After using my Thinkpad for about six months, I can't go back. The keyboard is amazing, build quality is rock solid, screen is 4k with 100% RGB, and you can actually upgrade the thing.
I buy a laptop because I need a mobile keyboard experience. Why on earth would I buy a laptop with a keyboard that feels awful and can't handle normal use?
Honestly, if I absolute had to have OSX, I would just buy a Mac Mini and deal with the stationary aspect of it. Macbooks are just that bad. If I desperately needed portable Mac, I would probably even be willing to deal with iOS on the iPad pro over a Macbook.
Those 3rd party packages are not a concern for the Thinkpad lines, since the higher business price point supports the lines without the need for subsidizing.
Mac build quality really isn't all that great. Lots of glue and plastic hinges. Motherboard design is also atrocious. Check out Louis rossman on YouTube. I remember seeing a video where the webcam died because a thermal sensor stopped working and for some reason the webcam was wired into the same bus.
They also solder in ram and ssds now. They removed the data recovery port so if your ssd kicks the bucket there's no way to recover anything. That's what the T2 chip is for- they market it as some magical coprocessor but it's just an ARM chip that acts as a drive and ram controller so they can use soldered parts on the cheap.
The keyboard is wonderful and everything except the fingerprint scanner works great.
But maybe people change, and maybe I'm just being paranoid and depriving myself unnecessarily from hardware that I would like. (FWIW, I have used Thinkpads and greatly liked their keyboards, enough that I do consider them for every hardware refresh).
Here's the funny thing: the keyboard started to fail after 9 years of use, this is the only thing that pushed me to finally get a PC replacement (new macs are terrible linux machines) - the little rubber domes under the keys just started cracking and breaking apart so some keys feel really squidgy - mind you they still work at least.
So there's a pretty insane statistic for you:
- 2009 MBP = 9 years of keyboard use (my main computer)
- 2019 MBP = <1 year before everyone has problems
I know you can pick up spare parts for these but the problem is that they are all as old (they are commonly advertised as new on ebay, but they are not), they are used parts, and it is quite a lot of work to get all the guts out of the top case, only to replace it with a slightly less used components.
The best middle ground I could think of is to selectively replace rubber domes as they fail by cutting out the bits of silicone and gluing in new ones... only needs to pop of one key at a time.
But what's not great hardware is the touchpad. I always miss the Apple touchpad. It's perfect.
Carbon touchpad is one of the bext non-Mac ones I have tried. is it perfectly up to par with Mac...no, but I havent found any that were.
Can I get my TP keyboard and Mac track/touchpad? That would be nice :)
I dislike them ditching the spill proofing.
I dislike the general lack of upgradability/repairability.
I would much rather have the t4xxs form factor with better quality components but you have to go x1.
[1] https://www.lenovo.com/au/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x/X1-...
On my last Thinkpad I mostly opted to use an external mouse. On my Macbook I absolutely don't miss it.
And even if you think all the models are ugly, a premium laptop is a very expensive purchase. Function follows form for most people when it comes to that kind of spending.
That's valid. For my part, I literally could not care less how the device looks. I'll take the ugly one that works better any day of the week.
(1): Survive in the sense that it's in general fine and you at most have to replace some easy to replace not super expensive part. I for example splashed ~1/2L of Orange juice on my Laptop, and it was fine except for the keyboard (due to it being orange juice, water probably would have been fine). Removing the keyboard so that I can continue working with an external one took ~10min for an inexperienced person. And the replacement Keyboard had a price of ~80 Euro with Backlight 40 without, also easy to put back in.
No.
If I spend thousands of dollars on something it had better be built to last. It's not an Italian motorcycle. It's supposed to be a high quality tool. I pay those prices because I am serious about what I do and need the best tools to get me there. That was what Apple used to bring to the table and was why I would pay those prices. I have a 2013 MBP that I paid an arm and a leg for at the time it came out. Its still a great machine and I have no complaints. I plan to hang onto it for as long as I can.
Contrast that with my wife. She has the latest gen mbp and her keyboard stopped working today. Keep in mind that this is the one that apple sent us as a replacement for the first one she bought which also had keyboard problems. We had to bring in 4 times to the genius bar and leave for weeks at a time before finally putting our foot down. These machines are lemons.
I don't spend money on this stuff for status or bragging rights. I have shit to do and I will spend what I have to spend to not have my tools hinder me. I don't trust apple to deliver that anymore which sucks because I have invested a lot in their ecosystem.
PS. my wife is selling that POS computer and buying an X1 Carbon. I will be too when the time comes. Apple has squandered a decade of goodwill with this shit and I am now actively working at getting out of their ecosystem.
"Fine swiss rifles" are known for being expensive to manufacture, not for being fragile.
Incidentally, why can I buy a fine Swiss watch that works 500 feet under the ocean, but not a fine "Swiss"(Cupertino) laptop that can withstand a few drops of tap water?
Apple: look at that fine ass, lets advertise the shit out of it and make a huge markup.
Swiss Arms Co: Look at the fine workmanship and high tolerances, this is a piece that will shoot straight and last.
It's supposed to be German. It's supposed to look good and last forever.
Riiiight...
At the school district I work, the policy for staff is similar to the policy for students.
If the damage is caused through normal wear, the district pays.
If the damage from a preventable accident and a first incident, the district pays. Everybody gets one excused.
If the damage from a preventable accident and it's a second or later incident, the staff member is charged $25 or the cost of the repair (whichever is greater).
If the damage is intentional, then the staff member always pays. This comes up more often than you might expect.
Stuff like lost keyboard keys we didn't track, but pretty much everything else we did. We have about 600 staff devices. There's usually one or two individuals every year who are careless enough or unfortunate enough to have to pay for damage to their district issued system. I recall one teacher whose children kept damaging her work laptop. That year she bought 3 chargers (cord cut) and a laptop (it had to have been thrown or dropped over 10 feet). She was told she couldn't take her laptop home anymore.
Simply put, the district does not have the funding to replace laptops that staff members damage.
?
I’m guess the children example you mentioned might be one example of this?
Kids do that stuff too, but they also do stuff like break headphones off in the jack, punch a hole in the screen with a pen, gouge the screen with scissors or a hobby knife, smash them on the ground, stand on them, sit on them, etc.
Frankly, I'd see it as more reasonable to FIRE someone who repeatedly failed to care for company equipment appropriately.
But making them pay for repairs for a laptop after accidental every day accident? You would lose up in prud'homme court faster than ever (its the worker / employees court).
I think that in the end my co-worker will be refunded the money. I don't think they will be left with the bill.
But if your coworker couldn’t just go to his manager, tell them what happened and the company paid for it, that says more about the company.
I suspect that if we had purchased the extended warranty, there's a good chance it would have been covered. Reading through the text of on their website it seems like this kind of thing might even be somewhat expected (like people understand that phones will be dropped).
"Coverage for up to two incidents of accidental damage, each subject to a service fee of $99 for screen damage or external enclosure damage, or $299 for other damage, plus applicable tax."
I wouldn't expect Dell to give me a free repair on my XPS if I had "only accidentally spilled a little bit of water in it."
If the problem was really just eating a snack near the laptop resulting in some keys not working right due to crumbs then Apple most likely would have covered that.
And yes, it's my experience as well - they have prevented quite a lot of workplace drama. :)
I don’t need my laptop to be slurpee-proof, and given the trade offs of laptop design I hope it isn’t. I’d think this would add significant heft to the device to be able to guarantee such performance.
Check out Thinkpads
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/landingpage/small-business/reso...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U5n2WaMMHo
I was a real dumbass myself one day and spilled a glass of water on my Lenovo in a cafe. I took it apart just in case to dry out, but I'm not sure I even needed to. I put it together and it was just fine.
I have an Apple laptop for work and I work in cafes a lot. I assumed that Apple of all companies would consider this lifestyle issue, but now I'll be extra careful. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that times have changed for Apple.
The second time I did it, the laptop turned off as I was pouring the water. The drains are only so big; water can only move so fast through them. I had poured the water so fast that it overflowed the drains and the keyboard, and run into the motherboard.
I pulled the battery, keyboard, and access panels, and let the laptop dry overnight. I turned it on the following morning, and it worked without any problems.
So yeah, spill-resistant laptops have their limits. Dumping a quart / liter of water on them all at once is beyond their limits. And you may get unlucky with spilling onto the laptop in just such a way that it gets into something. In general, however, they seem to be very effective at preventing damage from liquid spills.
It's 2019, I'm not saying laptops should withstand me dropping an entire can of soda on top of the keyboard, but I should be able to eat near it or maybe even above it without any serious repercussions.
I've always liked Lenovo computers ability to take a spill.
I've disassembled these keyboards, cleaned and dried them out to no avail. Is something getting shorted out permanently ? Is some sensor getting ruined ? what exactly is happening and is there nothing that can be done to revive them.
Ouch! Really? What kind of company wouldn't pay for this repair? And isn't this some sort of legal issue? The laptop doesn't belong to your co-worker so they can't really authorize repair of it. Just a weird situation, that.
It reminds me of the extended warranty on phones; you get one because in the course of regular use you might drop the phone. In this case Apple has made these machines deliberately brittle and now you really need to get that extended warranty because in the course of regular use you might sneeze on the keyboard or drop crumbs of something onto it.
They also need to get work done ASAP and while we have spare Dell laptops on-hand, we don't have any spare MacBooks. I expect them to be reimbursed eventually, there is an insurance policy that covers lost or damaged laptops.
Yeah, I don't understand this whole, "my expensive computer isn't bulletproof sentiment". One of the things I was stoked about and ultimately a major factor that won me over when I bought my personal MacBook Pro back in late 2013 was that you could buy a matte screen protector and keyboard cover that fit like a glove. I had a friend with a 2009 MBP that was in amazing condition despite being his only machine when he was in high school, living by the couch and frequently being the entertainment source while eating. He had promptly put it in a case and put a keyboard cover on after receiving it.
I agree with sentiment that some laptops are going to get eaten over, but I don't think it's the manufacturer's job to make sure that it can tolerate that. Some people are never going to eat over their laptop. Like I don't bring food near my. I can tell you from experience that if I want full power on my MBP I need to take it out of its plastic case and definitely take off the keyboard cover. And I do do this when the task at hand warrants it, but most of the time I keep the cover on, and I appreciate the flexibility.
[1] I recently replaced my old one and bought this; I'd recommend it. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AQFFSAG
Ordered replacement top case with keyboard assembly off ebay.
Took a very long day to take it all apart, transfer to new top, and reassemble.
Worked first time.
A few months later random keys would glitch.
I use it like a desktop when I need to now.
Where I work there is an insurance policy to cover laptop damage, they are currently in talks with the insurance company to get the damage covered. I think that in the end my co-worker will be refunded the money. I don't think they will be left with the bill.
After having the laptop for just over a year, they called me upset as the laptop would no longer power on. After some gentle interrogation they admitted that they had eaten a snack near the laptop and that, perhaps, a small amount of seltzer had "hit the keyboard". I had them bring it to the Apple Store and Apple refused to repair it under the warranty as it had "water damage." I had asked the company to purchase the extended warranty but that had been lost in the shuffle. My co-worker ended up shelling out ~$1000 out of pocket as they needed to get work done and they had very real feelings of guilt. After all, they did _eat_ near to the laptop.
I agree no laptop should get wet, or have a dollop of guacamole sauce splashed across the keyboard, or have the display sprayed with a fine mist of Coca-Cola as someone laughs and an unexpected joke. But these things happen and I don't think Apple is helping anyone by making laptops that can't withstand these common mishaps.