I switched away from a 2016 MBP w/Touch Bar. Switched to a Dell XPS (9560).

For the curious, here are the specs and price: MBP: 2.9GHz i7, 16GB, 2TB NVMe, Radeon Pro 460 4GB GPU - $4299

XPS: 2.8GHz i7 (Kaby Lake), 32GB, 1TB NVMe, Nvidia GTX 1050 4GB @ 4K res - $2499

The big jump in price in the full spec iMac is the 2TB of storage. NVMe isn't cheap.

If they were both at 1TB storage, and more comparable spec for spec, the XPS makes for a more powerful machine. (and for me raw power is WAY more important than thin/light)

Why did I switch? Major GPU issues, a gimmicky touchbar with only TouchID as it's useful piece, crappy battery life, and the need for something reliable that wasn't going to flake at the drop of a hat.

Like I've commented elsewhere, it's hard not to get the impression that all Apple cares about is the iPhone.

They've been making thin and light the priority, at the expense of things that power users want.

Lest anyone assume I'm stomping off mad... I've been a hardcore Mac user for 14 years.

I am using Windows 10 on the XPS. I figured it would be a major source of pain, in terms of workflow, to switch back. The Windows Subsystem for Linux takes almost all of that pain away.

I still have my MBP, but it's sitting on the shelf. Once more updates come out, maybe I'll revisit. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What is your OS?

I'm using Windows 10. Fast Ring.

Ugh, I don't have the option to switch rings. Is this dependent on a specific version of Win10?

You have to have a Microsoft account (as opposed to just a local account) linked to your machine. Then you'll be able to do the Windows Insider thing, and also switch between Fast/Slow Rings.

You need to join the Windows Insider program first - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Insider#Rings

And link it to my Win login, apparently.

Thanks for the tip!

I'll present a contrary view: I love my new MacBook Pro. It's thinner and lighter than my last one; relevant to me because I travel extensively.

I find that the battery lasts longer than my last MacBook Pro as well.

I've seen the Surface Pro, and I find it intriguing, but can't really picture wanting to purchase or use one.

Me too. I got a new 13" non-touchbar MBP pro after my previous 15" lasted seven years until Apple dropped support for it from the new OS. It still ran Xcode OK. Why would I not buy another? New MBP is great.

+1

Got the non-touchbar model and it's by far the best machine I've ever used.

Agree. I went from an early 2011 15" MBP fully decked out with SSD, 16G mem, matte screen (which I loved.. but spilled beer on) to the 13" mbp touch and love everything about it.

I have a Surface Pro, an iPad Pro, and an original retina macbook (ordered the day they were announced). If I had to pick one, I'd pick the macbook. If I could pick two, I'd pick the macbook and the iPad. The one thing I really like about the Surface is the handwriting keyboard. I just wish the word recognition was better. It mainly sits on my desk at home charging though.

I too actually switched back to my macbook but mine is a mid-2012 model, which is still kicking. My wife got the touchbar macbook and she loves it too.

My main issue with Surface Pro is the keyboard.

Life's too short to not run OS X on my primary work machine.

As an ex-windows user for over 15 yrs, this is my main point. Despite me hating the hardware, in osx, it just works. No drama.

Did you yet notice how hard it is to convince other Windows users of this?

It's hard to convince us because it's not true. As a matter of fact, the opposite is true - hardware certainly doesn't "just work" in Apple's ecosystem and it does just work with Windows.

I use Mac and Windows every day at work. Rarely, if ever, do I have any issues with my Windows hardware but my Mac hardware constantly causes me problems. Just last week I had to take steps to "zap the PRAM" on my 2012 Mac Pro since every USB port died for no reason.

I also have multiple wireless USB mice that work fine on my Macs until I go to the Updates tab of the App Store...at which point they simply stop working. Another problem I have with my Macs is that there is no built-in way to disable an external monitor without unplugging it or powering it down.

Honestly, I've been using Macs since the 90's, I've always had hardware problems with them and when I look around I see others having the same problems - so I know it's not just me. If you search the web you can see millions of others having Mac hardware issues - so I'm not really sure where Apple fans are getting the idea that Mac hardware "just works" because it quite obviously does not.

It's not "Mac works" and "Windows doesn't work" or vice versa. They both have issues, regularly, and often trade places being worse. They BOTH suck.

It's a matter of what issues you feel comfortable dealing with. There is no computer utopia, unless you're only surfing and writing documents, and need nothing more complex than a Chromebook. ;)

I use Mac and Windows every day and I'm certainly comfortable with both of them. Many of my Mac hardware issues have no fix at all though.

The one I mentioned about certain USB mice dying has never been fixed. Another thing that will never ever be fixed is the lack of choice video cards that I can put into the PCIe slot on my Mac Pro. Other problems with PRAM or SMC/sleep have a "fix" but somehow they keep popping up and you have to keep applying the fix. I can tell you honestly that I never have recurring problems on the Windows because things get fixed quite rapidly since Microsoft obviously still cares about Windows.

Anyway, I don't care about Chromebooks or other walled garden devices really. Even if I just wanted something to browse with I would prefer a Windows tablet so I could have some freedom ;)

I had a Surface Book. It was my first foray back into Windows territory. The device itself is amazing. Blows the doors off an iPad, in terms of productivity. (remember: long time Apple user)

Unfortunately, I ragequit it and sold it after dealing with the "sleep of death" issue enough times. Well-documented issue, and supposedly fixed with updates. (that was not my experience).

The Surface Book got fixed for good with a firmware update though.

Meanwhile, all of the Mac problems I mentioned are still not fixed and Apple is still quite obviously, ignoring their desktop OS. They've also always hated power users where-as Microsoft caters to them on hand and foot.

I had that firmware update. The one that was supposed to fix it "for good". Mine wasn't fixed, at all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Definitely no arguments on the Mac stuff though... (as I type from my shiny new Dell XPS)

The problem with this response is that it is anecdotal and not statistically significant. Which makes it useless, unfortunately.

I never claimed Macs didn't have hardware issues. I claimed that it is nearly impossible to convince a die-hard Windows user that perhaps they might be happier overall on a Mac.

same, I had to zap the pram, or whatever, bc it wouldnt boot. also have problems connecting external monitors through miniDP, sometimes the monitor doesn't work.

Same boat here, I intend to upgrade my eight year old Macbook either in two months or the end of the year (so could wait for the next update potentially). I use Windows at work and I just can't do it at home. There's always some type of drama although of course it's gotten better over the years. I've spent an hour at the Apple store comparing the non-touch bar and the touch bar ones, I prefer the non-touch bar, but not a fan of the keyboard on either one. If they upgrade the Air I may just get that but it seems unlikely.

Have had a dell xps 13 (project sputnik) for a while now. Best portable laptop I've ever had. Mac doesn't even come close. Every time I have to use a Mac at work I wonder why can't these people wise up. All our infra is Ubuntu. What is the point of running OS X and dealing with all the cross-OS issues.

I assume you would be doing things in VMs, right!? So what cross-OS issues?

IMO it's kind of weird to buy a frankly absurdly expensive laptop that locks you into using it's OS to then go and setup a bunch of virtualization to make your code/dependencies work when you can just run the OS you are virtualizing.

Why add layers of complexity when you can just run the OS you want?

Why use a VM when I can run things directly on the bare metal or in a docker container and not pay the virtualization overhead.

I'm not the original posted, but for me it's security and convenience reasons, mostly. I use Qubes OS which presents a very nice UI that makes using multiple VM's very seamless.

I'm pretty sure my coding productivity would be a little higher on Linux, but there's no way I'm going to give up the nice polished UI applications I get on OS X and the near-universal ability to shift seamlessly between desktop and mobile. I feel some kind of weird prepper compulsion to regularly think about how I would do the transition back to Linux, but I really don't relish the thought of going back to being my own personal integration engineer and sinking my time into disappointing "___ equivalent" Linux applications.

I had long been weary of juggling VMWare guests' RAM consumption on my MacBook Pro, but I held out for a modern system with more RAM (whether MacBook Pro or updated Mac Pro), until the most recent refresh. Two months ago, I purchased a Linux workstation with a modest 128 GiB RAM, and have barely touched my laptop since.

In 2005, I bought a quad-core Opteron workstation with 16 GiB RAM. That Apple wouldn't offer anything substantially more powerful in a laptop form factor a dozen years later boggles the mind. Granted, my use case may be atypical (lots of jemalloc portability development/testing), but between the anemic hardware options and the de-emphasis of developer products, I'm sufficiently disenfranchised at this point that even after working at Apple on the operating system (~10.1-10.4 range) and then using it ever since, I'm not personally interested anymore in what Apple does next.

Switched to a beastly 17" Dell Precision 7710 running Fedora 25. It's not small, very powerful, carbon fiber, holds 2-3 drives including the primary NVMe and I can load up to 64GB of RAM.

The best part though...I can open up the bottom and replace parts anytime I want.

Need to switch to an Android phone next because iTunes doesn't play nice on Linux.

The latest Razer Blade has worked out for me very well. Ubuntu / windows dual boot has made it convenient for work / play alike. I unloaded the nvidia drivers for similar battery in ubuntu vs windows.

Turns out I'll be the contrarian voice in an overwhelmingly Apple-positive thread about switching away from the Mac:

OS X has been my primary productivity OS for more than ten years now, but I'm in the process of switching. I'll keep using my 2012 MBP until it physically falls apart, but make no mistake: this will be my last MacBook. Not sure what I'll replace it with when the time comes, performant laptops with a long battery life and 2TB+ storage are amazingly hard to come by these days.

My iPhone has a broken screen that can't be fixed without permanently losing the finger print scanner, so that's going to be my last iPhone as well.

On the desktop side, I'm using an iMac/PC dual setup (with Synergy), so I'm still dragging my heels a bit because honestly it hurts to let OS X go. Windows and I will never be friends, but there is no question that the PC platform is going to be the future for me.

To be clear, switching sucks royally for me, but staying would suck more. macOS hasn't deteriorated to the point where I want to leave it behind yet, although the writing is on the wall. But Apple's hardware philosophy and practice makes it so I'd really hate giving them even more money for yet another even more hilariously overpriced, closed-down, underperforming, outdated, unrepairable, not-upgradeable appliance that they think is going to be the future of computing.

> My iPhone has a broken screen that can't be fixed without permanently losing the finger print scanner.

I don't know why you're thinking you're going to any better off with some other smartphone. I broke my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge's screen and nobody could fix it. Nobody would replace it. I checked icracked, tmobile stores, called around. Now I have a LGV20 in an otter case, and the class that covers the camera has cracks. These phones are fragile.

At least with iPhones you have a large enough market where small businesses can help. With some random android phone from LG with nationwide sales in the low millions annually I'm pretty much not going to find anyone to help me fix anything. And there aren't like any LG stores, like there are Apple stores you can go to.

"My iPhone has a broken screen that can't be fixed without permanently losing the finger print scanner"

That's not true in my experience. Unless the actual button/scanner is broken (unlikely) you can transplant it to a new screen without too much trouble.

Source: I've changed a couple of screens for friends and family.

Edit:

Here's a repair guide that includes the home button transplant.

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+7+Display+Assembly+Repla...

I'm repeating what the repair guys told me. I'll look into it, but from what I've been told, I managed to break the whole assembly.

Do you think you'll try OSX on PC-hardware? I'm not sure how easy that is to do still, but it might be worth a shot.

I've been thinking about making a Hackintosh, yes, but in the end I don't want to have a setup that I constantly have to spend time on just to keep it alive. I'm not sure if things have gotten better since I last looked into it, but it seems to me you'll have to live with a degraded feature set and constant tweaking.

    > the end I don't want to have 
    > a setup that I constantly 
    > have to spend time on just 
    > to keep it alive

It's admittedly been about 5 years since I seriously tried to use Linux on the desktop, and a little longer than that since Windows, but the biggest concession I've made to keeping my OS X machine alive is a `bluetooth_reload` alias. Is XF86Config still a thing? How about audio support?

XF86Config is now Xorg and is only used in the rare cases (dealing with proprietary drivers or strange configurations, mostly) where you want to override the defaults. Most people don't have an Xorg.conf file anymore.

For all that people complain about pulseaudio, it's been working pretty well for me for the last 5 years or so.

I'll admit I'm a bit of an outlier, though: I run xubuntu as my base system but i3 as my main window manager. I'm sooo much more productive on it than anything else I've ever used - it's amazing how much time I used to spend adjusting window sizes.

I was talking about Hackintosh actually, but it's true: I have the same reservations about the Linux desktop.

If you love tinkering, Hackintosh is certainly full of fun projects.

> My iPhone has a broken screen that can't be fixed without permanently losing the finger print scanner

Why?

It's hard to justify buying a new notebook in this day and age IMO. Since 2014 hardware has been about the same with the same price point for customer notebooks..

I had a macbook air 13 from my company and would probably have kept it to this date. Since my company took it back I am using some 13' toshiba with i3 and 4gb of ram running ubuntu.. haven't seen the need to upgrade.

Since 2014 the hardware has been more than adequate for 90% of the people that buy those sorts of machines. There's also not a lot of room for improvement since the i5/i7 from 2014 and the i5/i7 from 2017 aren't dramatically different.

> I am using some 13' toshiba with i3 and 4gb of ram...

You're complaining about the hardware not being better and you're using a super low-end laptop. Maybe your real complaint is price, not performance, as you can get machines like that for $200 if you're not concerned about anything other than cost.

Yep.

In MY day to day, as a backend / front-end / devops guy, it isn't worth the money to buy anything better than what I have IMO.

All I do is vim, run stuff in cloud machines through ansible (SSH), and a browser.

My last MacBook Air with an i7 was better than what I have but not $2k better.

The Air with a retina display would be the perfect laptop.

I bought a 2015 MacBook Pro, I would highly recommend one. The 2014 MBP is still great too if you can find one, basically the same as the 2015 model.

I have negative interest in the touch bar or that awful keyboard.

I'm a polyglot programmer and operating system user. Servers are mostly Linux, some real hardware, some virtual, doesn't matter. Desktops are Windows or Linux, laptops OSX or Windows.

On a day to day basis I use both a 2009 13" Mac Book pro and a 2015 Mac Book Pro. However, for the prior 4 years I used a Dell XPS Windows 7 laptop.

The primary primary reason for using the Mac on a day to day basis is system stability and responsiveness. The Mac just works. It always fires up. It is highly responsive to my needs which are Web, Terminal (server admin), and general office applications.

The Windows laptop, on the other hand, left me with little confidence from day to day. Most days it would operate fine, then one day it would blue screen or simply become unresponsive requiring a physical restart. Certainly all kinds of tweaks were done over time to fix one thing or another related to some application setting somewhere deep in the registry.

I've not tried Windows 10, but then it has no particular 10x value for me either.

Note that the 2009 MBP was upgraded in 2012 to an SSD. It is still a crispy fast system that beat the pants off of newer Dell laptops.

Just my $0.02.

When I switched teams within my company in 2014, I was due for a new work notebook and I got a Macbook because everyone in the new team was using them. I have been screaming at macOS's bizarre window manager, ridiculous Unix userland and only half-full-featured Outlook and Lync ever since, and praised my Arch Linux VM where most of my actual work is taking place because it helps me keep my sanity.

I'm posting this because, near the end of the year, the 3-year depreciation period is over and I can (or rather, have to) get a new notebook, and it will definitely be a Windows machine. ($work only has official Windows and Mac images.) Outlook and Lync ^W Skype-for-Business will work much better (I will be one of the few on the team who can do such amazing things as record Lync ^W SfB sessions).

So yes, I am one of the guys you asked for, although probably not for the reasons most people expect.

I have a Macbook Pro 2015 from my job and I'm really not fond of it. The machine itself is nice and I like the keyboard but I hate the OS. We do all our work inside Docker containers running Linux, all our infra runs on Linux but we work on OSX.

It's not the worst thing in the world but it just seems unnecessary when running the OS we target is just as simple.

I have yet to use a machine that is as much of a pleasure to use as my mbp. I came from linux and while it was able to get the job done, the third party support for a lot of apps was less than ideal. Having everything synced up to my iPhone (again coming from someone who's first smart phone was the original droid) is fantastic as well.

I recently got a Surface Pro after two cycles (~7 years) of MBP 15 inchers. I wanted something lightweight I could draw on, and did think about the iPad Pro with Pencil for a while, but in the end having the flexibility to install any app won out (currently I'm using Aseprite and Manga Studio).

I've been using both Mac and Windows OSes since the last millennium, so I'm not precious about either one. But I do personally prefer explorer over finder in most aspects.

Visual Studio is a beast, and it's absolutely ridiculous that MS now give away so many features for free in the community version.

I had no expectations for the type cover keyboard, but it turns out it is fantastically comfortable and productive.

I have no plans to get a new Mac, but my 2014 MBP is still proving useful to do remote iOS builds from Xamarin. I'll probably keep it around just for that but if I never have to open Xcode again it will be too soon.

My 2013 MBPr is still fine. I'll probably get the new one late this year or the next though. Haven't been especially impressed with Windows laptops.

My SO has a XPS 13 and while the build is much better than any Windows laptop I've seen, I don't think it's worth switching.

Really my decision is between the smaller 12 inch vs the 13 inch.

I would guess a lot of people based on anecdotal comments on forums and not very many people based on sales data.

Switched to one actually. My System 76 was aging and work bought me a new MBP. It's nice. Definitely has the processing power to do everything that I would want to when I'm away from my desktop. Good battery. My desktop (Ubuntu) is still where I do most my work.

Apple will have to screw macOS up a lot for me to stop using it, especially if work keeps buying my MBP.

I just reclaimed my 2009 MBP after upgrading my wife's MBP. I'd never notice it wasn't current If it wasn't for running a little hot and the non-retina screen.

The price to power in most high end laptops is the same Apple is not priced very high compared to others. But with the new Amd processors that could change. And laptops with similar power and battery life at 2/3rd to half the price is going to change things.

I made the switch 3 year ago to GNU/Linux. It is free and better for software development than OSX (same order of magnitude) or Windows (by a lot). Microsoft is investing high in marketing now, though.

Congratulation on becoming free(-er) :)

My personal laptop is still a 2011 Macbook Air. I was waiting for the new MBP's before I upgraded but after they came out, it was clear that Apple had lost me as a laptop customer.

It's not just the hardware. OSX has become steadily worse over the years, and there is no indication that this will be reversed.

I'm not looking at getting myself a fully specced ThinkPad T470s: Kaby Lake CPU, 24 GB DDR4 RAM and 1 TB NVMe SSD. I'll be running Linux on this thing.

I've thought about going back to the MacBook several times. It's a beautiful, and very light, machine. However, I really, really value having a tablet that I can write on that can also be a fully-fledged computer when it needs to be. Being able to reorient the monitor in portrait mode is amazing. Also, the Type Cover keyboard is amazing; leagues better than the chiclet keys on the MacBooks.

After Windows 10 got Ubuntu, there was no looking back.

I am still thinking about replacing my iPad Air for an iPad Pro, though. I love a small tablet I can write on, too.

You don’t need a new laptop. If you own a MacBook Pro Retina, 2013 (or beyond), then you have all the computing power you need. Why waste the money, why contribute to e-waste?

Because it's new and lighter?

I already did some time ago. I got a surface pro and until you own one you don't know what you are missing. The form factor is simply awesome.

Then I also used to have a xps13 with Ubuntu. Great machine.

I've recently switched to a T460s with 20gb ram, 1tb SSD and i7. Comes with all the ports you need and want. It's light and fast. Used to run Ubuntu for a while full time. Recently switched to windows 10 and the WSL is a game changer. Reminds me of the good old Mac days.

There's very little chance of that happening, but we aren't rushing in to buy a bunch of touchbar macbook pros to replace our existing machines either.

Switched after the release. Now on a Thinkpad with 32GB of RAM for half the cost. Took a bit of adaption moving to Linux but I'm glad I did. Have had minimal downtime since switching to Ubuntu, can only recommend it for work if you're using a popular flavour and you've got popular hardware. Life's too short to spend time fixing driver issues and configs.. Unless that's your job. ;)

Agreed. That's how I ended up with Fedora 25.

Not me. Still on a mid-2011 13-inch MacBook Air. I'll probably switch to whatever new MacBook is release this summer.

Same here, and it baffles me that all people talk about is MBP when MBA is such a good alternative. I'll keep my Air until it dies, or a new one comes out.

I went from a 2012 15" Retina MBP to a SP4 for about a year. It was okay.

I'm now back on a 2016 15" TB MBP and happy to be "home" on macOS.

There's really nothing wrong with this machine. It might not be the giant leap forward from the 2015 model that people hoped for, but it's a perfectly fine machine to get work done with.

I have maxed MB Pro 15" late 2016 model and cant really imagine switching to anything else for development.

I don't want.

But here in Colombia, a good Apple machine cost DAMM TOO MUCH (ten months of 2x * basic income for a entry level Mac Pro), and each iteration is a bit worse than the previous.

I'm holding on my iMac, but most likely I will build a hackintosh.

I'm nearing the time when my machine needs to be replaced. I haven't had a MBP yet, and was set on getting one... until the latest release drama.

I still need to commit to a decision, but I'm eyeing the XSP13 lustfully now.

Thought about switching to Surface Book and using Scoop as a colleague mentioned it to me, but decided to get the new MBP 2016 w/ Touchbar after using a Macbook Air 2012.

Touchbar is great, don't know why people are complaining.

Seeing many folks that went to MacBook Pros last cycle but now going to Dell or Lenovo HW. I lean more towards Lenovo, but the recent Dell semi-unibody builds are very nice.

In the meantime, Apple is selling more MBPs than ever: https://arstechnica.com/apple/2017/01/apple-sets-revenue-and... :

Mac unit sales have rebounded after a few quarters of decline, and Mac revenue is actually up by around $500 million, hopefully proving to Apple that people actually will buy Macs when the company releases new ones. Both the revenue growth and the unit sales growth can be attributed to the new MacBook Pro

My MBP isn't quite in updating range yet, but I fully expect to buy the next model MBP after the current one.

I couldn't stick with the Surface and ended up coming back to my mbp. I guess I drank the koolaid hard!

I will after my primary project ceases to be developing an iPhone app. Should be sometime this summer.

I just bought a new non-touchbar 15" MBP.

Not me. My Mid-2015 Retina is fantastic.

Switching to a MacBook maybe.

Hail corporate