
Lenovo ThinkPad T460 – A Good Linux Laptop for Development - karussell
https://karussell.wordpress.com/2017/01/02/lenovo-thinkpad-t460-a-good-linux-laptop-for-development/
======
mangecoeur
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.

~~~
runn1ng
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.)

~~~
bramblerose
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.

~~~
runn1ng
And what would be the upside to that?

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.

------
2bluesc
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.

~~~
kogepathic
> Xeon E3-1505M machine

Except they don't ship with ECC memory.

> 32GB, DDR4-2133MHz SDRAM, 2 DIMMS, Non-ECC [0]

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.

[0]
[http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstatio...](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m5510-workstation/pd)

[1] [http://ark.intel.com/products/88970/Intel-Core-i7-6820HQ-
Pro...](http://ark.intel.com/products/88970/Intel-Core-i7-6820HQ-
Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz)

[2] [http://ark.intel.com/products/89608/Intel-Xeon-
Processor-E3-...](http://ark.intel.com/products/89608/Intel-Xeon-
Processor-E3-1505M-v5-8M-Cache-2_80-GHz)

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!

~~~
yellowapple
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.

~~~
krzyk
What's the benefit of ECC on a laptop? Less frequent system failures? I
haven't seen a system halt on my laptop in months.

~~~
d33
Maybe better rowhammer resistance?

------
TobbenTM
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.

~~~
karussell
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"

~~~
JoshTriplett
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.

~~~
Xylakant
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.

~~~
JoshTriplett
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.

~~~
wott
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.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> 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/](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.)

------
keldaris
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.

~~~
sarcher
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.

~~~
keldaris
> 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.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/3hjlbu/so_i_did_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/3hjlbu/so_i_did_the_t420_fhd_ips_mod_and_its_glorious/)

~~~
pombrand
You can replace the T420 screen with a $45 Alienware 1600x900 screen that is
allegedly plug-n-play and amazing
[https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/4no5ak/t420_alien...](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/4no5ak/t420_alienware_panel_replacement_success/)

Considering doing it to my T420S :)

------
vegardx
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.

~~~
walkingolof
Learn to use the trackpoint instead and disable the touchpad.

~~~
ynniv
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?

~~~
cturner
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).

~~~
afarrell
I got an external Lenovo keyboard because I really like the trackpoint.

[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-0B47221-keyboards-
Universal-...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-0B47221-keyboards-Universal-
English/dp/B00S9QMCRQ/ref=pd_sim_147_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=HPSSKXMRM8SRS100WDMB)

------
endgame
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.

~~~
phunehehe0
Sounds like a non-problem if you are going to wipe out Windows and install
Linux anyway?

~~~
yellowapple
And additionally a non-problem with the ThinkPad line, which is far less
susceptible to this sort of tomfoolery.

~~~
Capt-RogerOver
Why would it be less susceptible? Isn't it the same company that makes them?

~~~
yellowapple
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.

------
karussell
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.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
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).

------
herbst
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.

~~~
innocentoldguy
Have their trackpads improved at all during the last five years?

~~~
JoshTriplett
The current X1 Carbon has an excellent trackpad, to the point that I actually
consider the trackpad a usable alternative to the stick.

~~~
rifung
Palm detection is pretty terrible still though (on Linux at least). Tap to
click is unusable for me for this reason.

~~~
JoshTriplett
libinput has much better palm detection than synaptics.

Personally, I haven't had tap to click enabled for a long time, since I have
physical mouse buttons available.

------
TheCowboy
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.

~~~
driverdan
Have you considered using an external mech keyboard? There are a decent number
of small ones: Pok3r, Planck, HHKB Pro 2, others.

~~~
TheCowboy
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.

------
giis
My experience with Lenovo:

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.

------
aiur3la
> ... 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?

~~~
cel1ne
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!

~~~
aiur3la
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)

~~~
karussell
I have disabled the UEFI Network Stack (updated the article to reflect this)
and now the BIOS boot time is down to ~2seconds :) !

------
aceperry
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.

~~~
emerongi
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.

------
nonsince
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.

------
cornedor
This week at CES the T470 will be announced. So if you're thinking about
buying one you might want to wait for that

~~~
karussell
For Linux I highly recommend a further waiting of 6-9 months (e.g. (x)ubuntu
17.04.1)

~~~
ktta
But it's not LTS. All the major software stuff will be well supported for
16.04 till 18.04.

If you look around, you'll mostly find 14.04/16.04 in supported OSes. Even for
OSS software, not just commercial stuff.

~~~
jusssi
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.

------
mentat2737
I bought a T420s a few months ago.

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.

~~~
Hasknewbie
I have a X260. Don't.

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.

~~~
Havoc
Weird - we've got an office full of x240s & x260s and they all seem fine from
what I can tell.

Never had a hardware related issue in ~2 years of use. Well except that one
bluescreen a couple months back - that could be hw I guess.

The screen res pisses me off though. :/

~~~
Hasknewbie
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.)

~~~
Havoc
>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).

------
sytelus
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!

~~~
ianamartin
Thank you for this. I think this is very likely to be my next hardware
purchase. Didn't know such a thing existed yet.

~~~
mahyarm
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLsDn59fxdQ)

He has a whole bunch more on his channel about others similar to that lenovo.

~~~
sytelus
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.

------
ronjouch
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 T _5_ 60 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).

------
EdwinHoksberg
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.

~~~
petecox
Intel do a quarterly release that fetches pre-built packages but it's only for
Ubuntu/Fedora.

On my NUC, when new, I ran debian testing and had to pull in packages from
debian experimental for Intel driver support.

So I'd suggest maybe switching to downstream Ubuntu might involve less trauma?

[https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/intel-graphics-
update...](https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/intel-graphics-update-tool-
linux-os-v2.0.3)

~~~
Symmetry
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.

------
ianamartin
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.

------
exabrial
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!

------
alanl
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.

------
INTPenis
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.

------
hendry
You guys might be interested in an Archlinux centric T460 series I made on
Youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiKgVPlhUNuxgKwoVH4MM...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiKgVPlhUNuxgKwoVH4MMUy5MLqjAE2ux)

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.

------
bbtn
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.

~~~
yaantc
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.

------
VvR-Ox
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.

Don't want to miss one of them, I love both <3

------
Labo333
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).

------
Insanity
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.

------
wiz21c
I've seen shops on the internet selling "linux specific" PC's. Has anyone ever
tried these ?

See [https://system76.com/](https://system76.com/) for example.

~~~
Tistel
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.

------
wvh
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.

------
ekianjo
Did they make a 460s version of the 460 this time around?

~~~
karussell
They have 'workhorse' 460p (less mobile but stronger CPUs IMO) and a more
expensive 'ultra book' 460s, plus the X1 Carbon.

For the Carbon there seems to be a recent version released (in the US):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13286150](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13286150)
(maybe they plan to substitude the 460s?)

~~~
sz4kerto
460p is not cheaper, it's the 'pro' version with more powerful GPU.

~~~
karussell
Corrected this. I think they are more powerful but less mobile?

------
middleclick
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?

~~~
mgv11
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.

------
mightymaike
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.

------
rixrax
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.

Some sort of matrix of what Apple HW will work with Linux is found from here:
[https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Apple](https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Apple)
(but do your own research too)

~~~
2bluesc
> 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.

> Some sort of matrix of what Apple HW will work with Linux is found from
> here:
> [https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Apple](https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Apple)
> (but do your own research too)

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. :)

~~~
criddell
I think Apple still does a better job with the chassis. My ThinkPad is all
plastic and flexes a lot. My MacBook seems much sturdier.

------
eltoozero
The x201 is a 12" ThinkPad model with i5 2.5 ghz, unfortunately only DDR2 but
jam in an SSD and it's a crazy bargain for ~$100 on eBay.

Coreboot support too if that's your kind of thing.

Stay away from the tablet x201, forget that noise.

~~~
yuhong
Core i5 would not be DDR2.

~~~
dom0
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).

~~~
yuhong
The datasheets are often outdated. See
[http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100923006778/en/Sams...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100923006778/en/Samsung-
Mass-Producing-40nm-class-8GB-DDR3-Module) for an example.

~~~
dom0
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).

~~~
yuhong
And if you read
[http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/core/core-...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/core/core-i7-900-mobile-
ee-and-mobile-processor-series-vol-1-datasheet.html) , it does not say
anything about 4Gbit DDR3 either.

~~~
dom0
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 ;)

------
acd
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.

[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/intel_graphics](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/intel_graphics)
[https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-
mode...](https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-modesetting)

------
mathieuruellan
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.

------
steveklabnik
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.

------
okasaki
I could buy 3 equivalent laptops (finding IPS might be a problem) for the
price. Is the Thinkpad brand really worth that much?

~~~
nickjj
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.

Full details can be found here:

[https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-
chromeboo...](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromebook-
cb35-into-a-linux-development-environment-with-galliumos)

Been using it for a few months now for development and it's been great.

------
dajonker
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.

~~~
aiur3la
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.

~~~
favadi
Thermal paste shouldn't be matter much.

------
gonzo
Ran Macs for the last decade.

Started experimenting with an x230 + FreeBSD -HEAD (i3wm) about a year ago. It
took a while to get setup, but everything works, including resume.

Just started using Ubuntu 16.04 on a X1 Carbon 4th gen. Pretty flawless
install, except it won't correctly boot an encrypted LVM.

------
flavor8
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.)

------
rerx
If only Lenovo consistently offered bright screens with good color
reproduction.

~~~
amiga-workbench
Have you ever used a T420 before? The panel on that thing is so hilariously
poor you have to wonder how it got past QA.

------
softinio
T460s is the better quality one but last I looked didn't have the latest i7
processors which is a shame.

Always loved thinkpads and if I was to buy a developer laptop today would
probably be a thinkpad with Linux on it.

------
mathieuruellan
And 3 years warranty on site, not optional (alreay included in the price).

------
DyslexicAtheist
I personally quite like these guys:
[https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/](https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/)

------
Zamicol
I have a T420 and finally just updated to a Dell E5470 (8V22N).

All of Lenovo's offerings seem overpriced as with the industry as a whole.

------
ryanar
I bought a ThinkPad X200 off of ebay for $400. SSD, 8gb ram, put Arch on it
with zero issues, 8 hour battery, I love it.

------
aiur3la
I am sure it is a great laptop, but it also looks like a X1 with larger
bezels. Why would you want that instead of X1?

~~~
Xylakant
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.

~~~
willtim
The X1 does offer the OneLink+ docking station and soon will offer a TB3
docking station.

------
pkamb
Didn't even add a bullet point for the TrackPoint!

It used to be that ThinkPads had great keyboards too, pity about the chiclets.

------
dfc
Did lenovo get rid of the ThinkLight? (The keyboard illumination from above)

~~~
fencepost
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.

------
seanwilson
Hmm, I find it hard to get over how old fashioned ThinkPad keyboards look.

------
tuananh
despite so many problems that OP stated, he's still recommending it!

~~~
aiur3la
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.
    

:)

~~~
tuananh
maybe it's just me.

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.

------
vladimir-y
T470 serie is coming

------
therealmarv
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...](http://www.cpu-monkey.com/de/compare_cpu-
intel_core_i5_6200u-590-vs-intel_core_i7_4650u-436) & 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).

~~~
Xylakant
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.

~~~
therealmarv
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.

~~~
Xylakant
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.

