup).
I've had it over a year and a half already, and it's still going strong.
lenovo is not even relevant anymore. Their new keyboards (since 2009!) are complete garbage.
his "research" was probably asking some guy at the water cooler "what's a good PC laptop" "lenovo" "thanks"
The keyboard has no flex or mushiness. The keys have some resistance and a nice feel when depressing them. Finally the keys are slightly curved inwards so that the fingesrs easily find the centers of the keys.
Still, I've heard of a lot of people that don't like the new keyboards. Maybe there are different versions for different models? I've only used W530 and T440s.
Instead, I miss the double-height escape and delete key, and PgUp/PgDown near the top of the keyboard. They're next to the arrow keys now, which isn't as nice as the back/forward buttons that used to be there.
What bothers me about it is that it's a 6-row layout. I liked the 7 rows on the old keyboards, with double-height escape and delete keys.
Otherwise it is a nice keyboard. Tactile feedback is not comparable to a Model M, of course, but it is okay. Acoustically it works nicely.
I am not sure how much of a difference it makes, but I was surprised when I got my machine to find out it is a 17" model, so the keyboard is rather close in size to an external keyboard, which is very nice. (I don't usually carry this beast with me, so I don't mind the size. YMMV!)
I still can't quite comprehend how the market could have managed to conspire to so thoroughly eradicate the technologically superior option that not even obscure non-US vendors serving only local markets offer it anywhere anymore.
I've got the new non-developer version and I did have to jump through some hoops to get the wireless working. And suspend still doesn't work. But other than that it is the best laptop I've used.
The card identifies itself as:
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 (rev bb)
How is the highdpi screen on Linux?
But I don't use the mouse much anyway (hence ratpoison).
The HiDPI screen is pretty good, I talked about it in a sibling comment. Chromium understands the DPI setting and so does Xterm, and honestly I don't use any other programs. I imagine if I used different desktop applications, I'd probably run into some issues like maybe icons being too small or something.
http://askubuntu.com/questions/649103/proper-touchpad-thumb-...
I fully expected to see the (2015) XPS 13 mentioned too and perhaps Microsoft's Surface Book (which could be used as a laptop 100% of the time if required).
The way he talked about "Microsoft Surface" made it sound like Microsoft only made the Pro model.
It did fail as a laptop, though. Something about how it tended to bend on a laptop would cause the physical trackpad "button" to get stuck when it was sitting on a lap in some positions until you picked up the laptop by the sides. :| It was also a lot heavier than my Toshiba.
But as a portable computer, it actually did a fine job.
i'd even rater a surface than a lenovo nowadays. ...just get me the pen and gpu working fine in linux and i bite the bullet btw.
anyway, with lenovo everything is wrong. with the other manufacturers just the flood of models and the sales is wrong :)
ok, basically i agree with his post in full. i just wouldn't have spent so much time on lenovo.
Also, didn't compare the Surface Book (only talked about why he didn't use the Surface Pro..). I find that particularly funny
I can provide details of my "experience" with them, but the Internet is already full of horror stories that cover everything that is to say about that topic.
And no, buying a new laptop after a year and a half simply isn't acceptable to me, even if it makes sense in your economic situation.
Best they would offer is an out of warranty repair.
I know someone with the same model, exact same problem happened to him.
Horrible build quality and support.
I bought a MBA 11' (2012) because it's an all-Intel machine, which was used by Linus for some time and hardware support is almost perfect. It's only lacking ACPI events for battery discharge, something very few machines have.
While Macs are good, I think they are optimised for the looks and not for robustness. Glossy screens are a bit uncomfortable, and aluminium tends to be too rigid, transmitting shocks to the screen as a consequence.
I don't think I'll go back to Linux any time soon, though I do miss tiling WMs.
I finally decided to go for a new laptop last December because the battery life was degrading after the years. I was consideing just buying a replacement battery, but I wasn't able to find one under $200 including shipping and I got a really good deal on a top of the line refurbished X220 together with a docking station for 380€.
My sister, a teacher, is now using the Asus laptop and not considering the battery life it still runs smoothly.
You mentioned the battery life is not great, can you share some numbers on Ubuntu ? How much time do you get on a full charge?
Still though, with Asus you never know whether your laptop will be perfect out of the box or not. That's what sucks about PCs in general - if you want a hassle-free laptop, you either have to pay extra or invest a lot of time into research. I had to send 2 laptops back before I got the Zenbook, but even that had the clicky trackpad problem.
This is why I'm thinking that when I have to buy a new laptop, I'll first be looking at the Apple lines. I've never had a Mac (since they're pricy), but I'm done with doing hours and hours of research. I just need a laptop that works.
The Zenbook is great though. Love it.
There were a few things I specifically wanted: fast processor (preferably i7 due to the occasional 3d rendering stuff I was going to be doing), at least 16gb of RAM, a decent, discrete GPU, and minimum 1920x1080 resolution.
Other stuff wasn't as important. I could do without the latest "retina" screen since I was mostly just going to be looking at DJ/VJ software interfaces and hooking it up to projection. SSD wasn't absolutely necessary but I wouldn't mind one (this was a few years ago when they were considerably more expensive).
I had it down to an Asus (non-ultrabook) and a Macbook Pro. The Macbook had a nicer display, slightly more solid hardware (the Asus was only aluminum on top and on the top of the keyboard side, not the underside of the laptop), and may have offered a faster storage drive (can't remember the details now).
On the flip side, the GPU options were all lower-end than the Asus. Also, the MBP in a configuration closest to what I needed cost around $2499. The Asus was $999.
The Apple had some other features like early Thunderbolt support but those weren't relevant to my uses. As much as I liked the display on the Apple and the somewhat stronger build, I couldn't justify paying more than double the cost.
If this was going to be my sole/main computer then I would've weighted stuff like viewing angles and storage drive speed higher but as a secondary computer, I was mainly looking to get certain specs/features without spending too much dough.
So yeah, it's a "budget" brand to me. I could get the major specs and decent build for a lot less but I gave up some things that would've been a lot more important if it was my main computer. To this day, my only real beef with the Asus is that the display's viewing angles suck. It's not one of those awful 1366x768 displays that OEMs were slapping into cheap laptops for so long and it's not a glossy mess but you really need to look at it dead-on if you want a decent image. For techie art projects it's great but if I had to look at it every day for 8-12 hours I would go insane.
The battery is proprietary but easily replaced. My main issue with my previous UX31 was with the SSD. It died within a year and was no longer readable. It was a piece of proprietary SanDisk crap. Googling around about it yields various complaints about it (http://www.pcper.com/news/Mobile/Be-careful-which-ASUS-Zenbo...).
Battery life: I run Arch Linux with LXQt and get about 6 hours on a full charge. It's not great but IIRC I was getting better on Windows so it might be a software issue.
you mean it was not a standard SSD ?
This is what it looks like:
http://www.pcper.com/files/news/2012-03-12/SSDR_Sandisk-SSD....
FWIU they went with a different brand on their newer models, might be better.
I'd say 6h of use in Ubuntu. The reviews I read say that the battery is better using it with Windows 10 (closer to 10h) but I just can't get my work done in Windows.
Overall the battery is not disappointing. Not sure if I can change the battery by myself but for $750 I don't intend to invest much in repairs. I'll just ride it until it dies.
I installed Ubuntu 14.x and i3 window manager. I have dual boot with original Windows install and power use is comparable between Windows and Linux. It's a pleasure to use. Only power management tweak I made in Ubuntu was to install the TLP power management tool and (I think) make simple change from its defaults: http://linrunner.de/en/tlp/tlp.html
Performance wise it's very nice. Screen is decent, too. My only complaint is the that the keyboard has a bunch of non-full size keys. End and Insert are on a single key. Someone should be shot for that.
Watch out though - some of their cheaper machines are just weird. The X205ta being one example.
The new MacBook Pros are nice, I've got a work-issued one, but whatever configuration you buy is what you're stuck with until you replace it. That sucks.
I paid about $2,300 for a Performa 550 back in 1993. That machine served me well. I added memory, internal and external hard drives, a Zip drive, a 68882 FPU and a bunch of other peripherals. Between 1990 and 2000, I probably spent $6,000 in hardware, software and peripherals for those machines.
They served me well. I still have a G3 and Performa 6400/200 with G3 upgrade under my desk. Every once in a while, I fire one up just to reminisce.
Commodity parts and easy interchange is just so powerful that the community of Apple users just doesn't provide the same kind of benefits to outweigh that. At least, in my humble opinion.
Admittedly, my desktop keyboard is backlit (I had to buy a gaming keyboard to get the macro keys I wanted), but the only purpose of the backlight for me is to know which of the four keyboard profiles I'm using -- and this feature isn't on many laptops at all.
I've been practicing by my work (as a programmer) and actively learning it aside -- typing without looking, and I am damn good at it.
There are however different use cases. Sometimes I have long reading sessions. Suddenly I decide the story is too big and want to stop reading it. Or I try to find a keyword in it. Or a hundred more things.
If I am to use programming terms, it reduces your bootstrap time when you want to use the keyboard after a period of inactivity.
...That, plus the fact that most are gorgeous and simply very nice to look at. There are definitely aesthetical factors as well, won't deny the facts. So it's 50% subjective, no doubt.
For example, I use the backlit keyboard when I'm debugging at night, because hitting the wrong key carries a penalty, and F9 is not nearly as heavily used as 'A'
On the other hand, MBA's monitor is a complete joke compared to the one on ASUS UX305.
I asked about a replacement and they said they don't make them anymore, but said if I really want one to get a third party battery from Amazon (the guy even searched on Amazon to show me how much it would be).
EDIT: Your guide[0] to intel CPUs
[0]: https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/proce...
I was a lifetime mac owner (since OS 9) and my 2010 Macbook Pro finally broke down this year. It made it that long because I doubled the RAM, replaced the battery, and replaced the HDD with a hybrid drive. Finally the battery puffed up and exploded. I brought it to the Apple Store and they were beyond useless. The new MBPs are not modifiable in any way, and Apple's customer service is not what it used to be. So I decided to get a non-Mac for the first time in my life.
I ended up with an Asus Zenbook UX305LA. It's a 13" 1080p screen, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Core i5 processor. Cost me $749 and I dual-boot WIndows 10 and Ubuntu (spending 95% of my time in Ubuntu). It costs about 50% what a similar specced Macbook would cost and is similar size/weight to the Macbook air. Build quality is fantastic (open with one hand, good keyboard, glass trackpad, etc). The battery life is not quite as good as a 13" MBA but better than a Macbook Pro. Overall I am extremely happy with it.
Considering that my last MBP cost me $2200 up front plus ~$300 in repairs over time and lasted me ~4.5 years. That's about $500 a year. This machine cost $750. If it lasts over a year and a half, the experiment is a success. So far it's been nothing but great.