
Ask HN: Are there any reasonable alternatives to MacBook Pro for developer? - robsun
Hi,<p>I&#x27;m writing this on my late 2012 MacBook Pro. Time goes by and I know rather sooner than later I&#x27;ll need to replace it with a new machine. In 2012 I paid around 1000$ for MacBook Pro + Samsung SSD (256GB) + 16GB RAM, I made modifications on my own.<p>I check notebookcheck from time to time. I read reviews, opinions about new laptops. The point is, I don&#x27;t know if there is any machine that could be recommended in reasonable price. At work I&#x27;m using some new MacBook Pro which (i5&#x2F;16GB&#x2F;128GB SSD) which is noticeably slower than my current machine.<p>Performance of the computer is quite important for me. I&#x27;m an Android developer, compilation of a big project I&#x27;m working on takes enormous amount of RAM and CPU nowadays (with new Android Studio it&#x27;s even worse). From time to time I work on web projects, so handling several instances of docker shouldn&#x27;t be a problem for a new machine. I prefer Linux over MacOs over Windows, so good support for Ubuntu&#x2F;Fedora would be nice.<p>I checked some computers in details but most of them fail in one or more aspects:
- hinges - MacBook has superior hinges, if I pay more than 1000 - 1500$ I expect to have great hinges
- price
- performance
- Linux support<p>Price is quite important for me, I&#x27;m from Eastern Europe. What computer would you recommend in, let&#x27;s say, &lt;2000$ ?
======
gkop
I’m on my 4th Thinkpad T-series - T520, T530, T450s, T460s - each one was a a
winner. I ditched the T5XX series when they borked the keyboard layout by
adding a numpad. Used to run Ubuntu, now I run Debian, stable or testing
depending on point in release cycle at install time. I plan to take another
look at Ubuntu now that they gave up on Unity. A coworker is happily on the
T470s (first USB-C in the series). I always get 1920x1080 since my eyes are
accustomed to it, but multiple coworkers are happy with 2560x1440. Used to get
the Nvidia cards, now very happy with the integrated Intel graphics. In
general, last year’s hardware requires almost zero messing with Linux to make
everything work, whereas with the latest hardware, be prepared to solve a
couple minor issues. Ubuntu’s font rendering or Infinality are both amazing
and better than macOS or Win10 to my eyes.

I’m ridiculously excited to eventually upgrade to a T480s because it’s the
first in the series to offer a quad-core CPU. They’re selling the quad-core
with Intel graphics which is exactly what I want. I hope Lenovo did a good job
with the thermal engineering...

Thanks to all the open source developers that deliver this totally rad
experience on Linux, Debian, and Gnome <3

~~~
aviraldg
Do your co-workers not have issues with HiDPI support on Linux? I've heard
it's not the best experience and can require quite some fiddling to get
working correctly.

~~~
jhoechtl
HiDPI on Linux is pretty much non existent. I am telling from experience. I
have booth a decent 4K external monitor and a HiDPI IPS internal display. The
only setup which is ok in the sense of least horrible is Gnome mutter Wayland
with experimental per monitor fractional scaling enabled. And this one is only
ok if you can restrict yourself to the few ported pure GTK3 Gnome apps. Which
means not that much. No Firefox. No Chrome. No Thunderbird.

And the speed of fixing HiDPI on Linux has actually slowed down.

Frnakly, and I am a hard core Linux OSS fan - come back in two years and check
again.

The Linux desktop IS dead.

~~~
saltcured
So, what exactly is it that you expect as "HiDPI" support which is missing? As
far as I can recall, it has been possible to configure the actual physical
size/DPI for a monitor for many, many years. Any properly functioning X
application should then be able to draw things a correct size on the screen,
e.g. fonts sized in points or images and figures scaled to actual widths. I
think this infrastructure may even pre-date the switch from XFree86 to Xorg.
Is your complaint that there are still some applications which ignore this
monitor DPI metadata or which do other pixel-based techniques?

Like the previous poster, I stick to 1920x1080 on my 14-inch class Thinkpad.
In my office I have dual 28-inch 4K monitors. These have identical dot pitch
to my Thinkpad, so each monitor is like having a 2x2 array of my Thinkpad
screens. When I made sure the monitors were set with the correct DPI,
everything worked exactly as I would expect. Whatever rendered as one pixel on
my laptop would also be one pixel on my workstation, and I just had 8 times
more real estate on my dual monitor desktop. But, I sit further from the
monitors than I do my laptop screen while also using them for much longer
stretches of time. So, I adjusted the workstation to pretend it had higher DPI
so that things would render a little bigger.

It's been a few years, but I think I may have had to separately adjust Firefox
because it has some of its own weird assumptions about fonts and DPI that I
assume come from their renderer straddling several different platforms. I also
had to adjust emacs and xterm to change from my decades old fixed font
preferences to start using scalable fonts.

~~~
lloeki
Mix HiDPI screens and non HiDPI ones, lots of very real corner cases that you
hit daily make the experience terrible in ways that can only be "fixed"
through terrible hacks and tweaks, if at all.

~~~
saltcured
OK, so I guess the problem comes from trying to fuse everything into one
screen? In the old days, we would run X with separate screen numbers to get
multiple outputs via multiple graphics cards. You could slide your mouse
between screens, but you couldn't drag a window across or have a window
spanning the two screens. Each window remained confined to one screen, and
only a few apps knew how to open windows on more than one screen from the same
app instance. (A few, like emacs, even understand opening windows on multiple
displays!)

Out of curiosity, what is a non-broken behavior supposed to be if the screens
are combined? Do people expect the low-dpi screen to be a blurry version of
whatever would appear on the high-dpi screen, or do they expect it to act like
a magnifier, perhaps with pan/zoom controls?

~~~
jhoechtl
> In the old days, we would run X with separate screen numbers to get multiple
> outputs via multiple graphics cards

Those days are gone. No matter how hard you try - either you are simply not
runing on current hardware, have very modest expectations or close your eyes
to realize that the Linux desktop in this regard is at least two years behind,
minimum!

~~~
saltcured
I am not arguing, I am genuinely wondering what you guys want. I have read
multiple assertions that Linux is broken but no clear explanation of what it
should be doing differently.

For reference, I have been using Linux continuously on all sorts of hardware
since 1994. What I lack is any practical experience using modern Windows or
Mac OS, so I have no idea what implicit expectations you may be bringing from
those. The last time I ran Windows directly on hardware was before Windows 95
was released, and similarly my only real Mac experience was on monochrome
classic Macs before OS X existed.

Over the years, I have used just about every sort of display hardware with
Linux, ranging from serial terminals, Hercules monochrome graphics, 800x600
through 1600x1200 CRTs, the first wave of DVI-based LCDs, various HDTVs, the
first DLP projectors, and my current dual 4K monitors. I was also involved in
the early testing and deployment of 2D and 3D accelerators on Linux, as well
as things like clusters driving arrays of projectors. We even had one of those
IBM "Big Bertha" displays in our lab at one point, which was one of the first
300 DPI LCD monitors available. Just about the only thing I haven't used with
Linux is head-mounted displays nor stereo glasses. My last involvement with VR
was 20 years ago when SGI Onyx-based CAVE systems were prevalent in academia,
combining head-tracking, active shutters, and multiple wall projectors.

But, to be honest, I have no use case to combine different DPI monitors into a
single graphical screen or desktop. If I connect a laptop to a projector or
display panel for presentations, I tend to just want to duplicate the
presentation view on the internal screen. Otherwise, I use the laptop to be
mobile and I use workstations with their dedicated displays.

------
noir_lord
I went through this last year.

I looked at Macbook Pro, Dell XPS15 and Thinkpad T470P.

In the end I went for the T470P (i7-7700HQ (4 core/8 thread) w/ 2560x1440
screen, 16GB of RAM (upgraded myself to 32GB)) and the bigger battery (pretty
much no optional with a 35W TDP processor).

I tried the XPS15 but the keyboard was bad and the fit and finish wasn't
awesome.

I've had zero issues with linux support or the machine generally, build
quality is excellent, I personally like the styling but many don't.

It's so fast that I held off building a new desktop (and packed the old one
away) and battery life is very good if you aren't maxing out the CPU, I've had
over 8 hours of actual work time, screen is good, sharp and decently bright.

In the UK it came with a three year warranty as standard vs 1yr for the Dell.

It was also 300 quid cheaper than the Dell.

I ruled out the Macbook Pro on price and the fact I couldn't put 32GB of RAM
into it.

At work I have a Ryzen 1700 with 32GB RAM and a SATA SSD, Intellij with a
bunch of plugins loads faster on my thinkpad than that machine (NVMe SSD vs
SATA SSD basically, the Ryzen should demolish any laptop processor with
threaded code).

It's a solid little machine.

The new higher core count lower TDP intel processors look interesting, I
suspect the T480P (if they do one) will have those, 35W TDP is a lot compared
to 15W, I suspect that the 7700HQ will still beat them handily and extreme
battery life wasn't an issue for me, anything over 5 hours is fine I'm never
away from AC for longer than that.

~~~
chrischen
> I ruled out the Macbook Pro on price and the fact I couldn't put 32GB of RAM
> into it.

Just curious, how has 32 GB ram on it affected battery life?

~~~
coatmatter
I think a couple of replies are missing one aspect to your question. If you
have more RAM and you use it, you'll probably have more processes to drain the
battery. I noticed this when my desktop went from 8GB to 16GB under Unity and
extra Google Chrome/Vivaldi/Firefox tabs.

On the other hand, it encouraged me to buy a faster and more energy efficient
graphics card, run i3wm, and buy an SSD. That fixed the problem.

So a laptop with 32GB RAM might mean you'll push it harder, but I guess it
also opens up the opportunity to run VMs, etc. Regardless, highly-specced
device is cheap, Apple or otherwise.

At the moment, I think my favoured approach is an ultrabook + desktop system.
Laptops will never be desktop replacements so long as you can pack more punch
per dollar into a desktop. As usual, it's horses for courses. I think
ultrabooks are best used as devices of focus and for mobility. Putting the
kitchen sink into them doesn't make a whole lot of sense, usually.

------
anotheryou
A warning about Dell XPS (13") screens: if you take the matte display and like
coding with dark color schemes it's horrible (but there might be a fix).

It does loose all contrast on dark images. Saving battery they brighten the
displayed image and lower the back light. This lowers 100% white to maybe a
80% white and makes for horrible contrast.

For those affected:

\- you can test if you have this issue here:
[http://tylerwatt12.com/dc/](http://tylerwatt12.com/dc/)

\- for a fix you can go through the comments here:
[https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues/2](https://github.com/advancingu/XPS13Linux/issues/2)

But be warned, the leaked firmware someone posted does not always work right
(but fixed it for me).

If I read the latest comment right there might be an official patch now (after
years of this issue). (at least it doesn't say QHD in the file name) (this is
what the last comment links to:
[http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/drivers/driversdet...](http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/drivers/driversdetails?driverId=312K3)
)

Want another dell display goodie? Their "display manager" for external
displays downloads updates via http, through your browser, from a domain other
than dell.com, as an exe, signed by their contractor.

~~~
birksherty
There was a similar issue on my Asus laptop. It made me crazy. After lots of
searching online, I found that the issue is with Intel HD Graphics settings,
not the laptop. I had to disable "Display Power Saving Technology" in Intel HD
Graphics Control Panel and it solved the issue.

I manually installed the OS and drivers. I can't find a good reason why Intel
enabled this horrible option by default.

~~~
anotheryou
well this one is baked in to the FW. I tried that setting too :)

------
jnwatson
I recent got a 15 inch Dell Precision. I’m running a recent Ubuntu. I don’t
recommend.

It constantly throttles the CPI. I get lots of PCIe recoverable errors. The
USB bus runs out of available throughout. Plugging anything Displaylink is a
disaster.

The camera/microphone is below the screen, which sucks more than I expected.

It takes 2 hands to open the laptop.

It is possible to plug in the power supply such that computer thinks it is
charging but it actually drains the battery.

~~~
sametmax
I own a dell xps 15. Same, i don't recommand it. Autonomy is abysmal, usbc
support very poor, the bios took a year to be stable and the sound died after
some months. Not worth the price tag. Mind you, the xps 13 doesn't seem to
have the same problems.

I still love my old samsung 9 serie and wish the brand would have worked out
the quirks and made a new one.

My next try will be a thinkpad carbon since every owner around me are very
happy.

~~~
stefantheard
This was also my experience with the XPS15. Took a lot of struggle just for
really basic hardware to start working properly on the ubuntu side, also
extremely painful to install ubuntu itself and to have it recognize the
XPS15's touchpad.

I would not spend 1400$ and 10-20 hours to configure the damn thing again, do
not recommend.

~~~
nickthemagicman
Had the same experience with Dell XPS and ubuntu 17.02 and earlier versions.

Upgrading 17.10 and everything is working perfectly.

Still would rather use my MacBook though because of software
incompatibilities.

~~~
Thriptic
Interesting, so everything works on the xps 15 w/ Ubuntu 17.10? I want to pull
the trigger on buying one but I am concerned about the Linux support.

Also, do you know if the new XPS 15 support a two hard drive configuration?

~~~
stefantheard
technically it does not "work" but after some amount of hours of googling
specific issues that pop up you can get it going. it's painful though.

~~~
musicaldope
Any pointers on specific issues to look out for? I'm thinking of upgrading
from 16.04 on my XPS 15

~~~
pbrumm
I use the precision. my biggest issue was with getting encrypted drive setup.
the trick was to use the dell recovery image to install with encryption. this
works but leaves the machine with an older kernel that doesn't have all the
tweeks around usbc and wifi and such. You have to switch to the Hardware
Enablement Stack to get it running well.

------
shazow
I switched from a 2014 13" Retina MBP to a 2018 Thinkpad X1 Carbon (6th gen)
and I'm extremely happy with it.

[https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-
ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-2018...](https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-
ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-2018-WQHD-HDR-i7-Laptop-Review.284682.0.html) is the most
objective/detailed review I've seen.

One of my biggest anxieties was the fear of "upgrading" to an inferior device
after a decade of being on Apple devices. Thankfully, that has not been the
case.

\- The 14" WQHD HDR screen is remarkably more vibrant with similar DPI.

\- The battery life is almost double what I had before.

\- It runs cooler, faster, and quieter than my rMBP.

\- It's more than half a pound lighter than my 13" rMBP and is smaller despite
having a larger screen.

\- The keyboard is just amaaaazing, I forgot what a good keyboard feels like.
It's a joy to type on.

\- The build is excellent, still has that "Thinkpad" feel to it--like I could
use it as a sledgehammer if I had to, despite looking quite slick.

\- Everything works on Linux except the fingerprint reader and S3 suspend
required an easy tweak before working properly (add a boot flag).

\- I added a 4 year warranty for $140 USD, fair bit cheaper than Apple's. You
don't get the Genius Bar experience but the Thinkpad brand is strong world-
wide and there are certified local repair centres pretty much everywhere. (Fun
fact: IBM still has a repair contract with Lenovo for the Thinkpad brand). In
general, the machines are very serviceable with standard
screws/components/etc. For every MBP I've owned, I've averaged bringing it in
for repairs about 2-4 times per MBP. I've never had to repair the Thinkpad I
had before that, and I hope this one holds up as well.

I bought it the week it was released, so only the maximum spec version was
available for about $2000 USD. (Lenovo perks sites or discount coupons usually
get you 15-20% off the retail price, or buy from Costco.)

My second choice was the 13" Dell XPS with 4K, but the deciding factor was the
build quality and 4K is a bit too much (the battery/perf penalty wasn't worth
the DPI gain over what the X1 Carbon offered). In general, it seems the
Thinkpad build quality is much more consistent than Dell's.

If budget was really tight for me, I'd strongly consider getting an older
Thinkpad and replacing the internals. The Thinkpad modding community is very
active, it's kind of remarkable.

~~~
michaelangerman
What version of Linux would people recommend for this machine ? 2018 Thinkpad
X1 Carbon (6th gen)

~~~
flyingfences
If you want something practical and productive right out of the box then just
go with Ubuntu for any hardware.

Thinkpads are popular in the Arch community (and vice versa), so there's
discussion and documentation available if that's your cup of tea.

~~~
michaelangerman
Do you have link for the Arch community where I can read more about what you
are referring to., I am not familiar with that... Thank you !

~~~
eat_veggies
The Arch wiki has general information and laptop-specific errata for most
models:

[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Laptop/Lenovo](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Laptop/Lenovo)

It appears the X1C 6th generation doesn't have a page yet, but it's likely
extremely similar to the 5th generation one.

------
tootie
Not a hardware req, but I've recently become quite enamored with Win 10 + WSL
(Windows Subsystem for Linux) after years of using a Mac. WSL lets you run a
lightweight Linux shell (Ubuntu, SUSE, Kali are supported atm) without a VM.
It's purely for command-line purposes, no X, but that's fine for me. Windows
for UI, then I can run all my bash in the Ubuntu shell almost seamlessly. You
can run the shell directly from start menu or just type 'bash' from cmd or
powershell so it can easily work in the embedded terminal for Android Studio.

~~~
147
I couldn’t find a terminal I liked on windows. Got any suggestions?

~~~
Boulth
ConEmu works great after some tweaking (there are numerous options).

------
Giako
I suggest looking into the Dell XPS line (both 13 or 15 models, depending on
your screen size tastes). I own a 2015 Dell XPS 13 and Linux support is
amazing (long battery life, the laptop does not overheat and everything works
out of the box on Ubuntu). The only weak spot is the webcam location in the
lower part of the screen.

Another good alternative could be the Thinkpad Carbon X line, but I don't have
any direct experience.

At work I use a mid-2015 Macbook Pro, if you stick to MacOs it's a very good
machine. I also have an Ubuntu 17.10 partition on this machine that I use as
main daily driver, but there are a few catches with this particular model
(slight overheating, battery life is good but not great, I had to manually
install drivers for backlight control and webcam).

~~~
chongli
Did they fix the coil whine on the Dell machines?

~~~
bhouston
As someone who has had one for a year, it never affected me. It always seemed
like FUD to me, but maybe it affected someone.

~~~
lardo
Most of the developers at my office are using the 9360. Every single one of
those machines is subject to coil whine at load.

------
owenwil
Hey! Web dev/writer here that can relate — I've been writing about this after
having gone through the same experience.

In the last year, I've written about the Razer Blade, Eve V and about to ship
a review of the Dell XPS 15 today or tomorrow (will post in this comment),
which I ultimately settled on. It's a killer machine! I use Windows and WSL to
do my work, and it's just as good as my MacBook setup ever was — except I have
32 GB of RAM _and_ a bunch of ports.

Happy to answer any questions/offer advice, I've basically tried all of them —
I am extremely curious about the new Surface Book 2 15", but it's been hard to
get my hands on one.

The post that started it all: [https://char.gd/blog/2017/why-i-left-mac-for-
windows-apple-h...](https://char.gd/blog/2017/why-i-left-mac-for-windows-
apple-has-given-up)

Razer Blade: [https://char.gd/blog/2017/the-razer-blade-a-killer-
macbook-p...](https://char.gd/blog/2017/the-razer-blade-a-killer-macbook-pro-
replacement)

Eve V review: [https://char.gd/blog/2017/a-startup-made-a-better-laptop-
tha...](https://char.gd/blog/2017/a-startup-made-a-better-laptop-than-anyone-
else-could)

Replacement tooling for Windows (given how good Bash on Windows is):
[https://char.gd/blog/2017/essential-apps-for-switching-
from-...](https://char.gd/blog/2017/essential-apps-for-switching-from-mac-to-
windows)

~~~
eknkc
I tried to switch to XPS 13 from MBP a couple months ago.

My main focus was to use WSL but it’s so freaking slow on disk access that
sometimes “git status” on a repo would take 10-15 seconds while it’s <1s on
macos or linux. How on earth do you manage to work with it? every single thing
hitting the disk was noticably slower.

I went to Ubuntu and decided life is too short to use a crippled touchpad.

Went back to MBP.

------
013a
Haven't seen these two suggested:

The Razer Blade is a pretty excellent machine. Its gaming focused, which
surfaces a little bit in their design language, but all that really means is
more beefy specs. The Stealth model in particular might be a great choice, or
you can up-market. I've heard nothing but great things about it.

The Surface devices are also an expensive but excellent choice. They do suffer
in that I don't believe any of them are shipped with 8th gen Intel chips or
Thunderbolt yet, but once they get that updated they'll be worth looking into.
They are very pricey though; its basically $2000 minimum for any model with
16gb of memory.

Really, if you want MacBook-like quality, you need to realize that there's a
reason why they're so expensive, and you can't really cheat the price by
looking at Windows. There are a few manufacturers that are getting the prices
down, like Dell's XPS line, but they make sacrifices in build quality,
touchpad quality, etc. If you're fine with that, then yeah you can save $500.

~~~
theflagbug
I have a late-2016 Razer Blade and every time I compile something the fans
spin up to aircraft-turbine levels of noise, it's ridiculous. I'm currently
thinking of throwing the whole thing out and getting a Macbook Pro instead,
because it's basically the loudest thing in our office.

~~~
jonathanfoster
Same here with the fan. I use Goland as my main IDE and man does it kick up a
fuss whenever indexing occurs.

~~~
dlsniper
You can disable the indexing of the whole GOPATH as of 2018.1 and it will
finish indexing a whole lot faster. See Settings | Go | GOPATH | Index entire
GOPATH.

------
jasonvorhe
I've been working on Chromebooks since the 2013 Chromebook Pixel, though the
laptop itself is almost irrelevant, because I've just moved everything into
the cloud and work from a couple of VMs with tmux/vim/mosh. Of course that's
not on option if you require a complete IDE, but it seems that support for
local GUI apps is coming with a native ChromeOS feature called Crostini.

People runing the Development channel already play around with various apps
like VS Code: [https://chromeunboxed.com/news/chrome-os-container-
crostini-...](https://chromeunboxed.com/news/chrome-os-container-crostini-
vscode-virtual-machine)

They're also working for native support for running VMs via KVM, though it
looks as if that'll be primarily targeted to the enterprise world.

It's an interesting time for Chromebooks.

~~~
sethrin
If you need a complete IDE on a chromebook, you might check out Cloud9[0],
which seems to have been acquired by Amazon. It gives you a decent editor and
a small VM as a workspace, and the nice thing is that you can close the
browser window and do something else, and the workspace will be exactly as you
left it when you return, including any running terminal commands. I used C9
for a while before discovering Crouton[1] and subsequently GalliumOS[2], and
it's still a pretty credible alternative to local development.

[0] [https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/](https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/) [1]
[https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton](https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton)
[2] [https://galliumos.org/](https://galliumos.org/)

(I have no affiliation with any companies or projects mentioned.)

------
storrgie
I wrote a bit about this [0] in terms of exploring Dell and Lenovo as options
with a focus on Linux. I also quite like using LTE with my development
machine, I'm doing so with the T470s and Fi [1]. I feel like for Linux the
primary advantage that Lenovo has is the historical RedHat/IBM partnership
where many RedHat developers are issued/choose Thinkpad as their primary
machines to hack on. This typically leads to the crowd effect in ensuring the
hardware has good support.

I think the thing that makes me the most sad about Lenovo and Dell is the two
incidents they've had in relation to consumer privacy [2][3].

[0]: [https://storrgie.epiphyte.network/linux-on-
the-t470s/](https://storrgie.epiphyte.network/linux-on-the-t470s/)

[1]: [https://storrgie.epiphyte.network/project-fi-
archlinux/](https://storrgie.epiphyte.network/project-fi-archlinux/)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish)

[3]: [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2015/11/dell-...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2015/11/dell-does-superfish-ships-pcs-with-self-signed-root-
certificates/)

~~~
owenwil
This is awesome, thanks! The biggest problem I had with even considering Linux
on any of these machines is that the High DPI support is... non-existent,
which just kills it for me :(

~~~
Majestic121
I think your information about High DPI support with Linux is outdated. I've
been using a 4k screen with Ubuntu for more than a year now without any
particular issue.

~~~
jnwatson
The latest Gnome/Ubuntu does not support dual monitor where only 1 monitor is
hidpi.

~~~
jhoechtl
Under Wayland with fractional scaling enabled you get per monitor DPI scaling.
It works, but has issues when you detach the external monitor / undock.

------
alexdeloy
I'm sticking to the XPS family for years now and a - for me very important -
thing that rarely gets mentioned is the stunning support you can book with the
machine. It's usually something around EUR 200-250 for 4-5 years and you'll
get a worldwide coverage on the next business day, no matter what. I had
issues with my current XPS in a beach house in Portugal earlier last year due
to the sand being everywhere in the flat. A short call later I had a
technician driving 3h from Lisbon to my place to fix the cooling system, no
questions asked.

The XPS 1530 I had before that had some issues with the GPU, Nvidia had some
problems with the 8xxx series back then. I had to call them twice to replace
the GPU without any problems. Also if your charger has an issue they usually
send you a new one with UPS over night.

Even though it might be declining a bit compared to what you could ask from
them 5 years ago I think the support is still stellar and well woth
considering if you're moving around once in a while.

~~~
theyinwhy
Ok but how is the Linux support?

~~~
SahAssar
The XPS'es can be configured to be preinstalled with linux, so pretty much as
good as it gets from a major OEM.

------
valuearb
I have a top of line new MBP and love it. I don’t use the keyboard, the
touchbar, the screen or the hinge. Instead it drives two 17 inch monitor and
bluetooth keyboard and track pad (yes i paid extra for slate gray trackpad).

I will argue that its nearly impossible for a developer to pay too much for
their computer system. When you spend close to 2,000 hours a year using it,
every moment saved by faster processor/memory IP, everything that was easier
to read, write and do thanks to the best keyboard, input device and best
monitors, pays for the extra investment many times over.

Of course, I have to admit at some point when I have to travel, I will need to
use the built in keyboard and at that point I will be very sad.

~~~
RyanShook
Just got the 13” MBP. Love the form-factor and power, still enjoy MacOS over
others. Miss MagSafe power, annoyed by the touchbar and lack of inputs, really
dislike the keyboard (shallow/cheap feeling).

------
nottorp
How about the touch pad? Is there any non Apple laptop where the touch pad
works as well in Linux as the mbpro's in OS X?

I'm spoiled and use my mbpro without a mouse ... because I can. I'd like to
switch away from Apple when I need a new laptop because of the emoji keyboard.
But I'd also like to keep using the laptop without a mouse. Is that possible
these days?

~~~
PerfectElement
The Surface Book 2 track pad is pretty decent and customizable.

~~~
nottorp
But that only runs Windows. If i switch, I'll switch to something that runs
Linux properly.

------
usemac
I am a person who joined the Windows team at Microsoft in early 90s. So I am
as far from am Apple fanboy as you get. So believe me when I say there is _NO_
alternative to the MBP if the touchpad is critical to your usage. If your dont
care about the touchpad then there are many

~~~
maaaats
But if one wants a keyboard that's usable one has to steer away from the
latest MBPs :/

~~~
1stranger
It's fine.

------
archi42
> What computer[...]

I'll take you literally there ;-)

I know laptops are becoming more and more capable, but if you don't really
work on the go (it's not clear from the post): I've had great experience using
a refurbished quality laptop for non-demanding stuff (e.g. ssh and off-time
surfing, reading,...); and a capable desktop computer to do the heavy lifting
at home (at the office I use the workstation that's supplied by my employer).

My Sandybridge system is out-dated, so no use of giving specs, but Ryzen
1800X, and i7-8700k should all be well in your price range (plus a nice
monitor or two; assuming you don't need an expensive GPU for your work). Maybe
even Threadripper 1920X or the next iteration of the i7-7820X.

All of these should easily beat anything that's the size of a MBP (my CPU
cooler alone weighs over 500g = 25% of a 2015 2000$ MBP).

~~~
bo1024
Always a good option to consider -- a reasonable laptop and great self-built
desktop can be cheaper than a great laptop (if any such exists). Especially if
you can ssh into the big machine for high-performance tasks.

------
alexandercrohde
As somebody who got later into macbooks, and begrudingly had to admit they
were objectively superior, here's what I'd like to know about a competitor.

1\. Does the screen ever flicker?

2\. Has a key ever come off?

3\. Does it ever fail to sleep when you close the lid

4\. Would you worry if you drop it from waste height 5 times (closed, but
running, onto a hard-wood floor) ?

5\. Have you had any driver problems, have you ever had to reinstall the OS?

6\. Have you had it crash one you more than once every 3 months?

7\. Have you had any glitches (audio dying, network problems, charging
problems)

Saying no to all of these is my personal benchmark for my air. I haven't used
PC laptops in a while now, so I'm genuinely curious if the higher-end
competitors can compete on this reliability benchmark.

~~~
peterashwell
big +1 to this response. I got a lenovo (thinkpad x series) and it hit 1, 2,
3, 5, 6, and 7, obviously implying 4.

I tried really, really hard to like the lenovo. It just was not built good
enough for every day use. It was just a piece of shit.

One more very important point:

If it breaks and you need support, what happens then?

MBP: take it in to a nearby apple store. if not immediate fix or replacement
then very rapid turnaround

Lenovo: Send it to china! and wait 6 weeks and maybe you'll get the right
computer back, and maybe the problem will be fixed

~~~
soperj
I've had a problem with my thinkpad hardware once. They had a guy actually
come to my house.

------
SlowBro
Lots of people love the Lenovo X220, which can be upgraded with simple
screwdrivers to the latest and greatest processors and motherboards using fan-
made motherboards.

(That’s how popular they are, fans are making newer motherboards for them. I
don’t know the experience, I’m using a very old Toughbook to devel since my
needs aren’t great.)

What’s with the hinges? I’ve never had one fail. Granted, I’m no road warrior.

~~~
meschi
Whoa, that sounds amazing. Do you have any links to the new mainboards?

~~~
SlowBro
These should get you started.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16572201](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16572201)

[https://hackaday.com/tag/x220/](https://hackaday.com/tag/x220/)

------
GiorgioG
> Performance of the computer is quite important for me. I'm an Android
> developer, compilation of a big project I'm working on takes enormous amount
> of RAM and CPU nowadays (with new Android Studio it's even worse).

Buy a powerful desktop PC and you’ll have a few bucks left over. Seriously, I
don’t understand why developers continue to shortchange themselves by using
laptops for heavy workloads. If you have to work away from your office, Remote
Desktop to your desktop machine from your old laptop.

~~~
atomicrat2552
This implies your orgamization allows remote desktop

~~~
scarface74
The original poster said price is important to him - implying that he is
buying this for himself.

If I were buying a development machine for myself for under $2K, I would get
the cheapest 27" 5K iMac with 16GB of RAM - quad core i5 3.4Ghz.

Why futz with Linux for development when you get an iMac? You get the benefits
of not having to deal with Linux and the oddities Of HiDPI support and you get
a Unix environment (OS X is certified Unix).

I would probably spend $2600 to get 32GB RAM and 2TB fusion drive.

------
Protostome
I have been using ASUS Zenbook UX301L + Ubuntu for 3 years now, and I'm pretty
happy with it.

Having said that, I think the system requirements of a 2018 developer are
quite different than a 2012 developer. Today you can accomplish vast majority
of development tasks on a remote instance on the cloud. I haven't compiled or
ran a program locally for ages (except for a browser/terminal/spotify/etc).

I have a cheap EC2 instance that I use for coding and those sorts of things,
when I need to run some more data intensive jobs (e.g. compilation, data
crunching, etc) I just launch some more robust instances to take care of that
for me.

Therefore, in my opinion, a proper setup of a cloud environment that
autoscales with respect to your needs is much more cost effective than a
powerful laptop.

------
kayoone
If you want Linux, Dell XPS and Thinkpads have the best out of the box
support, you shouldn't have issues with them, but you should probably get the
last gen to be on the safe side.

MBP with good performance around 2000$ leaves only the 2015 15" model i guess,
that is still a very capable machine though and Apple still sells it.

One thing to note is, that Intels new CPU generation enables 6/12
Cores/Threads for machines that previously had 4/8 and 4/8 for those that had
2/4 before. They are already in the latest Dells and should come to MBPs this
year, but you'd have to wait a couple of years until they come down to 2k$

------
vasilakisfil
I have owned a MacBook Pro for many years (I think it was a late 2012 model as
well) given by my employer in which I always run Linux in it. I was disgusted
with the hardware support on Linux (especially on Wifi/Bluetooth) so I got a
new XPS 15 inch (again from my employer), specifically the 9550 (from 2016),
the non-touch screen (with FHD resolution). I can tell you that it runs Ubuntu
very smoothly and has great battery life etc and I really like this laptop.

But to be honest Dell comes nowhere close with Apple regarding quality of
build. Although I truly believe the XPS is probably the best bet for a
developer that wants Linux, it's probably like that because if I put
everything in the basket (slimness, battery life, speed, hardware, linux
support etc), there isn't any other better option outhere. I wish Dell was
building better laptops but it isn't.

------
vesinisa
Very satisfied with my work Dell XPS 15, model 9560. My colleagues mostly use
MBPs, and I always feel sorry for them if I have to use the latest model's
keyboard. The XPS's build is rigid and it's possible to work full day with the
integrated keyboard. Only downside is my model does not have the touch screen,
which could be helpful if you need to run Android emulator on the laptop (as
opposed to deploying to a real phone).

I am an Android developer myself and have to use Windows for corporate
reasons, but with WSL the developer experience is very similar to Linux. I can
see that Dell XPS 15, model 9560 with 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB SSD retails for
2100 EUR in my country. You can later expand it to 32 GB of RAM, as there is a
free expansion RAM slot (nothing is enough for Gradle ...)

------
yutuco
System76 has a line of high end Linix Laptops, if you take their OS (Ubuntu
based) you get a pretty direct alternative to MacBook Pro

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

~~~
koehr
System76 is definitely on my watch list. After using a Dell XPS with, what
they call an infinity edge display (means, very thin bezels, hence a 15 inch
display in a <14 inch case) and 4K resolution, I'm afraid I couldn't go "back"
though :o

~~~
always_good
I miss my bezel on my Macbook Air. Now I always have fingerprints on the
perimeter. Not really a feature I ever wanted, just makes it look better on
the sales floor.

------
ratsimihah
I use both an MBP 2015 and an old Lenovo x220 running Arch Linux with i3. Both
are equally outstanding to do front-end and back-end.

But I can do native iOS on the MBP, play some games, and make music more
easily than I could with the Linux Box.

To each our own, but I moved away from Windows over a decade ago and never
looked back.

~~~
always_good
Just know that you have the last MBP that I'd consider worthwhile.

I bought a newer one and 2 keys have already popped off the new ultrathin
keyboard. They didn't break, the C-clamps have just already worn out. This
laptop is 5 months old. I type a lot. The keys now regularly come up with my
fingers as I type.

I'm traveling so I can't fix it. And this has happened to most of my friends
in some way. Or constantly having keys misfire because a molecule of dirt got
in there.

A major letdown. I'm glad I didn't sell my old Macbook Air because I think I
may have to use it shortly. My buddy already had to revert to his MBP 2015 for
the same reason.

~~~
dgacmu
+this. I'm reading this thread 10 days after it was posted, on my purchased-
in-December-2017 Macbook Pro, because I'm almost to the point of throwing it
in the trash, and trying to figure out a better alternative. The keys keep
getting stuck, the touchbar is too-touchy and gets phantom touches, and the
increasing emphasis on locking down the OS has just utterly prevented me from
getting the latest VirtualBox installed (until I get home, at least). I was on
a 2013 MBP before and I miss it -- I deeply regret this purchase after four
months of using it.

------
anon1253
I recently wondered the same thing to replace my 15" 2014 Macbook Pro Retina.
I went with the 2018 Lenovo Carbon X1 (16GB, WQHD, i7) and ... it's awful.
Linux doesn't work due to a bug in the trackpad drivers, for which there is no
reliable fix yet. And, I personally just can't stand Windows (that's a whole
different rant). Hardware wise: the sound quality is so horrendous that even
watching youtube is a no-go (think dollar store earbuds). That's on low
volume, on medium-high volume, in addition to the audio quality, the whole
case resonates making it very uncomfortable to even type. And, even though the
battery life is rated at "15 hours", with just normal browsing and text edit I
get 4 tops. Also it gets really really hot, for no reason (CPU < 10%
utilization) which makes using it on my lap a no go. Some of this might be
forgiven if it was actually faster, but it isn't. In day to day use it feels
/slower/ than my 2014 machine, by quite a big margin (opening files/apps,
input latency, jittery animations, even things like running an IO intensive
task locks the whole machine, etc) ... that's probably just Windows though.
I'm too late to return it, and if I were to sell it on craigslist or something
I would probably not recover the costs reasonably. So for me the answer is
"no". Nevermind the atrocious support Lenovo gives here in Europe. I ordered
it end of February, I got it 30th of March. I ordered the extended warranty,
but they want you to register the serial number within 30 days. Which was
impossible since I didn't have the machine, the phone number was unresponsive,
and the email replies took several days and got back with broken English and
non-solutions to the problem. So that was 300 euro for extended warranty down
the drain right off the bat. Mind you this was ordered from their official
website (which also, incidentally, doesn't work in Firefox with uBlock Origin
and uses the /worst/ payment gateway I've ever seen).

I'm probably going to try to get the latest 2016 (I think?) Retina model if my
2014 machine breaks, and see how long that lasts.

I know the barrier to entry is enormous, and there are fundamental problems
with doing it better than Dell etc (patents), but a hardware startup that
builds better laptops would be great. It feels so silly, but it's a solid
reminder for me that consumer hardware progress has definitely stalled; a 2014
machine performs equally, if not better, than a 2018 one in the same price
range.

~~~
theyinwhy
Sound is really bad in the Lenovo t4xx(s) series as well. Had multiple, sound
always was bad. The resonating was always there as well, some models better,
some worse. Dampening with foam inside the casing sometimes did the trick. But
it is not recommended because it might produce heat problems. Oh and yes, foam
loves to burn (although there would be enough materials that won't).

------
namibj
If you can live with the thought of not buying "new", I would suggest you take
a look at Thinkpads, specifically those which were leased to a business, but
where the lease was broken before term was over. These can be had at about a
year of age, and the come in good shape. You can get an i7 Haswell with 65W
TDP (and if you clean it once a year, the CPU will not be throttled before you
start to undress) and an Nvidia Chip with 1440p 15.5" screen for under 1000$
if you look hard. As you say you are form Europe, you might be able to order
from Luxnote (not affiliated, just trying to keep the market for servicable
laptops from collapsing), which are based in Germany.

Expect to supply your own SSD, and make sure the Wifi modem has Bluetooth if
you need that, as well as support for the standards you need. If you want to
use the internal antenna(s) for cellular modem, make sure to try and get that
with the laptop when you buy, as the BIOS is a little restrictive in which
PCIe devices it will accept. In some cases that can apparently be fixed by
hacking it, but caveat emptor.

Some models have two batteries, one fixed and one swappable, others only one
swappable. The former allows trivial swapping while running, the latter would
require you to use some sort of 20V-ish supply capable of providing at least
45W via the charging port, if you want to change the battery without loosing
whatever is in ram.

If you care for safety and do not like fuzzing around with things
breaking/being unreliable, beware of unofficial batteries. They might well
refuse to charge, though the Laptop generally runs on anything that leads it's
battery controller to deem further discharge to be safe for laptop and
battery.

If your performance demands would not be that high, you could get a somewhat
older, but rather solid Thinkpad, you'd be surprised by the price/performance
ratio for even some as old as e.g. an X60s, which is one of the few which
allow the ME to be fully disabled. Those are available for a very good price
on Ebay, but the issue is that they only feel fast if the software is fast,
and judging from your described subjective feel of speed, your software is not
fast.

I hope you get a good one. And try to not freak out about the mentioned Numpad
on the newer T5xx ones, as they just put the available width to use. If you
can get the hang of the trackpoint, they still have the best, as far as I
know. At least my Thinkpad makes me use it sometimes, while I don't even
bother trying with the HP Elitebook.

------
sigio
Just got the Thinkpad T480.... It has 2 SODIMM slots, you can put in a SATA or
NVME drive (only 1, and only of the same type as shipped), it has great
hinges, enough ports, excellent battery-life with the extended and swappable
batteries and has good options for screen (1080p mat non-touch here). It has
good linux support, and I got mine (i5-8350, 8GB, 128GB ssd for about 1200,-
incl on-site warranty. I then replaced the RAM and SSD with some I still had
lying around (32G and 800GB intel DC-ssd).

The Thinkpads have good keyboards, good-enough touchpads and screens.

------
blackdivine
I'd say buy a new mid 2015 Macbook 15inches, some vendors might have it in
stock. I recently got it for around $2000 USD in Pakistan. It's Core i7, 16GB
RAM and 256GB SSD.

~~~
pseudometa
They have been around so long you could likely get an Apple refurbished one
for a few hundred less than new.

~~~
hiram112
There are a few left from reputable sellers on Ebay and sometimes online
vendors for around $1750. Without tax, that's about the same price you'll pay
refurbished at Apple.

------
trynumber9
I have a Huawei Matebook X. It's closer to the Apple MacBook, being fanless
with only a dual core CPU. It works for what I do (C# compile times are not
bad at all). It was $750 when I bought it and I really like it. There's a new
model, the Matebook X Pro, which would be closer to your needs with a quad
core CPU but it looks like it'll be more expensive.

[https://consumer.huawei.com/en/tablets/matebook-x/](https://consumer.huawei.com/en/tablets/matebook-x/)

[https://consumer.huawei.com/en/tablets/matebook-x-
pro/](https://consumer.huawei.com/en/tablets/matebook-x-pro/)

------
tlavoie
I recently migrated from a mid-2013 MBP, primarily because I was increasingly
disgusted with the lack of control over my own system. I knew (more or less)
what I was getting into when I bought it, but that choice grated as it needed
work.

The battery had pretty much gone, and not only wasn't something I could fix,
but the Apple stores I visited didn't carry the part. Turns out it's not just
the glued-in battery, but they replace the entire top deck - keyboard,
trackpad and all. I don't live near one of their stores, so it was going to be
a multi-day commitment either way. Local authorized service place was able to
get it done, except that the new battery caused the charging circuin (on the
main board) to die. I had a choice to make.

I went with a Thinkpad P50 - not the thin, flat laptop at all, but a "mobile
workstation." Great keyboard, display is good too (matte), and upgradeability
in spades. One SIMM slot is a 16GB module, but there are still three others.
Multiple drive bays, only one used. A battery I can replace without tools or
delay, when that day comes.

I went with Linux Mint (Ubuntu-based), and it's been great. There's still a
small Windows partition I left for a couple tools, but rarely use that part.

~~~
opencl
The real kicker is that the P51 with a Xeon E3-1535M v6, 64GB ECC RAM, Quadro
M2200, 1TB SSD, and 4K screen costs about $500 _less_ than the 15" MBP with
1TB storage. The weight difference compared to "thin and light" 15 inch models
isn't even that dramatic, it's all of one and a half pounds heavier than the
MBP or one pound heavier than the XPS 15.

~~~
crispinb
Not in Aus, where most tech is price-gouged, but the Lenovo workstation-grade
stuff seems particularly egregiously so. Your spec p51 for example is $7200 vs
$5000 for the MB Pro 15" 1TB. A better machine, certainly, but _much_ more
expensive.

------
xab9
Thinkpad X230 here, IPS version, used ones are laughably cheap
(Central/Eastern Europe).

Battery, ram (two slots), keyboard, hdd are very easy to replace, everything
works perfectly with linux (except bluetooth, but that's always problematic).

On the downside the speaker and the touchpad are crap, so it's your call. I
got a Macbook Air in case I gotta work on a project where osx is a must, but
fortunately I haven't touched that fancy paper weight for two years now.

~~~
roscoebeezie
X230 user here (non-IPS). The touchpad isnt just crap, it’s unusable. I’ve
also had issues with non-intel wireless card.

~~~
MrMorden
Which non-Intel card? The Atheros ones should work fine; Realtek makes hot
garbage that should be avoided at all costs.

(If it's a non-Lenovo card you'd need to disable the BIOS whitelist, but
that's easy enough to do.)

~~~
roscoebeezie
Realtek.

------
goodoldboys
+1 for a ThinkPad. I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 on an x230 that I purchased for
$200 and it works great for me for limited dev work.

I'm thinking about purchasing a new one with maxed out specs and it seems like
Ubuntu/Debian support is pretty solid on the new models, with some exceptions
of course. The p51s looks like a good compromise between power and portability
for me.

edit: And the keyboard is amazing! you'll love typing on these things.

~~~
bluedino
We have been buying the P51 for our engineering and accounting staff. They are
a great size, nice keyboard and screen and everything. We run Windows 10 on
them, so I don't know how they fare with Linux. There have been issues with
Lenovo pushing driver updates and goofy stuff like that, and the USB-C dock is
next to useless (but I don't think that is specific to Lenovo)

We ended up just buying the regular docks (the previous model docks won't
work)

~~~
goodoldboys
Thanks for the data-point. Everyone seems to like the build quality, which is
more important to me than ease of use with Linux. I figure I'm going to have
to roll up my sleeves to get it working the way I want, anyways.

------
imauld
I recently purchased one of these with the upgraded CPU and RAM(4.0 ghz CPU
16gb RAM):
[https://system76.com/cart/configure/lemu8](https://system76.com/cart/configure/lemu8)

And I enjoy using it much more than either of the Macbooks I've gotten from
work (A MBP 2015 and currently a MBP w/ the emoji bar). The keyboard is worlds
better than current iteration MBP keyboards which I can't stand. I like just
about everything better on this laptop than on the MBP save for the speakers
which are pretty crap but I knew that going in as the form factor is made to
be as portable as possible. The Pop OS is pretty nice but definitely has a
couple of annoying bugs (nothing deal breaking though) but you can also have
the laptop shipped with Ubuntu or just install whatever distro you are most
comfortable with.

Performance wise it's just as good if not better than the MBP, almost
everything feels a bit snappier but it could just be my imagination. I haven't
benchmarked them or compared timings or anything.

IMO almost any laptop you install Linux on is better than a MBP so I may be a
bit biased. The hardware is nice but overpriced and the software is just...
terrible IMO. No native package manager, OS updates as of late are of
questionable quality at best and their plans to start making their own chips
don't fill me with confidence.

I had also looked in to this model:
[https://system76.com/cart/configure/galp3](https://system76.com/cart/configure/galp3)

But it was a bit more than I wanted to spend at the time, however it does fit
in to your budget so might be worth looking in to.

------
mattlondon
Yes, there are reasonable alternatives to MBP for developers.

I know that I might be an outlier here, but I personally find using OS X to be
a frustrating experience - the only positive I could personally see for
developers vs windows was ( _was_ \- past tense!) the unix command line (linux
has historically always been a struggle (drivers etc), so I personally steer
clear).

But now Win10 has a unix command line too so what is the point of getting a
MBP? You pay excessive amounts for commodity hardware with a mac, then you're
forced to use a horrible UI designed for your grandparents to use without
getting confused. Yes, you can buy and install 100 extra apps to make the it
more usable for serious users (BetterTouch, ShiftIt, uBar, iTerm etc etc), but
then you're just throwing good money after bad. The UI is great if you're just
watching netflix or reading your emails, but for anything serious where you're
doing more than one thing at once I personally find it a really annoying
experience. Current MBPs don't even turn on instantly like my previous 2 older
MBPs did - it now takes a few seconds to wake up. The final nail in the coffin
for macs for me is the awful, awful, awful keyboard on the new MBPs. I will
concede though that the 2017 MBP is a nice physical item that feels solid and
with good battery life though.

Personally I'd just get a cheap Win10 Pro (dont get Home edition - you cant
run docker natively without Hyper-V which is only in Win 10 Pro IIRC - I think
that without Hyper-V/Win10 Pro you have to run docker in a linux VM) no-
name/rebadged-Clevo with the biggest CPU, RAM and M.2 SSD you can afford. They
just work out of the box and will be half the price of an equivalently-speced
mac. I use a i7/16GB/M.2 Win10 machine for personal stuff, then at work a 2017
MBP Pro and a absurdly over-speced linux desktop (many-cored xeons, 64gb ram
etc) - they all feel about the same speed in day to day usage in intellij &
vscode etc. Clevo laptops are nice since they are aimed at small-scale
"builders" targeting gamers etc, so they are often high-spec and easy to open
up and work on.

PS I've never had a laptop's hinge break on me, even the cheapest ones that
I've dropped. If longevity is a concern, get a proper "thinkpad" branded one
(but you'll pay a premium for this).

Good luck! The transition off of OSX will be painful (YMMV), but stick with
it.

~~~
donttrack
How is the Windows Unix shell these days? I have a Macbook Pro, which I
installed Windows on, since I couldn't get used to OSX for my daily use
(little things like Windows management and keyboard shortcuts and other stuff
that added up).

Went back to OSX mainly due to the native Unix shell. On Windows I had some
problems on and off with sockets and sometimes I would encounter a system call
that hadn't been implemented. This was maybe 10 months ago.

~~~
donttrack
And after updating to 10.13.4 my 3 days old new external DisplayLink dock is a
brick sitting there on my table. Great!!!

Apparently this has been an issue since February and no fix in sight. I regret
buying this Macbook so much!

And 10.13.4 breaks the boot camp keyboard drivers and the boot camp app
itself. What a failure!

------
bayindirh
A bit of background: I'm a system administrator of a large computing cluster,
and I also develop high performance scientific computing as my side-academic
life. The software I develop targets clusters similar to I administer, so I
use a lot of Linux, and the software I develop makes the development
workstations scream during testing.

I personally own a MacBook Pro, and my office gave me (actually I wanted them
to buy) an HP EliteBook 850 G2. HP EliteBook is a terrific Linux machine.
Everything works out of the box. The backside is accessible with a single
latch. It has semi-metal body, reasonably slim and light. Better, it lasts 7
hours on battery (which can be easily replaced), has upgradeable RAM, a
separate M2 slot for an additional SSD if you need multi terabyte hard drives,
and an eDPI screen (I don't remember the resolution, but it's high). Oh, it
has 180 degree hinges, which are non-exotic type.

If you want to go berserk, you can add WWAN with GPS support.

It has some convenience features too. Glass touchpad, a very good backlit
keyboard and better than acceptable speakers. If you want good audio,
headphone jack is very good sounding. The machine I use is dual core, very low
voltage variant, but the performance is more than enough for 90% of the tasks
I perform at office. Since it's very low voltage, it's very very quiet and
cool.

All-in-all it's a developer's dream if you want to step away from MacBook.

Addendum: I disabled the external AMD GPU on it, I use Intel's on-cpu GPU, and
I've driven 1920x1200 screens over DP without any problems, inc. hot-plug
support.

Last, but not the least: HP has a fantastic BIOS which also has nice amenities
like advanced charge cutoff and restart percentages like Lenovo Thinkpads.

------
maxsilver
I am also an Android Developer. I bought an Alienware 15 for $1500 USD.
(i7-7700HQ + GTX 1060)

Pros:

\- It's crazy fast.

\- It's built like a tank. Amazing build quality.

\- Zero hardware issues of any kind.

\- Great cooling. No thermal throttling, even when max-ing the entire machine
out for over an hour.

\- Super fluid response. (G-SYNC)

\- Tons of IO and ports.

\- Lots of upgrade potential. (Spare PCI-e and SATA drive slots, replaceable
ram)

\- Zero issues with the screen hinge.

Cons:

\- It looks like a teenagers toy. (It isn't. But it sure _looks_ like one,
with LED rim lighting and such).

\- It's heavy.

\- The battery life is bad (~2 hours)

I tried the thin-and-light notebooks previously (15W i7-7500u stuff, like the
XPS 13 and the Blade Stealth). The battery life was way better on these. But
for Android work, I haven't been happy with them. They just aren't fast
enough, and even from a cold boot, a single compile would send them straight
up to like 95c and thermal throttle.

I also looked at some "business" laptops with similar specs (45W CPU +
dedicated graphics), like an HP EliteBook and the like. They seemed fine, but
all seemed to charge an extra $500 or so, just to remove the ugly gamer
aesthetic. I opted to buy the gaming machine, and just take a tablet to
meetings.

------
yolobey
Just in the process of outfitting the office with Thinkpad T480s's.

Why not X1 Carbon? At first it was the MX150 option for deep learning on the
go, but we decided to drop that because it was going to be a pain the ass in
Linux and it's not a very good GPU anyway - better to ssh to the server (The
variant in T480s is 25% slower even though it has the same model name). Now
it's just the price... Not quite worth the upgrade price for that many
machines, and the limited upgradeability means we can get 8gb now and add 8
more when there is a bit more liquidity.

~~~
bhouston
The mx150 is a piece of crap GPU. It performs at less than half the
performance of a GeForce 1050 and a third of a 1050 ti (which are in the Dell
XPS 15 series.)

[https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html](https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html)

~~~
yolobey
Yeah and that's the 1D10 variant. The 1D12 variant in T480s is even slower.

If it wasn't for the Linux driver headaches I still might have gone for it to
have another way to check if CUDA code was running properly without having to
ssh to the central server.

------
onyva
I've switched last year to Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu, and then Fedora 27 (now
also installed on my 2011 iMac).

Difference in performance when running a Linux based OS on both machines is
quite noticeable, with a surprisingly much superior smooth and performante and
stable Fedora 27... no glitches, and a pure GNOME experience...

My only criticism against moving away from Apple, is customer support. I
bought mine in Switzerland (customer center is based in Germany). The
experience was overwhelmingly inferior. There's really ZERO responsiveness
from Dell when facing even the most easy problems to solve.

The response I got for complaining that I received a machine with a "Swiss"
keyboard, was "that's your problem". Literally.

I'll be very happy to provide the names of the customer support representative
and her Superior, if anyone from Dell is interested in picking this up.

My next machine will probably be a SlimBook (Spanish company).

~~~
hiram112
If you're going with Dell, pay extra for professional support.

In the US, it was very good. Basically you aren't talking to offshored tier
one customer support. Instead you get US based support who are empowered to
get you up and running - they replaced several keyboards and a mobo next day,
no questions asked.

Hopefully it's the same in Switzerland.

------
JoshMnem
I went with ThinkPad T460 with Ubuntu 16.04 and it has been great. I had
looked at Macbooks, but the ThinkPad was about $1,000 cheaper, has much more
RAM (24 Gb), more battery life (11+ hours using Linux), has a matte screen
(lower glare), 4-year _next-day at-home_ repair plan, and was under USD
$2,000, including tax and shipping. I'm very happy I didn't get a Mac. It's my
3rd ThinkPad and all of them were great.

------
partiallypro
MIcrosoft Surface line (Book 2 in hardware comparison)is just as solid if not
more solid than a MBP. You can use Windows 10 and the WSL as others have
stated.

------
nunez
Surface Book 2 13.5". Light, great performance, detachable, writable screen
with a 180 deg viewing angle, AWESOME keyboard, best trackpad on a Windows
machine, 8+ hour battery life. $1300.

I use an Ubuntu machine spun up by Vagrant for all of my development needs.
The only Windows applications I use are Word, PowerPoint (consultant) and
Chrome.

The next best option is probably the Thinkpad X1 Carbon, which is an awesome
laptop in its own right.

------
bhouston
I love my Dell XPS 15 9560, upgraded it to 32GB Ram, 1 TB SSD. Use it on my
desktop with dual 32" 4K monitors attached to the Dell docking station with
the laptop closed. Ubuntu and Windows works great.

The key is the GeForce 1050 with 4GB in it. That just rocks. The CPU is good
as well: 7700K.

It is also very light, thin. This was actually the main selling point for me.
Because I bring it everywhere with me.

I've had it for a year. (Also I have never had this coil whine issue that some
mentioned - for me it seemed like FUD, but maybe it affects someone.)

There is an updated model coming out in a month or so, same design, just
updated GeForce 1050 TI and a 6 core Intel Core i7 8xxx processor.

~~~
20171026
I've had my 9560 for about a year and love it as well. I run Ubuntu on it
flawlessly.

------
solarkraft
If you want a MacBook-Like experience without paying the Apple tax, I
recommend offerings from Xiaomi. I'm typing this on a 13 inch i5 machine with
a 256gb ssd, 8gb of RAM and a type C port for charging (ca 750Eur when it came
out), but recently there have been new offerings with larger screens and
better specs.

Great budget option and very good with Linux.

------
drivingmenuts
MacBook Pros haven't changed much since 2012, at least not in ways that would
affect your work, in particular. You might upgrade the storage, but unless (or
until) Apple replaces the Intel processor with one of their own (rumored),
you're golden.

Rumor has it Apple might switch to an internally-developed processor at some
point, and that might mean a significant memory upgrade, but that's at least a
year away, near as I can tell.

In short, unless you're looking to change platforms entirely, don't worry
about it.

And remember, you can always boot camp. PC Magazine once claimed that the best
machine to run Windows on was a Mac.

~~~
whywhywhywhy
>MacBook Pros haven't changed much since 2012

I use the pre-usb-c one at home and the post-usb-c one at work.

They feel like completely different machines by different companies. I’d by my
home machine again in a heartbeat. But I’d never spend my own money on one of
those usb-c butterfly keyboard MacBook pros...

~~~
drivingmenuts
OK, yeah, I forgot about the latest ones. I have a mid-2015, which I tend to
think of as the current model.

So, I'll modify my statements to say "if you have anything before the current
trainwreck and it's working fine, don't worry too much about it".

------
robotmay
I use a 13" ThinkPad X250 when I'm not at my desk and I've been pretty
impressed by it. I picked it up second-hand for <£600 and its performance is
solid, and with good battery life (and hinges)! My only gripe is that the
screen suffers from impermanent burn-in. I work mostly on Ruby and Rust
projects, with quite a lot of containers.

I'm not sure what the newer and bigger models are like, however, so maybe
someone else would have more experience there.

The other guys at work have all opted for XPS 13" machines. They haven't
arrived yet, but I'm curious as to what they'll be like.

~~~
xab9
Now that you mention it on my X230, IPS panel, impermanent burn in is visible
too, mostly with gray or dark wallpapers. I got used to it during the years
though.

~~~
robotmay
Yeah it was only really noticeable when moving between the browser and my
terminal (dark theme). I think they cheaped out a bit on the panel used in it,
which is a shame as otherwise it's a cracking little laptop.

~~~
MrMorden
Is yours an IPS or TN screen? From what I've read the fleet buyers will do
anything to save a few dollars a unit so Lenovo offers TN as a base model for
that market.

~~~
xab9
Yep, there are two version, but mine is IPS, clearly visible from the viewing
angle and the bios ID, yet the burnin is there. But again, the used laptop
cost me around 1/7th of a Macbook Pro :)

------
strooper
I switched from MBP 2010 to Windows 10 after using it for 6 +years only
because of disappointing MBP updates with higher price tags. I was so confused
that it took me several months to decide. I got a good bargain for HP Envy
x360 15.6" (i5 7200 with 8GB DDR4 and 256SSD). And I never looked back.

WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) for windows 10 is definitely one of the
major reasons I haven't looked back at the crappy new MBP lineup. Although I
miss the long battery life of MBP, I get a lot more in exchange (tablet mode,
excellent touch screen etc.)

------
lettergram
I use (and have setup many a developer) a T450+ Lenovo off eBay. Wipe it and
put Linux on it, install an m2 SSD, 20 Gb of RAM, and get the bigger battery
pack. Total cost is around $900 to $1100. It works better, with longer battery
life, and I like the 14 inch display personally

------
nemoniac
I just bought a Thinkpad x230 to replace the one that I bought new soon after
they first came out.

It cost me €250. The original one cost more like €2000.

It has a rock-solid build with metal hinges, i7, 16GB RAM.

For me it's an ideal development machine. I run ArchLinux with a window
manager that has all windows at full-screen size and can easily switch between
them using keystrokes. Typically I only use a code editor, browser and
terminals.

I couldn't be happier. Or more efficient.

------
eeZah7Ux
Thinkpads are robust, reliable and have good Linux support.

However, Purism Librem 15 is interesting as well:

[https://puri.sm/products/librem-15/](https://puri.sm/products/librem-15/)

~~~
colomon
Huh.

On the one hand, that sounds like a nice laptop.

On the other hand, that landing page ad copy reads like someone took a
challenge to add twice again to the snake oil of your usual Apple PR...

------
jwatte
The touch bar was the death knell for me. Unusable.

I had OK experience with Razer Blade 14 if you need high end GPU, and good
experience with Dell XPS 15. The Razer and MacBook don't go higher than 16GB,
the feel lets you put in 32GB RAM, which is useful for lots of tools or
virtual machines.

I run Windows 10 host and VMWare Workstation guests (Linux and docker.)

Works for me, YMMV and so on. Just don't inflict the touchbar on yourself.

~~~
crispinb
Of the developers using macs I know who have bought touchbar-equipped macs, a
couple find it OK, most hate it. None are enthused. Only a self-worshipping
Designaaah-darling could have entertained for more than a moment the absurd
bad dream of replacing a whole keyboard row with a minuscule screen. For this
same daft confection to make it to production is the apotheosis of .. well, I
don't know. Something very, very broken.

------
systematical
I nabbed this for $1,100 just over 3 years ago:
[https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1683431...](https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314703)

It's giant and my next system will def be smaller. But it does the trick and I
plan on getting another 2 years out of it before replacing. Here's what I do
when I am looking for a new laptop. I really research the CPUs. I don't need
the best, but I make sure I am getting good performance for what I spend. I
live on here while researching my system
[https://www.cpubenchmark.net](https://www.cpubenchmark.net)

I don't care much about the brand of the system, some people laugh that I got
an Acer. Whatever, I am concerned with whats inside, not outside. Does it come
with bloatware? Doesn't matter as I install Linux on it as soon as I get it.
Just before I do that I burn the bastard with prime95 to see if I can get it
to fail before setting it up.

Never had problems before.

------
FabianBeiner
If you don't care about a bad (VGA) webcam, check out the Asus ZenBook 13
UX331UN ([https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ASUS-
ZenBook-13-UX331UN/overvie...](https://www.asus.com/Laptops/ASUS-
ZenBook-13-UX331UN/overview/)). Pretty decent hardware, looks good, runns
smooth, pretty "cheap".

~~~
oceanman888
I brought one as well and would recommend it. latest 4core cpu, nvidia card
makes it even capable for light gaming. 1000 dollar is really affordable for
all this. only complain is that the keyboard is not that good.

------
walshemj
You maybe need to step back and look at the bigger picture you seem to need to
run many vm/ docker instances - and need a lot or RAM a CPU cores.

would not a decent whitebox system using ryzen or threadripper be better
suited?

Do you really _need_ to work on a laptop?

it sounds like you'd be better off with a bigger desktop and a dual monitor
set up - don't get caught up in the glamor of the apple brand.

~~~
StillBored
I'm going to second this. Monitor real estate is one of the most important
machine productivity metrics in my experience (the other being build/test
turnaround time). Its seems there are always trade-offs when trying to drive a
lot of pixels even on the most displayport/MST devices.

Besides that, building large projects is one of the areas where multicore
systems really shine. The projects I work on have hour plus build times on the
2-4 core class machine one generally finds in a laptop. Those times can be
shrunk to <5 minutes with a fairly inexpensive desktop machine these days.

Basically, I would reverse it, get the best desktop class machine possible,
and a fairly low end laptop with a decent screen. Put the desktop wherever you
do the most work, and then remote into it with the laptop. If your stuck on a
plane/etc, work on a presentation or whatever..

------
cyberferret
Geez I miss my old 17" Macbook Pro! Ok, it was a bulky form factor, but it was
ideal size for me to do both my programming work as well as audio recording
work on it.

It still works, but it is maxed out at 8GB RAM, and struggled to run most
modern software, including Logic Pro X with all my usual plugins. I wish Apple
would bring out a 17" Macbook Pro again in the future.

------
littlestymaar
> Performance of the computer is quite important for me. I'm an Android
> developer, compilation of a big project I'm working on takes enormous amount
> of RAM and CPU nowadays

Do you have important mobility concerns which makes you really need a laptop ?

If RAM & CPU are your main concern, and you want a powerful machine with a
reasonable budget, going for a desktop would make sense.

~~~
modzu
+1

or potentially look at a CI cluster if compilations/whatever is most taxing
the laptop

------
oaiey
When you decide for Windows, make sure you have a precision touchpad. It is
special hardware with a generic driver in windows handling all the multi touch
goodness. Vendor drivers are usually crap.

------
Daviey
Thinkpad X-Series, great Linux support

(I'm using X-250 still, going strong and onsite warranty is amazing)

~~~
bluedino
Beware the latest model - the X280. They removed the SATA ports and you can no
longer upgrade the RAM

------
sologoub
The Lenovo X1 Carbon is great and the Costco deal mentioned below made me
really think about it, but 1080p screen is just not great these days and
really constrains working screen real estate.

Have you considered Google Pixelbook? 16GB RAM, 512GB drive, 7th gen i7 and a
beautiful design for ~$1700.

I’ve used crouton on an older Pixel and loved it.

~~~
kyrra
For ChromeOS / Pixelbook, keep an eye on Crostini as well[0][1][2]. It looks
to allow running Ubuntu (or anything it seems) as a container in stock
ChromeOS. Also looks like it may have gotten graphical support recently[3].

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelBook/comments/7zxz57/howto_boo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelBook/comments/7zxz57/howto_boot_a_ubuntu_vm_using_crosvm/)

[1]
[https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform/crosvm...](https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform/crosvm/)

[2]
[https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2/+/HEA...](https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2/+/HEAD/vm_tools)

[3]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelBook/comments/89oq8o/just_laun...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelBook/comments/89oq8o/just_launched_xclock_on_my_pixelbook_so_happy_i/)

EDIT: screenshot of Android Studio on a Pixelbook:
[https://imgur.com/a/vRU8l](https://imgur.com/a/vRU8l)

~~~
sologoub
Your 3rd link is most relevant here as it shows Android Studio that OP stated
is a must.

------
pavelevst
Probably you should keep your current laptop as long as it makes you happy or
consider some high spec retina mpb 15”. Recent models with touchbars don’t
have big performance improvement compared to previous generation (can search
for benchmarks). For non-apple alternatives, there is a big chance to end up
with tick square price of plastic (that shows square, plastic-looking
windows), more elegant models with such specs will cost you more then 2k...

I would recommend you to look at iMac’s. IMO it’s a very good choice for
software development and design tasks. I’m using iMac 27” ‘11 at work and it
has same performance as latest mpb 13” (mid spec). You can choose old version
with upgradable ram or new one with cool screen and slimmer body (non-
upgradable ram)

------
ericintheloft2
Yeah there are great alternatives to a macbook. Look at Dell XPS for example,
install linux on it if you're like me and don't like windows.

------
robert-brown
I'm quite happy with my Chuwi 12.3 LapBook on which I installed Ubuntu 16.04
LTS. It cost me less than $300 -- display is really nice, comes with 6 GB RAM.
I upgraded the 64 GB of storage with a 256 GB m.2 card, which cost about
another $100.

------
winduptoy
I develop on a Lenovo IdeaPad 120S ($249 in 2018). The plastic body is of
higher build quality than my last $600 aluminum Acer. The trick is to live
with less software altogether. If you scoff at 4GB RAM and 1.10GHz Celeron,
remember that it only took 64kb and 0.043MHz to get to the moon. If you scoff
at that statement, re-evaluate your life. "It's the Indian, not the arrow."

[https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Apollo-11-The-
compute...](https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Apollo-11-The-computers-
that-put-man-on-the-moon)

------
rfolstad
Check out the xioami notebook pro great specs and price with macbook like
build quality. i hear you can even run hackintosh on it. I have the xiaomi
notebook 12 running ubuntu and its great!

------
gargravarr
My company (British) runs Ubuntu and MacOS. On the Ubuntu front, we mostly use
Dell XPS 13s (9360s), which are okay, except the trackpad is quite poor - many
use external mice even in meeting rooms. We've tried dropping X11 configs in
to improve it, but the results are very mixed. I personally am not that
impressed by the keyboard or the webcam location choice. On the positives, the
performance is good, and they're very light yet sturdy.

The other machines we have are Dell Precision M3520s - I found one unclaimed
and swapped my XPS for it, and have found it to be great. Again, all the
hardware works out of the box. The keyboard and trackpad are both much better
than the XPS, and the 1920x1080 15" screen is crisp and sharp. It's a bit of a
brick, especially compared to our MBPs, but it has a healthy complement of
ports. I run a 4k 32" external screen via Thunderbolt/USB-C, while also having
USB-As and onboard ethernet. Disk speeds are awesome, and it has nVidia hybrid
graphics should I need them (although I keep them disabled and use the Intel
onboard during the day). Battery life varies considerably since it packs a
quad-i7 (7820HQ) but a full workday is probably practical. The RAM and SSD are
also upgradeable.

I would definitely look at the Precision series over the XPS.

------
cmurf
HP Spectre [http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/spectre-
laptop/overview.h...](http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/spectre-
laptop/overview.html)

I have the 2016 version and the only gotcha I've run into running Fedora out
of the box is suspend to RAM does not work (sleep, wake, sleep, wake, sleep,
wake). But it's easy to fix:

Create a file in /etc/tmpfiles.d/ -rw-r--r--. root root suspendfix.conf

    
    
        w /proc/acpi/wakeup - - - - PWRB
        w /proc/acpi/wakeup - - - - XHC
    

That's it. Powerbutton will still work for suspend and wake. Gory details of
bisecting this and ACPI debugging with kernel devs
[https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=185521](https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=185521)

And one other small problem with easy work around, older kernels (Fedora 27
and older so circa kernel 4.12 and older) do not instantiate USB if the USB-C
to USB-3 adapter is connected during boot. So if you boot a USB stick with one
of the two USB 3.1 gen 2 ports, you'll see GRUB 2, it finds and loads the
kernel and initramfs but then you end up in a rescue shell because the kernel
itself can't find the stick. Workaround 1 is to boot off the powerport / USB
3.1 gen 1 (not Thunderbolt) port using a fully charged battery and install.
Work around 2 is Fedora 28 which has a kernel that's working correctly, so you
can use either of the USB 3.1 gen 2 ports just fine while still being plugged
into power.

------
akandiah
The great thing about a Macbook is the warranty. If you have coverage, you can
get it repaired anywhere in the world. It's a pain with any other
manufacturer.

------
samstave
You know what I want;

A hybrid laptop+cloud machine. I.E. I want to buy a machine that includes a
certain amount of cloud compute with it. and storage.

Imagine having a machine that comes with X# of cores and Y RAM and Z storage
included in the price of the machine.

Every time you turn that machine on, it "mounts" that VPC that is included
with it and you can dev local, and push to your VPC at will.

I want my machine to be virtual, even though I am physically in possession of
it.

------
lancewiggs
Consider your use cases - how often do you really need the computer to be
portable? Do you work in more than 2 locations? Would a powerful (and cheap)
desktop and a skinny (and cheap) laptop, perhaps with a great screen, work for
when not at your desk? Laptops command a premium price for portability and
desirability, so if you can reduce your need for those then you can get a lot
more value for your hard-earned money.

~~~
gurkendoktor
OP wouldn't even need to buy a cheap laptop until the 2012 MacBook dies.

If you need to work in 2+ locations, a mini PC that goes in your backpack
might also do the trick. Slightly cheaper than a laptop, more ports, more
likely to have great Linux support. I used to carry a Mac Mini around for
client work, wasn't bad at all.

------
manish_gill
I'd love to have a better hardware quality build than my current Macbook Air,
but my problem is that I've become quite fond of MacOS over the last few
years. I don't miss the days when I was running Xubuntu and trying to tinker
out everything to get the basics working. Windows hasn't been to my taste
lately either.

Are the current generation of Linux desktop environments as user friendly as
MacOS?

~~~
confounded
Nope, but there is _way_ less tinkering required than there used to be.

For the last two years, getting going with modern peripherals and a
browser/terminal/editor hasn’t involved any futzing (I use ThinkPads).

Gnome is the standard for ‘Mac-like’ desktop environments on Linux, the
version shipped with Ubuntu 18.04 will likely be well polished and welcoming
to new users.

Personally, if you like to avoid a mouse, I’d recommend a tiling window
manager — the quality and range of these on Linux is just fantastic. The full
concept doesn’t quite seem to exist anywhere else. Extremely un-friendly to a
novice user, but extremely productive and enjoyable for ‘professional’ use.

------
voodootrucker
Gaming laptops make great developer workstations.

I love my MSI GS63VR. Nice having real CPU and GPU horse power in a laptop. I
threw linux on it right away and never looked back. It has all the ports
(HDMI, mini-dp, and USB-C), even ethernet. It's as slim as a MBP and much
lighter. The trackpad and battery life suck though, and at 180W, don't try to
use it on a plane.

The Razor Blade series is really good too.

~~~
eudora
What's the battery life like on the stealth?

------
AndrewOMartin
Maybe it's possible to develop in a more modular fashion which will reduce
your compiler demands.

This may not apply to you as you're doing Android dev, and I'm doing
theoretical computer science, but when I adapted so that 99% of what my
computer does is manipulate and store UTF-8 I found I could work perfectly
well with the resources of an approximately £170 Chromebook running crouton.

------
lurker9
I'm on a P51 Lenovo, I had been using Apple laptops for the past 15+ years, I
run Fedora with Gnome on it and have no 'major' issues with HiDPI, I highly
recommend switching to Lenovo hardware, luckily I don't need any Mac specific
apps, but if you did, there are certain configurations of Lenovo laptops that
are relatively easy to get OS X working on.

------
bandrami
I run an ACER chromebook with GalliumOS. I don't really run anything on the
chromebook itself except a text editor (and sometimes even that is X-forwarded
from a build server); I store code and do builds on virtual servers via remote
commands I've enapsulated in Makefiles. It cost about $150, and if it ever
breaks I'll just go buy another one.

------
wodenokoto
> Performance of the computer is quite important for me. I'm an Android
> developer, compilation of a big project I'm working on takes enormous amount
> of RAM and CPU nowadays (with new Android Studio it's even worse).

Why not get a stationary as your compilation / unit test server and a smaller,
cheaper, more nimble laptop for out and about?

------
ende42
I just moved from a late 2014 MBP running Arch to a Precision 5520 (more or
less the business variant of the XPS15) running Alpine. Both feature an i7 HQ,
16GB RAM, 512GB SSD. Both where about 2200€.

The Precision is a good laptop but it's my first that isn't better in every
way than the one I had before.

On Par:

* Fast (for a laptop) processor.

* Fast SSD. 900MB/sec on the MPB, 400MB/sec on the Precision. Anyway fast enough.

* 16GB RAM. Just enough for me.

Good:

* Linux support. Very important for me. Suspend to RAM on lidclose works reliably. WLAN works. (Display dimming just works (as with the MBP), no coil whining here).

* Display. Native HD (had to use Linux' crappy scaling on the MBP). Non-glare. (And the MBP had the display stain issue)

* 3 years on site guaranty, if on site isn't possible, I can keep the SSD.

* Can change RAM, SSH, battery without voiding guaranty.

Bad:

* Display. I'd prefer 16:10.

* Sound is slightly worse when laptop is used on a table. Sound is dismal when laptop is used... on the lap.

* Keyboard on the new Precision is worse than the one on the 3 years old MBP. Will use the UHK in the office anyway.

------
sisteczko
Consider asuspro notebook ([https://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Asus-
AsusPro-B9440UA-Core...](https://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Asus-
AsusPro-B9440UA-Core-i5-8-GB-Laptop.220402.0.html) \- it is in german, so you
might want to run it through google translate). ASUS never disappointed me
with a lack of support for Ubuntu. So does this Asuspro. It is incredibly
light and durable. You can easily hold it in one hand and type with the other.
The battery runs for at least 4 hours of continuous work in my setup. If I
turn off the screen, it can survive the whole night on the battery.

Supports 2 core/4 threads Intel Core i7 up to 16GB RAM. Works everything
except maybe for the fingerprint reader, which I never tried/tested.

To get best battery performance use tlp and throttle the perfomance on the
batteries to e.g. 30% (use CPU_MAX_PERF_ON_BAT setting)

------
ledgerdev
Has anyone used the HP ZBook Studio? It looks ok, but I've never heard much
about it. [https://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/laptops/zbook-studio-
mobile-w...](https://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/laptops/zbook-studio-mobile-
workstation-352510--1)

Also I would look into these

MateBook X Pro - 14 inch 3x2 screen! I may buy it just for that alone.
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh8qvqFVVbc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh8qvqFVVbc))

Dell XPS 15(9570) - Same crap keyboard, but available for pre-order in a
couple weeks and linux support should be good.
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqeIPp8Zkg0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqeIPp8Zkg0))

Thinkpad t480s - almost perfect but screen is a tad to short/small.

------
me_bx
My two cents, biased against Mac: Mac is not a reasonable choice for
developers. Reasonable choice is an open source system, configured to suit
your needs.

As a developer, you want to be in control of the system, not the other way
around. Well, at least, with Linux, you're much more in control, and have ways
to be more efficient in your work.

Regarding the constraints you mentioned:

* cost: it's often posible to find good deals online on expensive but high quality professional machines like the thinkpad x1 Carbon. Have a look at second-hand sites, auction sites. Some sell refurbished machines, under warranty, as good as new.

* performance: you may want to use a lightweight linux distribution, consuming only a few hundred Megs of RAM, and leaving more to your build system... Oh, and try to use something stable, e.g. debian rather than ubuntu. Focus on your work, not on troubleshooting regressions.

~~~
whalesalad
Your statements here are pretty ridiculous. SO many developers use a Mac
because it’s a wonderful environment. I feel like you’ve never used a Mac
based on your comments.

------
Per_Bothner
I'm very happy with my (previous-generation) HP Spectre x360. Lightweight,
16GB memory, 512GB SSD (you can get up to 2TB now, but what I have is plenty
for me), Thunderbolt 3, convertible to tent or tablet mode, good battery life.
I dual-boot Fedora and Windows 10. And the prices are quite reasonable.

------
djhworld
I've got an early 2015 MBP and had it for a few years now.

Usually I buy a new laptop every 3-4 years and save money each month to put
torwards it, but I can't help but think that as the next upgrade looms, do I
really want to spend £1000+ again on one of these things? Especially now that
the latest line of MBPs seems to be pivoting further and further away from
what you would normally expect from the 'Pro' line of products.

My biggest bugbear right now is memory, and maybe this is just my own failing
of not being judicious enough about what things I have open or how may tabs
Firefox is running, but I feel even 16GB just isn't cutting it anymore.

It feels like laptops have been on a ceiling of 16GB of RAM as an upgradable
option for years and I'm not really sure why, is it just the power
consumption/battery life that's a concern?

------
libeclipse
I know someone's going to mention it but I have the Dell XPS 13. Mine's a 16GB
spec with a 512GB SSD, and honestly it's more or less perfect.

I have mine dual-booted, Windows 10 and Arch Linux. Windows is great for
gaming and Netflix and Arch has great support for the XPS 13.

The only laptop that I would recommend.

------
pjf
Go for Dell Latitude E74X0. I use an i5 E7470 with my mods and can highly
recommend it. The price is fair.

------
cs02rm0
This is so messed up.

A company I work with used to have everyone use MBPs, bought for them if they
didn't bring their own and people were actually excited to receive them. No
one seems where to go next but it's pretty obvious no one wants a new MBP.

I've had a 2013 i7/16GB/1TB from new. I might be tempted by the coming Dell
XPS with Linux but the last Dell laptop I had have me electric shocks until
the day that the plastic hinges finally gave out, which puts me off a bit.

I just don't understand the need to push so hard on keyboards that you can't
replace keys on, ports that are so widely used, slow upgrades or at least out
of step with processor release cycles and above all Touch Bar. Is it really
all down to Cook's direction?

------
peter303
I have been waiting for ninth generation Intel laptops. So far just Asus is
shipping a laptop with an Intel i9 6-core 12-thread CPU. I am hoping beyond
hope that Apple leapfrogs to i9 at the June 2018 dev conference instead of the
ancient i5 technology.

------
multipass
Anyone with experiences running the Huawei Matebook?

~~~
SauciestGNU
Yeah, I have it. Linux works great, except the function key layer and stereo
sound on the built-in speakers due to the unusual audio chipset.

Performance is fantastic, the keyboard is passable, the screen looks
beautiful, and build quality seems on par with my 2010 MacBook pro, and
definitely better than my Lenovo Thinkpad.

~~~
TheForumTroll
Apple have to consider themselves lucky Huawei isn't having an easy time in
the US. In my opinion they are better than Apple in design and hardware. I
wonder how much lobbying Apple does against Huawei in the mobile market.

------
AKdeBerg
I would recommend the Razor blade stealth(late 2017 edition). Price is good
and build quality is awesome. Touchscreen is a plus. If you use Ubuntu then
try to install Ubuntu 16 or later. Drivers:
[https://github.com/openrazer/openrazer](https://github.com/openrazer/openrazer)
Another thing to consider is the battery life. This is the weak point of this
laptop. Review by Linus:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TyUSf7og&t=210s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TyUSf7og&t=210s)

------
Inversechi
I own an XPS 15 and have had to have it replaced 3 times during the past 4
years. Thankfully the latest one hasn't had any issues.

Running Antegros (Arch based) at the moment but was using Ubuntu before
without much in the way of issues. I do a mix of mobile and web development
more so the later and the machine definitely feels powerful enough for this
workload.

My work laptop is a T550 which is pretty solid running also Ubuntu and doing
purely web development. I'll probably get it replaced soon as the CPU feels
somewhat limited running VM's and multiple docker images.... topped with
multiple PHPStorm IDE instances.

------
devnonymous
You can configure yourself a nice system76 or a Dell xps 13 for <$2000. I
recently bought myself a Dell xps 13 and have no regrets. Although I don't do
android dev I'd be surprised if it couldn't handle it.

------
sandGorgon
XPS 13 is a brilliant work of art. It looks good, is fully compatible out of
the box with Linux and has many many more posts than the macbook. It is also
USB type c chargeable.

XPS 13 + fedora beats the crap out of a macbook.

------
senjindarashiva
Personally I would definitely avoid the modern mac-books, I bought one to try
it out and after replacing two keyboards in a period of roughly two months.
This only solved the issue of the keys getting stuck, it did nothing to the
feel of the keyboard itself. So I finaly gave up and sold it to replace it
with a Lenovo T470 which isn't as good looking but it does seem a lot more
durable, and the keyboard is a lot better. The only thing I miss is back-lit
keys, which apparently is available but I missed it in the checkout...

------
brightball
I switched from MBP after 10 years to a Dell Developer edetion. Ended up
replacing Ubuntu with Mint but after a little over a year I can tell you I’m
never going back.

There is an acclimation period, but it will pass.

------
zelo
I'm working on Xiaomi Notebook Pro 15" i7-8550U/16GB/256SSD (+ one empty slot
for ssd)/Nvidia MX150. I'm using it with Ubuntu for python development and it
costed me around 1200$. Battery life is around 8h of work in PyCharm
(Jetbrains IDE based on the same technology as android studio). I know that
some people overclock gpu under windows because of cooling capacity. I'm
overally very satisfied and recommend it if you are willing to have notebook
without warranty.

~~~
john_knight
I'm considering buying the exact model as it seems that has the closes form to
a MBP trackpad.Is 3/4 finger swiping working? mainly for the workspace
switching. I'm guessing there is option/support to use it, but don't know if
Ubuntu supports that out of the box.

------
emilsedgh
X1 Carbon is quite nice.

I'm not sure if it has the performance you want. You should check out the
specs. If the specs are good enough, give the machine a try. It's amazing.

~~~
MrMorden
If performance is a primary criterion, why get a U-suffix processor? The X1
Carbon is about thin and light.

------
bonsai80
Does anyone know of good options with 32gb of ram? I have been happy with my 2
different dell xps machines and ubuntu, but everything still maxes out at 16gb
ram.

~~~
manveru
I'm using notebooks from Tuxedo, they preinstall Linux (although I usually put
NixOS on them) and make sure that they have fully supported hardware.

[https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-
Note...](https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Linux-Hardware/Linux-
Notebooks/10-14-Zoll.tuxedo) has some models with 32GB options as well.

------
peter303
Look at System76 Linux line. The same configs MacBooks are about a third
cheaper. The cases arent as elegant as Apples or other big name manufacturers.

------
csomar
You are probably priced out of the MacbookPro. I also need to make that
decision (mine is from 2014) and a high spec macbook pro will cost in the tune
of 3.200usd for a non-taxed jurisdiction (ie: HongKong or Airport Tax Refund)

If you are willing to put that money, I'd recommend you wait a bit to see the
release of the new mac, the prices and the specs.

Otherwise, you'll have to start shopping on other brands and move to Linux.

------
teunispeters
I'm running on a Dell Inspiron 7000 2-in-1 here. It's running circles around
my (relatively recent) MacBook Pro, even considering the 1TB SSD on the
MacBookPro and no SSD on the Dell (yet).

Running Ubuntu 17.10 - it's working decent. keyboard takes a bit of getting
used to though, having home/end/pgup/pgdn only through function+key is a bit
of a curve. I prefer full keyboards.

~~~
dougmcunha
I'm also on a Inspiron 7000. My only complaint is the keyboard. No real
Home/End/Page Up/Page Down really sucks, but you get used to it.

When I'm on my desk I use an external keyboard anyway.

Besides that, good performance and build quality, good screen, relatively
lightweight and great battery life.

------
mgamache
I see a lot of comments about the Dell XPS line. I _like_ my XPS 15. But
please be aware of the silly webcam placement (due to the infinity edge
screen). If you work a remote job and/or have to use the webcam for
communication it's really an unflattering angle looking up from the keyboard.
You can have a video chat and have your colleagues check for boogers at the
same time.

~~~
racer-v
Absolutely buy an external USB webcam if this is the case.

------
chvid
I would get the 13" macbook pro without touchbar. Service and warranty is
better. Resell value is better. And since you prefer Unix ...

------
jasonlotito
What would I recommend? A 2015 MacBook Pro.

Seriously. Until Apple's fixes all it's mistakes, the 2015 model is still the
best money can buy.

------
_sven_
HP Probook 470 G5 has great specs and great compatibility with Linux. My
previous computer was a Macbook Pro, and this is superior is specs and Linux
compatibility. So I'd say it's superior in every way that matters to me. And
it seems you have similar preferences. Also, it cost about $1100. And it has a
17 inch screen!

------
runjake
With all its warts, the new machine should be significantly faster than your
2012 with a SATA SSD, especially if memory swapping is involved. It sounds
like there's something wrong with it.

That said, every time this thread comes up (about weekly, but I ain't
complaining) people recommend Thinkpads (eg X1 Carbon) and Dell XPS 13
laptops.

------
el_cid
I use a 2017 Thinkpad at work... The screen is worse than my MBP, the touchpad
is crap, it crashes once a month or so. I could have used it as a replacement
for my rMBP 15 2012, but I got a 2017 13" nTB MBP for home use and side
projects. And I love it - except the keyboard which is a downgrade... The
TouchBar is retarded.

~~~
phillnom
What OS do you run on your Thinkpad?

------
spo81rty
Surface Book 2 has been an awesome machine for me. I had about 5 laptops last
year trying different ones. This one stuck.

------
eecc
Latest Thinkpad Carbon X1 with extra warranty? It hovers around your budget
max, well within if you can recover VAT

------
dingleberry
I do not recommend lenovo yoga (thin flippable)

the keyboard is ok; however, i often get double press on random key press ->
get 'dd' if i press 'd', 'xx' if 'x', 'zz' if 'z', etc

enough to frustrate me and throw me out of flow every time. not worth it.

os is arch linux if that matters.

~~~
looki
On top of that, mine (Yoga 910) has an incredibly sensitive fan that not only
gets loud easily, but also has a very high pitched frequency. My desktop
computer gets loud easily, but it's white noise so it's fine. This is not.

EDIT: "On top of that" was bad wording, I do not encounter the double key
issue.

------
williamstein
Pixelbook in dev mode with crouton for $1K. It’s great for running Linux,
except you can’t easily use Docker.

------
rpedela
I use a Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu and I love it. Most of the complaints I have
seen are either nitpicky or because the early versions did not have good HW
support in the kernel. The latter has largely been fixed, and the former is
only relevant if you are also nitpicky (which is okay!).

------
reza_n
Lenovo Thinkpad X1 carbon. I have a 2nd gen I bought in 2014 and its been rock
solid for the last 4 years. I have been running Ubuntu since day 1 and have
had 0 issues. I travel with this laptop daily, so its very mobile.
Lightweight, quiet, and performance has never been an issue.

------
mheat2
HP 8770w

[https://www.ebay.com/itm/3D-Design-17-3-FHD-
HP-8770W-i7-3940...](https://www.ebay.com/itm/3D-Design-17-3-FHD-
HP-8770W-i7-3940XM-Blu-Ray-2TB-2x1TB-
SSD-32GB-K4000M-4GB/173245238525?hash=item2856388cfd:g:b28AAOSwrIlavtiT)

------
ktosobcy
There is na nice, related blog post (part of a series about switching form
macOS to Linux): [http://bitcannon.net/post/replacing-a-macbook-
pro/](http://bitcannon.net/post/replacing-a-macbook-pro/)

------
contingencies
Dell XPS15 9560. I like the keyboard and haven't had the screen issues or coil
whine mentioned by others.
[https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Dell_XPS_15_9560](https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Dell_XPS_15_9560)

------
dep_b
One important thing to understand about MacBook SSD performance since the 2015
is that the 0.5 and 1 TB SSD’s are much faster than the smaller disks because
only the larger configuratios will use all available channels. I would never
buy a 128GB MacBook.

------
fjsolwmv
> At work I'm using some new MacBook Pro which (i5/16GB/128GB SSD) which is
> noticeably slower than my current machine.

If this is true it's because of corporate antivirus or Enterprise spyware or
something not running on your personal machine

------
fencepost
I see a lot of discussion that includes used ThinkPads, there's one caution
I'll give if you go that route: avoid the __40 models (T440, T540, etc). I've
not used an X240 but the TouchPad on the larger models is unusably bad.

~~~
mikojan
It's a thinkpad. Why not use the track point? I guess it's down to personal
taste but that phrasing was weird.

~~~
saltcured
That's actually where it is worst. That generation of Thinkpads omits the
physical buttons you normally use with the trackpoint, instead using soft
buttons on the "click" style trackpad. It makes both functions much less
usable.

~~~
mikojan
Oh wow you're right. I didn't know that.

------
mixmastamyk
Dell Precision 9560 works really well with Ubuntu in my experience.

Not perfect though. Keyboard is usable but thin, 16:9 sucks, glossy screen
sucks, had to get a matte film cover to tone it down.

4k rocks though, thunderbolt docking station pretty good also.

------
shocks
I have an Asus Zenbook UX430U and it suits my needs.

Modest CPU/RAM, runs Linux great. 14".

------
ryan-allen
Dell XPS 15 is pretty good, but it's not quite as nice as a Macbook. If you
can get away with not using a laptop, build a PC. Superior performance and
upgradability. My 5 year old i7 desktop is still going strong!

------
anonbanker
Either the Acer Swift 3 or Dell Inspiron 17 5000 series. Both are Raven Ridge-
based. Both are well under $2000. Plenty of extra money left over for all the
drives/upgrades/peripherals you want.

------
sfifs
ThinkPads are great value for money especially if you pair them with the
latest Linux kernels. Lots of ThinkPads are Ubuntu certified. I recently
bought a T480 and Bionic runs flawlessly on it.

------
mailmrg
i am using HP pavilion. its quad core, comes with 8gb expandable to 16GB, no
ssd (which is pain), full HD display matte (which is something i like compared
to glossy), backlit keyboard and windows10. this is my replacement for my
macbook pro 2011. so far pretty good to me. i havent tried linux.
[https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-
Pavilion-15-Power-i7-7700HQ...](https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-
Pavilion-15-Power-i7-7700HQ-GTX-1050-Laptop-Review.230382.0.html)

------
lunulata
System76 is groovy for laptops if you like Linux for your dev env

~~~
MaxfordAndSons
They're allllright. I have a ~2 year old Gazelle. Performance and linux
support wise it's great. But unfortunately almost all of the physical
attributes are minuses: keyboard, monitor, build quality, design/look. I'm
planning on trying something different next time I buy.

------
mmphosis
No.

I am looking at going back to desktops, actually mini-PCs, and are there any
reasonable desktops?

No.

Going forward, I am looking at:

• a _fanless_ Intel-based mini-PC with way more than 16Gb RAM running Linux,
but I decided to delay this as I don't like Intel chips

• a new MacBook with Intel chip, but again I don't like Intel, and new Apple
hardware means joining the Apple ecosystem, giving Apple my credit card,
paying for proprietary apps, paying to publish iOS software

• wait until 2020 for a MacBook with Apple ARM chip, but again I don't wish to
join the new Apple ecosystem

• a Power or some other CPU (not ARM, not Intel) running Linux, these are
better but expensive

------
mar225
Does anyone know if any of the laptop vendors that pre-install ubuntu will be
doing any promotions or hardware updates to coincide with the 18.04 release?

------
modzu
lots of comments are suggesting alternatives but my opinion is that, no,
despite its flaws there is still nothing better on the market than MBP

~~~
modzu
(the only thing being close is the thinkpad if you want to try the switch from
trackpad to trackpoint)

------
fjsolwmv
> In 2012 I paid around 1000$ for MacBook Pro + Samsung SSD (256GB) + 16GB RAM

How is that possible,unless you bought a 2008 model and upgraded it?

------
trisimix
Seriously? There's hundreds of alternatives.

------
halis
In my opinion, the answer to this question is no. But that's the thing, that's
the answer for me. For you who knows!

------
ubik_
In love with my Dell XPS 13 + Linux combo.

------
pmorici
Panasonic Toughbook 54. It's got outstanding build quality and durability and
is still user upgrade-able.

------
amiga-workbench
A 10 year old ThinkPad does me just fine.

------
shmerl
Lenovo laptops running Linux is a good option (if you are ready to put up with
their firmware mess).

------
shash7
I use a Razer Blade '14.

I would say its probably the best laptop in its class - even beating the MBP.

------
source99
Can I try the Lenovo and sell out at an actual store? Does Best Buy or Frys
stock these?

------
vbezhenar
I built PC for $1000 which is much more powerful than my 2012 MBP and enjoying
it so far. I plan to upgrade it few years later and keep using it for years.
For notebook I considered Dell Latitude 5x series and probably would buy it if
I needed notebook, but for me desktop is superior option, I work from one
place.

------
wheresmyusern
do not buy an xps. i bought a thirteen inch xps and the linux compat has some
minor issues and the power supply died on me less than a year after purchasing
it. my next computer is a thinkpad for sure.

------
hpcjoe
I bought a Sager (customized Clevo chassis) in 2010, and have just replaced it
about a month ago with another Sager. My needs are somewhat different than
pure editing/sw dev. I do quite a bit of analytics, visualization, and some
CUDA bits. I could build a deskside (I generally prefer them), but I need to
take my workstation with me.

Apart from $dayjob MBP, all my laptops/servers run Linux. So Linux
compatibility is a must. Things which don't work should be unimportant to me
(fingerprint reader). I use Linux Mint, as I don't want to be messing around
with my primary machine, and everything just works with it. Best Linux desktop
experience I've had in 18 years of running Linux desktops.

I opted for Sager/Clevo platform because of research, reviews, etc. I'll talk
Dell, HP, and Toshiba below (which I've also owned).

Clevo platforms are mostly end user upgradable and servicable, so if you need
more of something, with a screwdriver and some patience, you can add it. This
probably doesn't make sense for the people whom are concerned about damaging
their machines, though as someone whom has built machines for ~30 years now,
this is old hat to me.

My 2010 model has 16GB ram, i7 quad core, NVidia GTX 560m , and now a SATA
SSD, along with a PCI gigabit ethernet port, some sort of intel wifi card. It
was showing its age, in that the GPU (on an MXM card) was starting to fail
under load. I replaced CPU/GPU fans, cleaned the unit, though failure events
are increasing, and the gigabit occasionally isn't recognized on boot.

Add to that this it runs hot and loud. The fans are always on, and slightly
more than a whisper during idle. During heavy load, it can be loud. Not ideal
for my situation. No usable effective battery life, call it about an hour if I
am lucky. Screen resolution is 1920x1080 or something. I had plugged it into
an old monitor on my desk (recently replaced with a HiBP 3.8k x 2.xk) and it
ran 1920x1200 nicely.

It is heavy. And the battery clips don't keep the battery secure in the
machine. So there's that.

I looked again in great depth at the options. Here is where I talk about my
Dell experiences.

Every single Dell laptop I have ever bought, every single one, has had the
infamous "unknown power supply" bug, which has only been curable by a
motherboard replacement. These were high end workstations (4100), mid range
consumer, and cheap consumer units.

The take-away. I cannot and will not recommend Dell. I will actively recommend
against Dell. Their build quality generally sucks. Their ability to survive
more than a year before needing a motherboard replacement is lacking. Their
cases and keyboards are a bad joke. They are bulky, annoying, and not
serviceable by mere mortals.

Linux sort of/kind of works on Dells. Not really, but hey, they market a
ubuntu laptop.

HP has generally been reasonable, usually offering some insanely interesting
combinations of things at good prices, but then making other choices on the
same platform which require you hack crap hard to make the thing work. I loved
my big HP laptop. I hated that it used a NIC that only had windows drivers.
This was back in the PCMCIA days, and I was able to find workable pcmcia NICs
and modems (yeah, really dating myself there ...).

I bought my wife and daughter Toshiba units one year to replace their failed
Dells. Toshiba failed within 9 months of acquisition. Not serviceable, and
Toshiba wouldn't honor its warranty. So, out to the dumpster with those.

We bought a pair of Samsung laptops to replace those. Nice specs but cheap
plastic case, and both eventually died with chassis fractures.

By this time, I had had it with windows (7 pro) and its insanely broken
networking. I gave them a choice on their next laptops: either Macs or Linux
machines, as I was refusing to support windows any more. They played with my
work MBP (linux at home on my laptop, MBP for work) and linux box. Chose MBP.

Cost me a bit more, but it just works (as do the linux boxen). Nearing the end
of life for these units, and they are looking at new ones in a few months.

Short of it is, for their work, mostly editing, web stuff, etc. MBP is fine.
Similar to SW dev in many ways (and daughter is getting into SW dev in
college), so this works out well.

For heavy computation, analysis, visualization, my new unit is quite nice.

Sager NP8156. I upgraded from 16GB to 48GB ram (I run lots of VMs), and
upgraded the WD 250GB SSD to 1.5TB of SSD. NVidia GTX 1060 with 6GB ram. USB C
and USB3, integrated PCIe based NICs, good wireless. Easy to service. Runs
linux mint 18.3 on a 3.8k x 2.x k monitor at high res. Even under load, it is
quite quiet.

Downsides: 1) I didn't opt for the higher end display on the laptop itself. 2)
Battery life isn't great (2 hours).

I brought it with me on a business trip to Korea a few weeks ago, for some of
my dev/testing work, alongside my $dayjob MBP with emojibar (can't stand that
thing). Better overall experience. I used it as a NAT/router for the team
there with me, while running on it myself.

What would make it better would be a better screen res and a better battery.
Otherwise, for me, its a perfect workstation replacement unit.

------
cweagans
I just went through this process, and landed on a Thinkpad T480.

------
vladimir-y
Lenovo Thinkpad line, Dell Latitude line, HP Zbook line.

------
m-p-3
I'd either go with a Dell XPS or a System76.

------
robsun
I forgot to mention, <2000$ with 23% VAT :(

~~~
y7
If you're using it mostly for development work, can't you register as a
single-person business and deduct the VAT?

------
himom
Lenovo. The. End.

------
navjack27
Literally anything new is better

------
OutThisLife
Why not build your own comp?

------
miles_matthias
Not if you need XCode

------
wemdyjreichert
Dell XPS 15 9560

------
unixhero
Thinkpad T580

------
epynonymous
after reading through a majority of the comments here, there are several
camps: lenovo t4xx/t5xx/x1 carbon, dell xps/precision, mbp, razor edge, and 1
mention of hp’s envy.

these are all worthy suggestions, but for me, i develop golang backend
applications along with web and mobile frontends, for ios development i have
no choice, but mac. i am loathe to learn ximiran (i think this runs on windows
and maybe linux, but why even bother with this ide ). but running on mac is
not a bad thing, the driver and hardware support is great, i spend most of my
time tinkering with my development projects as opposed to drivers, kernels,
and system configuration, this is a real win for me.

i always have this philosophy of developing in the same environment as
production, at least from the perspective of operating system, so that means
ubuntu linux. i have no problem running ubuntu on fusion or virtualbox (free),
usually i give them 1g ram and sometimes i have multiple vm’s running at the
same time. i have dual boot for win10, but i hardly use windows.

if i develop on mac, typically i use visual code, xcode. i bever use homebrew,
that’s just too hacky, i prefer using a linux vm directly.

in terms of hw, i have both the mb (i3/8g/512g ssd), and because i thought the
i3 was inferior, i also purchased the mbp 13 (i7/16g/1t ssd), but i found that
the i3 could compile golang programs and xcode swift relatively at the same
speed. so for the affordability of the mb, i get portability and pretty good
perf.

memory and upgradability are issues with all mac laptops, but i think 8g is
tolerable. ideally 32g ram would be best, but at that range, power and
portability become a tradeoff and at that point, you should seriously be
asking yourself why you wouldnt just consider a desktop/workstation/server and
go for say 256g memory.

the mb could be had for about 1000-1500 usd, the build is good, i dont have
the same ossues with keyboards that others have mentioned because i mostly
stay plugged into a large monitor with kb and mouse, there sre rare occassions
where i’m truly remote where a monitor is not accessible, but that just means
i’m doing some light stuff like ppt, some web dev, or what not.

the macbook is light, good enough for most dev, and probably fits in your
price range. get virtualbox and install linux for coding, use mac for
everything else, web browsing, watching movies, social apps, photos, accessing
all those neat devices without fussing over drivers.

you probably would compare how uch bang for the buck you’d get from a thinkpad
versus mb, but mb experience is much greater, i stopped using windows since
mac os x first came out, linux has never really been a desktop option because
it’s been too much effort, perhaps it’s a lot better now, but running linux as
the main os is nerve racking for a laptop, i much prefer a vm, you can run
xorg and get full gui experience as well, but typically i use visual code and
access my code on linux vm remotely, so my linux vm’s are usually server
versions.

------
sabujp
thinkpad carbon x1 v6

------
hungerstrike
Absolutely. Just about any Windows laptop with Windows 10 will be faster,
cheaper and give you a better user experience in my opinion. I vastly prefer
it over a Mac or a Linux desktop because I find the Mac UI to be sorely
lacking and I've never had a desktop Linux machine that didn't break itself
over time.

I've done Node.js based development on Windows since Node very new (~ v0.4 or
so). I build Android apps with React-Native and in the past - Cordova, both
which use the Android SDK/Android Studio to build. I've been using and
developing Python 2/3 apps on Windows since forever. I have done Ruby on
Rails, run a PostgreSQL server for development, played around with Golang. I
honestly don't even need to use the Linux Subsystem for Windows to do anything
that I personally need to do, but it's there and it's gotten very good reviews
from users.

The only thing I touch my Mac for is building iOS apps.

~~~
Rjevski
> any [...] laptop with Windows 10 will [...] give you a better user
> experience in my opinion

Sorry but no, how can you call Windows 10 a good user experience? It's pure
garbage, full of annoyances, inconsistencies (they still can't have a
consistent right click menu UI between the one on the taskbar, the one on
window titlebars and the one on files/folders in Explorer), dark patterns to
try to get as much data out of you, etc.

~~~
hungerstrike
Pfffft. Sorry, but yes. My opinion remains unchanged despite your weak
arguments. Windows 10 is the best desktop OS - the rest are trash whose users
_wish_ their OS had the same market share, hardware variety and solidity of
Windows.

------
gaius
If I was buying a new laptop now, it would be a Surface, no question. Even
better than a ThinkPad in my reckoning.

Great hinges too.

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/surface](https://www.microsoft.com/en-
gb/surface)

~~~
starky
I came to this conclusion in 2014 when I was trying to buy a smallish laptop
for travelling and couldn't find anything below $1000 worth buying. I ended up
going with a Surface Pro 3 because despite being more than I wanted to spend,
it was by far the cheapest device that didn't have dealbreaker compromises.

