That said, you should get the Air instead which is $999 with almost exactly the same specs, minus the annoying touch bar, and a tad lighter at 1.29kg.

I've used pretty much all the developer laptop contenders as daily drivers at some point. You get used to what you get used to, so marginally better isn't so important, I've found.

I'm going to pick one of the framework laptops because they look decent, but my secondary objective is to support a company that at least is walking some of the walk I want to see.

I love what Framework are doing, but integrated hardware does not immediately equal throwaway culture (saying as something who still uses their late 2013 MacBook Pro).

The main reason people buy new phones and macbooks is not that the old ones stop working, it's that the new ones are desirable, they are even slicker than the one you've got.

Apple adds features in attempt to lure people to 'upgrade' from a nearly identical product. Touchbar, face-id, 'apple silicon'. Most of this stuff doesn't change the value proposition of the core product. I'd say that the majority of Apple's user base is largely there for status reasons, and those people upgrade to keep the status they feel the brand grants them. As someone who isn't an Apple fan, but who uses some of their products, I am very aware there are exceptions, but I'd suspect that, like me, these exceptions also don't follow the press release driven upgrade cycle.

It's this type of consumerism that I'm personally not interested in. I want a tool, I want it be under my control. I want to be able to maintain it for its natural useful lifetime. That thinking does not belong in the culture Apple is fostering.

(Edit: and yeah, I get that Apple isn't the only culprit here, it's just that if a company seems to be fostering a culture that fits my ideals, I'm willing to compromise on 'slickness')

But if you want a tool, why do you want it to be "under your control"? I think most people are more like me, I just want a really nice computer that works well, I have exactly zero desire to replace the RAM or upgrade the SSD.

For phones the

I'll agree that it seems that currently most people are like you. They don't think about maintainability when it comes to belongings. If they care about the effects their actions have on the environment, they might want to start.

If you are buying a new phone and laptop every two years, where are you putting the old one? What happens to the toxic materials in the batteries? Did you need to have a new machined aluminum shell, or could you have just replaced the part that was bad inside it?

That all said, I don't have any illusions about changing the course of the average person's thoughts or habits via an HN post.

Like I said in the original post, I'm done with buying throwaway goods if I have an alternative. I'm happy that an option like the framework exists.

Using a laptop intensively for 5-6 years cannot be called "throwaway culture".

When it's finally unusable, Apple will recycle it for free, at least if you buy a new one at the same time. I don't know what they do with the battery, but I can't see why it would help if it was easily user replaceable.

Maybe you feel that the M1 is overhyped because you only had your previous laptop for a year or two? Coming from a 2016 MBP the difference was huge. And of course that laptop is still in use 5-6 hours a day.

Most importantly, assuming Framework is still around in 10 years, do you think you'll use it for significantly longer than 8 years, which I suppose will be the lifetime of my old MBP?

I have three old macbooks laying around that people just gave me because they didn't know what to do with them - all broken in some way. I wonder how many people actually recycle their laptops, and am worried about the answer.

Using my airpods pro at least 5 hours a day since they were released, also perfect shape. Like the AirPods 2 i handed down. I'm sure they won't last forever, but they've already provided a hell of a lot of usage for 200 bucks.

I wish it was easier to find actual data on battery life of 2016+ MBP models. Googling for "how long does MacBook Pro battery last" yields mostly useless results. There's a macOS app called "Coconut Battery" that tracks battery health over time, with an optional reporting feature that uploads the data to a server for comparison purposes.[2] Unfortunately the online viewer only allows you to view data by each individual model. It might be more helpful to aggregate the data from all 2016+ models, since the battery is the same, afaik. The online viewer also doesn't show how many reports the averages are based on. I wonder if it would be possible to scrape their data, to produce an evidence-based answer to the question "how long will my MacBook probably last?", rather than relying mostly on anecdotal evidence from Mac users.

Anyway, I think the idea that a $1300-$6500+ laptop ships with a glued-in, non-replaceable component that Apple themselves admits is "consumable" is just absurd, regardless of how long it may last.

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201585

[2] https://www.coconut-flavour.com/ccbonline

https://www.apple.com/batteries/service-and-recycling/

> Apple offers a battery replacement service for all MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro notebooks with built-in batteries.

I believe you probably mean “user replaceable” in your comments above. I do see the value in that for myself, which is why I still have my 2012 MacBook Pro. Nevertheless, I continue to my iPhone 6s after 3 battery replacements (I paid Apple for two and one was covered by them due to a recall).

I point this out because I think your criticism of Apple designing disposable hardware is less true of them than their competitors, at least in my experience. My Apple laptop and phone are the first Apple ones I’ve bought, and have outlasted my PC laptops and Androids by at least 2x.

If you want to make a criticism about Apple designing hardware that’s costly to repair, that’s something I could agree with.

By the way, the 2018+ MacBook Air does have a replaceable battery, in that Apple can replace it, so by extension, users can too (if they can track down a replacement).[2] Apple must adopt the adhesive pull tab approach on the MacBook Pro. The glued-in battery is completely unacceptable.

> I think your criticism of Apple designing disposable hardware is less true of them than their competitors, at least in my experience.

Keep in mind that, as the most profitable tech company in the world, Apple deserves to be held to a very high standard. Time and time again other companies follow their lead. Also keep in mind that Apple uses this profit to actively lobby against right to repair, making things worse for everyone in the long run.

Though laptops mostly don't care about repairability and any repairability they have is usually an accident, I don't think most other laptops on the market are quite as egregiously anti-repair as the MacBook Pro.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28637849

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28639234

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Touch+Bar+2...

As a user, my main concern with a battery replacement is that I get a new battery, that the device continues to work, and that it doesn’t take too long. If Apple decides the best way to meet those objectives is to swap the top case, I’d still consider the battery replaced.

> Assuming it's not user-replaceable nor Apple-replaceable, can we agree that it cannot be called a "replaceable" battery?

I could agree to calling these batteries “non-user replaceable”. What you’ve described is that Apple can do it, but they replace more components at the same time.

For what it’s worth, I like MacBooks but I skipped that generation of MacBook Pros because it didn’t seem worth it to me. I bought a non retina MacBook because I didn’t like the soldered on comments. After having 3 iPhone 6s battery replacements done by Apple, I guess I’m somewhat okay with glued in components as long as _someone_ can service it.

The only reason Apple "decides" this is because they designed the laptop with a non-replaceable battery. It would cost less money and be much less wasteful for them to replace just the battery, but they can't, because it's too difficult, because they designed it that way. This isn't the "best" way, it's most likely the only way for them to do it at their scale. They replace just the battery in the MacBook Air because they designed it with a replaceable battery.

The top case is replaceable -- Apple can replace it, and so can the user, if they can source a replacement. But the battery, individually? It's not replaceable. That iFixit guide you sent is not news to me. This is what I was referring to when I said:

> Yes, technically it may be possible, but if even the company who made it thinks it's too difficult, it's not very useful or accurate to call it "replaceable".

Most people (including myself) would never consider performing this procedure on their device. Apple won't do it. You would be hard-pressed to find a repair shop that would. It's far too risky and time-consuming.

Your definition of "replaceable" seems to be "theoretically possible to replace, even if extraordinarily difficult (by design)". Under this definition, basically any part in any product is "replaceable", so it is not a useful definition. Apple could probably not have made it any more difficult than it already is to replace the battery, and they don't even do this themselves, so it's perfectly fair to call it non-replaceable. Definitions are subjective; we must collectively decide how to use the word "replaceable" in this context, and I see no reason to adopt the almost meaningless, Apple-friendly definition. For example, depending on the definition, you might even be able to say the MacBook Pro battery is "user-replaceable". Does "user-replaceable" mean "designed to be replaced by the user", or "easily replaceable by the user", or "theoretically possible to replace by the user"? If the latter, then the MacBook Pro battery is user-replaceable, I guess.

I think a better definition of "replaceable" would be "feasible to replace, at least by the company who made it", and an even better definition would be "feasible to replace by the user". Either way, your definition is not useful.

> After having 3 iPhone 6s battery replacements done by Apple, I guess I’m somewhat okay with glued in components as long as _someone_ can service it.

The iPhone 6S battery uses adhesive pull tabs like the MacBook Air, so it is (easily) replaceable (by Apple, or by users, or by independent repair shops). The screen is lightly glued on, but that's standard procedure for phones these days, and the removal process isn't too difficult, risky, or time-consuming with the right tools [1].

In fact, it has been relatively easy to replace the battery in every iPhone released since at least the iPhone 4, and every iPhone since then has scored at least a 6/10 on iFixit [2]. So, afaik, the non-removable battery is currently only a problem with these Apple products: MacBook Pro (1/10 iFixit), AirPods (0/10), AirPods Pro (0/10).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kskal4s1sU, https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+6s+Battery+Replacement/5...

[2] https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iPhone

The high price is not an issue for professionals, but it does mean people are _more_ likely to repair them, not less.

>Anyway, I think the idea that a $1300-$6500+ laptop ships with a glued-in, non-replaceable component that Apple themselves admits is "consumable" is just absurd, regardless of how long it may last.

This is where my view differs, since I can just hand it in for replacement, I don't have any issues with that. To me it doesn't matter at all if I can do it myself or not. Well except if you have to leave it at the Apple store for several days, then that's very inconvenient.

In general I just see it as a practical and financial question, and since I use my laptop 10 hours a day, and earn a very good salary from it, 200 dollars more or less every three years is really insignificant.

I also have a 2008 MacBook and it's a treat considering its age.

I got my 16 GB Macbook Air for $1000 at Microcenter. For development purposes it's the same as a Pro, except it doesn't have a fan (and has never throttled) and doesn't have a touch bar (which is great)

The MBA is an insane value with the advent of the M1, a complete turnaround from the old days.

Also it has a trick up it's sleeve when it comes to this:

> the complete lack of repairability. As a reminder, your Mac's battery will die at some point, and your Mac will become useless.

First off, Apple will replace the battery in a MBA for $129 (vs $200 for the MBP), so a little alarmist...

But more importantly the new Air uses stretch-release adhesive (think command strips) and doesn't require removing the logic board for battery replacements. The MBP didn't inherent this improvement.

It's no Framework but it makes it the value proposition that much sweeter...

Class-action lawsuit filed for M1 MacBook screen cracks [U] https://9to5mac.com/2021/09/16/class-action-lawsuit-screen-c...

So the real test of the Framework computer is not in the first week. (Although the initial impression is very impressive!) The real test is whether I can, 3 years after buying the computer, replace the battery more easily than Apple could replace the battery in a Mac. Modular hardware is limited by the availability of the parts, and Framework doesn't have the brand to convince me that they'll be around for longer than I can get my computer serviced by Apple.

I like the idea of being able to fix my gear if I'm away on vacation or there's no apple store around. In fact, I'm overall a big fan of repairability because I'm a bit of a tinkerer.

But if it's a work machine? Then I'd rather have a replacement on standby- and Apples time capsule/time machine stuff works better than other backup/restore systems I've used.. replacing a machine is a 2hr process if you have something usable in stock.

Eitherway: I work in Europe, so these machines literally cost more than a monthly salary, it's cheaper for the company to have me sit on my hands for a week than to have a spare laptop for me.

Things which should be fixable by the user/IT personal on site:

- the battery

- the fan

- the keyboard

- storage

Luckily I have discovered an independent certified service provider for Apple devices, which is as flexible as the Apple rules allows for repairs, but just my experiences of getting the fan of my Mac Mini fixed by Apple were horrible.

1 week is an unacceptable wait for a business computer.

These devices are sold as "Pro" presumably meaning Professional. Not being able to work for a week is not professional. There are companies that give you a repair time in hours, not days.

>it's cheaper for the company to have me sit on my hands for a week than to have a spare laptop for me.

I'm self-employed so a week downtime cost me a week's salary. But even so, I wouldn't want to sit on my hands for a week, because I consider that unprofessional.

I dunno, this whole idea of 'trickle down innovation' that ends up coming at the expense of the working class is a very bad deal when you consider the amount of advanced technologies available today yet which have been enclosed/commoditized as 'intellectual property'.

Another example is Musk's scammy 'secret master plan' hustle that tells a feel good (yet misleading) story to the propertied class that they should 'buy a $170,000 Tesla to help make mass produced Tesla's possible for poor people'. Which is a rich story when you see that big oil companies, together with governments, suppressed viable electric car technologies for years ('Who Killed The Electric Car?' documentary). My point is that these are deep systemic issues that should be remedied at their root, instead of them being presented as something the non-propertied -class should plan and pay for, especially when you consider that we have actually already paid for it (remember we gave them those big juicy low-interest government loans).

At this point in time, buying a modular laptop like a Framework computer should have no risks involved with it.

We need to just grow many more open source standards. All that proprietary hardware and software does is remove valuable feedback loops and lessons from the commons. It criminalizes cooperation, interoperability, repairing and repurposing. Only the propertied class wins here.

All the above arguments only compound and multiply when you consider that most of the technology that exists today was developed with taxpayer backed government loans (Mazzucato: The Entrepreneurial State), meaning that, as she puts it, "we have ended up creating an ‘innovation system’ whereby the public sector socializes risks, while rewards are privatized".

[1]: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionCards

One of my biggest reasons for using Apple laptops was the now-defunct Joint Venture program. I enrolled all our company laptops under that program expressly for the loaner laptop during repairs and priority support. The ability for employees to walk into the nearest Apple Store to the current client account and walk out with a loaner the same day to restore from backups and return to the client the following day was a no-brainer business expense.

Now that program has no functional replacement for that benefit, switching to Framework looks extremely attractive, especially as more of our work finds ourselves in containers.

So I took it to a nearby dell garage for them to replace the 9550 motherboard with 9570 for roughly 300$ while keeping all of the other components unchanged.

I've honestly been shocked at the level of service.

Sadly, the 9500 has moved to a different chassis so further upgrades are impossible..

No, the real test is whether you, 3 years after buying the computer, can replace the battery more easily than you could replace it on the Mac. Applecare just covers the cost of a new laptop when your Mac breaks during warranty. "Repair" is a generous way of putting that.

The closed ecosystem and continued hardening of even access to inside of my machine is troubling and obviously anti-consumer. Those points coupled with the lack of even 32GB of RAM in an M1 model (not to mention the cost of the brand) makes my next computer a probably-not-apple machine.

Edit: I'll also mention that the fan noise hasn't been a problem for me (I rarely notice it), but that may be because I don't use too many demanding programs.

Sometimes the fans will spin up in the middle of the night for some kernel process presumably.

You can replace the battery yourself for like 50 bucks, or have Apple do it for 2-3x that. We have MacBooks from 2013 in perfect working order at home.

[1]: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Touch+Bar+2...

[2]: https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Battery+Replacement+Guide/85

My 2016 touchbar MBP13 still has an excellent battery though.

Also, amortised over 3-4 years of use I don't really see why it matters if it takes 1 or 3 hours. I'll take a 2 mm thinner computer any day.

I did the same with an MBA, replacing its battery in less than an hour by virtue of the battery not being glued to the case, nor having to worry about hidden clips built into the case, nor having to carefully dig out the guts of the system and putting them back together.

The MBP is in a totally different class -- as iFixit shows, you don't start removing the battery until step 51! And they're not kidding: to get to the battery, you have to do things like remove the trackpad assembly and pry out the logic board assembly.

Sure, you can amortize the 1-3 hours of labor over years of device ownership, but at every step, you're dealing with delicate parts, putting you in danger of turning your expensive, trusty daily driver into a brick.

Batteries are a wear item, guaranteed to have to be replaced. Apple's managers, designers, and engineers could show more empathy for their customers by making it easier and less risky to replace their wear items.

I'd rather have a slim computer than one where I can easily change the battery, so they are indeed empathic to the majority of customers.

The group of people that actually want to open their computer and tinker with it is extremely small, it just happens to be loud and living on HN.

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/07/2018-macbook-air-batter...

> or if you're paying them that much to replace the entire top case assembly

The link says that "previous" MBAs had replacable batteries, and I know that 2012-2014 had it, so I don't think it was ever the case.

> For comparison, the previous-generation MacBook Air has a screwed-down battery that can be removed and replaced by Apple and its service providers without a top case replacement, in line with other non-Retina notebooks.

Also, this article was written in November 2018, and here's what it says:

> the battery can be individually replaced in the new MacBook Air [...] In all other MacBook and MacBook Pro models with a Retina display released since 2012, when a customer has required a battery replacement, Apple has replaced the entire top case enclosure, including the keyboard and trackpad.

This implies that, at least from 2016-2019, they were replacing the entire top case assembly in MBP. I have no reason to doubt they still are. The article is mainly about the MBA so it is a little confusing, to be fair.

Of course, having the ability to replace everything else is great, but the battery should be a given. None of the other components are "consumable", though they might still fail eventually, or you might want to upgrade them.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMVDIMmbeoA, https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Late+2020+B...

If MacBook users could either replace the battery themselves (or take it to any repair shop if they somehow don't have a few minutes to spare), they wouldn't have to face the "repair or upgrade" dilemma until much later in the laptop's life. For Framework users, it isn't a problem at all.

[1] https://support.apple.com/mac/repair/service

Apple's trade-in program is pretty good. My 2012 MacBook Pro was still tradeable in 2019 for something like 400 bucks. I would consider that also if you don't want to abandon the Apple ecosystem.

Before having to use a Mac for work I preferred a P53 and an X1 as work laptops, but honestly now that I'm forced to use macOS again I don't miss Linux at all. Would be great to be able to choose though, but I'm kinda locked on Xcode because it's our build system.

Without starting flames... let's agree this is subjective.

For many people the options for the Framework are preferable.

Maybe some folk prefer the alternatives, and that’s fair, but if you did some pretty objective metrics of bugs, visual inconsistencies, user workflows for standard tasks (like adding new hardware…) well, it’s impossible to deny that Apple has significantly invested in making these things “nice”.

Its really quite difficult to argue the software is really the compelling offering with Framework laptops.

You can already get that on other systems if that’s your thing, and that’s never been enough to do more than barely raise a few eyebrows from folk who are particularly keen.

It's like I'm using my bike to ride down a mountain... you are using your bike to do city racing and don't understand why skinny tires and fixed gear and foot straps are not important to me.

Again, subjective.

How can you possibly argue that the army of programmers Apple has devoted to working on this one stack in one domain do less work than the widely distributed work done by a far smaller number of programmers on a far larger number of desktop stacks?

Don't be ridiculous.

I didn't say that the outcomes were better, just that more effort has been put in, in terms of hours-of-human effort.

That's a very different statement to "Apple has more person-years." In addition, by that measure, Windows is just as good, and works just fine on a Framework.

If we don't vote with our wallet, for the right thing, we deserve the worse future that we are going to get.

I do like MacOS more than Ubuntu (which I also use), and lately, customizability of Ubuntu has gone down too (As an old Mac-user, I want a menu bar, I actively dislike menus on each window) and the M1/M1X look real sweet compared to intel.

But Apple is the most anti-consumer company there is and I consider buying a Framework to give them a boost and hopefully purchase a laptop that will not need a full replacement for years. The ecological footprint of electronics is bad enough as it is, no need to reward companies that want you to throw away whole computers after 3y.

https://wccftech.com/intel-and-amd-x86-mobility-cpus-destroy...

I don’t use windows and not really a fan of spending like 24 hours a year just dealing with Linux driver issues and other headaches only to have a worse user experience.

That’s just my preference though so I’m probably never getting the foundation laptop but think it’s a cool product.

If I had the option to have purchased it with 1920x1080, I would have.

For what purpose? I can’t imagine a single advantage to lower resolution.

Even something as seemingly obvious like 1080p is a flawed standard because many TVs enlarge the input slightly to crop away junk on the edges, resulting in a physical 1080p screen showing an approximately 1060p image.

Just a reminder that the M1 MacBook Air has no fan, and is still at the top.

When choosing a laptop you of course look are more factors than just performance, but for many, that alone will be an extremely important consideration. Not to mention that - incredibly - there isn't even a conventional battery life tradeoff for that top performance. In that sense, the M1 is a no-brainer.

[0] https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

I very nearly bought an M1 Macbook, but realized I didn't want to live with currently early stage linux compatibility. I'm still thinking of buying an M1 mac mini as a little home server though - that tiny power consumption combined with such good CPU performance is perfect for that use case (although it would be nice if I could somehow attach a bunch of hot swap HDD bays to a mac mini too).

I am used to work in Linux OS VM(Virtualbox and Vagrant in MacOS) and do most PHP/Python web development. It seems that Virtualbox won't be supported and There is only one Linux VM option available [UTM](https://github.com/utmapp/UTM)

I would hate to invest too much time for a new dev environment just for M1. How's your experience?

- a typescript React recompile causes music playing to buffer for a couple of seconds.

I wanted to love it but I much prefer my mid level Intel based MacBook Pro

I don't use MacOS, is it still a no-brainer?

What counts is the majority of buyers after these techies.

It's similar the early buyers of a Tesla who could say "ahh it will be so eco I don't have to buy another car for 10 years" and, 3 years later they buy themselves the new model as they would have normally do with a combustion engine car. Consumers first.

The key point is that repairability is important and is a marketing ploy but isn't a real fundamental issue for wealthy techies. They will just get another laptop in a year or so.

It's the non techies that are important, not us! It's the majority and long tail, not the early adopters that this laptop should be for!

In addition to repurposing some of the old electronics & the entire chassis, they have massive performance, complete repairability & upgradability, a max of 64GB RAM & 3 storage disks, all in a smallish (but thick) Thinkpad form-factor. Oh, and they come with two power supply options (USB-C and barrel jack) and have functional VGA ports and ethernet jacks. Batteries are a bit of a problem though.

So you're not a techie in the sense it's being used.

Techie can mean someone who's an expert on technology, but when it comes to talking about techies as consumers, it's about people who always chase the latest and greatest.

It's tautological, you're not a techie in this context if you don't consume new tech.

Why?

This is the way we end up having only mass-market, lowest-common-denominator products. Not fighting to get quality tooling for our niche is one of the important reasons we don't get any.

I’m struggling to see the feature in OPs article considering that they have gone through more laptops since I bought my MacBook Pro 2016 than I’ve owned laptops in my life.

Why was it necessary to replace a thinkpad every year, and what makes you think that the author isn’t just going to replace this one?

I have a feeling I’m going to have my MacBook Pro 2016 for longer than the author has this one.

I do support repairability, and I really don’t see why we let companies get away with ducking it over, but at the same time, there are now 3 different versions of the fairphone, sort of defeating the point of it. I’m sure frame.work is better than the fairphone, but I think you get the point I’m trying to make.

Unless you get faulty hardware, you’re probably better off taking good care of it. I mean, I still have an old 14” iBook PowerPC that works perfectly well with Linux. Its hardware is obviously not up to my current needs, but I don’t see why my current MacBook Pro 2016 won’t live with me for another 5 years at least. And by then I hope legislation has forced Apple into making things more repairable.

But there isn’t actually a very good reason to replace your hardware unless it stops working. At least not in my mind, and none of my Apple products have stopped working on their own. I’ve been luckier than some people in that regard, but I also still own a Sony tv from the early 00s that’s perfectly fine when hooked up with the MacBook so sometimes it’s also about buying the things that are tested so you don’t end up in one of the famous Apple recalls or the issues that come from them.

It’s very anti-consumption not to buy the newest thing, I know, but I sort of think the swap to frame.work for the sake of buying something repairable defeats the entire purpose of wanting something repairable unless you make the swap after your old machine literally breaks

The Air gives this thing a run for its money at a (albeit $21) lower price.

That said, I’m 100% behind the Framework concept though - I like the direction they’re heading in. If I needed a Linux/Windows laptop it would be a serious contender for me.

As a dev, I feel it's not ready yet on the software support side. It will eventually come, but if we follow the "don't buy now on the promise of future updates" principle, right now not being on AMD/Intel is a downside.

What are the biggest issues you’ve seen so far from a dev perspective?

The Framework laptop has seriously got me considering moving away from macOS to Linux as a daily dev machine and keeping my Macs for home use (and music production for which I don’t want to leave Logic Pro).

But by the same token I’d love the crazy battery life, no fan noise and raw speed of an M1 for my main coding machine….

Two cases where my work was impacted

1) I work with laravel running on a couple of docker containers. There's complicated bug where a memory leak caused by some low-level package all PHP docker containers rely on which is exclusive to Rosetta. It caused all my php containers to be out of memory permanently.

It's not an issue I had in the beginning, don't know the exact cause but I wasn't able to fix it once it started happening, so had to move away from docker for development (which was not problematic luckily)

2) It can't build OBS. OBS, like many other open-source software packages need a maintainer to add support for M1 build-steps. There was a major dependency that didn't have M1 build support yet, so simply not possible until that gets fixed.

This is the case for many packages, it just needs time before everyone catches up.

But for the rest it's perfect imo. The battery life is insane, the no-noise fan is insane, the no-heat is insane. Only battery/heat issues I ever get is when I game on it, which it isn't meant for necessarily either but just saying.

Edit: Oh I forgot to mention that while the keyboard feel is great, its build quality is.. questionable. One time a key just got stuck out of nowhere. Just stuck, nothing to do. I tried repairing it myself but oddly 3 months ago (not sure about now) there were no guides on how to safely tuck it loose, clean it and put it back.

I broke it unfortunately. This has not been my experience with any other laptop or keyboard ever. I hate this part of Apple's philosophy the most, "It's broken? Please give us a lot of money."

I use homebrew, and a number of stuff is still on x86 only, needing to run in a Rosetta terminal. My ruby install is one of these.

For php, php-brew couldn’t build the version I need till the end, so I bailed out of it and moved it to docker. Same for mysql 5 (upper versions seem to be available for the M1).

That was right when Hashicorp announced the Desktop pricing change, and I didn’t know what my org would do so I started checking the other options. Except docker-machine/engine is supported independently only on Intel, M1 chips need docker desktop to run containers (at least that’s my take, I’d love to be wrong).

Basically right now my local dev relies on Rosetta and docker, and I seriously think about buying an intel NUC as a side machine where I’d remote into.

I do already have a NUC running Docker and had thought about using that if needed when I move to an M1 so it’s interesting you’ve had the same idea.

At contrary, today at work we bought for 900 euros (700 without taxes), plus less than 100 euros for an extra 16Gb RAM module, a thinkpad T14, that has all the features of the base model, but with 512Gb SSD, Ethernet directly on the laptop, a better keyboard, a trackpoint, more USB ports, a fingerprint reader, and a Windows 10 Pro license.

To me it doesn't make a lot of sense this laptop. Regarding repairability, it's just like any other Thinkpad, the modular IO, what is its purpose? Also you are adding components that can break, consume power, and waste space. And still you don't provide an ethernet integrated on the laptopt itself, so you have to always carry around a USB adapter that doesn't work as reliably as an integrated one.

The preconfigured model comes with your choice of 4 ports, the options being USB-C, HDMI, microSD, USB-A, and DisplayPort. The default config is 4x USB-C, but you get to choose.

> a fingerprint reader

Framework has that too.

Anyway, as far as I understand, if you configure it yourself, it will actually cost less money. This is the cost of the preassembled version, but for example, you could buy the "DIY edition" with everything that the preassembled model has, just without Windows, for $909 (~775 euros). The price drops even further if you remove the SSD, RAM, or Wi-Fi module and buy your own.

I understand that everyone has their own priorities when it comes to a laptop. I'm only comparing laptops within the "thin and light" category here. At 1.5kg, 13" x 9" x 0.7", the ThinkPad T14 probably falls into this category, but it is slightly heavier and bulkier than the options I listed. One of my top priorities is thin/light, but I understand those more concerned about performance or # of ports and Ethernet connectivity.

Additionally, I like this company's dedication towards right to repair, and buying the laptop supports them. It's a huge bonus that the laptop has competitive specs, though.

Currently, my primary working environments are some sort of Unix, with CDE, stumpwm, or dwm - pretty ultralight environments by today's standards. I do think these environments can be described as "fast".

As to the actual machine in question (with the i7-4700k), that's my gaming desktop. It's run mostly Windows over the years, with some OS X thrown in there. For the past year or so it's been pretty much just OS X, but I do boot into Windows from time to time for this or that. Neither of these OSes are as fast as the stripped down environments that I prefer, but neither is appreciably faster or slower than the other, either, in my experience (unless something is broken; I could of course tell you horror stories about both platforms). From my perspective, both of them are enormous inefficient monstrosities, but the hardware is also really fast.

> In my experience linux was about 30% faster for typical web development tasks (npm install, angular build, …)

Yeah, these types of things aren't great on Windows. Especially if you run into corner cases, a lot of tools that were written for Unix environments go to dog on Windows. I don't know what most of the individual issues are, and I don't really know that it's even a matter of CPU (vs. operative latency, deadlocks, etc.). But the poster I was responding to seemed to be saying that Windows itself is too much for a modern i5 to handle, and that just isn't my experience.

Unzipping is a single threaded task, so it's going to run at the same speed even on a 5950x.

On the software side, I am absolutely aware of what is available.

File operations do seem pretty slow on Windows. What I've noticed is that latency for individual access seems really bad. Does that latency actually scale with CPU speed?

Edit: btw, what were you using to unzip the file on Windows? How about Linux (unzip?)

What Linux kernel/distro, what sort of zip file (large files vs small, encrypted?)

I'm talking about build quality and performance.

1. The touchpad button doesn't work when the body is flexed.

2. As another person replied, the touchpad button is unusable when the battery is swollen.

It runs Linux wonderfully well. Don't know if they still make new (2021?) versions of it though.

And eventually new motherboards will come up that are not compatible with your case or accessories.

Anyone know of a Linux equivalent to Alfred and BetterTouchTool? I can get by with Gnome but these two tools are such a workflow gamechanger. Workflows and copy buffer with seamless integration in particular.

After that, I bought a MacBook Pro and never thought about hardware ever again, except when I bought my second MacBook 7 years later.

Apple s durability and quality go a long way. And it’s « standardization » means it’s actually quite easy to replace batteries for example.