
We Need a Better PC - dcposch
https://blog.dcpos.ch/someone-please-make-a-decent-pc
======
habosa
Not disagreeing with the premise, but just want to plug a machine I am very
happy with.

I was a lifetime mac owner (since OS 9) and my 2010 Macbook Pro finally broke
down this year. It made it that long because I doubled the RAM, replaced the
battery, and replaced the HDD with a hybrid drive. Finally the battery puffed
up and exploded. I brought it to the Apple Store and they were beyond useless.
The new MBPs are not modifiable in any way, and Apple's customer service is
not what it used to be. So I decided to get a non-Mac for the first time in my
life.

I ended up with an Asus Zenbook UX305LA. It's a 13" 1080p screen, 8GB RAM,
256GB SSD, Core i5 processor. Cost me $749 and I dual-boot WIndows 10 and
Ubuntu (spending 95% of my time in Ubuntu). It costs about 50% what a similar
specced Macbook would cost and is similar size/weight to the Macbook air.
Build quality is fantastic (open with one hand, good keyboard, glass trackpad,
etc). The battery life is not quite as good as a 13" MBA but better than a
Macbook Pro. Overall I am extremely happy with it.

Considering that my last MBP cost me $2200 up front plus ~$300 in repairs over
time and lasted me ~4.5 years. That's about $500 a year. This machine cost
$750. If it lasts over a year and a half, the experiment is a success. So far
it's been nothing but great.

~~~
chjohasbrouck
I have both, and I find the things that Macs have that everything else is
missing just aren't articulated on a spec sheet.

The display on the Macbook Pro Retina is just flawless. The colors, the anti-
glare, and the picture quality from all angles, it's just really well done.
The brushed aluminum chassis makes it very cool and lightweight, great to
travel with and keep on your lap. Excellent battery life. It's just a great
machine to live with overall.

Most of the PC options are steel and plastic, so they're hot and heavy.
They'll burn your legs, they have comparably poor battery life. The screen
looks terrible if your viewing angle isn't perpendicular. The hardware I've
had has tended to die faster, too.

I do spend most of my time in Linux on this old Dell, though. The OS is more
important to me and I prefer Linux. But Macbooks are great, and I wish I could
find something as good to install Linux on.

~~~
eosrei
You seem to have only looked at the older PCs. Have you looked at the Dell XPS
13 or Microsoft Surface Book? They may dispel your complaints. You can even
buy the XPS with Ubuntu.

~~~
tluyben2
Worthless battery life for such costly machines. I would've bought the XPS 13
with Ubuntu otherwise.

Edit: I read reviews like this [http://www.iretron.com/blog/posts/dell-
xps-13-is-a-major-dis...](http://www.iretron.com/blog/posts/dell-xps-13-is-a-
major-disappointment/) cannot find the other ones though. It is better than I
remember; I thought it was worse. Still; 6 hours is not really usable in my
book.

~~~
Zarel
I googled around and found this:

[http://www.trustedreviews.com/dell-xps-13-2015-review-
batter...](http://www.trustedreviews.com/dell-xps-13-2015-review-battery-life-
performance-and-verdict-page-3)

which gives a rated battery life of 18 hours and a real-world use battery life
of 9-10 hours

[http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/dell-xps-13-battery-
life-f...](http://www.laptopmag.com/articles/dell-xps-13-battery-life-fix)

This article suggests a battery life of 12 hours.

What kind of battery life are you expecting?

~~~
tluyben2
Ah my bad; I read somewhere it was much much less. Maybe that's outdated
information. But when people say 9 hours, basically I get 3-4 out of them...
Usually.

~~~
wyclif
What are you doing, compiling a kernel or rendering graphics?

~~~
TallGuyShort
Probably not an atypical use case on here :)

------
xlayn
Do you like the MacBook but don't like the OS? go ahead and change it, you can
have triple boot.

Tiny fonts and pop ups doesn't have anything to do with the machine you are
going to buy (unless you also want the website).

HP makes the elitebook, magnesium construction a la thinkpad.

And last but not least I would like to give this entry the RAGE post award,
nomination points for

    
    
      What I want is a computer with:
    
        -Decent build quality
        -Decent performance and battery life
        -A decent website. It doesn't have to be an icon of web
        design, like apple.com. It can be simple and 
        utilitarian, like an Amazon page. It just has to be
        honest and up to date. It should contain pictures,
        text, and a Buy button.
        -A clean OS without crapware or malware factory
        installed
    
      Is that too much to ask? Make one and you can have my
      money! 
    

Apple, Lenovo, Microsoft and HP make systems like the one you want, you can
install your choice of OS and buy it on Amazon or eBay if you want.

Bonus points for calling apple website an icon of web design when it weights
almost 100mb.

Rage score 9/10.

~~~
SwellJoe
_" HP makes the elitebook, magnesium construction a la thinkpad."_

I've been burned so badly by an HP laptop, that I'm unlikely to ever buy
another HP product in any category. It is horrifically bad. Damned near
_everything_ is wrong with it. It also had some crapware, and the system
restore partition didn't work...so I had a dead laptop for two weeks waiting
for physical restore media to arrive (that I paid $10+shipping for). Specs
were great, among the highest end available at the time. The quality, on the
other hand, has been worse than any computer I've ever owned.

I guess is isn't all that constructive as comments go, but I feel ethically
obligated to steer people away from considering HP laptops.

~~~
derefr
HP's consumer and enterprise divisions are effectively separate companies
(and, in fact, were acquired from separate sources.) The enterprise
"workstation" laptops are some of the best-put-together, simplest-to-repair,
most-natively-well-supported-without-needing-drivers, and otherwise most
"obvious" in their design machines I've ever had the pleasure of refurbishing.

The EliteBook line is the one laptop where seeing inside actually made me
_want_ to own it _more_. (And I did buy one, and it was an excellent machine
that served me well for years and would still be decently competitive today.)

Other neat thing: the EliteBooks I was refurbishing tended to be 2007
models—but they came with fully-working UEFI, hidden under a "this is only a
prototype implementation" warning. It was fun playing with 64-bit Windows 8 on
them; none of the other machines in the shop could make heads or tails of the
W8 install discs.

They also tended to come with fingerprint sensors. I got used to unlocking my
laptop with my thumb long before TouchID was a thing.

~~~
manyxcxi
A 2007 (maybe 2006) HP EliteBook was the last non MacBook Pro laptop I had. I
loved that thing and it was incredibly easy to add my own RAM and an SSD to.
Pretty sure it maxed out at 8GB.

I'm sure they're sleeker now but that thing was pretty thick and the batteries
on them seemed to wear down and die very fast. Bonus points for having an
AWESOME dock that worked near flawlessly in Windows 7 for me, not so much, but
not bad with Ubuntu 10 Desktop. Also you could get extended batteries and the
batteries swapped easily, so I had a pair that could get me through a day at a
client's site with no power if I needed.

I can't imagine I'll go back, I love my MBPs, but I would check out the latest
EliteBooks if I was going that way again.

~~~
spronkey
The EliteBooks aren't even close to Macs in engineering. They're probably the
closest thing I've found, but there are teething issues with all of them -
like poor speakers, or noisy 3.5mm jacks, or poor display, or iffy keyboards,
or poor trackpads.

Apple get all of this stuff right almost all the time, in almost every machine
they build.

In fact, I only say almost above because it seems like they would have at
least one lemon, but I can't think of what it is.

~~~
alexkadis
I have to agree 100%. My work computer is an EliteBook and the headphone jack
has constant static, the fan runs high even on simple tasks, and the trackpad
is downright terrible. I prefer my older MacBook Air's hardware by far.

~~~
manyxcxi
That's a good point. I forgot how magical the trackpad is on the MBPs compared
to every other laptop I've ever touched. I couldn't imagine bringing a travel
mouse with me but I used to ALWAYS have one with my PC laptops.

------
nerdy
I went through the same thought process in December, never owned an Apple
computer but needed a new laptop. Despite trying to fend off the idea of
getting a Macbook (due to some combination of price/not wanting to succumb to
herd mentality/proprietary nature of Apple) I caved.

It felt silly to spend a lot of time researching and configuring a custom
laptop. I've never purchased a pre-built desktop but customizing a laptop
seemed too poor a risk/reward proposition for my liking. Even with a great
deal of effort it would be difficult to create something comparable to what I
could simply purchase.

Apple's hardware is easy to appreciate down to small details. You can open the
lid without holding the other half of the laptop (my previous laptop would
lift up otherwise) and the screen isn't too loose either (doesn't bounce when
you type hard). The speakers sound orders better than any of my previous
laptops. Battery life is great. Retina is beautiful & responsive (easy to read
text, even while scrolling). The trackpad is unbelievable for a variety of
reasons (click anywhere, accuracy to the very edge of the pad,
multitouch/gestures). I hadn't previously seen any trackpad worth using let
alone nearly as good as a standard mouse, but haven't ever needed to connect a
mouse to this one. It's just a great overall experience.

There have been a couple software glitches that required a restart to fix, but
other than that and the temps (~90°C) it reaches under load it has been a
pleasure (@ 2 months of heavy use). Figuring out OSX took a week or two.

I don't envy anyone who tries to save money while achieving a similar
experience.

~~~
spronkey
So many little things that Apple just do better. I'd add some things to your
list as well - the keyboards are nice and snappy, the machines are _silent_
for general tasks, and the fans are generally quiet unless you're going crazy,
with no stupid things like electrical noise / coil whine.

Even under heavy load you can sit the thing on your legs and it won't burn
you. The machines are very sturdy and don't bend, so they remain level (unlike
even the 'sturdy' Thinkpads). The rubber feet are svelte and not blocky and
intrusive. There are no stupid panels to catch on clothing, or vents on the
underside of the machine to get blocked.

Then there's stuff like MagSafe. And Thunderbolt (sure, USB 3.1 with Type C
will do this stuff soon, but TBolt has done it for years already).

~~~
slantyyz
I would say it depends on what you do. Mac laptops definitely have strong
features that their PC cousins don't have, but...

The two Mac laptops I have, they get hot and the fan is noisy, especially my
Macbook Pro.

The port selection is nice, but the ports are too close together unless you're
using all Apple cables. A chunky USB key or mini-display port cable can block
other ports. I had to use a knife and shave off the edges of a mini display
port cable I had.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "The two Mac laptops I have, they get hot and the fan is noisy, especially
my Macbook Pro."

What are you doing on them? I'm generally running browser/Xcode/iTunes or
Logic Pro X/iTunes/Browser and my fan never spins up. In fact it spins so
rarely I tend to think somethings going wrong when it does. It freaks me out.
I'm on the lowest spec 13" MacBook Pro.

~~~
slantyyz
I run mostly dev tools, text editor, etc. But I have a bad habit of having
more than 50 Chrome tabs open, and Chrome is a notorious pig on just about
every OS.

My Macbook Pro (2011, quad core i7) is famous for heating issues, but that
aside, any app that forces use of the discrete GPU (at one point, even Coda
did) would cause the fans to spin.

I don't want to sound like a snob, but the 13" MBPs aren't comparable with 15"
MBPs, since many of them use lesser CPUs (i.e., not the MQ/HQ/QM series chips)
that don't generate nearly as much heat.

~~~
spronkey
Those 2011 quad cores are _powerful_ machines, especially for their size
(thickness, mainly). I've used HP Elitebooks with similar CPUs, that are close
to twice as thick, yet still have worse heat issues.

You've gotta work them pretty hard to start reaching thermal issues - as you
are doing with lots of Chrome tabs :P

~~~
slantyyz
Yes, they are. In raw CPU benchmarks, it will still blow away just about any
latest rev mac laptop that isn't a 15" Macbook Pro.

edit - as for the thermal issues, you don't have to work it hard, that model
year had all sorts of issues in general, hence the Apple repair order that was
issued last year. My MBP bricked itself a couple of months before that repair
order was issued. That was the first laptop I ever had (Windows or Mac) that
just up and died.

------
chao-
I have the "old X1 Carbon with a low res screen", except that the article is a
little inaccurate: it doesn't have to have a low res screen. You can select a
2560x1440 screen. Even better, it's a _non-reflective (matte) screen_ and even
has a non-touch option! I guess I'm not alone in disliking reflective screens.

What sold me more than anything, though, was that I could select the best
parts without being forced into a touchscreen. In so many other company's
product lineups, if I wanted the 1440p screen (or whatever is highest), they
were convinced I _absolutely wanted a touchscreen_ , yes sirree! Thank you,
Lenovo, for understanding my needs.

I don't remember which manufacturer it was, but I remember one option page
where if I wanted to select the Core i7 option, it required the touchscreen
upgrade as well. I don't see any logic behind that at all except "Hey, that i7
means you must be a big spender, guess we'll milk you for all you've got!"

As for OS, I run Linux Mint (Cinnamon) currently and experience no particular
hardware or driver issues. Battery life is 5-8 hours depending on load, screen
brightness, etc.

~~~
dschep
I actually intentionally got the "900p" lowres version (also matte) because I
didn't feel like dealing with HiDPI support. I _love_ the click pad. 3 finger
click (for middle click) is a million times more reliable than 3 finger tap in
my experience.

------
rmm
Microsoft Surface Book.

Easily the best device i have used in a very long time. Expensive (especially
the i7 dGPU option) but i am amazed at how good this machine is.

Huge battery life, powerful when it needs to be. Connect to a dock and you
have a powerful desktop.

Currently use it when im working in the office doing design work (plugged into
a couple of Dell U2715H) then when i am out on mine sites use it as a portable
machine in the field.

The tablet mode and pen is just a cherry on top. Writing notes in the field,
marking up drawings etc. ridiculously easy.

i love it.

~~~
touristtam
But then you are using Microsoft OS.

~~~
zdkl
I think it's safe to say a lot of people in tech have the same knee jerk
reaction (I know I do), but sadly what are the open alternatives?

Closest I can think of would be Android, but you're throwing a lot of
flexibility and openness out already. I had high hopes that FxOS would grow
into the {reasonably hackable, consumer pricing, works out of the box if
needed, higher abstraction (eg. don't make me think about my kernel) system
APIs} market. Right now, to have any degree of control beyond "here's a GUI
with the 5 settings we thought you'd need", you need to use way too much
relatively advanced knowledge (setting a 'nix ARM system up, hardware quality,
commitment to maintaining your setup at a fairly low level) for it to be
widespread.

I guess I'm asking the smart people on here why can't we have a tablet
ecosystem more akin to the mid/high end desktop market? (Emphasis on
modularity, _standards_ and interoperability) Do the actors in that area
reckon there's not enough interest/commercial opportunities in contrast to the
OEM/OS siloing? Or is there a project out there I should start throwing
contributions at?

((EDIT: please don't say Canonical: the GUI is nonstarter because of limited
resources, and if you're using server editions then we're back to the original
low-level problem in this case))

~~~
niutech
Speaking of tablets, apart from BQ Aquaris M10 with Ubuntu, there is also
Samsung Galaxy 2 with Replicant
[[http://www.replicant.us](http://www.replicant.us)], which is fully free
software.

------
theyCallMeSwift
Check out the Dell Developer Edition XPS. It comes with Ubuntu on it and has
100% full driver support out of the box. It's a great machine, we use them for
work. Screen is great too and it looks really beautiful.
[https://sputnik.github.io/](https://sputnik.github.io/)

~~~
nl
Is there any chance they'll update the version of Ubuntu? 12.04 is.. old.

~~~
smacktoward
The current models ship with 14.04:
[http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd](http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd)

~~~
akkartik
Does this link work for anyone else?

~~~
pja
Works for me.

~~~
akkartik
Seems to fail on mobile.

------
knights123
It seems like you should really just buy a MacBook Pro. Sure the software
isn't perfect, but it's an order of magnitude closer to perfect than Windows
has been lately. You buy it, boot it up, and it works wonderfully. Of course
the one day out of the year that it doesn't you go rage comment on how it
sucks and it scares Windows users away from Mac, but the rest of the time
you'd never consider going back to a typical PC.

~~~
ekianjo
For developers OSX will almost always be worse than a Linux distro, if only
because of package management.

~~~
superuser2
As a developer I work with text all day, a task made thoroughly more pleasant
with good font rendering and proper HiDPI support, neither of which are
available on Linux. I'll take my 13 inches of Retina display over a pair of
27-inch externals any day.

SSH and rsync for remote editing work just fine from an rMBP.

~~~
mbrock
It's possible to use HiDPI on Linux, but I guess it depends on what software
you use. I've used it for almost a year. I set my DPI in X and GTK. I believe
GNOME understands DPI, but I just use ratpoison so I don't know. After turning
off hunting, fonts look very nice.

Don't bother trying to connect an external monitor with a different DPI
though, hehe. I've heard that problem is unsolvable with the X11 paradigm but
will be fixed in Wayland (whatever that is).

~~~
askafriend
I want you to re-read the first paragraph you wrote. That's exactly why I
don't use Linux. I don't mean this to be a condescending comment, but really,
the contents of your entire first paragraph are just things that I don't want
to deal with. It's all just bullshit, and I don't have time to deal with
bullshit like that. I really just don't want to even think about stuff like
that. Not even a tiny bit, not even for a second.

~~~
slgeorge
> It's all just bullshit, and I don't have time to deal with bullshit like
> that

It's bullshit _to you_ , but it doesn't make Linux bullshit - others
prioritise different aspects.

You care about HiDPI - perhaps _you_ are a designer, so it's important. But,
you're not everyone. For example, I have no need for HiDPI and I personally
have much more focus on the power and control Linux gives me. I wouldn't want
HiDPI if I had to give up a proper Window Manager.

Your choice is fair enough, but it's no more than a personal preference.

~~~
sjwright
He might not "be everyone" but his priorities are relevant to more people than
your priorities by a factor of perhaps 100:1 or more.

I haven't met a single person that didn't immediately appreciate the benefits
of HiDPI when they saw it.

~~~
tingol
Well you sure convinced me with your accurate statistics. You talk of benefits
as if higher dpi cures cancer, it looks better and that's it. I really don't
know what the big deal is, I have a HiDPI screen, works fine under linux as
most of my work is done in terminals all I've had to "configure" was turning
off hinting for my emulators and that was that. But they are waay more
important things I would like from my machine so there's no need to be
condescending just because you and your friends were impressed by the high res
screens.

~~~
askafriend
I honestly don't care what "hinting for my emulators" means or why it matters
that it's off.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. I just want to get work done in a sane
way. Linux is insane to any normal human being.

~~~
mbrock
Since when is this a forum for normal human beings?

~~~
sjwright
It's certainly not a forum for one single particular type of computer
enthusiast.

~~~
mbrock
Right... which makes it kind of ridiculous to claim that any mention of
configuring Linux to work with HiDPI is "bullshit." Because there are a lot of
Linux enthusiasts here.

~~~
sjwright
Far be it for me to defend somebody else's words, but I happen to entirely
agree with _askafriend_ when he described the manual tinkering required to get
HiDPI functioning well as _" things that I don't want to deal with. It's all
just bullshit, and I don't have time to deal with bullshit like that. I really
just don't want to even think about stuff like that. Not even a tiny bit, not
even for a second."_

There are indeed a lot of Linux enthusiasts here, myself included, but being a
Linux enthusiast doesn't mean we all want to act as systems integrator all the
time.

~~~
mbrock
This was a pointless squabble to begin with. I just reacted to "askafriend"'s
way of arguing against my non-argumentative semi-helpful anecdote... because I
think it's really tedious that mere mentions of Linux configurations can turn
into a flame war... it also struck me as a little odd to be so ferociously
reluctant to engage in any kind of computer configuration, "for even a
second", on a forum about hacking.

I happen to see a lot of value in the availability of a free and open
operating system, so I take offense when people rail against it in this
sweeping way. Yeah, it's not polished perfect like Apple's products (let's
imagine that they don't have any tedious bullshit problems), but it's free
software and a community effort.

So when people say it's "insane for any normal human being" to use it... eh,
that pushes my buttons.

If you install Postgres, you have to mess around with some configuration
files. Some people might consider that tedious, painful, horrible bullshit. I
just see it as a necessary reality, and I don't whine condescendingly at
people who offer advice or anecdotes.

------
PaulHoule
Don't get a a laptop. The pc industry is doomed with phone envy. Desktop
machines are one place you can really do better.

~~~
eropple
Can I bring my desktop on a plane? To meetings at my client's offices? No?

Isn't that an interesting bit of nuance that you so blithely elide.

~~~
PaulHoule
If you have $1000's to spend on airfare you can afford to have a good desktop
machine and a good laptop.

~~~
NamTaf
In which dystopia does it cost you $1000's to fly locally, as many would do? I
can cross my goddamn continent for $600 return and that's over 4000km away.
Going interstate costs $200 return on a good day.

~~~
TulliusCicero
Presumably you are flying more frequently than once per computer purchase.

~~~
NamTaf
Sure, but the marginal utility of a given flight is far higher than the
marginal utility of a second computer. Moreover, I may be paying for my
computer but my company may be paying for my flights.

------
jolux
Honestly if you get a Mac you can install rEFInd on it and boot Linux just
fine, or run Linux in a VM. The hardware also almost never breaks and
especially if you have AppleCare they frequently replace it for free. Yes, it
may be difficult to upgrade yourself. That's entirely true and if it's a deal
breaker there's not much else around.

You might do well to look at [https://puri.sm](https://puri.sm) if you're a
Linux user, they seem to make pretty good machines with free software down to
the BIOS. There's also always [http://minifree.org](http://minifree.org) but
they don't really make modern machines.

~~~
chadzawistowski
> You might do well to look at [https://puri.sm](https://puri.sm) if you're a
> Linux user, they seem to make pretty good machines with free software down
> to the BIOS.

Purism must have great marketing, because I keep seeing this fiction repeated.
Their BIOS is not open.

The only big difference between a Purism laptop and other laptops (Acer, Asus,
Dell, etc.) is that the CPU has been fused to allow running unsigned firmware.
Unfortunately, since we still don't have free firmware to run in place of
Intel's, Purism has no present advantage over buying most any laptop and
installing Linux yourself.

Purism loudly trumpets their roadmaps[0] and plans[1] so as to suggest a
trajectory towards totally free software, but until they achieve it their
product is not worth a premium compared to installing Linux on an ultrabook of
your choice.

[0] [https://puri.sm/posts/roadmap-to-a-completely-free-
bios/](https://puri.sm/posts/roadmap-to-a-completely-free-bios/) Here they
outline many things that need to be done. But note the language- "Purism’s
goal is to publish a Free Software implementation ... as soon as an
implementation is available." But who is responsible for implementing it?

[1] [https://puri.sm/road-to-fsf-ryf-endorsement-and-
beyond/](https://puri.sm/road-to-fsf-ryf-endorsement-and-beyond/) Note that
the FSF hasn't actually endorsed them yet, although this page is supposed to
convince you that they're awful close. Why not wait until they're actually
endorsed?

I did buy a Libreboot X200 from minifree, and I am quite happy with it.

Alternatively, you can replace a Thinkpad X200's firmware yourself by
following these steps (hardware required)
[http://libreboot.org/docs/install/x200_external.html](http://libreboot.org/docs/install/x200_external.html)

~~~
kriro
There's some value over other laptops, notably that it's tested with Linux as
the main target and uses recent hardware that is virtualization friendly (+15"
which is a personal requirement for me). Configuring a laptop like that takes
a nontrivial amount of time from my experience. What interests me is that it
will run Qubes OS before the 15" ships if that statement is to be trusted. It
is one of the more interesting approaches out there and I'll gladly pay a
premium for a Qubes laptop.

The BIOS is not free and the laptop won't be free anytime soon due to Intel ME
[1]. Unfortunately the compromise for the foreseeable future seems to be
freedom vs. more power or hoping for something awesome non-x86.

[1](PDF):
[http://blog.invisiblethings.org/papers/2015/x86_harmful.pdf](http://blog.invisiblethings.org/papers/2015/x86_harmful.pdf)

------
canthonytucci
I feel compelled to bring up how cheap, modular and abundant bad-ass second-
hand thinkpads are. Not to mention that even the new-generation keyboards are
amazing, and put the shallow crap on my macbook pro to shame.

The money you'd spend on even a 'cheap' macbook pro will get you something
solidly built with a nice screen that's plenty fast for devlopment work _AND_
money left over for an extra battery or 2 + a brand new fat SSD + 16 GB brand
new RAM + a nice dinner (maybe even with a date).

Just be careful not to get one from the awkward phase recently where they
didn't have individual clicky-butons and this strange ceramic trackpad.

~~~
spronkey
Most Thinkpads have terrible screens. Many used Thinkpads will need shims or
otherwise under keyboards to stop them rattling. They also suffer from a
number of issues such as electrical noise (i.e. coil whine),

If you're thinking about a Thinkpad to replace a Macbook Pro, consider: \-
X220, X230 with IPS displays. Most aren't. Check for backlight bleed. \- X250
with IPS display, but be mindful that the CPU is actually no faster than the
X230 (15W U series vs 28-35W). X240 has weird buttons that don't work, avoid.
\- X1 Carbon, 1st or 3rd gen. Avoid 2nd gen as split backspace key will drive
you insane if you ever use more than one keyboard. Again, be mindful of U
series CPUs. \- T5xx have better displays than T4xx in general. But if you
don't want the extra size, then avoid AU Optronics displays on T420 and T430
series, as they are grainy and poor. I believe the Tx50 series has IPS display
options, maybe on the s model?

~~~
canthonytucci
I can confirm on the screen, I was impatient and did not seek out an ips
screen on my x230 - it has awful viewing angles.

My wife has an X1 2nd gen and the split backspace is something I must have
repressed, good call there. Total shit.

I would also make sure not to think of a used, "does enough" thinkpad as a
replacement for a new Macbook Pro any more than picking up an early 2000s
Acura would be a replacement for a new Mercedes. It's an alternative, with its
own trade-offs that may suit some people, but by no means a direct
replacement.

------
viraptor
> They display low ratings for their own products on their own website. What.

How is this a complaint? I'd love other companies to post both good and bad
reviews without filtering.

> Except that page is deceptive, because that's actually the old X1 Carbon

Don't know about other locations, but here the X1 got a really nice discount
once the 2016 model got announced. (also visible in the screenshot) I got it
and I'm really happy about it. It has a high res screen (WQHD), so the same as
the 2016 model, so that note in the post is also a mistake.

~~~
Steko
Just a note but while Apple doesn't show ratings for their main lineup of
devices (and probably for exactly the reasons mentioned by link) they do show
them for accessories and some of them are pretty low rated:

[http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD818AM/A/lightning-to-
usb...](http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MD818AM/A/lightning-to-usb-
cable?fnode=91)

~~~
thirdsun
And that's exactly why I wouldn't feature reviews on my website / shop. It may
work for Amazon, but I'm pretty certain most people bothering to provide a
review for something as simple as a lightning cable had a bad experience.
Nobody writes rave reviews for a cable that just works.

------
virtualwhys
OP doesn't mention Dell Precision line?

Recently released 5510[1] is looking absolutely awesome, will be picking one
up when return to States in April to replace current Precision M4700.

2 X SSD + 32GB memory, high end CPU, decent GPU with 3840 X 2160 screen...will
be sorted for next few years. If you NewEgg a couple of 480GB SSDs you're
around $2,500 for a beastly machine that weighs under 4 lbs (M4700 is nice but
hefty, nearly 7 lbs).

[1]
[http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=0...](http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&model_id=precision-m5510-workstation&oc=xctop551015us&s=bsd&fb=1&vw=classic)

~~~
jeswin
The 5-hr battery life is a huge let down. For most developers, a faster
CPU/GPU is just a marginal improvement. But being able to leave home without
the charger and not having to look for power sockets is way more compelling.

~~~
bluejekyll
Which is why I use a Mac, w/OS X. Compared to everything else I've ever tried,
it's the only one that I've never had to worry about battery life, literally
hours and hours of coding. Also, with two small kids I need to close it and
open it all the time, it's practically instant on, and I can pick right back
up where I left off, and that's without ever plugging it in.

I also switched back to Safari from Chrome b/c I found Chrome to be a
horrendous battery drain.

As much crap as Apple's gotten recently for their software, the attention to
battery life is a huge blessing. My MBP is easily worth $ for the time and
convenience.

------
ne01
I love my ThinkPad X220 and highly recommend ThinkPad X series.

I remember the day UPS delivered it. I had a flash drive with a Debian 6 image
ready to be installed, didn't even boot up the windows to check if everything
was OK.

~2.5 years after using it for about 10 hours per day USB ports started to
randomly disconnect and reconnect it was very annoying.

I had no idea that ThinkPad X series has 3 years of warranty and still cannot
believe that Lenovo sent someone to my house (3 days after I contacted them!)
and changed the motherboard it's basically a brand new laptop. FYI, bought it
directly from lenove's outlet website for ~$700.

My thinker is ~4 years old and it's still one of my most beloved objects in
this world.

------
jseliger
I'm surprised not to see a link to the Librem laptops:
[https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-13](https://www.crowdsupply.com/purism/librem-13).
They're an attempt to solve the problem being posited, AFAICT, though they
ship with Linux, not Windows.

I gave $10 to their initial Kickstarter but have never used one.

~~~
martey
Purism/Librem looks extremely similar to System76 - they are rebranded laptops
from an Asian ODM running a variant of Linux.

None of their marketing materials make reference to better build quality,
battery life, or support, just "security, privacy, and freedom". I would love
for them to hit all of these boxes, but I am unsure that their hardware will
be as free/secure as they claim (see
[https://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/02/23/the-truth-
about-p...](https://blogs.coreboot.org/blog/2015/02/23/the-truth-about-purism-
why-librem-is-not-the-same-as-libre/)).

------
hans0l074
I purchased a System76 Galago UltraPro (this model does not seem to be
available anymore) at the end of 2014. I have been observing System76 for a
year or more before I caved in and purchased this. I live in Finland - and
they shipped it across. I really love this laptop. I'm also a Mac user (Air,
Pro etc) and I expected the build quality to be lower, but it was surprisingly
solid. Perhaps their build quality has improved? Also, one of the most common
complaints was about their keyboard and it seems they have fixed this - I have
had no problems. I love having a Ubuntu portable for my day-to-day devops work
over VPN and with everything set up (all my tools, IDE's etc), it's been a
pleasure. Their new line up looks impressive (I'm tempted to get another one).
But yes, the battery life is really bad - 2-3 hour max or even less if you
have IntelliJ or a VM running. So I have placed a power adapter at all my
usual work locations :) Edit : spelling

~~~
001spartan
I had the UltraPro as my work laptop at my last employer, and I despised it.
The keyboard was impossible to work with (typos, keys didn't always register),
and it felt flimsy and cheap. Not what I would expect from a system that cost
as much as a MacBook. The only benefit was the powerful specs.

------
dnautics
Avoid the dell developers edition xps13. There's no end key, the trackpad is
unusable. Even worse, avoid getting the windows version and installing Linux
on that: the trackpad is even less unusable (resets to lower corner
intermittently on clicks), and in order to get the wi-fi working I had to
recompile the kernel driver telling it that it was FOSS.

~~~
timothyb89
For the most part these issues are all fixed in recent kernel versions (>
4.2). The default trackpad driver (synaptics) is indeed buggy, but the newer
libinput driver (available in the Ubuntu repos since 15.10) works perfectly.
The WiFi card is a bit annoying if you want to build the driver yourself but
it works out of the box on stock Ubuntu 15.10.

Admittedly there were some issues early on, but now that issues have all been
patched it's an excellent laptop. Fantastic build quality, great battery life,
and the display is the best I've seen on a laptop.

~~~
dnautics
I've bumped kernels but it still doesn't work for me... I'll put some more
effort into it and will see if it works.

------
euske
There are many independent laptop PC manufacturers in Japan. Panasonic Let's
Note (cf. [http://panasonic.jp/pc/](http://panasonic.jp/pc/) ) is known to
have excellent battery life while being decent. Laptops from Mouse Computer
(cf. [http://www.mouse-jp.co.jp/](http://www.mouse-jp.co.jp/) ) have almost no
pre-installed crap. Unfortunately, many of them don't sell outside the
country. They're probably too small/thin to Western people. People tend to
think a 17-inch laptop "giant" here.

~~~
SamReidHughes
Mouse's NB900 model is just a rebranded Clevo P750DM. The other models look
pretty Clevo-ey too.

------
awongh
I had a thinkpad running ubuntu for a couple of years, around 2010-2013, but I
was forced to switch to a mbp for one simple reason:

About 1/10 of the time when I would be at a coffee shop or something and would
try to connect to the wi-fi router, ubuntu simply wouldn't be able to connect.
This thinkpad had one of the officially supported wifi chips in it, and it
still didn't work.

Lots of forum posts told me to downgrade driver versions or some such thing, I
wasted a bunch of time trying many different solutions and nothing ever fixed
it.

I'm a web dev, and without internet I can't get anything done- I had to
eventually get rid of it. Too bad, because the build quality was nice and it's
a much better deal than a mbp, but unreliable internet is a deal-breaker.

(If there had been some way for me to pay someone with driver knowledge to
diagnose and patch the driver problem I would have done that!)

~~~
unethical_ban
Or buy another laptop. Could have been a hardware issue. Or install another
distro.

~~~
awongh
I thought that the hardware drivers were independent of the distro? or at
least debian? I lazily assumed hardware support on other distros would be
crappier.

I think the big issue here is that if a piece of hardware is listed as
officially supported and it still doesn't work _after_ you try to fix it with
whatever hacks are suggested, it's not a workable situation.

~~~
slgeorge
You're on OS X so probably don't care but ...

a. Hardware drivers are _not_ independent of distro

Technically most drivers will land-up in the main-line kernel at some point.
But, for testing whether a "whole" laptop works means making sure all the
drivers are working at the right version - it's fiddly. Consequently, what you
really care about is whether your distribution supports that hardware version.

b. Getting support for a Linux laptop

In many ways the fact that users had to _load_ Linux themselves in the 90's
has been the biggest problem for users now.

If you want a "Linux" laptop you should buy one with Linux preloaded. That way
you'll get one with a known working configuration on the hardware and
software. If something doesn't work there's a venue for you to get support -
the person who sold it to you. Otherwise, if you do have problems you're stuck
doing whatever "the internet" tells you to do - half of which will probably be
wrong, or it's just happenstance that it worked for them.

That's why buying from a Zareason, System76 or Dell (XPS 13) is important

c. Lenovo certifies but doesn't provide support for Linux

Lenovo does a type of certification for Ubuntu that means it "works for them".
But, AFAIK there's no avenue to get support from them if the hardware doesn't
work. Generally, it _does_ work (writing this on one now), but you're stuck if
you have problems.

------
spo81rty
I really like my Razer laptop. They basically look like black MacBook Pros.
Quality seems very high and I have enjoyed using it for several months. Quad
core Cpu and 16 GB of RAM provides plenty of power as a dev box.

~~~
archimedespi
Yeah, I'd love to get the new Razer[0] that came out this year, but
unfortunately they went the way of "thunderbolt3.0 all the things" which is...
not going to work with Linux. At all :(

[0] - [http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-
stealth](http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-stealth)

~~~
user42734892
I'm posting from a Razer Blade Stealth QHD/256 right now on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.
The USB 3.1 ports function fine, the USB-C charger functions fine. Not
attempted to attach a Thunderbolt over USB-C peripheral yet, but it would not
be the end of the world if it wasn't functioning since everything but suspend
and the camera behave fine.

The real downer is Intel's appalling OpenGL support in their Skylake drivers.
Games and certain other applications are pretty much hosed if they expect
remotely modern shader support, otherwise it is quite the capable chip.

~~~
nhumrich
Ubuntu 16.04 isn't even in beta yet, how could you have the LTS version?

------
vegabook
I've been very happy with my Dell Precision M3800 which has outstanding build
quality, easily comparable to my previous MacBook, and runs Ubuntu perfectly.
In fact I like it _better_ hardware-wise than the macbooks because it has a
much more pleasant keyboard-surround surface, which is not freezing cold like
my MacBook, nor does it have that unpleasant vertical front leading edge which
in my opinion is uncomfortable when touch typing.

On a separate note though, Lenovo has kinda promised to build a 90's-level
robust "retro-Thinkpad", the feedback forums for which were wildly successful.

[http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro-thinkpad-time-to-
think](http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/retro-thinkpad-time-to-think)

~~~
Jedd
Agreed. The M3800 _workstation_ is what I chose after a similarly frustrating
search to the OP's over a year ago.

It's all subjective, but big pros for me was Win7 (as a business machine this
was available over a year ago, at a time when most new laptops were Win8
only), really good Debian support (with VMware I rarely need to boot into Win7
now), 16GB RAM option, two drive bays (mSATA and SATA) so 2TB SSD is
obtainable, very high resolution screen (3200x1800).

Cons - gloss screen occasionally frustrating, all that space and they
relegated page-up/down and home/end into Fn-accessible keys, short battery
life, 15" is perhaps too big (but 13" is untenable as a mobile computer), poor
touch-screen support in Debian, hideously expensive when properly kitted out
(16GB, after-market two x 1TB drives, best display, etc).

In any case, OP has some good points - with Lenovo breaking everyone's trust
(and their keyboards going downhill) options for good GNU/Linux mobile
workstations are drastically reduced, and it's a painful process to try to
work out what hardware support is actually like before you actually have a new
machine in front of you.

~~~
vegabook
yes - I have a fully kitted out one (16GB, 512 ssd, quadro, hidpi etc) and it
hit me for around 2000 pounds at the time. Same price as similar MBP. The only
issue I've had is that I couldn't get CUDA running properly under any Linux
flavour when I also had an external monitor plugged in. Completely frustrating
so the quadro 1100 basically goes unused. Other than that, I like the machine
a lot. It's superseded now but the new one looks even better. I don't honestly
think I'll need to replace this for another couple of years so 4-5 years for
this to me makes the initial outlay easy to justify.

------
will_hughes
I've got an aging Asus Zenbook UX31A ultrabook which is amazingly thin and
light, and still pretty decently fast. There was also very little crapware on
it (was originally a Win7 machine with Win8 and then Win10 free upgrades).

My one complaint is that the (small, light) power bricks are apparently made
of unobtainium. They're near impossible to find, and the ones you can are
extraordinarily expensive.

Given my hate for proprietary power adapters - I'm holding out for a USB-C
powered replacement.

Asus doesn't appear to be offering anything, but Razer's Blade Stealth[1]
looks like it could be a great option.

[1] [http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade-
stealth](http://www.razerzone.com/store/razer-blade-stealth)

~~~
lighttower
I've been following the USB-C power delivery for some time. HP has one, but
they disabled the ability to charge it from another PCs USB port because they
can't trust other manufacturers didn't mess up the standard. Google Pixel,
obviously perfect compliance with the spec. I am currently on thinkpad X230
with Debian Linux and W8. haven't booted into W8 for more than a year now. I
wish the X260 had USB-C

------
jitl
Did you look at Dell's line of XPS ultrabooks? I don't own one myself, but the
ultra narrow bezels and industrial design look quite nice.

~~~
voltagex_
I looked at the 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Skylake variant of the XPS 13. Amazing
looking machine, fits my filter criteria of "has service manual available to
mortals" except for one problem - Dell won't sell me one, and neither will
Microsoft (Signature Edition). They only seem to be available in the US and
even if I was willing to spend the nearly $4000AUD to import one they won't
ship to a non-US address.

~~~
ank_the_elder
Several of the best Dell laptops are sold here in Australia with a
considerable markup, even allowing for exchange rate. I tried to buy an XPS
variant which was considered a 'workstation' for Australian Dell and so had an
exorbitant markup which I'm not willing to pay.

Hopefully things have improved now.

~~~
voltagex_
If you find the right discount code or sales person (over the phone) you can
get the price down. Many employers also have deals with Dell that give you
10-15 percent off.

My issue is that the variant isn't available _at all_.

------
soared
Why is a decent website relevant at all? Would it make buying a laptop easier?
Sure. But 90% of consumers are going to do almost all of their research off-
site and enter the lenovo looking for specific products or categories. Not
everyone follows the Apple-Disney ethos of design every consumer facing thing
to be flawless.

I haven't done the research but I bet you could see lenovo pages ranking
higher for long-tail keywords (specific products) than than more general
pages.

~~~
nottestuser
Here is the only way to shop Lenovo:

[http://psref.lenovo.com/](http://psref.lenovo.com/)

Every SKU, every option, every detail, in a PDF.

~~~
viraptor
I'd say there's a better way if you're on a budget:

[http://outlet.lenovo.com/outlet_us/](http://outlet.lenovo.com/outlet_us/)

[http://dell.com/outlet/](http://dell.com/outlet/)

[http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals](http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals)

etc.

------
stepvhen
I've bought old thinkpad T-series on ebay for ~$300, installed arch, and moved
on with my life. I keep most of my relevant data on git repos or a home
server. If it dies, which usually happens after a good few years, I just get a
new one. Not ideal, and certainly not for everybody, but a reasonable option
if it fits your needs.

~~~
PascLeRasc
Can you get IPS screens on those?

~~~
stepvhen
Probably not. You're usually looking at a 2-3-year old laptop already for
$300. And for that money, you kind of get what you get.

------
jmspring
Post didn't address - buy apple hardware, run something other than OS X on it.

Seems simple. Sure you are locked to apple hardware issues/resolutions, but
Apple today is what the Thinkpad was for years (pre-Lenovo), hardware mostly
just works.

Insert arguments of customization, configurability, etc... Most people don't
care. Lenovo doesn't deliver as well as IBM did on the Thinkpad line. What's
the alternative besides Apple?

~~~
touristtam
I have used five (5) post IBM Thinkpad and the build quality has been
absolutely fine and they mostly just work as you put it. And all of them have
been reinstalled with Ubuntu at some point.

~~~
jensen123
I recently bought a third generation Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon. It had a very
annoying fan, which made it unusable for me. It wasn't very loud, but it was a
high-frequency sound which made it annoying.

Eventually, I got myself a Lenovo Thinkpad T450 instead. So far this T450 has
been very good. The fan almost never comes on. However, it should probably be
noted that I got the T450 model with the slowest CPU.

For those of us who are sensitive to noise, I suppose it's a good idea to
always choose the slowest CPU, if several options are available. I didn't
think about that when buying the X1, and bought one of the faster models.

~~~
reirob
Got the T450s with an i7-5600U, 20GB RAM, 1TB SSD (bought from another vendor
and swapped, much cheaper than the 500GB SSD from Lenovo).

Ubuntu 14.04 works like charm.

With an additional battery (the thick one), I can spend a whole day without
electricity and the battery can be swapped without switching off the laptop.

It's so far the best ThinkPad that I had until now. I have the impression that
at least with this one Lenovo improved a little bit the quality and usability.

The T440s was unusable - I sent it back after two days. The T430s was good,
but flimsier and much heavier than the T450s.

~~~
polymeris
Just curious, why do you consider the T440s unusable? I have had mine for
years and, while it's not perfect, I don't have any big complaints about it.

~~~
reirob
The biggest problem was that it didn't have physical buttons above the
trackpoint - they very virtual. For trackpoint only users it's unusable,
because we often have the thumb on the button for dragging, double clicking
etc. Often we have even both thumbs on the buttons. And the virtual buttons
didn't work on Linux.

The keyboard was utterly broken (I guess it was the keyboard electronics or
firmware), because combination of some three keys didn't work - I remember
that RightCtrl + AltGr + H, didn't work, I use this kind of combinations with
Virtualbox.

Additionally I have chosen a screen that was reflecting so working more than
half an hour made the head hurt. And on their web-site there was no indication
which screen had anti-glare.

I guess there were more things that I disliked, but I don't remember any more.
Sent it back and bought a used T430s that served me very well.

------
laumars
A year or so ago I was having the same dilemma, but then stumbled across
Samsung Chronos. Previously I'd only seen the lower end of Samsung laptops and
they were predictably crap. But the higher end Chronos' are something special,
sleek design, solid build quality and decent specifications. My only quibble
is that Samsung lean a little more towards Apple's design than HPs, so
accessing components is a little harder work than I'd have liked. But the
upside is my Chronos has excellent compatibility with Linux.

I'm very pleased with my laptop and would recommend the Chronos range to
others.

------
orionblastar
I have an Acer laptop I won from a church basket raffle. It only has a 1.5 Ghz
AMD Dual core CPU and 3Gigs of RAM and 250 Gig hard drive. So it runs slow at
first and takes a time to load everything.

It upgraded to Windows 10 Pro quite well.

It is one of those cheaper laptops and it has an AMD GPU as well. I don't know
how user serviceable it is, but it hasn't needed any work yet.

I used to have Ubuntu on it, but my wife didn't like it so I had to put
Windows back with it as we share the laptop. So I know it runs Ubuntu very
well, and it runs Ubuntu faster than it does Windows.

But PC quality has gone down since they moved things to China. Motherboards,
you are lucky if they last three years now. My son had an ATX custom system
with an ATX motherboard for the Intel 1150 socket made by ASUS, and it went
out and was replaced with an Intel brand motherboard that we had to buy from
eBay because the socket is so old they don't make new motherboards for it
anymore. Motherboard lasted maybe two years before it blew out. We got a
Datavac to clean up dust from it and would replace the CPU resin every six
months or so.

------
Iv
What do you think of the Novena? [https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-
kosagi/novena](https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena)

If you want to make a good laptop, there are people doing that, in an open
hardware and open source way.

~~~
shaurz
It's not really a laptop, really a portable all-in-one desktop with a battery,
unless you're talking about that very expensive wood & cork thing. Nice that
it's not Intel but you will take a speed hit for that.

------
wangchow
Honestly I swear by my Surface Pro 3. Maybe learn to hack some device drivers
and get Ubuntu running (better) on a device like this. Some people already
have it working:

[http://www.geek.com/microsoft/linux-users-rejoice-heres-
ubun...](http://www.geek.com/microsoft/linux-users-rejoice-heres-ubuntu-on-
the-surface-pro-3-1594864/)

In my opinion it's the most well-rounded device out there.

~~~
ekianjo
Surface are great but you are severely limited in screen size. It's great for
portability, but if you need a little more screen surface it's not a good
choice anymore.

------
dpc_pw
I'm very happy with my Asus UX305F. I have Linux installed, everything except
brightness keys works perfectly. Great build quality, mate screen, battery
lasts very long. And it was cheaper than most of what people mention here. For
CPU intense task, I just use my desktop.

~~~
hmartiniano
I also own one and can second all you say about it. The only problem is the
lack of a backlit keyboard, which might be a show stopper for some people.
Other than that it's a very good machine, at a very good price and installing
Linux (at least ubuntu, from my experience) is absolutely painless.

------
k_bx
One very strong point which not that many discuss here is how awful websites
of non-Apple manufacturers are. They are a strong indication of how bad things
are organized and developed at those companies, if they can't make a nice
website answering all your questions in an attractive manner – how can they
expect you to buy stuff from them? Always impressed me.

~~~
creshal
HP's website should be discussed in UX curricula as best example how to
_never, ever, under any circumstances including death threats_ to design a
website. From crazy URLs to crazy design to absurd uptime issues to random
slowdowns, the inability to _use_ it for anything made me go away from
procuring HP products.

Lenovo's is not quite as bad, but the article already highlighted the worst
offences. At least I've memorized what to augment my google searches with to
find the specific page I need. (I know, I know.)

From the "enterprise" vendors, Dell is the best, because you _only_ need to
navigate through a single poorly worded drop-down menu to find somewhere to
enter your service tag. Their shop, on the other hand, is absurd (clunky
interface and zero configuration options) and seems to solely exist to make
you bother a Dell reseller instead (who have better prices, more options, and
are, despite email ping-pong, faster).

~~~
raisedbyninjas
Dell used to provide abundant configurations. You could get significantly
different prices for identical or very similar machines depending on the shop
you used, special URLs, promotions or changing components on different models.

Asus was lauded ITT for their website design. I'd disagree because I've been
considering a zenbook. I couldn't find the comparison between the models or
even the submodels of the UX305. It is pretty though.

------
leecarraher
i have a 2014 x1 carbon. solid build, decent battery under linux(5hrs average
load). probably will get an x1 next round too. dont get booged down with specs
though. newest is outdated in a year, and if you don't get a new laptop every
year, arguing specs is pretty moot. drawbacks - soldered on ram + it's a
premium not super modular. positive - its solid and nicely designed with a
great keyboard (and this is from an otherwise chicklet style hater, but really
nice travel)

~~~
neumino
Same here, the x1 carbon is linux friendly and has a great keyboard. I don't
have a retina display, but I don't need that to write code.

------
flatroze
Go for gaming PCs/laptops. It's the same with clothes today: you can get the
"survival/military" type of outwear which is better in quality and tend to
last longer than usual outwear. You will look like a show-off, but in reality
it's where the jean companies used to be when they first appeared (they used
to be made for gold miners and construction workers). I would get something
like Aorus X3 or Razer Blade Stealth, both feature really good screens and
great hardware. Also seem to be well-engineered, unlike those plastic toys
from Dell, Lenovo and all the others.

------
TwoBit
And he didn't even mention the terribly shitty trackpad that every single pc
laptop has. And its shitty synaptics software.

------
akhilcacharya
After I bought my MBPr 2014 I started looking around at similar machines.

In my mind, the only competition is with the Surface Book, but even that's
debatable given the screen size.

~~~
dcposch
The convertible tablet aspect seems like a gimmick, but other than that it
looks v nice.

The part where it will actually have a clean Windows installation with no
crapware is pretty excellent.

~~~
alpb
I am kinda frustrated to see no mention of Surface Book in your article
though. I really suggest trying out Surface Book hands on in a store near you.

------
vardump
My dream laptop:

1) No malware/spyware tainted brand.

2) At least 32 GB _ECC_ RAM, 16 GB is so 2010. ECC, because memory errors do
happen and cause instability. 64 GB option wouldn't hurt either.

3) HiDPI (retina) display (IPS or equivalent)

4) Fast PCI-e attached SSD.

5) Ability to run two 4k monitors @60 Hz.

6) Stable USB3 ports (My 2015 RMBP keeps resetting USB3 ports, making it
nearly impossible to run VMs on USB3 drives)

7) ~10h+ on battery.

~~~
voltagex_
>2015 RMBP keeps resetting USB3 ports

Do you know who OEMed those ports? I've had a horrible run of luck with crappy
USB3 chipsets in desktops - with the same symptoms as you're having. Do you
still get the resets in Windows 8.1/10?

~~~
vardump
> Do you know who OEMed those ports?

Looks like Intel:

    
    
      PCI Device ID:	0x9cb1 
      PCI Revision ID:	0x0003 
      PCI Vendor ID:	0x8086 
    

> Do you still get the resets in Windows 8.1/10?

Just running latest OSX El Capitan.

~~~
voltagex_
That's a little scary, I recognised that Vendor ID without looking it up
(Intel).

That's odd, Intel have been the ones that work the best in my experience (have
also tried Renesas and Etron).

~~~
bestham
Well it's very connected with Intel: 8086 -> 80186 + 80286 -> 80386 -> 80486
you know. USB 3.0 problems could also be mechanical problems with the
connector. It's a very high bandwidth signal, about the frequency of standard
wifi.

------
omphalos
I wish the author included something about the Intel Management Engine. It
runs closed source software with privileged access to your entire machine
including support for remote execution, has a history of critical
vulnerabilities, and is present on every current Intel chip.

------
solipsism
Why isn't there a Linux distribution that's specifically for installing on
Macbooks? Given how few Macbook models there are, you could include exactly
(and only) the correct drivers. Optimize everything to work perfectly,
including things that often require tweaking to get working correctly (WiFi,
screen brightness, power settings, etc).

If I knew it would not be an adventure installing Linux on my MBP, I'd pay
good money for such a distro!

------
sreenadh
I am surprised that the author did not consider Dell. I T410i user, but I will
not be buying another thinkpad based on the current line up. Plus I have many
issues with Linux drivers. Windows is no more reliable and I am forced to move
on. Mac is great but the inability to modify is bugging me. I have a MBP also.

Of course, nothing beats a PC but its tough while travelling or when you just
want to move around while working.

Micheal Dell making the company private will be good if he planning to focus
on making quality hardware like Dell Developer Edition XPS + Project Sputnik,
which is an interesting project. But still needs to mature.

So if I have to buy a machine today, I am lost. There is a need for quality
machine for developers as we spend long time with it. It needs to be durable,
light, matte screen(its very tough to get that now a days), low heat, good
keyboard (mechanical like old thinkpads), good driver support for Linux,
decent battery. PLUS have a higher score on iFixit. I like the rating of XPS
13 @
[https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Dell+XPS+13+Teardown/36157](https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Dell+XPS+13+Teardown/36157)

~~~
kenrikm
I'm not sure I get it? Why not just buy a Macbook and install Ubuntu? you get
the nicely designed hardware and don't have to run OSX if you don't want to.

~~~
sreenadh
I have a rule that a machine has to be with me for atleast 5 years. But around
the 3 years, a ram upgrade and hd change is vital to extent the life. My HP
Compaq lasted for 8 years before its fell in water. My thinkpad is done 6 yrs
and I am current using that. I doubt I get equal life from my soon to be 1 yr
mbp without some tweaking and the low score on iFixit is dishearting. iFixit
is a great site and I feel it need more attention. I dream is to get a machine
with iFixit score of 10.

------
thedaemon
The headline is misleading. It should say a better laptop. A PC is not equal
to a laptop. I was hoping for a in depth article about modern computer design,
but instead found a rant about bad websites and lack of well engineered
laptops.

------
melted
Just get a MacBook Pro and skip the aggravation entirely. You pay more for a
reason. That reason is that no one else knows how to make a proper laptop
anymore.

------
nchudleigh
It would be really cool if someone could do a clean developer book.

Software: Would love something that comes with a Debian distro installed.
Something minimal and clean.

Body: Brushed metal exterior, hard rubber for hand rests- no sharp edges
either (my wrists hate MBP's edges). Nice big touchpad. Elegant branding (love
the lightbar on the chromebook pixels) but perhaps even more subtle (the new
macbooks do a good job of this- eliminating the obnoxious glowing apple). Thin
would be good.

Hardware: 500GB SSD would be more than enough. Don't need GFX card. 8gb ram is
more than enough. Good CPU please. Fan-less would be amazing. USB-C would be
interesting, at least need a couple of those. And then a pair of USB-3 ports,
and a headphone/mic jack. Maybe an HDMI. It would be good if the internals
were simple enough to swap out everything with a small philips head.

MOST IMPORTANT THING: I can buy replacement parts on your site for everything
(screen, keyboard, shell, all of the hardware, touchpad, etc.)

Price: I would pay anywhere from 1-2k US for this computer. Honestly just to
support some healthy competition in the space- I would even go to 2.5k

------
S_A_P
Some of the big PC vendors have started catching up. I just bought an HP Envy
for my father in law, and the hardware is pretty solid, and it had some
features I really like(256GB ssd and 1TB hybrid drive, 16gb ram stock, nice
display). It is really snappy, and despite his being non technical and wary of
moving from Windows 7 to 10, he got on with it really quickly.

I think there is another issue with PC battery life here. Nothing heats
up/drains my macbook pro's battery life quicker than windows 10. I have tried
various power settings, but nothing ever quite "fixes" it. I have had to do
the following "tweaks" to improve battery performance of Windows 10: 1)Disable
Cortana(at least as much as you are able to) 2)remove this "phone companion"
app that seems to reinstall with every new update 3)adjust power management
which noticeably slows performance and or annoyingly shuts down the screen.
4)randomly go in and kill rogue battery robbing processes

Mac OS seems to seamlessly handle power management regardless of what Im
doing- including multitrack audio recording/processing. I never hear the fan
while running OSX only. But without fail my laptop heats up and the fan starts
cranking while I have Windows running. I am getting closer to not ever needing
to run windows, but I still do some .NET work and work with Sql Server. For
me, its a huge turn off to hear a laptop constantly fighting to stay cool. In
fact this is the major flaw I saw with the HP laptop I got my father in law.
It would get hot and crank the fan. In my anecdotal opinion, windows is a poor
laptop OS, and I don't see how there could be a better pc/laptop/tablet until
Microsoft figures out how to manage power. I don't have a use case for Linux,
so things could be better there, but Linux is still relegated to niche users
for the most part in laptops.

------
mingabunga
I've always found ASUS laptops well built, great screens and very reliable.
Their Zen books are nice.

~~~
analog31
I'm quite happy with my Asus X200M. It's compact, lightweight, and was pretty
cheap, though I think it's discontinued now. It's small enough to stuff into a
bag, in my bike basket, and cheap enough that I don't worry too much about
damaging it.

I try to be platform-independent as much as possible. My "operating system" is
Jupyter/Python. Knowing that I could switch to Ubuntu in a jiffy makes Windows
seem much less annoying.

------
Ifhax
You should get a dell latitude--woot periodically has excellent deals on
"last-year's models", brand-new with 3 years warranty. They are reliable,
modifiable, and get excellent battery life. They come pre-installed with
Windows Professional, with minimal bloatware--but forget about it. Scrub off
the Windoze crap, install Linux, and you will have an awesome little machine.

~~~
RealityVoid
Dell Latitude for the win. I have a E6410 and I am very happy with it. Long
battery life, rugged, good build. A little heavy, but that never bothered me.
And I get all kinds of curious looks since it looks so different. :)

------
joonoro
The new ThinkPads are indeed awful, get the X220 aka the last good one. That
should do you well until something worthwhile comes to replace it (maybe HP?)

\- Last old-style ThinkPad with great build quality

\- Last one with the classic keyboard

\- Small form factor

\- Sandy bridge i7, still kicks butt because it's not undervolted (check the
benchmarks)

\- up to 16 GB memory

\- 10 hours of battery with a new 9-cell battery (+ tlp package on linux)

\- Linux or Windows works great

~~~
wyclif
I was a big ThinkPad guy until a few years ago, and I get why you recommend
the X220...agree it's "the last good one." But can you explain what the "tlp
package" does?

------
Uptrenda
Has the quality of laptops really been decreasing or are we just remembering
"the old days" with nostalgia? Seems like a perfect question that could be
easily answered with proper research.

My guess: if you're prepared to pay several thousand you can still buy quality
modern laptops today (like ThinkPad P70.) Or do it the cheap way: buy old
hardware that's known for its reliability like used ThinkPads (currently using
a ThinkPad T520 myself.) There's a good guide here for choosing a ThinkPad
model if you're a fan of solid laptops that will last:
[https://wiki.installgentoo.com/images/8/8f/Tpg140901.png](https://wiki.installgentoo.com/images/8/8f/Tpg140901.png)
\-- it's a bit memey but has solid advice.

------
glossyscr
Not disagreeing but there is _one_ notebook and this is how the Macbook should
have been:

\- Same build quality as Apple

\- Thin and light as the Macbook

\- Pixel density higher than Retina

\- Powerful CPU

\- Just released

[http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-
stealth](http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-stealth)

~~~
Aoyagi
Razer and built quality or reliability don't go well together.

~~~
glossyscr
I made different experiences.

And do you have this ultrabook or ever touched it yourself?

~~~
Aoyagi
No, I just have plenty of experience with Razer's accessories.

~~~
dokument
Isn't that kind of like saying that Apples phone chargers and cords are always
failing/breaking so Apple has bad build quality on all of their products?

~~~
Aoyagi
I guess. Are they always failing/breaking? Then again, those things are by-
products, Razer's peripherals are its main business.

My guess is that the Razer thing is based on a Clevo frame. If that's the
case, I'd somewhat trust it.

------
superobserver
Why not by a Chromebook Pixel (2015)? Seriously.

~~~
martey
I think if Google decided to sell the Chromebook Pixel (2015) with Linux
instead of ChromeOS, OP, I, and a horde of other developers would all buy it.

In reality, it doesn't seem very easy to install Linux on the 2015 Pixel or
any other Chromebook without either remembering to press Ctrl+D on each boot
or by going through a significant set of hoops.

~~~
executesorder66
I've never used a Chromebook, but why can't you just wipe the harddrive with
something like gparted and then install a Linux OS as you normally would?

~~~
neverminder
You can and many people (including myself) have successfully done that already
- [https://github.com/raphael/linux-samus](https://github.com/raphael/linux-
samus)

~~~
Kurtz79
I think the question of the parent was if you could install Linux as you can
with a normal PC (just by plugging an installation CD or USB drive), and the
answer would be: "no you can't, unless you go through some hoops".

It's like installing Mac OSX on a PC, or Linux on a Mac: you can, but not
easily and not in a way that is supported by the manufacturer.

You just have to scroll down in the link to see that there are several
limitations that you wouldn't have with an OS that is supported natively.

~~~
neverminder
Well, he mentioned developers and I'd like to think for the majority of
developers those few extra steps wouldn't present a major challenge. Also the
hardware is 100% supported when using a linux kernel optimized for pixel -
[https://github.com/raphael/linux-samus](https://github.com/raphael/linux-
samus).

~~~
ChristianBundy
I use a Chromebook Pixel as my daily driver, and after wrestling with issues
(e.g. no sound) I just went back to Chrome OS. You can see that others are
having similar problems with that kernel: [https://github.com/raphael/linux-
samus/issues](https://github.com/raphael/linux-samus/issues)

------
agentgt
I too came to the same conclusion that the article did quite some time ago.
Apple just owns on build quality.

I am Longtime Lenovo + Linux user that recently switched to Mac and as much I
really hate OSX UI the build quality of apple is worth it (that and skype sort
of works better on mac than Linux).

The thing that shocks me with my new Mac is how incredibly unstable OSX is at
times (El Capitan and previous version). You would think given such hardware
control my mac would be more stable than my parents Windows 10 Lenovo Yoga or
even Linux on crappy hardware but lately it has not been the case for me.

------
Roritharr
My real issue is finding a decent 13inch laptop that allows 2x4K Monitors at
60hz via simple Docking.

The Surface Book failed in that regard and I haven't gotten confirmation from
Dell that the TB 15 Dock will support it.

In the 15 inch Category there is only the HP Zbook with its gorgeous 4
Thunderbolt Ports that allow it. But that's Desktop Replacement, not a
portable 13 incher.

Currently I drive 2 2560x1440 Monitors on my Surface Pro 2, one via MiniDp and
one via USB3 and am kinda happy with it, I just need more ram... But upgrading
and then once again hitting the limits so soon would give me buyers remorse
quick.

~~~
nhumrich
I have a lenovo t450 with Ubuntu and I have 3 monitors working from the dock.
Don't know if it supports 4k or not, but it should, the dock has two display
ports.

------
vacri
Meh, the author wants a better computer, but isn't willing to spend for it.
The author runs linux, so the crapware from lenovo shouldn't matter, and the
lenovo thinkpad line have excellent build quality (stay away from the
ideapads). But the author complains that the cheap end of X1 town isn't
retina. Sure, for the same price, a macbook air does retina, but that low-end
X1 carbon has other features that the air does not have.

So by 'better PC', the author really means 'cheap PC filled with top-end
gizmos and a top-end build quality'.

------
jgeerts
> "they sell things that are locked down, both physically and in software"

Well, I can understand the physically part, but fortunately you can solve it
with money, you just have to pay for your hardware upfront, it is expensive,
but I work on my MacBook Pro > 9hrs a day. It's four years old now and doesn't
need replacement yet, it's doing fine, the battery is doing fine.

Most people only look at how much an item costs at the time of purchase, but a
fairer comparison would include the span of time that your device is
sufficient and you don't need replacement.

I use my laptop for my job, the amount of money I make with a laptop outweighs
the cost of a laptop by far. Most professionals in their job invest in good
material, why would it be different in IT?

As for the software part, the software that Apple provides is astonishing to
me. For example wiping a HD multiple times is just a setting, in windows you
can start looking for freeware for doing the same thing. It comes with so many
possibilities out of the box, I can't think of anything that I would want to
do that I can't do now.

Just yesterday I sat next to a guy running Ubuntu and I couldn't believe what
I saw, when he tried to search his hard drive he typed in his search
parameters.. but then the first thing that popped up were shopping items,
faster than the items present on his hard drive... Really?!?

A MacBook pro isn't perfect and it is costly but it's simply the best option
for me now.

------
josteink
So he says there are some good computers out there (like the Lenovo Carbon
X1), but due to his bad luck and timing on his part it's a bad choice for
another month.

If you just wipe Windows clean on those Lenovos and use them for Linux (Fedora
runs great on them!) you wont have to worry about those Superfish issues and
everything else plaguing the world of windows-users.

I can see why you would decide not to want to reward Lenovo with your money
after those incidents, but it's still some of the best you are going to get.

------
cowardlydragon
Not only that, all desktop OSes are regressing. Well, windows 10 is an
improvement over the massive shitstorm of Windows 8 where Microsoft apparently
tried to commit corporate suicide.

Ubuntu and desktop linux continue to be extremely frustrating. I tried Suse,
Ubuntu, and Mint in the last box I built for Xmas, and Ubuntu was the only one
that installed cleanly, a marked improvement from the previous couple
releases.

OSX is hardware-locked and it has many many problems and frustrations,
especially if you are used to key bindings from the PC / Linux realm.

Desktop/laptop is steadily dying. We are all basically waiting on a hybrid of
Android to take over desktop.

I continue to be mystified as to why Google does not pursue a desktop Linux
operating system that's good. (aka not ChromeOS). It's a gigantic market to
take over that Microsoft was begging someone to take from them throughout the
Windows 8 debacle. With an unnoticeable hit to their bottom line they could
assemble a team that would clean up Crossoffice, merge with Android, make tons
of money from Android app store, get search/voice search/services integration
at the OS...

ChromeOS could/should be this, but either it's not properly funded to handle
the Windows interoperability (put/fund WINE on steroids) more seamlessly or
doesn't have very good people on it.

------
Matthias247
I agree with the content, but not necessarily with the headline.

If you need a Desktop PC the options are plenty, you can pick from a large set
of components and build pretty much what you want, from decent formfactor to
big towers with powerful and good hardware.

For high quality notebooks however I came to the same conclusion as the
author. I wanted to buy a new personal notebook last year, and actually did
not want to get a Macbook, as I am not that into Apple and OSX. But I could
not really find an alternative, even in the same (high) price region, so I got
a MBP13 and I'm happy with it. For the windows machines either the build
quality is way lower, battery life is lower, screen resolution is lower, input
devices suck or the price tag is even higher (X1 Carbon, XPS13. Surface book
too, but it wasn't available in germany anyway).

Another thing that influenced my decision heavily was the Touchpad. On the MBP
it works beautifully, and in combination gesture features of the OS it makes
working on such a small screen and without an external mouse much more
pleasant. On the windows machines the touchpad response is mostly somewhere
between bad and mediocre, and there's no swipe between workspaces and such
stuff.

------
dfar1
This article covers one computer brand mostly based on their poor website
design... and that's it? That's why we need a better pc?

------
TurboHaskal
The author thinks apple.com is the pinnacle of web design, values form over
function as he prefers the x1 carbon, gets overwhelmed when having too many
choices, dislikes seeing user reviews on a product site and probably lies on
the ground on a fetal position at the thought of replacing a hard drive by
himself.

He is exactly the kind of person Apple makes products for. Just get a Macbook
already.

~~~
akerro
You missed the part about hardware locking and replaceable parts. Because of
that, I will never ever buy anything from Apple, it's a big deal for me to
replace RAM and HDD whenever I want, for whatever I want. I used to have mac
book running Getnoo Linux, until I wanted to add new RAM... I bought new Dell.
I have one SSD and one HDD in my laptop (because I don't need cdrom in 2016),
I removed it and put HDD there and 4x USBs.

------
beyondcompute
Thanks for the post. I think, we need more of these. I too have been feeling
that the companies in a sense "aren't even trying" to show some care and
respect for a customer. We agree to pay money for "hardware", they accustomed
to "assemble together" some electronic components. There's no inspiration, no
consideration, no ambition to provide experience that lasts (despite that
hardware is fast-to-become-obsolete, the brand image and the impression you
leave can be relevant for a much longer time). For me personally the only
decent machine out there is MacBook Air. It does not make false promises about
performance (like other laptops do, only to fail miserably later). My ideal
machine would be lightweight plastic with mechanic keyboard. Performance is
not really critical. Something like Surface pro with 14 inch display and
mechanical keyboard (touch-screen is not necessary; good, macbook-like
touchpad is) would do.

------
btilly
I just had a [https://www.thinkpenguin.com/](https://www.thinkpenguin.com/)
arrive and so far it seems good.

See [http://www.linux.org/threads/how-great-is-the-
korora.5955/](http://www.linux.org/threads/how-great-is-the-korora.5955/) for
a sample review.

------
guelo
I wish I could buy laptops that are not built in China. The Chinese army has
zero scruples with regards to hacking. The hack where they got all US federal
employees' info was an act of war as far as I'm concerned. I just don't see
any reason why they would not be putting in backdoors into all the computers
they manufacture.

~~~
TurboHaskal
You're probably an US citizen.

You have zero rights to complain about hacking and acts of war.

------
niutech
No offense, but the author has a first world problem. The notebook should be
functional - powerful, lightweight, long lasting, not necessarily pretty. It
is not an exhibit, it's a tool. Why does he need a good web page to buy it???

That said, he can grab a Chromebook and install a full-blown Linux distro on
it.

------
partiallypro
The article ignores the Surface Book (thought it does mention the Surface
itself), Razer Blade and Dell XPS lines which are all pretty renowned for
their quality. OEMs make some crappy PCs, no doubt...but it has gotten a lot
better in the past 2 years. HP's Spectre is also a really nice device.

------
matthewwiese
I'm quite happy with my 11" Macbook from 2012, she's quite the lil devil
still. I stay on Yosemite and my machine is strong enough for me. If the
author requires power, he/she could build a decent Xeon desktop and keep it at
home, then just remote into it for intensive development. I keep a backup Core
2 Duo at my appt for work and play and it's still packing enough of a punch to
do most of my work (only bottleneck is latency).

To be honest, sometimes I even think my MBA is unnecessary and contemplate a
cheap Asus Eee PC netbook because I live in the command line (and consequently
don't need to load up heavy IDEs). However, I understand if that approach is
too much work for most people who just want a simple solution without all the
fuss, but where's the fun in that?

------
ebbv
This idea that laptops should be tinker able is just so weird to me. No laptop
is really tinker able. The best you can do is replace RAM and HDD.
Motherboards, battery modules, etc. are all proprietary in these things and
usually anything beyond those three is non-trivial to replace.

Call me crazy but I'd rather just have a machine that's specced right out of
the box, and with a battery module that I never need to replace.

My 2012 15" Retina MacBook is still going strong over 3.5 years later. Not
only that but the machine has been a pleasure to use every day.

It's true there should be alternatives to Apple products out there that are
similar build quality, but I have yet to find them. Some of my coworkers are
hard line anti-Apple and their laptops are all really poorly made, IMHO.

------
manigandham
CES revealed a bunch of new laptops that seem promising: LG Gram 15 [1],
Samsung Notebook 9 [2], Dell 7000 Series [3]

1\. [http://www.lg.com/us/laptops/lg-
gram-15Z960-A.AA75U1-ultra-s...](http://www.lg.com/us/laptops/lg-
gram-15Z960-A.AA75U1-ultra-slim-laptop)

2\. [http://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-introduces-new-
notebo...](http://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-introduces-new-
notebook-9-series-for-2016)

3\. [http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10720212/dell-
latitude-13-w...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10720212/dell-
latitude-13-windows-laptop-ces-2016)

------
lhnz
Sorry in advance for taking the headline and talking about something else.

What I want is a real personal computer that can fit in my pocket. A mobile
device that is extremely open and very easy to hack on. I would like it to
expose sensory readings in a UI and then provide a simple if-this-then-that UI
that would allow me to teach daemons to respond to events that occur during
the day and additionally support scripting for more complex automations. And
once this device exists I'd like open protocols to exist to help other I/O
devices to expose themselves to it.

Simply put I'd like devices to start offering extra senses to us beyond the
five we were born with, and for these to be unencumbered from walled gardens.

Does such a thing exist?

~~~
walterbell
Nokia N900 or Nokia N9 running Linux?

------
thephilsproject
I had this same problem almost exactly a year ago. I now have a Surface Pro 3.

I wanted a decent CPU, high res screen, , good build, long battery life and
small chassis. Then I chose whichever was cheapest which met those criteria.

I've not been disappointed with my decision!

------
julochrobak
Does anyone have experience with the Tuxedo Computers -
[http://www.tuxedocomputers.com](http://www.tuxedocomputers.com) ? They have
just recently released an interesting 13.3" InfinityBook.

~~~
lumannnn
Was about to post the same link. I was just recently introduced to them.
Haven't seen or used one. But there is one user review (small one though) at
the very bottom of the page.

Roughly translated: "Very good build quality, light and nice design.
Everything works out of the box. Great and nice customer service. Thanks
again!"

Haven't searched for other reviews yet.

[http://www.tuxedocomputers.com/Linux-Hardware/Linux-
Notebook...](http://www.tuxedocomputers.com/Linux-Hardware/Linux-
Notebooks/10-14-Zoll/TUXEDO-InfinityBook-13-3-matt-Full-HD-IPS-
Aluminiumgehaeuse-Intel-Core-i7-Energiespar-CPU-zwei-HDD/SSD-bis-16GB-RAM-
bis-15h-Akku-Slim-Book.geek)

------
headmelted
Am I missing something? Can't you just boot Ubuntu on a Macbook if that's what
you want to do?

(This is a genuine question - I've always found OSX sufferable enough to not
need to, and I have a fanless Acer for Ubuntu that travels with me).

~~~
suprfnk
Yes you can. But from the article:

 _" However, I don't want a Mac.

Apple has great design, but they sell things that are locked down, both
physically and in software. You're not supposed to open them, you're not
supposed to replace parts, and if they break you're supposed to take them to
your nearest "Genius Bar". Not my style."_

~~~
headmelted
I saw that, and it's fair I guess, but isn't that increasingly the direction
hardware is moving industry-wide? (thinner, lighter, sleeker).

I was strongly under the impression that other manufacturers' products were
becoming less-and-less hackable by design. Am I wrong?

------
ryan-allen
TLDR: he didn't do much research.

It is true that there is a lot of crap out there for PCs but there are some
decent laptops, it's just harder to find them.

Dell XPS' are good. Surface Book is totally equivalent to a Macbook Pro in
terms of build quality.

------
tobyhinloopen
I agree with the article. I switched to Apple because the OS & hardware were
superior, but they aren't anymore. Hardware vendors are catching up and
Windows 10 is actually not that bad. OS X is actually getting worse.

------
aap_
I wholeheartedly agree. I'm still using a T61 because I don't really like any
of the models that succeeded it. The new keyboard, the reduced keyboard
layout, the huge touchpad (which I disable anyway) with those reduced buttons,
small screen resolutions compared to my 1400x1050 (unless you pay for the
ultra expensive display panel or get)...it's just not attractive anymore. And
as the author said, thinkpads are still among the _best_ laptops :/ I'd be
willing to throw some money at lenovo for a laptop I _want_ to have but it
looks like they're no longer producing those :(

------
pmontra
I've been happy with the first ZBook. 1080p, SDD or spinning disks, you can
add replace the DVD with another disk, up to 32 GB RAM, apparently you can
replace the CPU and the NVIDIA card too. The ZBook G2 specs are even better.

The only minus on your list would be the battery. It can reach maybe 4 hours
(Linux) but not more. I knew that and it's not a problem, there is always a
power plug nearby where I work.

The only minus in my list was the keyboard, because it has a number pad, but
the keys are excellent. It's also definitely not a 1 kg laptop and the power
brick is as heavy as a brick, but I don't care much.

------
hguant
I recommend System76. Good laptops, clear website, and you know exactly what
you're getting with the OS.

[https://system76.com/laptops](https://system76.com/laptops)

~~~
akurilin
Their desktops are great, we use them for all of our dev boxes. Their laptops
are basically branded Clevos, they're plasticky and feel like they were duct
taped together. This is pretty typical of most of the "Linux Laptop" vendors.

~~~
captn3m0
As someone who owns and works on the exact same machine mentioned in the
article (Galago Ultra Pro), I agree. It's build quality isn't that great and
the non-computing hardware is sub-par (battery, fans, bezel, touchpad...).

I just wish there was a real alternative to the 13" Air.

~~~
bigpeopleareold
I will not buy System76 laptops again because of the build quality. I had one,
and an minor accident with it was a disaster. The computer wouldn't start
after.

I have a MacBook Pro for work and a Dell Inspiron with Ubuntu (which I bought
on the day the System76 failed) on it. Generally, I like the latter.

------
vok5
I bought a Lafité here:
[http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/lafiteII/](http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/lafiteII/).

I believe it is a rebranded Clevo, which is custom-built for you. Lately, I
changed the WiFi card without any issue. You can also change the SSD if you
want, same for the RAM. The best parts are: Build quality, price (you don't
pay for the OS, only if you want to and you get to pay for parts you want),
keyboard is nice, lightweight and screen is great.

------
intrasight
I've been buying Lenovo's for about 6 years and are mostly happy. I always buy
a bare-bones version and add my own memory and SSD and do a clean OS install
(after updating all firmware). A "new machine" is a 20 hour minimum time
commitment so I don't do it more frequently than necessary. I always overlap
two machines so I have backup.

I am due for an upgrade and was looking at the T460p. But I just read about
the bad decisions Lenovo made regarding internal storage so now I am looking
for something else.

------
szukai
Lenovo only inherited the name from IBM. It's not the same as it used to be...
I really wish the author of the post looked beyond one or two laptops given
the title he used for his writeup.

------
jordanpg
Relevant: [https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-PC-equivalent-of-a-
MacBook...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-PC-equivalent-of-a-MacBook-Pro)

------
unsignedint
I'm finding $300 Acer laptop (or netbook, one of their Inspire line) loaded
with Linux surprisingly usable. (It was preloaded with Linpus, but I've
replaced with my own.) At 1.10 GHz Dual-Core, 4GB RAM, it's a bit slow at
times, but as long as I'm not running intensive process on it, it's very
usable on the go machine. (Mainly, TeX, translations, web stuff, browsing, and
occasional spreadsheet, is what I do on the machine.) I do have a desktop
machine for things that requires more power.

~~~
eximius
'surprisingly usable' is not what we should have to settle for

~~~
unsignedint
Well, I did add that I do have a desktop that I use for more demanding tasks.
I guess it's the matter of doing the right thing on right machines.

Though, I do understand there are plenty of people out there who requires a
laptop with decent capabilities. A $300 machine that "surprisingly usable" can
be a good compromise in some use cases.

------
ripberge
I have a Lenovo X1 carbon and I re-installed Windows to remove all the Lenovo
crapware after I bought it. Windows is easy to download and install now. It
will save your license, but blow away everything else. It only takes about
30-45 minutes. But I do agree, this is totally ridiculous that you have to do
this.

I did buy an MS Surface and it was by far the best PC experience I ever had,
however they don't make a keyboard cover with a touch-stick, that's the only
reason I went back to a ThinkPad.

~~~
soared
Wasn't there ab article about Lenovo getting around this solution? I did the
same thing with my y40. Came with an absurd amount of bullshit, but overall
its a great laptop.

------
fsloth
A good anecdote but I disagree with the notion that Surface is not a laptop
but a tablet. I use my Surface Pro 4 i5 as a laptop and it's a pretty good one
at that.

------
narrator
I have a Toshiba p835-z370. It's a few years old but it still runs like a
champ and all the hardware is supported on Ubuntu. Toshiba build quality is
pretty good.

Here's the teardown:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMH0r76zdt0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMH0r76zdt0)
. It's only upgradeable to 6gb though. Would love it if they had a 16gb
upgradeable version.

~~~
voltagex_
Aha! These seemed comparable with the Asus Zenbooks that came out at the same
time. I've only seen one z370 in the wild though - what's the battery life
like under Ubuntu?

------
frik
I am stuck with Win 7 world. Microsoft turned against consumer by serving them
subscription based products Office365 and Windows 10 that also spy on
consumers - no thank you! They force others to over only Win10 ready
notebooks, with locked down UEFI BIOS and crypto module - try to boot Linux,
good luck.

------
mt_caret
What about Vaios? The specs on it are impressive (WQHD, 16GB memory, 20h+
battery life) with a sleek build. Wondering if it goes along well with
linux...

~~~
catwell
I have a Vaio Pro 13, one of the last Sony models. I bought it over two years
ago now. It works very well under Linux. Initially there was a small issue
with CPU frequency scaling because it was basically the first Haswell
ultrabook, and I had to patch and compile my own kernel to work around it, but
that was mainlined after one or two months. I got a version without a
touchscreen and I consider it one of the best ultrabooks available, even
today.

I also have two older Vaios, a P (yes, this one
[http://www.getitnow.gr/MEDIA/content_CustomProductCatalog/m1...](http://www.getitnow.gr/MEDIA/content_CustomProductCatalog/m1380174pp_Sony-
VAIO-P-Series-Atom-Z540-Orange-1440.jpg)) and an EB (17" laptop), which both
work well under Linux.

Reagarding the newer models, I have no feedback yet but I hope they will be
fully supported, if not at the time of release then a few months later at
most.

------
nqzero
for me, aspect ratio is huge - if you want something better than 16:9 in a
pure laptop (not a tablet or convertible) your options are really limited

[http://blog.nqzero.com/2016/01/1610-or-
better-32-43-laptops-...](http://blog.nqzero.com/2016/01/1610-or-
better-32-43-laptops-ie-real.html)

i don't understand how there can be so little differentiation in this market

~~~
BobTheCoder
This! I guess the panels must be way cheaper or something. I would buy a 16:10
high quality expensive laptop in a second.

------
sergiotapia
True, there should something to rival Apple in the laptop arena.

Unfortunately there isn't. Apple just makes hardware that's so sexy and
intuitive to use. Example, Apple TV. I never used one before but I demo'd one
at Best Buy the other day and in 10 seconds I knew how to operate it. Apple
does this best, their earnings prove that.

Just buy a Macbook Air, sturdy as hell, long battery life, and great Unix-
enough-y OS.

~~~
wahsd
Hell, even now the possibly best laptop, the Dell XPS with that sexy edgeless
screen, still has a shitty ass touchpad compared to even a 7 year old MBP. And
let's not get started on the fact that the best quality control of PCs is so
shit that you're almost guaranteed to have regrets. There is simply nothing
that even comes close to Apple's build quality. You can use a 5 yo MBP and it
still run just as good as a new PC laptop for all the 80% of task you would
need it for. It's really pretty damn amazing.

------
mntmn
I recently got a Thinkpad T450s after using iBook & MacBooks for 10 years and
I'm very pleasantly surprised about build quality and feel.

~~~
jryan49
+1 for Thinkpad T450s

------
8note
My acer s7 does pretty well;

I've repaired it from severe rain damage, and it's generally easy to
disassemble and replace the parts to.

it's got a reasonably nice screen, nice build quality, and reasonably good
performance, though you cant change out the wifi chip, nor the ram The
webasite also said about enough to do well, and the windows install it came
with just had some acer junk on it.

------
bechampion
I was in this situation , I've moved away from osx a month ago i couldn't be
happier.

I've moved from a macbook pro retina to a Lenovo x250/i5/8GB/HD screen,
Running xubuntu 15.10 ... most bits work
(DualScreen/VPN/NiceRDPapp(Remmina)/etc etc)

I've had major issues with Webex (need to have a jre 32bit running on a 64 bit
os) but other than that all good!

Good luck!

------
SippinLean
Is Samsung Series 9 still a thing? When I bought mine it was thinner than the
MB Air at that point, similar rigid aluminum build quality.

------
joefreeman
I went through a similar process recently after getting fed up with Apple's
direction. I ended up getting a Surface Pro 4. The build quality seems good,
battery is ok. The software/drivers are terrible - it rarely wakes up from
sleep, and I don't get much delight from using Windows. Hoping Linux support
improves in the near future.

~~~
elboru
What do you mean by drivers are terrible? Do some components fail randomly in
Windows? Or do you mean they just don't work with Linux? Just asking because
I'm planning to buy a Surface Pro

~~~
joefreeman
There seems to be something up with the display driver in Windows relating to
sleep. Sometimes after I login, Windows proudly tells me it's recovered from a
display driver problem. Other times the screen just won't turn on (the
keyboard lights come on, and the IR light that Hello uses comes on), so I have
to keep restarting the machine. I'm guessing this will get fixed eventually
though. Only seems to happen after disconnecting from the charger.

------
richardboegli
Here it is: RAZER BLADE STEALTH

[http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-
stealth](http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-stealth)

Only downside is only 8gb ram, otherwise great machine.

Once a 16/32gb version available, it'll be purchased pretty quickly ;)

------
joshAg
For those who don't know much about non-Apple PCs:

The only laptops worth considering are the enterprise lines from dell hp, and
lenovo. They are night and day differences from the consumer products, because
they are usually entirely separate divisions. Within this, certain lines are
better than others. For example, with lenovo I would only really consider a
t-series, w-series, or x-series. The p-series looks promising, but that just
came out, so maybe don't rush into that if you want to reduce risk.

If the laptop doesn't have the RAM or harddrive soldered on, it's probably
cheaper to buy from newegg and install an upgrade yourself than it is to
upgrade through the product configurator. This does not void the warranty. The
support pages from the website have explicit instruction manuals for doing
this yourself as well as full disassembly instructions.

The enterprise laptops have support pages with crapware free drivers. If you
don't feel like surgically removing crapware from a new installation, just
nuke it from space and install the OS fresh. Heck, most time you don't even
need to install those drivers, because the base windows drivers are fine for
most things (there's probably a performance bump to using the drivers, and
some things, like the fingerprint reader, will need a driver), so you could
just skip the driver install.

Since these are enterprise laptops, you can still get 7 and 8 preinstalled
(thank god for corporate compliance policies, am i right?! ;). MS call it
"downgrade rights". Much like Apple, the best MS OS is the one released in
2009 (windows 7), so splurge for the "downgrade" to it if it's offered for the
laptop you want.

If you care inordinately about crapware and don't want to spend time nuking a
fresh laptop, then buy a laptop (again only enterprise laptops from lenovo,
hp, and dell) from microsoft directly, since those don't come with spyware:
[http://www.microsoftstore.com/store?SiteID=msusa&Locale=en_U...](http://www.microsoftstore.com/store?SiteID=msusa&Locale=en_US&Action=ContentTheme&pbPage=MicrosoftSignature)

You can also get warranties that last much longer than 2 years (some go up to
5), cover accidental damage, or cover the battery, but the specific policies
offered depend on which company you go with. I have taken advantage of the
lenovo accidental damage warranty a few times, and it was great. The default
warranty requires you to ship the laptop off (lenovo overnights me a box with
a prepaid overnight shipping label inside it so all I have to do is pack my
laptop and drop it at the UPS store) and then they return it within a week,
but you can also get an onsite repair warranty where someone will come to you
to fix the laptop.

Trust me, it's worth dealing with a website that isn't as shiny as apple's
website.

~~~
tomsthumb
Lenovo T-series and W-series both had trash tier track pads last time I used
either of them. Literally un-fucking-usable. For the first time in my life I
got a tiny usb mouse to carry with me. My cardiologist wouldn't stop
complaining about my blood pressure. Writing haskell should not be easier than
right clicking.

Maybe they're different now, but if not, I mean, great scott that's terrible.

The keyboards were about as good as a macbook, which was nice.

~~~
joshAg
they recently redesigned them to include physical buttons again, if that's
what you're referring to in the x40x series.

~~~
tomsthumb
that was a big part of it

------
jasonszhao
Why not Asus? (Never got one, have a MacBook.)

------
Aardwolf
Personally I interpret the word PC as something like this:

[http://bi9he1w7hz8qbnm2zl0hd171.wpengine.netdna-
cdn.com/wp-c...](http://bi9he1w7hz8qbnm2zl0hd171.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/11/Digital-Storm.jpg)

so it's funny that it's about laptops :)

------
dh997
I like and use Apple gear but I dont like untinkerable black boxes or opaque
firmwares.

I think we need a beautiful, functional servers,computer, handheld and
wearables with opensource desktop lithography and 3d material deposition. It
would take about $20 million and the right people to get going, but it could
be hw UNIX -> Linux.

------
garyclarke27
Macbook Pro is best windows pc - runs perfectly via bootcamp. So much better
than slower flackier virtual options - i tried all of them - fast reboot so
easy to switch. I need windows for 64 bit Excel 2016 much fatser than mac 32
bit only. 2 diplay ports also great- drives 2 32 inch high res monitors
perfectly.

~~~
pjmlp
Not if you care about graphics or GPGPU programming.

------
trynumber9
Well, the VAIO Z returns soon after a brief hiatus. Maybe look into those?

[0]: [http://us.vaio.com/vaio-z/](http://us.vaio.com/vaio-z/)

[1]: [http://us.vaio.com/vaio-z-flip/](http://us.vaio.com/vaio-z-flip/)

------
justaaron
all these comments to debate what is actually still a standing point:

name a non-mac laptop that' doesn't suck

(is it injection molded plastic with a screen that will eventually flop flop
flop? then it sucks!)

then let's find a distro that doesn't suck! (does in include binary blob
drivers? then it sucks! is it unity? then it sucks!)

~~~
tetheno
Lenovo Thinkpad. HP Elitebook. Dell Precision/Latitude.

Also, most of those can be bough on Ebay for a fraction of the cost. I'm very
happy with the value offered by 2 year old laptops.

------
jsprogrammer
[https://pcpartpicker.com/](https://pcpartpicker.com/)

------
mamcx
Currently my biggest problem with apple machines is the low amount of storage,
and in the case of the news iMacs and Macbooks, how costly and IMPOSSIBLE to
replace them are.

I wish apple forget spinning hardrives, go full on SSD and ship with > 512 GB

------
chemmail
Dell XPS 13/15

------
agarwalrishi
Yup. I agree. We need a good PC with the form factor of Mac mini but without
Mac OS. Only option I have is to buy a Mac mini and install Ubuntu on that. Or
buy Intel mini PC (Intel NUC). Both options are quite expensive, at least in
India.

~~~
lazyjones
> _Or buy Intel mini PC (Intel NUC). Both options are quite expensive, at
> least in India._

You can always get some China-made Intel Mini-PCs like these:
[http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Fanless-i5-Mini-PC-Windows-
Ba...](http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Fanless-i5-Mini-PC-Windows-Barebone-PC-
Broadwell-Intell-Core-i5-5200U-2-7GHz-4K-HTPC/32366202925.html)

Jeff Atwood seems to like them (as routers):
[http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-scooter-
computer/](http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-scooter-computer/)

------
kennycox
How much RAM do you need for gaming? However, I have 8GB RAM but the game
hardly takes 4GB for functioning. One of my friends has 32 GB RAM but I think
he is more paying for it. Is more than 8GB RAM needed for gaming?

------
funkaster
For me, that better PC is the Chromebook Pixel (2015), of course, running
linux instead of the crippled Chrome OS. It's my main dev machine and I use it
more than the MBP that I got @ work.

------
shaurz
This is why I don't buy laptop computers... they are still overpriced toys. I
mean, on a theoretical level, the idea of a mobile computer is appealing, but
in practice they all suck very badly.

------
gonader
Dell XPS 13 is an amazingly good laptop, very well supported in Arch Linux

------
vatotemking
How about MS Surface Book? Fits all the criteria that OP is looking for.

~~~
dit0a
I had a Surface Book but sent it back as it is plagued with problems still.
Just have a quick Google for issues and you will find some real show-stoppers,
such a shame as it is a beautiful machine.

------
finishingmove
If I were getting a new laptop right now, I'd get the Dell XPS 13 (2015). I
get the post's sentiment though, but what really sucks IMO is not the
PC/laptop market but mobile...

------
bduerst
I used an X1 Carbon for years - it's a sweet machine. If you get one, make
sure you don't order the generation with the touch-pad control bar, because it
craps out.

------
AdmiralAsshat
It's a shame that Samsung apparently doesn't consider the laptop market worth
their time anymore. Their Ativ Book 9 was a great little laptop.

------
hendry
The Lenovo X1C3 is not that bad. I recommend it & it runs Archlinux
beautifully.
[https://natalian.org/2015/02/18/Archlinux_on_a_Lenovo_X1C3/](https://natalian.org/2015/02/18/Archlinux_on_a_Lenovo_X1C3/)

Yes, Lenovo sales and support are pretty hopeless. Just got to factor that
fact in. Must say Apple are pretty hopeless unless you get Apple care.

Anyway, the real problem in my mind is that there is pretty much no
competition to Intel nowadays.

------
crudbug
I have both Thinkpad T540 & MBP. The thing I miss the most is the dual mini-
display port for support triple monitor (2K) desk work.

------
joesmo
I'd say upgradability should be added to that list to make a better computer,
otherwise it'd at best be equal to one from Apple.

------
beatpanda
I have the first-generation X1 Carbon and a Dell Precision M3800, both running
Ubuntu, and I am very satisfied with both.

------
dopemath
The Chromebook Pixel and Surace Pro lines are what I am lookin towards to
solve this very issue

------
DiNovi
While I agree with general sentiment, he only tried two laptops. Why not the
Dell XPS?

------
Tharkun
The Lenovo website is one of the worst websites I've ever visited. For
instance, if you try to filter laptops by memory, and tick the 16GB box, you
won't find any Thinkpads. Only Yoga crap. Even though the X250 can ship with
16GB... Bunch of wankers are so incompetent it's a miracle they sell any
laptops at all.

------
VeejayRampay
Man, community managers for all the biggest PC manufacturers must be rubbing
their hands on posts like this.

------
IkmoIkmo
The Surface Book and the Dell XPS 13 were not mentioned, while they're easily
both in the top 3.

------
Aoyagi
And while we're at it, why don't we have some VA or even OLED matte displays
for laptops?

------
crudbug
The other thing lacking is Linux multi-monitor support, I see gnome crashing
all the time.

------
wprapido
i'm using a lenovo W540 and am genuinely happy. 32GB RAM, SSD + HDD, old-style
keyboard. the only downside is screen resolution of 1920x1080. that's perhaps
the only reason why i'm going to replace it

------
dkarapetyan
Dell sputnik. It's great.

~~~
mixmastamyk
2016 Model has not yet shown, has it?

------
imsofuture
Lenovo doesn't have a great website, but their ThinkPads are nice.

------
tempodox
+1. This article should be at the top of HN.

------
dba7dba
We need Elon to jump into PC business.

------
sbuk
The declining software quality is nothing more than a meme. None of you you
seem to remember the horror that was 10.0. Or 10.1. Or 10.2 Or...

~~~
spronkey
It's real. Sure, OS X was terrible in the early days. But then we got stuff
like Tiger and Snow Leopard. It was clear progress. And now it isn't.

~~~
sbuk
Extrapolate; in what way?

10.4 took until 10.4.11 to be stable. Snow Leopards wasn't great out of the
box either. Marco's original post was nerd rage and the new mDNS solution. Was
it annoying? Yes. Is it symptomatic of a larger issue? Hardly. I think, like
may others, you are looking at this with extremely rosey glasses, especially
given the comparison to Linux desktops, which in my experience (around 15
years) is _still_ not as reliable as OS X out of the box or intuitive; too
many desktops trying to do too many things too differently. Of course YMMV,
but I'd argue it was likely due to confirmation bias.

I stand by the fact that this is nothing more than a meme.

~~~
spronkey
Maybe I have the ole' tinted glasses a la Rose, but I don't remember any
really bad bugs with 10.4. Spotlight was slow, iTunes broke yet again, but in
general it seemed to work OK. Maybe because I was on a PPC machine back then?

I won't even try to defend Linux desktops, but I definitely notice just as
many day to day issue with OS X than I did in the past, and really, I notice a
lot more little bugs that _really_ affect me. Like my multi monitor setup menu
items disappear. And sometimes the windows don't render themselves correctly.
Finder and smb etc..

~~~
sbuk
Honestly, I don't recognise _any_ of the issues you mention. The only recent
issue I had was with discoveryd.

~~~
spronkey
Well, there was also the Lion period where you literally couldn't use
fullscreen and multi displays... despite previous versions supporting multiple
displays perfectly. Took them until Mavericks to sort that out.

I've had lots of issues with Mail.app recently too. Especially with older IMAP
servers. Then there are also issues with the systemwide accounts.. ugh. I've
literally filed over 100 bugs in Radar in the past 2 years vs a handful before
that.

------
justinhj
I have a Lenova Yoga Pro and it's great. Nice build quality, silent, touch
screen. My kid found it plays latest games at medium detail.

------
ishbits
I'd like Mac OS X but on a Lenovo T or X. That would just be perfect (assuming
it ran as well as it does on a MacBook).

~~~
spronkey
Before Apple started making _really_ amazing machines, I used to be a big fan
of the T and X series ThinkPads. But Lenovo haven't impressed me in a long
time.

Lots of niggly stupid issues - like terrible audio quality, or poor LCDs, or
poor build quality requiring stuff like shims under keyboards to stop them
rattling (seriously?!). Crappy touchpads. Dumb experiments with the keyboard
and touchpad/trackpoint buttons.

Every time I think I should give one of the newer X's a proper go, I go and
have a play with them and realise that they're still full of compromises.

------
pmarreck
Well, now you know why I use Macs.

They are closed (unfortunately) but they are not full of bullshit, at least.

------
izzydata
Easy, build a desktop.

------
MindTooth
Amen to that!

------
kba
I still feel like a MacBook Pro would be a good choice for the author. He
starts out by talking about being able to replace parts, but later doesn't
make that as a requirement when he asks for:

\- Decent build quality

\- Decent performance and battery life

\- A decent website

\- A clean OS without crapware or malware factory installed

If you want a laptop that's somewhat thin, light and with decent battery life,
you often do have to sacrifice being able to replace anything. By soldering on
the RAM and storage, you get more room for batteries. This also especially
becomes evident by his System76 Galago that can last 3 hours.

So in conclusion: Just get a MacBook, it has decent build quality,
performance, battery life and website. A good OS? I'm not going to be the
judge of that, but installing Ubuntu or Windows on a Mac is luckily very easy.

------
r-w
That was a pretty quick dismissal of Lenovo, and a warped portrayal at that.
As far as we can tell, Superfish was not intentionally installed by Lenovo,
and any money it made didn’t go to them since it wasn’t their software.
There’s nothing here to suggest that this is a sign of anything untrustworthy
happening at Lenovo, any more than there is at any other major laptop seller.
It seems like this was just a case of their software QA being not quite on par
with their hardware QA. Also, all websites suck. Just sayin’.

tl;dr: “Picky, picky! _wags finger_ ”

~~~
vardump
If Lenovo has unintentional binaries slipping in the production image, the
problems are way more serious than sloppy QA.

How can I trust their peripheral chips and firmware? Or BIOS and SMM for that
matter?

Maybe some nasty things unintentionally slipped in their SMM code as well?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Management_Mode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Management_Mode)

There's no way I could verify all the firmware code contained in the laptop.
Heck, not even one chip.

Lenovo has had things not intended happening with their BIOS [1] as well. It's
fixed now, but what else there might be lurking under covers?

[1]: [http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2015/08/lenovo...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2015/08/lenovo-used-windows-anti-theft-feature-to-install-
persistent-crapware/)

