As an ex-linux user and current mac user, I'm still frustrated by linux laptop hardware support. Ethernet ports that need to be re-plugged, suspend-to-disk not working... lots of glitches things that were already annoying 6-7 years ago but now are hard to justify compared with the polish you can expect from other systems. I could never go back from my macbook because I need everything to just work - no glitchy touchpads, dodgy networking, haphazard sleep (and that's before we get into the quality of the available hardware). I want to actually do things with my computer, not spend my time fixing glitches.
I recently switched back to Linux (ThinkPad/Arch/Kernel4.8) after 5 years using a Macbook Pro (after using linux for 5 years previously).
Linux hardware support has become much better without a doubt.
However just in the last couple days I've had the following sporadic issues:
* External usb keyboard/mouse simply wouldn't work (and doesn't show up in lsusb). Restart fixed.
* If left overnight, occasionally won't wake up from sleep; requires restart.
* Upon start trackpad/trackpoint occasionally doesn't work; do not show up in xinput; probably fixable, but haven't dug into it.
On the other hand, mac had its own issues:
* Macbook takes relatively forever to come back from sleep; thinkpad is practically immediate.
* Macbook wireless constantly has issues connecting, to the point of having to turn off wireless and back on multiple times (this occurs often).
* Opening many tabs in chrome on mac causes serious slowdowns. Have yet to see any slowdown on thinkpad even with 20-30 tabs. This also goes generally for mac beachball issues.
In general, Arch/i3 combo is far better than MacOS for my needs (95% of time in terminal/browser).
But macOS is famous for having fast wake from sleep. It's always had this, years before Windows and Linux started catching up. It's always been near-instantaneous for me.
That said, it would seem that they have, and continue to have, issues with waking up with a new external monitor. Maybe you're being hit by this? Occasionally when I arrive at home or the office and plug my asleep-and-lid-closed MBP 2015 in, the screen will display garbage for a while, and hang for 10-30 seconds until it shows the unlock screen. Sometimes it doesn't recover at all.
I should have been more specific, and the word 'forever' was overly hyperbolic - though when you're doing it 20 times in an hour it gets to feel that way.
Relative is the key:
Linux wakes up in milliseconds every time; by the time I open the lid all the way it's ready to go.
rMBP (2012) can be from almost as fast as linux to ~10 seconds. I'd guess the average is ~3 seconds; though sometimes even when it wakes up fast I'll still get a beachball for a bit.
I mostly use my laptop around the house and often open and close it many times in a short period -- for instance say I'm reading something technical on the kindle in the armchair; I'll flip it open quite often to test or look something up quickly, so even having to wait a few seconds gets obnoxious.
I could just leave it open, but I don't always have a safe place to put it while open.
note: no external monitor, so that's not the issue.
> * Macbook takes relatively forever to come back from sleep; thinkpad is practically immediate.
What about battery life?
Have you tried [1]? This is based on a HN comment. Explanations on the functions are also found here [2].
> * Macbook wireless constantly has issues connecting, to the point of having to turn off wireless and back on multiple times (this occurs often).
Which macOS version was this? Wasn't a related framework replaced recently? Or was that only DNS?
> * Opening many tabs in chrome on mac causes serious slowdowns. Have yet to see any slowdown on thinkpad even with 20-30 tabs. This also goes generally for mac beachball issues.
How much RAM is in the MBP? I had 100+ tabs open on a MBP 2010 (4 GB RAM default, replaced with 8 GB RAM, replaced 512 GB HDD with 256 GB SSD) and never had any issue with that after the hardware replacements. Are you comparing a 5 year old machine with a new one?
> In general, Arch/i3 combo is far better than MacOS for my needs (95% of time in terminal/browser).
Have you ever tried Homebrew (+ Cask) + Amethyst + iTerm2 + Tmux on the Mac?
>* Macbook takes relatively forever to come back from sleep; thinkpad is practically immediate.
Waking up from sleep has been nice and fast in Linux for a while, but I have to say that regardless of all the frustrations I've found using OS X over the last year, waking from sleep isn't one of them. It has been nice and fast every time.
>* Macbook wireless constantly has issues connecting, to the point of having to turn off wireless and back on multiple times (this occurs often).
I've found wireless to be a really bizarre experience on OS X. If there are two networks it can connect to in range, it doesn't seem to pay much attention to the strength of the signal, and it always seems to overstate how strong the signal is (that may feed into the former).
I can be sitting in the same room as another wireless endpoint, and it'll choose the one furthest away from it, where wireless strength is pretty low, and constantly suffer communication problems. I've made it a point now to go check which wifi it has connected to.
You can change your sleep mode to get rid of the hibernate restoration. I have to warn you although, your battery life of your sleeping laptop will go down:
Indeed, very useful. On Android I had similar issues and had to install a program called Wifi Prioritiser (or something akin to that as there's multiple solutions available). Unfortunately it has a slight impact on battery life.
Sure. I'd rather it just went with the one with the strongest signal, however. I shouldn't need to juggle SSID priority order based on which room I happen to be in.
A few notes for context on why (for my needs) linux is better than mac:
Off the top of my head there are a few primary reasons I prefer linux:
* WM Aesthetics - Arch+i3 (or any minimal, preferably tiling WM) provides a gorgeous minimalist aesthetic -- checkout /r/unixporn for examples. MacOS is just too visually noisy for me.
* I was going to buy a new macbook pro, but then they went and got rid of the escape and function keys. Escape I could probably live without (I tap caps-lock for escape), but function keys I want (at least until the apple touchbar proves itself to be comparatively useful).
* I'm tired of Apple's hyperbole and smugness, especially considering they haven't done anything really interesting since Jobs passed away.
* Customizability: really no comparison here. This is my big one.
* Pacman/AUR - honestly homebrew is pretty good though.
Negatives:
* Occasional weirdness/breakage.
* Can take a lot of research to figure out how to get things to work at times (note: usually not common things anymore though, like wifi etc); sometimes they just don't work without an unreasonable amount of work, or at all (e.g. hibernate). Many things are esoteric in general and have marginal documentation (arch wiki is great though). Granted this is part of the fun (I mean, I am a programmer :).
* Spent tens of hours setting things up to function the way I want (keep in mind I don't use gnome/kde so that would likely fix a lot of issues like external monitor support for HiDPI, and I tend to do heavy/esoteric customization of the user experience). Most of this is because I haven't used linux as my personal machine for ~5 years (i.e. setting it up again would be a few hours or less likely). If you use Gnome/Unity/KDE this probably wouldn't be the case.
* HiDPI (x1 carbon): I think this is actually decent in kde/gnome/unity (?), but it's pretty terrible in most GUI apps in my minimal setup. After some fiddling chromium is fine and I generally simply don't use GUI apps otherwise, and when I do it's still usable if not great. Retina screen and OS support was the primary thing that kept me on a mac. (edit: terminal and chrome look great so I'm happy)
* Miss a few apps: Quiver, Artful, Dash
* I still keep my mac around just in case, but haven't needed it yet.
* Touchpad: nothing touches a macbook (although I'm not jazzed about the huge new one), on the other hand the X1 Carbon's is actually quite good.
oh, and I use Manjaro-i3 [1] -- I've been there, done that with setting up Arch from scratch...highly recommended.
FUD. I do use the features you are mentioning, but encounter none of the issues. Thinkpad + Arch user.
We Linux users need to realize we are an island, and it's our duty to:
- Either Linux-QA-check on our own / as a community the hardware we're buying before we buy, because the constructor isn't doing it (it's doing it for the actively supported OS, Windows).
- Or buy {System76 / Thinkpad}, and get {a lot of / some} help from the constructor.
EDIT: agreed that Mac hardware quality is miles ahead though, not contradicting you on this specific point.
Dismissing anecdotes about failure as FUD is not constructive. FUD is first and foremost a business tactic.
Sure, anecdotes aren't necessarily that useful. For every happy Mac user there seems to be an angry one who always had hardware problems, for example. But it's not exactly news that Linux has issues with hardware compatibility. It's the nature of the beast, really; Apple is able to target a very specific configuration, whereas Linux has to work on any old crappy Windows PC.
> "Dismissing anecdotes about failure as FUD is not constructive. FUD is first and foremost a business tactic."
Hm, reading {your, UnoriginalGuy, mwfunk} comments, I realize "FUD" is a loaded term. I was using it literally, missing the strong stuff associated with it. Point taken, thanks.
That's a very disrespectful way of starting a post. In particular as you conclude that you largely agree with them. So which is it, they're spreading "Fear, uncertainty and doubt" or they're right? In either case, seems unconstructive.
> So which is it, they're spreading "Fear, uncertainty and doubt" or they're right?
They're spreading the FUD that Linux laptop hardware support is frustrating, no questions asked. It's FUD because it's a fear-inducing oversimplification of the current state of things, which is that Linux laptop hardware support is enjoyable -if you do your homework-.
It's not FUD by definition because they are literally talking about their personal experiences. FUD is a form of astroturfing. FUD is knowingly and intentionally dishonest, by definition. If you're going to immediately sink to that level, why bother with FUD accusations- just go full Slashdot and accuse them of shilling for some company you don't like because of some random tribal affiliation.
I think the point was that most would rather just have a machine that works out of the box so they can do their actual work instead of 'doing their homework' on how to get their machine to hibernate, connect to wifi reliably, etc...
You're re-framing the context of "doing their homework".
I agree you shouldn't be doing any homework to perform basic tasks such as "get [the] machine to hibernate, connect to wifi reliably, etc...". I'm not doing any of it on my Thinkpad, where these tasks work without messing around.
And in an ideal world, yes, I'd love not having to ever think about it too :) . But in the current Windows-dominated non-Mac consumer hardware world, what I say is that you should be doing homework prior to buying a machine you expect to install Linux on.
OP meant on what machine to buy (something you'd probably do before buying a Windows laptop anyway). But if like me can't be bothered with even this then just buy a system 76 or an xps with ubuntu pre-installed... No homework required.
Similar story here. Used linux in my HS/early college years, but switched to Mac when the swapped to intel. Recently looked at the possibilities of using linux again, but haven't really found any hardware that "just works." There is that one dell ubuntu dev laptop, but that is a pretty expensive gamble at $1800.
The best luck I've had for now is installing ubuntu on a crappy cheap Samsung Chromebook. Runs really well and everything seems to work fine, but the hardware is junk (The screen is atrocious coming from retina IPS displays.) Fun to play around with though, plus the battery life is incredible for it's $180 price tag.
We have more than one (dell.com/sputnik), several of which are less than $1800. If you're in Europe, you can also order online most of our Latitudes with Ubuntu too (should be able to by phone in the US too).
I've owned and used both the Dell Precision M3800 and now the Precision 5510 running Ubuntu. They've generally worked well for me. The M3800 with UHD screen and discrete graphics generally sounded like a jet taking off when the fan was going. The 5510 is practically silent in my experience and works more reliably to boot (e.g. I have a lot less trouble with the new Intel WiFi card than I did with the M3800's Broadcom card). Your mileage may vary of course.
I recently got the Precision 5500, which is great for the most part. The screen flicker is a trifle irritating, but I've had zero Linux compatibility problems. (I opted for Intel graphics.)
I just got one with the discrete graphics, and it works great with nvidia-prime. I only had to configure the touchpad a bit to avoid bumping it while I type. I upgraded from my beloved T420, and this is a great laptop.
I have a Samsung ARM (2 core, 2G RAM, 16G Flash) based ChromeBook, Model XE303C12. It's rather simple to get Linux to work on it. You first enable developer mode and then install Crouton (which basically runs a full fledged Linux in chroot jail - to satisfy the based Linux install.
It works exceptionally well and I generally get about 10 hours of use on each battery charge. I store my work in progress on a USB3 USB flash drive.
The screen is only 1366 x 768 and the touchpad is rather lousy. So given the shortcomings, I've gone back to using an old MBP. Maybe buying a second-hand MBA and installing Linux on that is the better option.
It really seems like only Apple can do touchpads. Thank you for the feedback! It saves me doing it and regretting it. Though some of them have better monitors.
I'm running linux on my laptops for decades and experienced none of the problems you mentioned. Everything works flawlessly. If you plan to run linux on your laptop, you will have to research first how well the computer is supported. You can't install MacOS (or even Windows) on just any computer neither.
I'll raise you one and say that even if you installed Linux on a laptop built for Linux, it would still be inferior to a MacBook. I bought a System76 GalagoPro a few years back, today it is a media center. It's the most use it's gotten since I bought it.
Depends...I had more problems with my work MBP to be honest than with my Arch clevo laptop I use at home.
On the MBP, I experience semi-frequent freezes, kernel panics, overheating, unstable WiFi, inaccurate battery status reporting, scaling issues, occasional green tint, FS lock up etc. - it's still nice, but I wouldn't say it's more smooth than modern Linux with GNOME 3, in fact I've had much less problems with that setup than with my MBP.
Arguably the difference is still the amount of resources Apple throws at the Macbook line compared to the amount of resources System76 throws at their computers. Truth be told I'd rather buy a Thinkpad or Dell XPS than a System76 laptop.
Apple has engineers dedicated to building hardware and software that work together. They design and manufacture their own hardware. System76 doesn't. They pick out some components, and get them assembled elsewhere, and ship that out to you.
A better comparison would be Dell's XPS line, which at least has some number of people actively working on making sure they work well and are well supported, but still not to the same degree as Apple, and my understanding is they're generally told "make this work with Linux", as opposed to building a laptop specifically for linux.
The basic issue with all this is hardware manufacturers, and their fire and forget attitudes towards products.
Thus they barely get their stuff working on the major commercial platforms, and all the rest have to either beg for specs so they can write their own (good luck) or reverse engineers (and risking bricking the hardware because of abusing standards for firmware flashing and whatsnot).
And your primary complaint boils down to power management, aka ACPI. And it, like UEFI, suffers from the second system effect (Linus Torvalds do not hold either in high regard for example). There is at least one documented case of a name brand motherboard offering up junk ACPI data unless Linux claimed to be Windows.
Linux appears to be at a standstill because each time a new motherboard or expansion card gets released, the process basically starts from ground zero unless it happens to be based of some bottom of the barrel chip with zero modifications so the Linux devs can just add another product ID to the driver table and call it a day (resulting in things like USB webcam drivers that support some 100+ camera models).
> Thus they barely get their stuff working on the major commercial platforms, and all the rest have to either beg for specs so they can write their own (good luck) or reverse engineers (and risking bricking the hardware because of abusing standards for firmware flashing and whatsnot).
Thus the shortest way to get a working system is to stop being an hipster and use one of the major commercial platforms.
Perhaps, but I get very annoyed with basically everything to do with Windows. Best case scenario for actually getting work done on a computer running Windows for me is to just setup a virtual machine running some flavor of Linux, and just spend all my working time in that VM.
Which, in that case, why even have Windows installed, you're just giving resources to something that isn't doing anything besides giving you access to an entirely separate operating system.
Yes, this is perhaps a manufactured problem, but windows is just generally not conductive to my style of work. And really all I need is zsh, tmux, and vim working without causing an audible ping every time I hit a key to be happy.
I'm probably the only one around here that went from Mac to Linux... I decided to do this after a number of frustrating problems with hardware: ethernet port not working [1] and a severely swollen battery (although I followed all the advices to prevent this) which was not covered by the warranty "because of the laptop's serial number".
I decided to buy a Lenovo E540 a couple of years ago, on which I run Linux Mint: I like KDE's awesome interface add much add I liked Mac OS X's. I wouldn't ever go back...
I still run Linux despite all the challenges and all the hardware constantly breaking and working just-not-right, because I just love the openness and I don't understand how can Apple (and windows) users survive without "apt-get". Homebrew is a poor substitute for me.
I am basically using linux just for apt-get, the configurability and the ability to test server-side software in the same-ish environment as it will actually run in is a nice plus.
But yeah, people that argue that "there are no issues" are either lying or were incredibly lucky. I actually bought a laptop that had ubuntu pre-installed that stopped working immediately after doing a system update! (Because the laptop had a binary blob driver for a graphic card, and that stopped working with some new kernel or whatever.)
I run linux mostly because I want to be able to use the machine in whatever way I like. MacOS is designed around "You use it this way", and tries to keep you away from the warts by kind-of enforcing that position.
One of the most ridiculous examples of "You must do it our way" is the inability to remap mouse buttons (or even support buttons on a mouse with more than left, right and scroll.) MacOS would rather you use gestures on the magic mouse (that thing is an ergonomic nightmare). To be able to support extra buttons, you have to pay for software from the app store, e.g. USB Overdrive.
Homebrew has been pretty great for me. You can install desktop apps with brew cask, dump your current app install state with brew bundle and then reinstall it all with one command on a new machine. You can even manage mac store apps with brew bundle with the `mas` app. It has been pretty central in my dotfiles script.
Consider using a VM, and using either Windows or OS X as graphical user interface. You can then easily SSH into the VM, and do most of the development there. If you run a samba (or nfs) server on the VM, you can even easily use e.g. VS Code. Add an X server and you can run (albeit not very fast) run graphical programs (e.g. and IDE) as well.
Sure, HW would work better, but I don't want to update two OSes instead of one.
And the only thing I am really missing on Linux is Adobe Creation Suite. GIMP and Inkscape are not nearly adequate (although they are for a better price). And there is literally nothing like Flash, for a simple animation.
I've found apt-get compared to homebrew close to useless, it has rapidly outdated packages that have been modified and "fixed" in various ways by maintainers. It also does not properly separate two completely different concerns:
1. Provide a updates for a base installation, the details of which you essentially don't want care about (working drivers, recent kernel version, recent version of wayland/x11 etc.)
2. Provide a repository of curated, versioned and up-to-date software development dependencies
Apt-get does an adequate job at 1., although I have more than once broken my base installation because the binary graphics driver broke after an update, but not so much at 2.
Homebrew is good because you can completely mess up your installation and not effect the base system at all and it is a good starting point to get reasonably up to date development packages. It also offers a much smoother user experience than most package managers.
YMMV. For me, I got angry that there were many parallel ways of updating and getting software on Mac.
Some elevated Apple apps are updated via System Update. Some are updated via Mac App Store. Some are updating themselves when they feel like it. Some are updated via brew, or via macports.
But I am not gonna argue much or anything, I grew out of my teens and I no longer want to tell other people that my OS is the best :) it's not, I definitely wouldn't give Linux to my mom (at this state).
Being a current Linux and former macOS user, I actually miss Homebrew sometimes. It's much easier to get recent versions of software and also easier to set up your own repository (tap).
In my experience Linux on Mac when the hardware is supported brings overall better experience for development than Mac OS. USB-to-anything dongles that just work without any driver installation, much better behaviour under memory pressure, container technologies that allows to run not-so-trusted software without overhead of VM, fancy networking setups for stimulating production setups.
For that I tolerate ocasional (like twice in a week) forced power offs when the notebook does not wake up or when wifi stops working.
About drivers: You are right... but things get a lot lot more messy if your specific USB driver is not maintained in the Linux Kernel.
I have the opposite experience with memory pressure (speaking only about desktop here). macOS (& Windows) do memory compression by default and most of Linuxes I know don't do that by default. I also have the feeling that at least desktop Linux get's incredible slow when you run out of memory and swapping begins (never encountered similar amount of slowliness on Windows or macOS with low memory).
Regarding container technology and macOS. If you are into docker checkout latest dlite beta: https://github.com/nlf/dlite/releases It runs docker on Kernel virtualization level on macOS with xhyve without the need of VirtualBox etc.
I installed Docker today on a fresh macOS installation and was very delighted to find out that VirtualBox is no longer required. The latest official Docker version for Mac uses HyperKit, also based on xhyve.
I always activate zswap as a part of Linux installation. With that Linux handles memory pressure better than mac os or Windows especially when the size of dataset reaches 130-150% of RAM.
All operating systems suffer from similar random, minor, glitchy issues. I use all three extensively on a daily basis and while there are things I like about all three, there are also things I dislike about each of them.
Linux is generally a little worse. However, from my experience Windows and MacOS are approximately equally buggy in comparison to one another.
An example of an issue I have with my Macbook is that every single day I have to plug my network cable into it 2-4 times before it will recognize the connection.
I agree to this, but Linux gives other advantages in the long run like better updates and greater independence.
Furthermore you have a lot less problems these days with Linux IMO and so often the quirks are fast to fix. E.g. the full installation cost me 1h plus 1h for copying my old data and I could start working.
Had recurring wifi issues on a Macbook Pro as well (as did many of my co-workers)... Not saying it's great on Linux but I would hardly call the alternatives much better...
Same, after about 48 hours uptime my MacBook will start dropping network connection every few minutes. This can only be cured by a full reboot.
The MacBook also regularly (at least once per week) drops all input devices (including built in keyboard and trackpad), which can only be cured by a hard power-strangle and reboot.
My colleagues experience the same problems too.
Basically, the ultra-reliable Mac is a myth, its as prone to failure as any computer.
Exact same experience. Roughly 48 hours of uptime and then I have to reboot in order to maintain a SSH connection.
That, and Finder that becomes unusably slow after working with images for a few hours. (Admittedly, tens of thousands of images, but it degrades to the point that merely opening an empty folder takes 2-3 seconds.)
I have this issue with my 11" MacBook Air as well as my 15" MacBook Pro from work. I do not have the issue with my personal MacBook Pro, which is identical hardware configuration and model to my work machine. All are running the same version of macOS. It's honestly a kind of a mystery to me.
To be fair, I've only bought their Meerkat (like a Mac Mini). I looked at their laptop offerings, but couldn't justify the high price for underwhelming specs. I wound up giving up and just buying a $200 Chromebook.
Witnessed both a mac and windows machine having software/networking glitches, both with non-esoteric hardware pretty much at factory settings. I wish it was a case of use just fire up and forget, but sadly 'bugs' plague all platforms.
Yes, yes, exactly this. I've been using Linux for 15+ years on my desk/laptop, but switched to Mac roughly one year ago. I'm afraid I can never go back.
I've owned Thinkpads in the past and almost bought the T460 last month, then I discovered the Dell XPS / Precision line and fell in love. I picked up a manufacturer refurbished XPS 15 on eBay and wound up swapping in a Dell Precision E3-1505M motherboard I stumbled across.
The line has Intel quad core CPUs, minimal bezel (my 15" is almost the same size as the 14" System 76 Galago Ultra Pro it's replacing), reasonably slim for a quad core, 84Wh battery, 10+ hours of low power dev (baseline power is about 5.25W on my 8GB + 1080p + Xeon E3-1505M machine) in (Arch) Linux? YES.
Oh yeah, and for nerd points the Dell Precision M5510 has the option for Intel Xeon and Ubuntu stock for people doing CPU intensive Linux work (in my case Linux embedded system builds that grind for tens of minutes to two hours).
To add icing on the cake, you can easily get parts (batteries, motherboards, etc) on eBay if you ever need to fix it yourself which is a sharp contrast to the non-existent System76 Galago Ultra Pro I picked up a few years ago after I ditched my last Thinkpad.
I keep looking at the Thinkpads, but they seem a generation behind.
So what's the point of having a Xeon? The Core i7 options offered for the laptop support all the same processor features [1], except ECC memory [2], which Dell isn't even shipping.
Edit: I think it's a legitimate gripe, Dell is selling a Xeon but there's zero benefit over buying an i7 equipped model. But thanks for all the downvotes!
I suppose the ability to install ECC memory on one's own is still a benefit. Still would be nice for Dell to ship with it, though, instead of requiring customers to buy it elsewhere.
> The only difference in the processors is the Xeon supports ECC, while the Core i7 doesn't. But Dell isn't shipping the laptop with ECC anyway.
The clock is faster, try the compare link[0].
And since I originally bought a XPS 15 with the i7-6700HQ then scored a deal on a Precision E3-1505M motherboard and frankensteined my laptop, I spent 30 seconds doing a benchmark[1]. The tl;dr is that for 6% faster clock, you actually get about 10% better performance, so the cache is contributing. Is it worth the Xeon mark-up? Probably not if I didn't come across a deal, but hey, this thing still costs way less then the local fruit farm alternative.
Now the interesting question is of course whether that 3 % difference holds up when these are used in an actual laptop, ie. does it make a difference before all of them throttle anyway?
> does it make a difference before all of them throttle anyway?
I thought this as well, figured the i7-6700HQ was popular because it maxed out the thermal design, but haven't observed this.
Mine didn't throttle at all. Test setup was on a desk plugged in to the 130W power adapter, nothing special. The benchmark ran for 10 minutes without throttling, note that Github tests show that the first pass was just as fast as the last.
If anyone is really interested, I can run the tests again, but I expected it would throttle after a few minutes of the fans roaring and hence why I ran a few tests back to back and averaged them. Also, I cut the test short because I wanted to swap the motherboards and get on with life. :)
It may throttle if the Nvidia GPUs were enabled and working at full load, but they weren't as this is how I normally work and what I bought the laptop to do.
Update: Ran CPU Burn's `burnmmx` x 8 for 20 minutes and monitored it with i7z, and the cores remained at 3.3GHz the entire time with the cores ranging from 60C - 70C. Recorded it with asciinema, but apparently it doesn't play nice with tmux so it's not really readable.
I got cheap HP envy 360 ($699) with convertible design.
Love that feature - use it a few times.
Great to convert it as huge 15 inch, 1080p, 16GB RAM tablet and browse the web/amazon with a few people together. 16GB makes is much better browser experience than ipad and most of the android. The con is that it does weight a lot more than regular tablet.
Reduced battery time (?), more stuff to fail and being dependent on software for hotswap functionality which may have some serious issues with non-Windows and even none NT10 based Windows operating system and the list can go on.
We're not talking about a fingerprint reader here. Convertible laptops have to make very specific design choices/compromises which come with some disadvantages currently.
this is FUD. reduced battery has nothing to do with a convertible form factor. You are talking about the display resolution perhaps - QHD displays are obviously more power hungry than FHD. But then again, most people want "Retina".
Software has largely matured for hotswap. Fedora 25 with kernel 4.9 is brilliant on a convertible. Windows has had it for decades.
We already use the cheaper yoga and Dell inspiron convertibles in my workplace. They are awesome. Dell and Lenovo have had many years of experience in building convertibles by now. We are talking of 500$ laptops here. The Dell 5368 hinges are well reviewed by now [1] [2]
IMHO the design of Yoga 900 (with its "watchband" hinges are unparalleled).
BTW, we are in non-Apple territory here. Replacing hinges is damn easy. You can buy a ton of them on ebay.
No I do mean design constraints, hinged screen is one thing, a fully convertible one is another.
As far as the hinges, I had to replace the hinges on my Yoga 900 due to lose cylinders twice already under warranty.
Getting the wristband replacement as an aftermarket part hinge is well impossible.
On my Yoga 1 I've replaced the hinges myself and it never really fits like it came from the factory don't know if they do fitting but it's never 100% straight and with the amount of glue and crap they use to seal laptop with its never really like new.
Laptops with a rotating screen add complexity and have to add weight to make the laptop balance depending on the modes that the screen have to operate under.
They also have other design constraints for the keyboard and buttons which means the typing experience is often sub par due to a shallower keyboard and the screen has to be touch.
Laptops with a detachable screen as in convertibles have other issues including still blue screens (my Surface Book will still blue screen from time to time) as well as a lot more design constraints as far as what goes where in terms of hardware.
The Surface Book is probably the best designed by you still get a very top heavy laptop with a very small battery in tablet mode and problematic thermals.
If I'm buying a laptop I don't want a rotating screen, I don't want a touchscreen, and I don't want any of the crap that has to be tacked on or removed to allow it to turn into a tablet.
I wish people who stop using "FUD" as a synonym for "incorrect" or "wrong".
FUD ("fear, uncertainty and doubt") is a disinformation strategy to undermine the opposition and "influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or false information and a manifestation of the appeal to fear" [1].
FUD was famously a tool used by Microsoft against its competitors.
If you get the XPS and plan on Linux, plan to buy the Intel 7260 2x2 WiFi card. I tried the Dell DW1830 3x3 Broadcom WiFi and the driver support is rough for both WiFi and Bluetooth.
Does anyone have any idea if I could buy the Intel wifi and have Dell swap it in? I have whatever the highest non business warranty support is at the moment.
It takes 10 minutes to do it yourself. The Intel card costs about $15, consider getting the 8260, which is $5 extra and newer (Bluetooth 4.2). While your at it swap out the M.2 SSD for something bigger (1TB ~AU$600)
You can choose the intel card on the Precision 5510, which is basically the same as the XPS 15. I doubt you can send your intel Wifi card to Dell and have it installed.
Since my MacBook Air is long in the tooth (4 GB ram, non-upgradable), I'm thinking of getting an XPS when they're announced. Kaby Lake + Iris sounds fantastic, I hope that's what they announce.
I think by default hitting the left and right mouse buttons in linux emulates a middle click. You can also configure three finger clicks as a middle click, which is my preference.
I just got through installing Ubuntu on my p70...love it so far. I've lost count of how many Thinkpad Linux Laptops I've gone through over the years, but not a single one ever failed or had compatibility issues with Linux: my 6 year-old w510 is my DHCP server has been up and running for 467 days running Ubuntu (it was powered off due to a power outage). There's a w540 and w520 sitting idle, and other T-series ones that are unusable only because the batteries are shot. Well-built and reliable.
"just works". Touch surface is smooth, clicks require slightly more force then an old rMBP I had. Only real concern is that it might be too sensitive and clicks while my finger is hovering. This might be configurable, but haven't cared enough to try.
As for keyboard, feels great to me, but I'm not that picky.
Yes, ordered a manufacturer refurbished XPS 15 from eBay, apparently that's a popular thing to do. A day or two later I stumbled on a deal on the Precision 15 E3-1505M motherboard and took a gamble on swapping it. Worked out without any issues other then likely warranty complications if I ever go down that road.
I can easily get 6+ hours on it doing vim + chromium + GCC builds. If I baby it, it can do 10 hours I assume, but it's to the point it doesn't matter unless you need to go a weekend without charging.
My old System 76 ultra pro was lucky to get 2.5 hours doing the same things.
Most of my components are selected for power. I've heard the 4k display with touch is brutal for battery life and selected 1080p instead. I have 8GB of RAM, started to swap in 32GB but the baseline power at idle went from 5.25W to around 7W. The bigger 84Wh battery is an obvious choice and I use the Intel GPU 99% of the time (sometimes the Quadro M1000M for the rare times I play games via bumblebee).
I used to have a Dell Precision M4800 and honestly you don't buy them for battery life. They're desktop workstation replacements that you haul off to meetings occasionally. I got about 2-3 hours of battery time on that thing when running usual work-related workloads on it... (IDE, VM's etc.). I don't remember the noise, but I'm not very sensitive to noisy laptops so I may have never noticed.
I miss that laptop. The build quality was through the roof and it was solid as a brick.
The new Precisions are a lot less Desktop workstation replacements and more power efficient. I wonder if they still offer the same kind of performance though.
> I wonder if they still offer the same kind of performance though
Base clock speed is down a tick (2.7ghz vs. 2.8ghz) compared to previous generation Intel chips in the M4700/M4800 line vs. the new Precision 5510. Same 8M cpu cache; presumably newer intel chips are more efficient and make up for performance difference elsewhere (e.g. less heat = less cpu throttling during intensive tasks).
Sitting on the fence here, waiting to see if Intel's next line of mobile CPUs bring significant performance improvements. Current setup (M4700, i7 extreme, 2 X SSD, 32GB) is awesome modulo the battery life, which is about 2 hours for minimal workloads.
And one of the most awesome things about Thinkpads not mentioned; you can get every (most?) replacement part directly from Lenovo. You can actually look up the part number in the service manual, order it, and replace it yourself. For nerds like us, this is sooo nice sometimes, when you just wanna get it fixed quickly, from the comfort of your own home.
The fact that there are easily accessible service manuals (that tell you how to fix the computer) or sometimes videos (that show you how to fix the computer) is also a nice plus.
Good to hear that Lenovo has continued to do this after the split from IBM - I ordered a new front bezel for my X40 when it cracked and the amount of parts available was staggering.
Didn't knew this, thanks. I also like the fact that the (rear) battery is easily replacable. Also something more recent laptops do avoid due to "the thin contest"
Recent laptops don't just avoid replaceable batteries due to thickness or weight; they avoid them because they want to cram as many battery cells in as possible, and provide longer battery life. A modern laptop chassis contains 50-80% battery cells by volume; every bit of the volume not occupied by other components gets filled by battery.
So thickness and weight are the drivers for this: You can always build a laptop that has the same battery capacity with a detachable battery as you can with a non-detachable. It's just going to be thicker and heavier.
It'll also have a great deal of wasted space, more moving parts, more breakable components, less structural support, additional hardware and software validation requirements, and require some careful engineering to avoid having it fall over backward when you open the screen slightly past vertical (battery cells work nicely as a counterweight). All for a laptop that wouldn't sell as well because people do care about size and weight.
Getting the same battery capacity would require a battery much larger than the classic removable ThinkPad battery; you'd need a system where you can remove a battery 60-80% the size of the chassis.
On the flip side, you can still replace the battery after a few years when it loses enough of its capacity; it just requires a bit more work. And for people who want more battery capacity and currently swap batteries for that, the trend towards using USB-C as the universal charging port will make it easier to have compatible external batteries, that will also work with your phone and other devices.
Why would you open the laptop screen when there is no battery? The only time when you have no battery in the laptop is the few seconds it takes to replace one with another.
AFAIK, fixed batteries are located in the very same place as the removable ones: at the rear of the laptop. They are not spread everywhere, there is no hyper-advanced design is that respect, and they definitely do not occupy 60-80% of the chassis. They could be pulled away / inserted back from the rear is the design choice was such.
> AFAIK, fixed batteries are located in the very same place as the removable ones: at the rear of the laptop.
Not typically. The tiny system board lives near the back of the laptop, to connect to the ports and the screen. (Often, the system board doesn't even take up the full width of the back of the laptop, and instead has ribbon cables connecting the ports on one side to the system board.) The battery takes up all the space under the front and middle of the laptop.
> They are not spread everywhere, there is no hyper-advanced design is that respect, and they definitely do not occupy 60-80% of the chassis.
I've seen the insides of many laptops, both in person and via pictures. I've seen battery cells laid out in many different shapes around the system board and other components, including Ls, Us, and Hs, and in multiple packets of cells with minimal connections between them.
As for "advanced design", https://www.apple.com/macbook/design/ made a point of talking about its terraced battery cells to fit the enclosure. And while some laptops might not go that far, I've seen many laptops shape groups of battery cells around other components to make a non-rectangular battery.
And as for volume, I've personally seen the internals of many laptops, and the better the laptop, the higher proportion of the volume that consists of battery cells. I wouldn't have given those estimated numbers if I hadn't seen laptops fitting both ends of that range and various points in the middle. (Some quick searches suggest that much smaller laptops, and lower-end laptops, may dip as low as 40-50% battery cells; medium and large laptops, and those intended as higher-end or with higher expected battery life, have more.)
I totally agree that integrated batteries sell better - I just wanted to point out that the driver is "cram the same capacity in less space and weight". It's a tradeoff between the three, and since a lot of people prefer lighter, smaller laptops over serviceability, that's where things go. (Written on a laptop with a non-removable battery).
I'm still waiting for a USB C battery pack that can output the 20V that the XPS 13 requires. That said Dell's external battery pack is excellent, though extremely expensive.
A new keyboard is like 40-50 € for most models, for example. But don't expect to get a sparkling new system board for 200 €. New rubber feet are like 10 € (but it's the whole set for all rubber feet of the system). For the X20x there are still some parts available new from distributors. Which is like 6-7 years of parts supply.
I'm still using an ancient Thinkpad T400 I bought when they first came out (2007, I think?), and I still love it. Despite heavy use, everything works perfectly and the case could probably last for decades. Doing normal dev work on Arch Linux (everything from low level C++ to Python/Julia, but no web stuff) is pleasant despite the dated CPU.
Every time I look at reviews of "modern" laptops or try a friend's machine (Apple, Dell, HP, mostly), I get a little sad over how the market has regressed in the past decade. Thus, the only upgrade I'm considering is getting a few T420/X220 machines to last me another decade or so. My dream would be a T60 case with modern hardware and there's a number of retro Thinkpad projects out there, but it's probably not going to happen. Not sure what I'm going to do when a T420 is finally too dated to be productive on, but thankfully that's a very long way off.
I also still have a T400 chugging along with Arch. It got put in storage for a few years until I dug it out while recycling some other junk and realized it still had considerable life in it.
I just set someone up with a T420 with a few upgrades and it's a fantastic value. Hardest part was finding a source for the rubber HD rails needed to swap a 7mm tall SSD in place of the original 9.5mm platter drive. It was technically a downgrade from a newer thinkpad laptop that they had, but the T420 is just a better machine from fit/finish/touchpad/upgrade/repair perspectives.
If anyone has advice on swapping the screen on a T420 please point me towards it - the T420 screen is, for me, the only negative.
> If anyone has advice on swapping the screen on a T420 please point me towards it - the T420 screen is, for me, the only negative.
There's a lot of people swapping them (one example [1]), but I don't know if there's a consensus on which are the best options, and there's quite a few. I think the T420 and the X220 are by far the best options for reasonably modern but not yet ruined Thinkpads, but for both of them the screens are definitely the weak points.
I've used a T400 as my kitchen laptop for years, and recently put Win10 on it. I put my SSD in it, back with Win8. The laptop still works great, and it's my main PowerShell workstation - it's where I wrote my Arkdata player tracker static site. (Yes, I wrote it while standing in my kitchen.)
The market is the same, really. What you're seeing is the end of Moore's law, with 10 year old laptops still being effective compute devices. This wasn't true in 2005 - that 1995 laptop was painfully old.
When I said the market has regressed, I wasn't referring to the slowing advances in CPU performance, etc. Normally, such a slowdown would enable manufacturers to focus on creating better cases, improve peripherals, etc. Instead, the obsession with thinness and design fads has led to worse usability, much worse keyboards, fewer ports, etc., and maintainability is virtually gone as a concept.
Obviously, this is largely a matter of preference and I understand that many users care more about thin shiny things than robust cases or high feedback keyboards. That's fine. The issue is that the market segment that the classic Thinkpads used to fill is completely gone now and those users, however few, are stranded.
The market for laptops and computing devices has traversed us like an ocean wave. Where we were once among the bleeding edge for such devices, our obsessions - with connections, with customizability, with function over form - have left us among the long tail of compute users.
I keep buying refurbished T420 laptops; even though my employer provided T450, I cannot switch to keyboard without standard Insert/Delete/Home/End set - not to mention losing the Ultrabay flexibility etc.
T420 was the pinacle of the Thinkpads for me; T530 was a meh, T540 is the only time I've seen co-workers genuinely slam their laptops (removal of touchpad buttons etc). T450 brought touchpad buttons and some separation between Function keys, but the home row seems to be gone for good :<
- I have more than one keyboard and more than one computer/laptop:). The new thinkpads have non-standard home-row placement. All my external keyboards have standard home-row placement.
If I ONLY used Thinkpads, I agree that getting used to their quirks would be viable (certainly explains the vehemence of certain brands;).
However, the non-standard home-row patterns of new Thinkpads make them an unwelcome part of my ecosystem.
- I swap drives once or twice a month these days; used to do it more often.
Main usage pattern was day/work and night/personal computer - by swapping the drive, my work "computer" had no personal stuff or data; my personal "computer" had no work stuff or data:).
Secondary usage pattern is easy transfer of large amount of data - for example, I may have 300GB of photos to process for a wedding on one drive that I put in the ultrabay to process via Lightroom.
Swapping hard drives and batteries is much more useful. It's also nice that you can take your optical drive, which seemed indispensable a decade ago, and replace it with something useful today.
For personal use I'm still very productive with an x120e (under Arch naturally). I love the trackpoint device, and I miss it with my work-issued Dell Precision 5500. That being said, the latter works great under Arch as well, and my only annoyance is the weird screen flicker.
I'm still using a T61/T60p hybrid I built. Sometimes it's kind of slow, but plenty of new machines still have 8gb of RAM and an SSD just like mine.
After this model, they switched to a keyboard with a skeletonized baseplate instead of solid steel, though I think the old keyboards can be swapped in to slightly newer models. The big thing for me is the screen. 1600x1200 is perfect for two Emacs windows side by side containing code up to 80 characters wide at a comfortable font size. Later "wide" screen resolutions are more likely to be shorter than wider.
I've been hoping for a change to this resolution monoculture, but I think I'm going to have to build something much more custom to replace this.
It would be so much easier to love my Thinkpad T460s if it wasn't for the touchpad. Coming to Thinkpad and Linux after many years as a Mac-user this was almost a deal breaker for me. The palm detection in synaptic driver is laughable. People installing Linux on the new Macbook Pros are going to have a blast with that gigantic touchpad.
And I don't even think it's just a driver problem, as the touchpad can register a finger hovering over it, or not register it at all, if the finger is somewhat dry. I've spent countless hours trying to fine tune the thresholds, but it's just complete and utter shit.
I would have returned it and gotten a Macbook Pro if it wasn't for the fact that the new Macbook seems more geared towards light weight users with the smaller battery, memory and crazy expensive upgrades.
I've had to re-position my cursor three times while writing this, because my palm moves it around. It's rarely a problem when coding, because I don't stop to think for shorter periods, like I do when typing. A quick fix is to set the syndaemon to lock the touchpad when typing, but you can't have that treshhold too high either or it gets in the way.
Oh, and don't get me started on the speakers. There is no way in hell that Lenovo spent any time to tune the acoustics. Listening to people talk almost always gives resonance in the case. I know it's a laptop, but in the current state they are more or less useless.
On the other hand, what I do love about it:
- Super light weight, very noticeable when coming from a Macbook.
- Amazing battery life, I can easily do a full days work on a single charge.
- Recharges very quickly, which I think is a result of having two batteries.
- Really good keyboard. Probably the reason I'm keeping it.
- Debian Stretch was a breeze to switch to. Everything just worked (except for touchapd and docking station!)
But I honestly expected a little more from a laptop that costs $3000.
If you have a very poor touchpad experience you are probably using synaptics driver. Replace it with libinput for much, much better feel (some distros use it as default including Fedora).
I have the same problem with speakers though (X1 Yoga).
More than a decade ago I worked in a shop that was all Thinkpads, and I thought I'd never understand the trackpoint users. Then my wife got an x140e for some light-duty work a couple years ago, and somehow the trackpoint (maybe due to my xmonad use) just clicked. Now I love it.
As an aside the x140e is about the cheapest Linux laptop money can buy. It's built like a tank for school kids, and has nothing exotic inside. You can replace the HDD with an SSD, and upgrade the RAM (shared video / system RAM) up to 32GB I hear. It's not a particularly speedy machine, but it runs well enough, and the price is right.
The method of interaction is so different it would be nicer to advise people to not use a pointing device at all. I've always wanted to like them, but the track point is a poor man's trackball, and where do you see a trackball these days?
One of the attractions of the trackpoint is that you don't have to move your fingers from the keyboard. Hence, people who are keyboard-centric get pointer access without the usual tradeoff. A dev running a tiling window manager can still have full use of their web browser.
Expect it would be messy to work with for photoshop. For example, it recalibrates if you hold it down too long, and then creeps away when you release it.
Idea for precision work: small trackball and scrollers built into the side of the laptop (like a port).
Trackpoint is superior to trackball and touchpad because you don't need to raise your fiber from it when going long distance (say one corner of your screen to another corner), and of course the fact that you don't need to take you hands off the keyboard like others mentioned.
It sounds like you're using tap-to-click. If you don't want to get used to the trackpoint you could disable that and actually depress the touchpad when you want to click. Setting the synaptics parameter "ClickPad=0" makes that touchpad work a lot like the Apple defaults. I've been using this configuration for 3 years and I never have the cursor jump around or misbehave at all.
Thanks for pointing me to the correct wording 'palm detection'. Investigating this I found it was completely disabled and now when using it it seems to improve the situation, but will test further.
I'm wondering why this touch pad issue is so important for you if you do development. When I'm not mobile I have a mouse, an external keyboard, headset or external sound system, external monitor etc
I guess it's a workflow that has stuck with me from using a Macbook Pro. For some reason I rarely feel comfortable sitting with a monitor, keyboard and mouse for many hours.
Which distribution you are running? You want to post output of xev to xorg-libinput bug tracker. Generally they are very responsive about fixing touchpad for new devices. I don't know why - but it appears that each device needs to be tuned separately (like there is no Universal Palm detection that works for all laptops).
FWIW, with my new T460 (likely exactly the same touchpad hardware as the T460s mentioned) on Fedora 25, the palm detection is actually pretty good. In a typing situation (recent keyboard events) it's engaged and I see the cursor sit rock solid, but if I remove my hands for a few seconds, replace them on the home row without typing, and then wiggle my palms I can see events generated.
This is IMHO exactly the desired behavior. Not sure whether this is a feature of Xwayland or Gnome...
I had the touchpad problem on my T430. Installing Touchfreeze greatly reduced the problem. That was 3 years ago though, now gpointing-device-settings is recommended. Haven't tried that.
Lenovo are on my personal shitlist after superfish and abusing the windows platform binary table. When my current laptop dies (a thinkpad T440p that I'm reasonably happy with), I may have to suck up the performance hit and go to minifree for a machine I can actually trust.
ThinkPads never had Superfish nor the Lenovo Service Engine (the Windows Platform Binary Table thing you're referring to).
Of course you're right that Lenovo never should have put those on any of their machines, but my impression is that ThinkPads and the consumer line are run by very different groups within Lenovo.
Unfortunately, even a recent (Aug 2016) new Thinkpad T460p included a Lenovo Windows app that apparently runs daily to send "usage data" to Lenovo. It is easily disabled, but still troubling because most customers will be unaware that it exists.
> As of September 2015: Lenovo systems may include software components that communicate with servers on the internet - All ThinkCentre, All ThinkStation, All ThinkPad
To be fair, if it comes with a preinstalled version of windows you can never really be sure what is on the machine, can you?
I suspect that if a company really wanted to hide something they probably could. So unless you install windows or another OS on it yourself, you don't know what the manufacturer put on it.
I guess it would not be too hard to find in general if it shows up in the list of processes, but they could make it quite obscure and hard to find.
But yeah, I agree that this is quite an annoying move from Lenovo. The least they could do is make it opt-in instead of on by default.
If you are not sure if it has spyware installed, you also do not know what the spyware is doing exactly and it could potentially be worse than what the spyware you know of is doing.
I guess I could argue that the former is actually worse. If you know spyware is installed, you can opt to remove it. If you are not aware of the existance of spyware on the system, and it happens to have spyware, you are more vulnerable.
You could of course take the risk and assume that it does not have spyware, and maybe you're right and everything is fine, but you can not _know_ that it is fine.
That is completely inane. You're telling me that a superset of something is worse than the thing itself, which can only be true if "I know it has no spyware" is worse than "I know it has spyware".
The rest of your comment disingenuously assumes that a computer can only have one piece of spyware, and if you know what it is you can remove it and now you're safe. What if there's more spyware you don't know about? And if your remover is completely safe, why not just run it on all your computers, safe or not?
Not to mention that removing spyware from a computer turns it into a computer that might or might not have spyware.
Lenovo have been repeatedly caught doing this. They have shown that they do not want or plan to have this as an opt-in - instead they are trying to hide it better. It's obvious that it's their strategy, not some one time "mistake". (They put it in BIOS even! (!)).
http://thehackernews.com/2015/09/lenovo-laptop-virus.html
I'd recommend going with another vendor than Ministry of Freedom (by Leah Rowe). I ordered a laptop from there and it took months to get the payment processed and the laptop shipped, with barely any contact in between. I thought it was very unprofessional and it definitely was the worst online shopping experience I've had so far.
Expect to wait at least three weeks for every time you send them an email.
The laptop is OK, though it was dirty when it arrived. It had a bunch of some kind of sticker glue on it.
I've been considering building my own and have recently dropped out to start working for myself; I'm thinking, perhaps I could build one for you?
It'd depend on how soon you need it and to what spec, as I'll have to source it from scratch. If you leave some means of contacting you I will, I'm quite interested in building these things for another purpose than "I like having and making these".
I'm passively looking for a machine at the moment but not really actively looking yet - this one's still got a fair amount of life in it. If you want to reach me, the email in my profile works.
Are you planning to do a libre hardware startup or something?
I don't currently have much of a plan aside from "do contracting for personal development and sustenance, while looking for interesting opportunities".
"Secure hardware + software for the masses" is one area I'd really like to work on.
Yes, but the ThinkPads have a much bigger reputation on the line than the IdeaPads. Lenovo seems to know better than to annoy the businesses and power users that typically buy ThinkPads, whereas the IdeaPad-buying ordinary user is more tolerant of bloatware.
Not if they have shown that they can go so far as to put in BIOS. Imagine the level of effort it requires to develop something like this? If that is true, why not develop a small dedicated chip for it and put it somewhere unaccessible on the motherboard? (I mean, it's likely that they did or will do this.)
http://thehackernews.com/2015/09/lenovo-laptop-virus.html
One thing to consider w.r.t. SuperFish is it was two years ago, and Lenovo did apologise for it. Sometimes you have to keep a grudge, but my opinion on this is it was something that pretty much any laptop manufacturer could have done and they did deal with it. YMMV.
I have avoided buying anything significant made by Todhiba for 30 years. It's probably time for me to drop my grudge against them (it has to do with milling machines and corporate misconduct during the Cold War).
Ah, "consumer" vs "business" computers. I wonder whether this distinction even makes sense. I think the biggest reason it still exists at this point is Best Buy and similar retail outlets, right?
The consumer space at Best Buy is focusing on whatever shit can be made and sold for < $500 dollars. And they are incredible at making stuff cheaper (whatever they may need to drop and break to reach that price).
Business require better built laptops than that, they've got money to pay and they want to have decent services and support. As a special characteristics, they also never bother to have a GPU (save money and power but missing for some consumer folks).
I have a signature ThinkPad bought at a Microsoft store and it came with plenty of software that I would consider bloat. Lenovo ships a lot of extra software on their systems. I'd still recommend a reformat and reinstall of Windows.
After I made a few comments here on HN about the T460, I felt I should condense all the stuff into a short blog post. Feel free to add your experience or alternate developer machines, with pros and cons.
What I missed at Dell and Apple is the possibility to configure your hardware a bit so that it better fits your needs. This was better for Dell when I purchased the Dell Latitude 7 years ago.
I did not choose an MBP because I feel safer with Linux in the long run. I heared that the security updates stop two years afterwards and the software upgrades makes the 'old' hardware a lot slower.
In the end every OS somehow sucks, but Linux sucks least.
I've got a T460 and have been pleased with it although I am running Windows on it at the moment. However it has just developed a fault on the screen (bright spot in the middle).
Ive went with a T420 recently, mostly because of the keyboard. But also because $400 for laptop + battery + Samsung SSD + 16GB hyperX Ram sounded so cheap i could not resist. And honestly even after a 2015 MBP it feels perfect for all my needs. In fact due to the superior RAM and SSD it feels often way faster than the MBP for 5 times that price felt. Plus it has way better battery life.
Seriously Thinkpads are the best dev laptops ever.
Sorry, but then you did something wrong. Since Haswell they are not only better overall but also much more energy efficient. The Macbooks went from 5-6hours to 10 in that generation.
not sure what we are arguing, maybe i should have mentioned the fact that my macbook ran OSX and my Thinkpad runs Arch Linux? I've did several battery management optimizations as well.
If i could run Arch painfree on a mac i would agree that i would have better battery life most likely.
I am mostly just arguing against the constant mention for "macbooks having the best battery life for developer laptops". Which is not true if you could also use a Thinkpad with Linux
Typing this from a refurb T410 with added SSD. It was dirt cheap and the only issue I have running Ubuntu on it is a funny wake-from-sleep issue that sometimes makes some text display badly. Apart from that it has a lovely keyboard and does what I need. Battery life is not an issue for me, I have a laptop due to lack of space for a desk, but I am normally plugged in. Screen res could be higher, but it makes no practical difference in writing Python code or browsing HN
I wont upgrade until a) it breaks or b) someone pays me to get a new one
What about the T-series keyboards changed recently that bothers you?
If it's actually the touchpad changes, they reverted them on the xx50 and up (or made them optional, I forget which).
(Typing this from a T430 I'm using while my W550s is being repaired, and I can't recall any drastic keyboard changes that had me in an uproar in the last while.)
Not recently but simply the amount of keys have dropped from T420 to T430. The Home - End - PgUp - PgDn keys are the same place on my T420s (which is upgraded to a quality full HD screen) as any 101 key keyboard in the last 35+ years. Insert - Delete isn't but that's kinda OK because Insert is rarely needed anyways. Taking away the 7th row is the cardinal sin of the T430+ keyboards. Also switching to keyboard backlight from ThinkLight is a moronic decision, there are more things to light than just the keyboard.
I have not tested a t430 but the t450 feeled a lot more "mushy" or rubberdome like. The t420 has a solid click (without the "click" :/) which is something i really like.
From what ive read it got worse after the t420. So it was a easy choice for me.
Linux, the 3 cell one (the one i got it with a 2 cell has about 4 hours left). I get about 9 hours with full light and wifi and about 14 with ethernet & slightly dimmed light. Obviously linux (also Arch), i dont think Windows can be optimized for such battery life. And in my experience Arch also beats Ubuntu. At least without a lot of hacking.
I bought a used W520, as it was one of the last Thinkpads with full/normal keyboard. I just can't get work down as quickly using modern island-style keyboards. I recommend it especially if you are still using an older Thinkpad.
It's fast, supports up to 32gb of memory, 3 hard drives (regular, micro SATA, ultrabay), and has a good video card.
I also find the touchpad with its mouse thumb buttons to be easier on my wrists than the trackpoint or other laptop trackpads.
As a W (workstation) version it is heavy and requires a heavier charger. The T520 could solve this problem and also be a cheaper option.
Hopefully Lenovo's "Retro Thinkpad" project is brought to reality.
I got a 520 with quad core i7. I had to swap the motherboard with integrated nvidia for the normal non nvidia motherboard to get dual monitor support under linux. But other than that, I got quad core and 16gb of ram. I think this will last me until 2020 or so. (or at least I hope so) Can't stand lenovo's latest offerings with offset keyboards with a number pad. Though looks like this 460 has a normal enough keyboard. That might be an option, just has a smaller screen :/
This is just for mobile computing and being able to work in different places. I do have a mechanical for my desktop and like it, but I don't like being anchored to the same spot everyday.
Personal Machine: (Ubuntu/CentOS with 1 or 2 VM running sometimes)
For me: AMD Quad Core - A10 7300 , with 8GB DDR3 RAM and 1TB HDD (acer aspire e15) is perfect Linux development machine, it costs less than $500 . Unless you are running 3 or more VM or stuffs like high-end data processing using 16GB RAM for development is worthless.
Work machine: (Windows / Fedora-19 with 3VBox vm running most of the time)
We (team of 7 members) received new Lenovo thinkpad in 2012, with 256SSD, 16GB ram, and i7 processor. Within 18months 3 or 4 of my friends faced hardware related-issues (suddenly stopped booting etc). Luckily mine survived until I left the company in 2015.
> ... I find the boot time compelling enough (~23sec until login, plus 2sec to open the browser) that I do not need this.
I think something is slowing down your boot, I get faster boot on a 2008 thinkpad running the same OS.
OT: systemd was supposed to improve boot performance but it has actually become much worse. Upstart on a weak chromebook boots in under 2 sec, why shouldn't your current generation thinkpad with a fast SSD match that?
I find it curious that you care about boot-times. I use macbooks and just close and reopen the lid. Waking from this sleep takes less than a second usually.
My average uptime is about 22 days until I reboot for an update or something.
I used Linux for years, and I understood that in 2008 sleep/resume on notebooks didn't properly work, but now we have 2017 - 9 years later!
I don't really care about boot times, but as a tech guy 23 seconds sounds like an error to me and I want to find it and fix it :)
Also, old laptops with dieing batteries (or new ones with always-on sensors such as fingerprint readers) have some leakage during sleep so it may be better to turn them off if you are not going to use them for a few days.
edit: resume/suspend in linux works just fine and has done so for many years (in response to eltoozero)
...which is crucial since you don't want to lose your data when closing the lid. (Non-tech-term is on purpose here, since users shouldn't need to know about the difference. Also I believe OSX uses a hybrid approach).
According to a comment in the post it fails when the swap partition is encrypted. However why enable swap with 16 GB of RAM? I've been running without swap for almost 3 years and never had any trouble. If I start approaching the limit I'll buy another 16 GB.
Exactly, the comment in your blog is "suspension to disk does not work if your swap partition is encrypted. This is due to how Ubuntu encrypts your home (ecryptfs) but not due to Linux itself."
I use whole drive encryption to protect data in the event I leave my old X220 (Fedora) on the bus.
I don't mind boot times in the 20s range (X220/Fedora/cheapo SSD) too much, but I do need to close down/reboot a couple of times a day otherwise no point in encryption.
> but I do need to close down/reboot a couple of times a day otherwise no point in encryption.
Given, I'm not a Linux user, but I don't understand this at all.
On Windows, encrypted is encrypted-- the lock screen is exactly as secure as the login screen. Are you saying that in Linux the lock screen is easily-bypassed? So you have to keep your computer logged-out when you're in a place it might get stolen?
Wasn't there a recent story about how Windows is storing keys so that it can wake up in the middle of the night and apply updates? I thought that the conclusion was that locked isn't as secure as logged out.
What I'm not understanding is why logging out or rebooting is required to keep a computer with full disk encryption secure. That's certainly not the case on competing OSes like Windows.
Usually in Linux the system is installed on an encrypted filesystem (cryptsetup, LUKS). Only kernel and so called initrd image (early boot stuff) is outside the encryption. The disk is opened at very early stage in boot when just about the kernel is loaded. Thus, the encryption is open whenever the operating system is running. Everything is of course still transparently encrypted on disk but the "lock" is open. One must shut down the computer to close the filesystem's encryption.
"Then click Install Now, and follow the rest of the instructions until you get to the “Who are you?” page. Make sure to choose a strong password — if someone steals your laptop while it’s suspended, this password is all that comes between the attacker and your data. And make sure that “Require my password to log in” is checked, and that “Log in automatically” is not checked. There is no reason to check “Encrypt my home folder” here, because you’re already encrypting your entire disk."
Above quote is from the section titled 'How to encrypt your disk in Linux' on the page at
Would be nice to have a faster one, yes :) ... some recommendations?
Just fyi: I measure boot time from the time I press the power button. The BIOS logo appears a staggering 8sec or something although the BIOS fast boot is enabled. (Maybe the sync with NSA or something ;))
8 seconds for the BIOS sounds ridiculous; that should take less than a second. Check that you've booted and shut down successfully on the prior boot; with those, the boot should take much less time. (On an improper shutdown, the BIOS may do some extra work that takes longer.) Also check that you don't have some option enabled to make it wait around a while for a keyboard key.
For the Linux portion of your boot, try running "systemd-analyze plot > /tmp/boot.svg" and looking at that. (Also note that "kernel" includes any time spent waiting in the initramfs for you to type your disk encryption passphrase.)
Unsurprisingly UEFI didn't change much about vendor firmware shittiness. There's also still firmware around which just takes 5-10 seconds of black screen before doing shit.
The initial boot delay is VERY annoying. I wish libreboot was supported on my laptop, then I could ditch lenovos ancient BIOS (and the NSA ping) once and for all:
I love these linux on laptop articles. I've used linux since Redhat 5.0 and have almost always had to configure things to get everything to work. Nowadays, I don't really have the time to dick around, I used Gentoo for a long time, so I rely on Ubuntu to make it a simple plug and play install. Even with most of today's laptops, ubuntu seems to play well compared to the bad old days. I find I can throw Ubuntu on any laptop and get working as soon as I put in a few customizations and tweaks. Really, in my mind, linux has come a long way. But it's great to see how easy it is to get linux up and going on most laptops today.
I used to use Arch Linux and moved to Fedora for the same reasons (don't want to fiddle with everything all the time). I was really surprised to see that it had HiDPI support by default. In Arch, it required some real gymnastics to make it work OK.
Basically, everything works, I can get like 80% of the customization I had on Arch, haven't had any BS for the few months I've used it (besides newest Spotify version crashing with Wayland, but a downgrade solved that). It's pretty nice.
Currently writing this from Arch Linux on the ThinkPad T450s (I think it's the version directly before the one in this article). Cannot recommend it enough, easily the best laptop keyboard I've ever used and the touchpad feels nice under my fingers. Not as nice to the touch as the mac's one, but it's the closest I've seen and on the bright side it's the perfect size to not get in the way (as opposed to Apple's massive parking lot at the bottom of the laptop) and it has regular buttons as well as supporting pushing on the trackpad itself, so overall I'd say it's a toss-up there. The main problem I have is that pgup/pgdown are right next to the arrow keys, which makes them extremely easy to hit by accident. Luckily, I don't use them often.
Having purchased a ThinkPad immediately after its CES announcement before, I'd strongly recommend against it, for several reasons.
If something goes wrong, you'll have a long wait for service, due to unavailability of parts or replacement systems. I had to wait literally months for "next business day" service. (Under normal circumstances, they really do show up on the next business day.)
Wait a few months, let any teething issues shake themselves out, and then get one. If you can't wait that long and need a new laptop now, grab an established model.
I think the parent means that it may take some time until the hardware support gets to Linux kernel.
I bought a Broadwell laptop right when the first ones came out, and had a lot of trouble with the integrated graphics (Intel, who supposedly do a good job with their Linux drivers compared to anyone else). It took about an year for Ubuntu to package a kernel that didn't either have annoying blinking glitches or hard lock-ups regularly. Obviously, I've been using the mainline kernels all that time, but even with them it took a couple of months.
So yes, caution and patience with bleeding edge hardware is advisable.
"The T470 is one of the new models to feature an optional Intel Optane 16 GB cache drive, and it also will have a touch fingerprint reader and Windows Hello camera option. Thunderbolt 3 is also here on the 14-inch laptop, along with a GeForce 940MX GPU and up to 32 GB of DDR4. It continues to feature the split battery, with a 23 Wh in the front and a removable 48 Wh or 73 Wh battery in the rear. It will be available in February starting at $914"
ThinkPad T470s
"The ThinkPad T470s continues to get slimmer and lighter. What was once a slightly lighter T series is now a 14-inch notebook that is under three pounds, with the latest version just 2.9 lbs. It can be had with up to 24 GB of memory, with 8 GB soldered on and a single DIMM available for another 16 GB. It still features Ethernet, along with Thunderbolt 3 and up to 1 TB of PCIe SSD. The thinner T series is also available in silver, with availability in February starting at $1099."
ThinkPad T470p
"The p model is for performance, with 45-Watt CPUs instead of the U series found in the slimmer and lighter notebooks. This is combined with the GeForce 940MX, and up to 32 GB of DDR4. The T470p is also available with the 16 GB Intel Optane caching drive, and split batteries with up to 12 hours of battery life with the larger 72 Wh battery in the rear. The T470p will be available in March starting at $1049."
ThinkPad 13
"The ThinkPad 13 is Lenovo’s value offering, and it will be available in January for a starting price of $674. For less than $700, it will feature Intel Kaby Lake processors, with up to 32 GB of DDR4 with 2 DIMM slots, and up to 512 GB of PCIe storage. The display is a FHD 1920x1080 touch version, and it features 3 USB 3.0 ports, USB-C which doubles as a charging port, dTPM 2.0, and a SD card reader. It’s 19.1mm thick and weighs 3.17 lbs. It will also be offered in black or silver."
ThinkPad L470
"The L series is positioned as the mainstream business value lineup, and they slot in for a bit less money than the T series. The L470 is a 14-inch FHD IPS model, and it also features optional Intel Optane caching, and 2 DIMMS for up to 32 GB of RAM. It keeps the split batteries as well, offering up to 95.5 Wh of battery capacity. In addition, it adds a discrete GPU in the Radeon R5 M430. It will be available in March starting from $799."
ThinkPad X270
"This 12.5-inch ThinkPad has been around for quite a while now, and the latest version adds USB-C for power, display, and data. RAM options are 4 to 16 GB of DDR4, and storage is up to 2 TB of HDD or 512 GB PCIe SSD. It offers the ThinkPad split battery with 23 Wh in the front and 48 or 72 Wh in the rear. With the largest battery, Lenovo claims up to 21.4 hours of battery life. It comes in at 2.9 lbs, with availability in March from $909"
I am selling my much newer MacBook Pro retina now, as the Thinkpad is so much more functional, the keyboard is amazing the feeling of the machine itself is fantastic.
I am thinking to buy a X260 brand new because I need a newer CPU and better battery life, but for sure I'll only buy Thinkpads or Latitudes (I have one at work, amazing machine) from now on.
The keyboard is a smooth smudgefest with so-so tactile feedback (this particular point will depend on which manufacturer supplied the keyboard that ends up in your unit).
The keys and trackpoint leave marks on the display when it is closed. The display bezel leaves marks on the palmrest. This is really poor engineering on basic stuff.
When I pick up the laptop by the lower left corner (hey, it's an ultraportable, why would I ever do that, right?), it immediately crashes with a garbled screen. After looking that up I found out that the HDD/SSD is under the left palmrest, and picking it up there may flex and alter the SATA connection, causing the crash. This seems to affect a random sample of users. So much for Thinkpad's vaunted "sturdy rollcage". But here's the real kicker: when I found this info on Lenovo's own forum, it was for the X230! This defect has been known for 3 generations of X-series Thinkpads, and yet they have never bothered fixing it.
Ever since they decided to move to 16:9 with horrible Low-Fi resolution (for a line of laptops meant to be for serious, professional users), I feel like Lenovo's Thinkpad group have be led with the vision and drive of a Roomba: mostly face-plants, and every actual improvement is to catch up to the competition (notable exception: hot-swapable battery). I only stick to Thinkpads because of the trackpoint and Linux compatibility, I suspect I'm not the only one.
I am not saying that you cannot get a decent X260, but notice how now in every Thinkpad thread there is a significant number of "me / my team had a number of thinkpads, we've had to go through N replacements during the last year", whereas a few years ago they were the poster boy for reliability. Thinkpads now have the engineering/manufacturing tolerance of a low to mid range consumer laptop, even though they are supposed to be professional equipment. This is unconscionable.
This is why I don't recommend something like the X260. You can't buy a premium laptop and "just hope" it will have none of the reported defects. We pay a premium with an expectation for reliability, not for a QA lottery.
Conversely it seems most complaints are for the X2xx and T4xx series, which is why I believe it has to do with manufacturing tolerance: maybe on 15" it's just good enough to not have any significant defect, and they kept the same M.O. for the more compact models, and there problems did pop up.
(The screen resolution has in fact been getting better for the latest two generations, but here again it is only to catch up to the competition. Remember when you could get a 15in Thinkpad with an IPS 2048x1536 display, long before the "retina" buzzword came to life? That was before Lenovo took over.)
>I am not saying that you cannot get a decent X260, but notice how now in every Thinkpad thread there is a significant number of "me
Well its subjective either way. We've got over 300 of the things in the office though, so more inclined to trust that than counting complaints in threads.
I'm sure there are better laptops out there but the x240/260s are far from duds. What they are though is old...office is replacing them with x1 carbons thankfully - with HD screens (finally).
I'm using Lenovo P50 for Linux development with duel boot to Windows. The trick to get duel boot right is to have two SSDs and install each OS on its own SSD. P50 supports two SSDs + 1 spinning drive. Besides this, its very likely only laptop with 64GB option and 4K display with descret NVidia GPU with 4GB memory so you can even do local deep learning!
I moved from dual booting mine to running Windows in a VM. I find it to be much more convenient and so far windows runs almost seamlessly (after upgrading to 32GB memory).
>Besides this, its very likely only laptop with 64GB option and 4K display with descret NVidia GPU with 4GB memory
It's isn't. Clevo, MSI, Razer, all offer high-performance options in their high-end models. The Clevos and the MSI with these specs don't start at $4k, I might add :P
I'll note that the T460p can also take an M.2 2242 format SSD in the WWAN slot. It's short (42mm not the normal 60+) and Transcend appears to be the main manufacturer for SSDs in the 2242 format. Up to 512GB, and of course since it's the WWAN slot you lose the ability to have a cell radio in there.
Reportedly a little fiddling in the BIOS to get it booting from the M.2, but I'd expect that to be the normal question of setting the boot order.
There are a lot of laptops like that in the PC market, more skewed towards gamers. I like Dave 2D's youtube reviews (no affiliation) of laptops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLsDn59fxdQ
He has a whole bunch more on his channel about others similar to that lenovo.
I've looked in to most major brands (Dell, Lenovo, HP, Razor) and can't find any offering with 64GB RAM + discret 4GB CUDA card + 4K resolution + 2 SSD + 1 spinning drive + Linux support.
If you know any other options, I would be happy to know.
Happy T560 (same laptop, with a 15'6" screen) owner here. Fully agree with the post conclusion: "powerful, has a very long lasting battery, it is silent under normal work and you can get your stuff done quickly and get solid Linux support. The Linux support is so good that I’m wondering why they do not ship it commercially to attract people like me."
EDIT1: To dig further: compared to half a dozen linux "tweaks" with my former Dell XPS laptop, I have zero with this Thinkpad. Everything works as expected, no hardware-related config whatsoever. This is using Arch Linux, which ships a recent kernel.
EDIT2: I bought the larger T560 version because I like the simplicity of doing everything on the same machine, but I'm more often using it at home than on the go, so the mobility / screen size trade-off is easy for me, and it's still relatively light (it's relatively thin, unlike W series).
I bought a T460p a few months ago and am not very happy with it. The problem I have is that linux(I am running debian) has quite a few problems with the Skylake architecture, especially the graphics driver.
I tried everything I can think of, installing the intel driver manually and installing the newest kernel(4.9.0) but I still have some troubles with the graphics glitches.
So I when I'll be buying a new laptop I will definitely avoid the Skylake arch, every other version I tried worked a lot better.
I can confirm that Ubuntu 16.04 works great on a T460p. The only issues I had were with the high resolution screen I chose and that was solved by finding the Gnome scaling options and also launching Chrome with '--force-device-scale-factor=1.4'.
EDIT: Oh, and swapping out the hard drive isn't super easy any more. It's a matter of watching a Youtube video then everything goes smoothly, rather than look at the bottom of the laptop and everything goes smoothly.
That was the problem I mentioned regarding the scaling of the video. In VLC this was easy to fix -> see article. For in-browser videos like youtube all was fine without a config.
The main problem I have is graphics artifacts in applications that use webkit, for example Vivaldi and Code.
Here(https://gfycat.com/MemorableIndolentDuckling) is a screengrab I made of the tearing, it mainly happens when I move the mouse over certain objects. Everything works fine in firefox so its pretty weird.
I wish there were some specific rules on the internet for discussing hardware. Things just always have a way of breaking down into practically religious points of view.
I'm going to toss a couple of things out there:
1. If you are saying that literally nothing works, everything is awful, and that computer X is just complete garbage, then a few things pop into my head:
a) I start wondering if maybe you are just bad at computers,
b) I suspect that you are probably talking about a computer your work bought for you that isn't your preferred OS, and c) I decide that you really aren't contributing anything useful to the conversation.
2. By the same token, when I see people writing that everything works flawlessly I think a couple of things as well:
a) you probably aren't doing anything that interesting with it, b) you are talking about a machine you are personally invested in rather than one bought for you by your work, and c) you really aren't adding anything useful to the conversation.
Here's the bottom line, from my point of view--as well as my point of view:
I spent my own money on and use two mac laptops, a windows laptop, and a Linux desktop.
From work, I have a mac laptop and a windows laptop, and a windows desktop.
All of these computers have benefits and drawbacks. The baseline of shit that just needs to work actually works on all of them, most of the time. Weird things go wrong from time to time. I find the Linux desktop to be more fiddly than the other machines at times, but not so much that it pisses me off more than apt-get makes me happy.
The windows machines are harder to get set up properly than the macs for working with dynamic languages, but they are the best choice for working on the Microsoft dev stack. Duh.
The macs have some real problems as well for certain parts of statistical work. Homebrew + anaconda + Xcode-select just doesn't get the job done far too often. And deving on mac + deploying to Debian or Ubuntu can be a bunch of not-fun.
Not a one of these machines is perfect or flawless in any way, but any one of them would be acceptable for a daily driver work box.
To the people who are speaking about specific issues on specific machines, I greatly appreciate that. To the top and bottom 10% who are saying everything/nothing works, you really aren't helping much here, and I find your opinions suspiciously biased.
With Apple's hardware in the shitter, I'm hoping we see a rise of Linux-specific notebooks for developers! The _only_ reason I've stayed with OSX is because it's the _only_ mainstream and commercially supported desktop UNIX.
crossing my fingers for 2017... 10g ethernet, sd reader, USB3, USB-C, Thunderbolt, and a fricken headphone jack would be spectacular! It doesn't have to be super thin, just a manageable weight and functional form!
I believe redhat staff use thinkpads (t-series and x-series)), meaning support for Linux is pretty good out of the box, and you can find a fix/ workaround for most issues on a fedora forum.
My 2 cents about thinkpad, I have an x230 and am very happy with it.
3. Same resolution but smaller monitor and smaller overall size makes for easier traveling imo.
7. I have the exact same issue with hitting the touch pad when typing, but I've learned to go slower and avoid it.
8. I first ordered the x230 by accident with the larger battery and was amazed at the working time of 12-15 hours but it was also quite bulky. So I re-ordered with my missing keyboard backlight and with the slimmer battery and I'm quite happy with the slimmer form-factor while still having a good 6 hours of work time.
11. It's clearly not a media machine, it even lacks shortcut keys for pause/play media.
Suspend and networking work smoothly out of the box with systemd. The touchpad is OK using xf86-input-libinput, surprisingly the Trackpoint hardware is so bad in this model I've stopped using it.
I have Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon. At first, I thought I am buying an almost IBM quality laptop. Craftmanship is not good, it looks cheap, screen is flickering and there is a constant 20 kHz hiss from cpu fan. Battery does not long last as it was promised (they had ads: battery life longer than macbook air's). Touchpad is not very responsive. And finally: another new type of usb-size adapter port, I have not seen anywhere else.
Very different experience with a X1 3rd generation (Broadwell). Battery life is 10h+, touchpad is butter smooth (to my surprise, better under Linux than with the original Windows 8.1), fans are stopped most of the time and the laptop is very silent. All this with Debian stable (more recently testing), so a pretty conservative set-up.
For battery life (and maybe fan noise?), have you installed "laptop-mode" or its successor "tlp" (the laptop project)? Both will tune the system automatically for AC or battery power, and it does make a huge difference for battery life. If you don't use either, you should really try them: the 5 mn installation time will be a good investment ;)
Main issue on my side: I bought it just after it was announced, and Linux support was so-so (functional, but annoying glitches and stability problems). Next time, I'll wait for the new models to be out and will buy the last gen one on the cheap --- there's so little changes anyway nowadays. But now all this is gone, and Linux support is top notch.
Quality ok but not as good as I had imagined: there's now a bit of flex in one corner. Not a problem in practice, I just expected more sturdiness from a TP.
I should finish my post on the 1st Gen X1 carbon I got used. I was able to run FreeBSD on it, but after a while it just started crashing randomly and I got an error when trying to update the bios.
I did buy it used so it could have just been a problem inherited from its previous owners. It worked well for the short time it did work.
I got another one when I switched teams at work, but the last guy had taken it with him on a boat and it got wet. The touchpad didn't work and the lower left screen was discoloured. I didn't use it very much.
I have a Macbook Pro 2014 (new; i5-4 / 8GB / SSD) and a Thinkpad X220 (refurbished; i5-2 / 16GB / SSD).
Clearly the chicklet keyboard of the MBP is the best of this kind, I ever used. The oldschool keyboard of the TP (it is the last without this chicklets) is the best keyboard I ever typed on.
The touchpad of the TP is disgusting. I deactivated it minutes after first boot and haven't enabled it again. The Touchpad of the MBP is the best touchpad I ever used. The multitouch gestures work flawlessly, I never hit it while typing and it is big enough to use two hands (preferred for some actions).
So it's a comparrison of apples and pears ;-)
The Mac is better for grapical stuff and everything visual. It's OS & Hardware are optimized for that. It's Design is overrated as it is pretty but doesn't provide more aesthetic value to me than the good old TP, but this is very subjective and many may disagree with me in this point.
The TP is better for Linux / Dev / Coding. The keyboard has enough keys to comfortably control everything without a mouse. If you need a pointer, use the red knub. Once learned you can nearly "beam" the pointer to where it shall be.
I think the best possible laptop for development that is not too expensive is simply a macbook pro unibody 2012, with a SSD and 16GB RAM. I still costs about 1000$ and you have to buy a SSD and RAM though they are reusable.
Connectivity :
It's the last macbook pro to have both a ethernet port and a DVD slot. And you have one of the new thunderbolt ports and a firewire port.
The i5 processor is still good. The only drawback is the screen (and the GPU). But for development it doesn't matter, and for my part, I watch movies on it without any problem.
With SSD and RAM you have a computer that is as fast as the latest macbook pro.
It is solid and quite beautiful like all Apple portable computers.
The battery is not very powerful (about 5 hours web browsing with chrome), but you can easily get external batteries (like the ThinkPad).
It is easy to install linux on it with the new boot system, though I like macOS because it is still Unix and has a lot of convenient apps and more softwares (and I can still install most of linux apps with macports or compile them myself).
I have a Lenovo laptop at home that is quite old now (A dual-core machine that I used throughout university). I am not sure which one it is, but I have been running Ubuntu on it for quite some time now, and it is actually the only of my devices that has always worked perfectly with a vanilla ubuntu installation.
Recently running 16.04 on it as well, once again an update without any issues.
Whilst on my other machines (An HP laptop and custom destkop) I always had _some_ problems with Ubuntu or other flavours of Linux. The HP laptop had the movie player problem mentioned here in the post, and had some issues with running Skype webcam/voice-chat.
The desktop had an issue of freezing up randomly, and some audio issues at first.
Currently Ubuntu is running on all these machines, but the old Lenovo laptop was the only one that in all these years worked without any issues.
I bought a laptop from them 7-8 years ago because I felt paying for an OS then putting Gnu/Linux onto it was a waste of money (the Dell XPS is just as expensive as the Windows one, so I think I got this wrong). It worked really great, but, was ugly as sin. The body seemed 10 years out of date even back then (there were more modern looking laptops in the 90s). I think the Dell XPS linux is the only nice looking linux laptop that I am aware of. Given Apples dropping the ball for UNIX devs, I hope this space gets better.
I've been using a CTO T440s with Intel WiFi option the last few years, running Debian and Arch Linux. I switched the HD for a SSD when I bought the machine. Initially I was somewhat disappointed because early reviewers seem to have gotten a better panel for the IPS display option then the later models had. The keyboard is good but not great: it has been replaced within warranty because some keys came off – the tiny plastic clips on the key caps had broken off. Lenovo serviced the machine for free within 2 days, even in Northern Europe, which is way better service than the people around me with Apple hardware have ever gotten.
Apart from that the laptop has been absolutely stable and silent most of the time. I'd rate it better than average, just below the old IBM Thinkpads (e.g. T42) and Macbook Pros mostly because I wish they'd make the keyboard and trackpad feel a bit more solid like the one on a Macbook Pro. I'd step on a T42, not so much on the T440s.
While it's not perfect, I'd consider buying it again, especially as a Linux user.
Another poster upstream commented the T470 is being announced this upcoming week, so I would imagine that the X1c that was announced is from the same logical "generation", and we might see a T470s/p as well.
There's a T460s that is lighter and slimmer than the standard T460. No swappable batteries though. The RAM options and screen options are slightly weird - the HDPI Screen is only available for the students edition, but can be swapped after purchase and parts of the RAM are soldered, so the machine maxes out at 20GB. Still, it's a nice workhorse and easily portable.
I have the T450s, and it's a great laptop for sure. But as someone who has owned laptops from the previous IBM ThinkPad series, there is a noticeably deterioration in quality ever since Lenovo took over. Is it only my laptop or have others noticed this as well?
I have also T450 and have had older ThinkPad's as well. And yes the quality is tad worse than it used to, but for me still better than others I've used.
T440S user here: The thing broke already 3 times in two years. The quality of Thinkpads is rapidly declining. I'm going to move away from Thinkpads after being satisfied for about 15 years. Also the moves Lenovo recently did is a blocker.
Say what you will, but Apple does make the best PC hardware. I used to run Linux (Mint) off of the 2013 MacBook Air. Now running Ubuntu on 2014 13" MBP. If you want a great Linux laptop, go to Ebay and get a used 13" or 15" inch MBP or Air and put a Linux on it. About everything will be better than with plasticy alternatives with inferior trackpads and mouse buttons.
> Say what you will, but Apple does make the best PC hardware.
Maybe a 4+ years ago, but this is less true today.
You must not have used recent Thinkpads or prosumer/business Dell laptops. It would probably blow your mind to learn they some even have the same touchpad hardware controllers. Sure, OS X has better software touchpad support, but the hardware is often identical.
Furthermore, the serviceability of RAM, SSD and battery on an Apple is typically non-existent while trivial on things like the Dell Precision line. And from my experience, most people who run Linux tend to tinker with things as opposed to buy a blackbox and never open it.
That is handy, thanks for sharing! I wrestled with Linux on a 2012 rMBP before when HiDPI support was rough, and this would have saved me some time. :)
X20x: make sure to get a Panasonic cooling unit; Toshiba's is awful. Apart from the noise they are built differently (so easy to tell apart), the coldplate on the Panasonic is split into the actual coldplate and a silver aluminimum piece that holds it down, while on the Toshiba the coldplate is copper all the way to the screws. But you only see that if you flip the system board over.
... and at something like 1.3-1.5 kg they aren't really heavier than more modern laptops anyway, just thicker.
Why do ThinkPads have such terrible resale values? That's one point that makes Apple machines more appealing - in three years the resale value is still decent, drastically lowering the TCO.
Correct, all three-figure models are at least DDR3. The X20x support up to 8 GB (2x 4 GB).
Edit: And no, they really don't support more. The memory controller only supports 2 Gb chips, so with two ranks per channel you only get 2x 4 GB. (Intel i7-600, i5-500 series processor datasheet, section 2.1.1).
Yes, such things are often outdated, but the availability of different memory chips does not change existing hardware. The MC really doesn't support it, there is no way to change anything about that...
I believe there were other chips at the time that supported more than 8 GB (i7-9xxM perhaps), but these are a different die (Clarksdale quad cores, ie. high end mobile chips that are selected desktop chips).
The difference is that with the one DS we know it's accurate because anything beyond 2 Gb simply doesn't work. So that DS is accurate. On the other hand we know that with Clarksdale more than 2 Gb does, in fact, work, just like they work on Lynnfield. As one would expect, it's the same silicon after all.
If you'd excuse me now, I believe my work here is done ;)
The point is that the datasheet is now inaccurate. This happened before with 2Gbit DDR3 and Intel had to update the datasheet for the Mobile 4 Series chipsets.
I can recommend switching Xorg Intel to the Xorg Modeset driver if you are using Linux with Intel based graphics. The stability of the modeset driver is much better than the Intel Xorg driver.
I bought a TP s540 3 years ago, and a few days after the end of the warranty, the motherboard died. Lenovo was ok to replace it for free. 3 months after, the motherboard died again and this time, no free replacement. The s540 was really cheaper, but without 3y warranty, without full mil-specs. If you want reliability, choose T/X series. 3Y warranty on site is already included, a proof they trust these products.
If you add the optional warranty on cheaper products, the price is higher than equivalent on T series.
I develop on a T460S. I dual boot Windows 10 and Debian Stretch, though Bash on Ubuntu on Windows has kept me mostly in Windows lately. I prefer this ThinkPad to the previous generation; it's back to having actual mouse buttons.
My only complaint is the lack of graphical oomph; gaming isn't really a thing this machine does, though it's okay at it. Then again, if that's what I was going for, I probably should have bought something else.
You can get a 13" 1920x1080 IPS panel on a Chromebook for about $350. With ~5 minutes of labor (swapping in an SSD) you can install Linux natively on it with GalliumOS.
You can buy reasonably cheap laptops with similar specs, either by buying >2 generations back (this T430 was $300), or by buying new models that are made of cheap plastic.
In my experience, all laptops eventually suffer damage, the more durable ones just take longer and tend to be more minor faults each time.
So if you can afford your laptop suddenly failing and switching to another machine (possibly by swapping the drive out, presuming that didn't fail, or restoring from backups/cloud storage), great, you have a robust setup. But many people don't have such a robust configuration, nor do they bring a backup laptop when e.g. traveling.
So for individuals and businesses that have configurations of Highly Replicated Data (where it doesn't matter if you lose an individual laptop), it might be worth it to buy lots of cheap laptops.
For cases where the amount of time/value of data lost to failed laptops is worth far more than the cost difference of the more durable laptops, it's probably worth it to get the ones with the rollcages and carbon fiber-infused chassis and [...].
I have a X240 (12.5" version of the T440) for about 2.5 years now, and while indeed being super quiet when it's new, today the fan is almost always on, even if it's only on the lowest speed. Probably need to open it up and give it a good cleaning, and/or replace the thermal paste between the CPU and cooler.
I did that with 2009 thinkpad and it got much worse. I guess the cheap paste I used was worse than the 6 year old paste lenovo had used :(
What _did_ help was to take out the fan, clean it and then oil it carefully (too much oil or doing so without cleaning it first will only make things worse). You can also buy replacement fans, although original fans are quite expensive.
I bought a Dell Inspiron 13 7000 earlier this year. i7, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, touch screen, convertible.
Ubuntu works flawlessly on it with the exception of not auto-rotating the screen when you fold it (you can set up a hotkey to do that, so not a big deal.)
The X1 does not offer docking stations nor does it offer the port range that a T460s offers (full ethernet, card reader, etc). The T460s is a few mm thicker than the X1 and about 200g heavier, but it shares a lot of hardware with and can use the same dock as the X260, T460 and T460p which is interesting if you're a business customer that wants to support a range of options from ultra-portable to powerful.
If you're a single freelance person or consumer, the X1 may be the more appealing choice.
I don't have a newer one to check right now, but on the Tx30 series they had both the ThinkLight and the newly-introduced backlit keyboard, with lighting cycling from off - keyboard dim - keyboard bright - ThinkLight.
ThinkWiki is unclear on its presence - The T460s is listed as a model with it, but the Tx50 models seem absent.
Different people have different needs. This laptop despite its minor flaws was in the end the best option for his particular needs
...or as a HN user said a while back:
tuananh 42 days ago | parent [-] | on: Why the MacBook Pro Is Limited to 16GB of RAM
all of this largely depends on personal preference.
to me, i value battery so much more.
it seems when people recommends stuff that has many flaws like this, it seems they set the standard pretty low and i find it hard to take the recommendation.
Still frustrating when you compare Apples to Oranges. You carry extra weight of Linux here: Weight as a Macbook Pro 15" but CPU performance (passmark) of a good Macbook Air 11" 2013 http://www.cpu-monkey.com/de/compare_cpu-intel_core_i5_6200u... & display SRGB coverage 61.55% according to Notebookcheck (Macbook Air 55,2%). No real improvements on Lenovo's side. For that money (if battery is a requirement) better buy a 13" Macbook Air (it's also 500-600 grams lighter).
You're comparing the entry-level Thinkpad CPU with the Top-Level Macbook CPU - not surprising that the 3 year old top level CPU compares well with the entry level of this year. It's not like the faster CPUs for the Thinkpad will be any heavier. The author also deliberately chose the "regular" T460 model instead of the lighter, more integrated (and thus less serviceable) T460s. The T460s is at least comparable in weight and power. The screen is a bit of a toss-up: I like the macbook screen since it's sturdy and doesn't scratch, but I also like the Thinkpad screen since it's not glossy.
Also comparing that by intention: A new Macbook Air 13" with top level i7 CPU (early 2015) is in the same price region or even cheaper and outperforms his setup slightly. But it also does not meet his requirements with 16GB of RAM.
So yes, you can get lighter laptops that can't handle 16GB RAM and have a lower-res screen (and a worse onboard graphics) card for a comparable price. But you specifically were comparing weight and power - and that's not entirely an apple - to - apple comparison you're doing here.
