Also this. I just bought a new 16" Macbook Pro because I just maxed out the SSD in my 2015 Macbook Pro due to all the Docker images and generally all the data that I have. It was running perfectly and I wouldn't even think about upgrading if the storage was upgradable.
The next best thing to buy an upgrade kit from iFixit and spend some precious time just to upgrade the SSD.
At this point, 2015 models are actually going for insane values second-hand; fans understand this may be the last great laptop Apple ever makes - from the ports (built-in HDMI and SD card slots!), to the keyboard, to the ability to replace the SSD post-market - people are already certainly catching on.
I seriously shake my head every time I think about it. It blows my mind. Think about the environmental waste. :( Shameful.
Disk space is so important these days with Docker, node_modules, venv, bazel, etc. where every directory basically has its own OS. We all should have >10TB on laptops.
https://bikeshed.party/objects/35fccbd6-b611-46b5-8e15-84807...
Just thought you should know. :)
Need to capture this rant here about part selection. My x1 carbon 6th gen shipped with a crappy SSD which showed random errors in dmesg and would occasionally cause the machine to reboot randomly. Then a few weeks ago after about a year of use it totally died. I googled the model number of the drive and found I was not the only one to experience that. Seems like Lenovo was not adequately testing that part for its impact on overall machine stability.
OTOH I was pleasantly surprised that it was replaceable, even though this is the "ultrathin" model meant to compete against Apple's soldered-in components. Replaced with a third party m.2 SSD and now the system works smoother than it ever has.
There's also too much glue in the internal assembly.
The wireless card could perform better.
I like the machine a lot though, it's pretty close to my ideal. I hope that nothing breaks on me again.
Since Catalina randomly decided to destroy access to about 1/3rd of my software (I rely on old-school music plugins that won’t be updated) - I’m gonna link you here to the Mojave tool: http://dosdude1.com/mojave/
This is not my tool, it does require a Mac to use, in order to create the USB boot key you put in your PC.
I have successfully patched about a dozen ThinkPads and Dell computers with this.
Due to the ThinkPad’s popularity - support for virtually every unit that can support it hardware-wise exists. If you have any issues, there’s a great community around it, and personally, after patching, I don’t even worry about .x upgrades anymore and leave auto-update on - that’s how far it’s come.
I literally prefer the Lenovo to the Apple hardware.
And be prepared to swap your WiFi card, intel cards are unsupported, so are nvidia graphics.
Is there a workaround (replaceable card?), or does running Mac OS mean you can't use discrete graphics (which is a major degradation)?
https://github.com/mighildotcom/X230-Hackintosh is the guide i followed, it is very x230 specific, but should give you a good idea of the overall process.
Very occasionally I'll have a slight issue with resume from sleep, but otherwise pretty much everything just works. You will need to buy a new wifi card, and depending which you want to use may need to reflash a modified bios to get rid of the whitelist.
Thank You, along with the rant from Taika Waititi at Oscar. There is still hope the old keyboard with more key depth will come back.
There hasn't been a single improvement I like about the Mac both in terms of Hardware and software since 2015. ( Edit: Ok there was Mac Pro ) Sadly Windows hasn't made much improvement in 5 years either.
I do miss the trackpoint and keyboard a little...
You're paying around $2.2/2.5k a piece. We buy 1 or 2 every month depending on hiring or whenever I find someone who has a machine like the one you describe (128g/8g ew).
Similar x1 carbon off amazon is maybe $1.2k with taxs, no apple care.
Say we buy 15 in a year, math:
Apple/applecare = $2.5k * 15 = $37.5k
Lenovo = $1.2k * 15 = $18k + say $50kish for a decent help desk employee because there's no way in hell I'm working 60 hour weeks on product AND dealing with laptops beyond, 'run diagnostics and take it to the apple store.'
The value proposition isn't hard. We're going with the MacBook Pros. For the grand total of 5 people who have to have windows for reasons we just run bootcamp.
(This is why the components are easy to replace in those laptops)
Anyway, Lenovo care service (whatever its called) costs about $400-500 for three years and they send a technician to your place within 24 hours.
We have a fleet of Macs and thinkpads and the thinkpads last more and cost less in total.
4k consumes (more or less significantly) more, which comes at a price - see the widely documented XPS 13.
If one prefers super-high resolution, it's totally fine, but it's not correct to depict 1080p as poor for a work machine.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Extreme-Gen...
Check http://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/i_pdf/ThinkPad.pdf for the specs of currently-public models. Most of the models after October 2019 in the linked document are not yet public.
If current trends hold, the not-yet-released T14/T15/P15 will all have an optional screen available that's pretty good. Some of the lower-price L14/E14/AMD options will only have options for crappy screens. And, the point that's most important for Thinkpad enthusiasts, the majority of the business-lease sales that end up on eBay for $400 in 2023 will have the crappy screens and/or L and E series devices.
Still, I'm curious what the "ThinkPad Thor-TP" might be.
Believe it or not, there are still corporate legacy apps that run on DOS and looks great on 1366x768 and look like crap in 4k. In fact, Linux still look like crap in 4K today.
However, I'm going to have to disagree strongly with your latter statement: Linux looks great in 4K. I'm running Ubuntu 19.10 to an external 4k monitor from a T430 right now (native display is a 1600x900 TN unit, which kind of sucks) and it looks great. I've had no significant aliasing or other problems.
Even Windows guests with Virtualbox scaling look good. You could easily use that to run corporate legacy apps, and probably should, knowing the stability and installation difficulties associated with legacy apps.. a .vmdk is probably much easier to version and distribute!
Not sure if it is because of the apps or wayland or the laptop, but it works for me.
400 nits matte displays in other models are also excellent.
Many or even most common MacBook Pro competitors like The X1 and XPS 13 have a replaceable SSD but not RAM.
I’ve got a 2017 MacBook Pro and a 2016 Lenovo ThinkPad and the ThinkPad runs circles around it.
It’s also literally a hybrid drawing tablet laptop running MacOS - so unimaginably useful as a creative - and something Apple doesn’t offer, unless you want half-baked iOS software (no Illustrator, no Animate, no Blender) on an iPad Pro.
Even if it wasn’t for that awful keyboard (went to the Apple Store, tried the 16” keyboard, still not impressed) - there’s a ton of other factors. (Not to mention the ThinkPad keyboard is so tried and true my 2016’s keyboard is nearly identical to my 1996 ThinkPad...)
From the awesome amount of ports, tablet/ink support (if your ThinkPad has it), great battery life, native updates (I‘ve not had an issue with .x updates on Mojave or Sierra/High Sierra), and about half the price for the equivalent specs, it’s, IMHO, the literal best of both worlds. Even the build quality of ThinkPad laptops is lovely.
I’ve never had a single issue with MacOS not running as well or significantly better than the equivalent Apple hardware, with the exception of SSD write speeds.
EDIT: Forgot to mention the #1 benefit - replaceable HDD/SSD and upgradable RAM.
I will not, on principle, buy a computer whose hard drive I cannot remove with a basic computing toolkit.
And I will also not, on principle, buy a computer that cannot be internally upgraded.
The environmental impact alone is preposterous.
So what if you make your computers out of aluminum instead of plastic if you design them to have no future?
I think, specifically, of the ludicrously-limited 128GB SSD models of the 2016/2017 MacBook/Pro.
Using that, for basic development - (it was sadly what we were given at the startup I was working at during the time) - was useless, by the time I put Unity and XCode on it, and started making builds, I daily saw the ‘your hard disk is almost full’ message - and what is there to do about that, except get a whole brand new computer?