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posted by
Dopefish
on Saturday April 05 2014, @03:21PM
from the moore's-law-still-trucks-ahead dept.
from the moore's-law-still-trucks-ahead dept.
Question for the lentils out there: What makes and models of laptops are good these days? Traditionally, you could just get an IBM ThinkPad if you were willing and able to pay extra for quality, but judging by reviews, they aren't as consistent as they used to be. A 'nice' laptop has to get a lot of things right: fast internals, sturdy case, quality keyboard, excellent battery life, and good heat management, to name a few. Are there any manufacturers that sell machines worth buying anymore, or do you have to compromise?
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Recommendation for a Good Laptop Computer
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(Score: 3, Informative) by grub on Saturday April 05 2014, @04:05PM
Waiting for the howls of 'fanboy' to die down... There we go, thanks.
I've owned many, many laptops over the years and in 2011 bought this then-new MacBook Air, my first Apple laptop. Nearing my third year with it and an possibly considering a refresh myself, though perhaps to a MacBook Pro for more horsepower.
Even this little Air has enough jam in it to run VirtualBox with XP, Win7, OpenBSD 5.4, Ubuntu Linux and Bodhi Linux; though, of course, not at the same time.
The build quality is excellent, the battery life superb, it's just a great laptop.
Trolling is a art,
(Score: 3, Informative) by Nerdfest on Saturday April 05 2014, @04:23PM
I think there's even somewhat decent Linux support for it these days. The problem is that when you buy one, Apple gets money and they've been a very bad entity for the future of computing.
(Score: 1) by grub on Saturday April 05 2014, @05:23PM
Considering it's Unix under the hood, anything you need to connect to other *nix machines is there or can be easily installed. OpenSSH, X11, VNC, etc.
I've moved a bunch of my shell scripts over and most work with very minor mods. If you're a unix-head, they are great.
Trolling is a art,
(Score: 1) by HiThere on Saturday April 05 2014, @06:35PM
My problem with Apple, as with MS, is the EULA. I cannot agree to it. Back around 1998 I was quite pleased to have my wife use Apple...then there came this security upgrade with abusive changes in the license. I still have the computer, and there's some software that won't run on anything else. But it never touches the Internet.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday April 06 2014, @05:39AM
That 'bad for computing' company finally proved to the industry that laptop resolutions can be higher than 1920 by 1200. I've got work to do.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Informative) by Tork on Saturday April 05 2014, @04:24PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by siwelwerd on Saturday April 05 2014, @04:36PM
I also love my Macbook Air. I wouldn't have shelled out the money myself, but this is a work laptop, so they paid for it. I am hugely impressed with the light weight and minimal size. I don't need a separate laptop case to lug around; it goes in a soft case inside of my briefcase, along with books, notepads, pens, umbrella, etc. I think my briefcase itself weighs more than the computer. Processor power is not a concern for me (I am mostly reading PDFs, email, and writing tex documents), so the Air has plenty for my needs.
I like it so much, I am thinking of replacing my wife's dying Mac Mini with a Macbook Air.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by unimatrix on Saturday April 05 2014, @05:02PM
As much as people hate on Apple around here, they are one of the few manufactures left making quality laptops. It's interesting because my wife's company are replacing their ThinkPads with MacBook Pros because the last 2 batches of ThinkPads have had quality issues. In the past 13 years I'm on my 3rd Apple laptop. Started with an iBook that lasted 4 years. Then replaced it with a 12" PowerBook that lasted me 7 years and now I have a MacBook Pro that's going on 3. I still recommend buying Apple Care for those first 3 years. It saved me a laptop with the Powerbook after a spill from an overhead luggage bin. And with this machine I've had one keyboard replaced due to a key sticking. (I'll admit I'm hard on machines) But that was I took it in to the Apple Store at 6PM and had it back by 11AM the next morning.
At home my wife buys off the shelf computers from big box marts. Last HP laptops she has bought have lasted at most 18 months before a wireless card went out or something else broke.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Saturday April 05 2014, @05:10PM
Part of it is luck too. I know several people with MBPs (these were the models from about 4 years ago) that have had no end of problems. Most did get AppleCare though, so they did get fixed or replaced. It does add to the cost though and should be factored in, and the inconvenience factor is still there. I think they are a little better put-together than equivalently powerful machines at half the price, but individual component failure is about the same.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday April 05 2014, @05:15PM
I was waiting for this. I'm not an apple fanboi, but there is no question in my mind that Apple makes excellent laptops. I still have a MacBook Pro, six years old or more, doing daily duty in my office as an extra workstation for our office assistants. It took up that duty when I upgraded to my current MBP three or four years ago, which is still going strong even though I bought it as a refurb from Apple's store.
Basically, CPUs have gotten so fast that if you aren't a gamer, a computer can be perfectly useful for years and years -- everything basically depends on the build quality around the CPU. And while Apple may have some philosophical demerits, its laptops are well built, quiet, come with a real CLI and the ability to run a whole bunch of X11 stuff, will do virtual machines just fine, and when you decide you want to watch Netflix or YouTube, you don't have do anything like enable shady repositories hosted in Latvia and then spend hours futzing around with config files, then replace various components in your system because there just isn't a driver. I've been through all that. I love Linux for doing real work, but let's be honest, it's totally hit or miss depending on your hardware, for kicking back, having a beer, and watching some cat videos.
(Score: 2, Informative) by goody on Saturday April 05 2014, @08:16PM
I have both a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro. They're both the best laptops I've ever had, both from an OS and physical hardware standpoint. I used to think Apple hardware was too expensive and was a ripoff, until I started using one.
Last year I got a Lenovo Ideapad. I'm a bit disappointed with it. The keyboard flexes and the display is mediocre. The touchpad requires way too much force to click. The MacBooks make it look like a clunker.
On the Macbook Pro I run Linux and Windows 7 in VirtualBox VMs, often running both simultaneously. It's hard to tell they're not running natively when going full screen.
It's hard for me to get excited about any Wintel laptop these days after using Macs, even laptops running Linux.
(Score: 1) by kc99 on Saturday April 05 2014, @11:03PM
I used to think Apple hardware was too expensive and was a ripoff, until I started using one.
Ditto. After buying my first Mac in 2010, I have transitioned to an all-Apple ecosystem. I've never been more content...due in large extent to the quality of the hardware. This, coming from a previous die-hard Linux user.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday April 06 2014, @05:43AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by mverwijs on Saturday April 05 2014, @08:29PM
I bought one just for the battery life. And the weight. Great machine.
(Score: 2) by Daniel Dvorkin on Saturday April 05 2014, @09:22PM
B-b-but Macs are just PCs built with commodity parts that are exactly the same as the ones in everyone else's machines! You're just a trendoid fanboy who can't resist Steve Jobs' reality distortion field from beyond the grave! Apple tax! Only idiots who don't know anything about computers will have anything to do with Apple's walled garden!!! You're probably a latte-drinking metrosexual urban liberal warmist too, aren't you?!?!1111
Pipedot [pipedot.org]:Soylent [soylentnews.org]::BSD:Linux
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday April 06 2014, @12:35AM
Macs are fine ... it's the iOS devices that are the problem, and unfortunately are from the same company.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mmcmonster on Saturday April 05 2014, @09:32PM
Sorry. Only have one data point.
I purchased an aluminium MacBook (not a MacBook Pro) in the few months they sold it late 2008.
I've been waiting patiently for it to die. My wife and I use it quite regularly -- an average of 1-2 hours a night.
Finally, about a month ago the mouse click started getting a little less sensitive.
So I went to the Apple Store to buy a new Mac Book Air. Was getting eager to get 5+ years of speed improvements. I made the mistake of mentioning to the salesperson that the sensitivity of the mouse click was the problem with my current one.
So he had me make an appointment with their 'Genius Bar' peeps to look at my Mac Book. They took it to the back and played around with it. They brought it out and the sensitivity was back to normal. Apparently a screw had gotten loose and they were able to tighten it.
Now my wife won't let me get a new one because it's working fine.
Bastards.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Sunday April 06 2014, @09:39AM
I considered a MacBook when I last bought a laptop (last year), but ended up with an NEC LaVie X instead.
The specs of the Air don't seem to be that great. I wanted a 13" model with i7, but the screen is only 1440x900 compared to the full HD 15.6" display of the NEC. It has a low end i7 as well, and a crappy Broadcom wifi card (although it is AC, mine is only N but it is an Intel). The Macbook's run-time and battery cycle lifetime seems to be lower as well, despite weighing nearly as much. On top of all that it cost more too.
The MacBook Pro wasn't too bad spec wise but the price was astronomical. I'm not saying these are not nice laptops, but there are better spec and better value machines out there. FWIW I was also considering some of the ASUS Ultrabooks and the NEC LaVie Z.
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