ThinkPads make better MacBook Pros than Apple-official products - by far and large.
I’ve got a 2017 MacBook Pro and a 2016 Lenovo ThinkPad and the ThinkPad runs circles around it.
It’s also literally a hybrid drawing tablet laptop running MacOS - so unimaginably useful as a creative - and something Apple doesn’t offer, unless you want half-baked iOS software (no Illustrator, no Animate, no Blender) on an iPad Pro.
Even if it wasn’t for that awful keyboard (went to the Apple Store, tried the 16” keyboard, still not impressed) - there’s a ton of other factors. (Not to mention the ThinkPad keyboard is so tried and true my 2016’s keyboard is nearly identical to my 1996 ThinkPad...)
From the awesome amount of ports, tablet/ink support (if your ThinkPad has it), great battery life, native updates (I‘ve not had an issue with .x updates on Mojave or Sierra/High Sierra), and about half the price for the equivalent specs, it’s, IMHO, the literal best of both worlds. Even the build quality of ThinkPad laptops is lovely.
I’ve never had a single issue with MacOS not running as well or significantly better than the equivalent Apple hardware, with the exception of SSD write speeds.
EDIT: Forgot to mention the #1 benefit - replaceable HDD/SSD and upgradable RAM.
I will not, on principle, buy a computer whose hard drive I cannot remove with a basic computing toolkit.
And I will also not, on principle, buy a computer that cannot be internally upgraded.
The environmental impact alone is preposterous.
So what if you make your computers out of aluminum instead of plastic if you design them to have no future?
I think, specifically, of the ludicrously-limited 128GB SSD models of the 2016/2017 MacBook/Pro.
Using that, for basic development - (it was sadly what we were given at the startup I was working at during the time) - was useless, by the time I put Unity and XCode on it, and started making builds, I daily saw the ‘your hard disk is almost full’ message - and what is there to do about that, except get a whole brand new computer?
> Forgot to mention the #1 benefit - replaceable HDD/SSD and upgradable RAM.
Also this. I just bought a new 16" Macbook Pro because I just maxed out the SSD in my 2015 Macbook Pro due to all the Docker images and generally all the data that I have. It was running perfectly and I wouldn't even think about upgrading if the storage was upgradable.
The next best thing to buy an upgrade kit from iFixit and spend some precious time just to upgrade the SSD.
Fortunately with the 2015 models, this is still an option. For anything past that - you’re just SOL.
At this point, 2015 models are actually going for insane values second-hand; fans understand this may be the last great laptop Apple ever makes - from the ports (built-in HDMI and SD card slots!), to the keyboard, to the ability to replace the SSD post-market - people are already certainly catching on.
I seriously shake my head every time I think about it. It blows my mind. Think about the environmental waste. :( Shameful.
I don't know what people do with laptops with soldered-on <256GB SSDs. Just your OS and swap will take up half that. Your option is then to remote into some other machine to do your work, but you can't do that on the go without internet access, kind of defeating the point of having a laptop.
Disk space is so important these days with Docker, node_modules, venv, bazel, etc. where every directory basically has its own OS. We all should have >10TB on laptops.
> Forgot to mention the #1 benefit - replaceable HDD/SSD and upgradable RAM.
Need to capture this rant here about part selection. My x1 carbon 6th gen shipped with a crappy SSD which showed random errors in dmesg and would occasionally cause the machine to reboot randomly. Then a few weeks ago after about a year of use it totally died. I googled the model number of the drive and found I was not the only one to experience that. Seems like Lenovo was not adequately testing that part for its impact on overall machine stability.
OTOH I was pleasantly surprised that it was replaceable, even though this is the "ultrathin" model meant to compete against Apple's soldered-in components. Replaced with a third party m.2 SSD and now the system works smoother than it ever has.
It's a very good machine, but I would not call it a work of art. The touchpad is not very good and has QC problems. The coating is uneven and/or rough in some units.
There's also too much glue in the internal assembly.
Super, super easy. Linux-distro-install level easy.
Since Catalina randomly decided to destroy access to about 1/3rd of my software (I rely on old-school music plugins that won’t be updated) - I’m gonna link you here to the Mojave tool:
http://dosdude1.com/mojave/
This is not my tool, it does require a Mac to use, in order to create the USB boot key you put in your PC.
I have successfully patched about a dozen ThinkPads and Dell computers with this.
Due to the ThinkPad’s popularity - support for virtually every unit that can support it hardware-wise exists. If you have any issues, there’s a great community around it, and personally, after patching, I don’t even worry about .x upgrades anymore and leave auto-update on - that’s how far it’s come.
I literally prefer the Lenovo to the Apple hardware.
You can use Radeon cards, some are supported and when they are they run decently. But anything other than a GTX760 is not going to work, and I can assure you that the drivers Apple ships for this card are absymal.
Very occasionally I'll have a slight issue with resume from sleep, but otherwise pretty much everything just works. You will need to buy a new wifi card, and depending which you want to use may need to reflash a modified bios to get rid of the whitelist.
>(went to the Apple Store, tried the 16” keyboard, still not impressed)
Thank You, along with the rant from Taika Waititi at Oscar. There is still hope the old keyboard with more key depth will come back.
There hasn't been a single improvement I like about the Mac both in terms of Hardware and software since 2015. ( Edit: Ok there was Mac Pro ) Sadly Windows hasn't made much improvement in 5 years either.
I was in your shoes 2 years ago. I had two ThinkPads one was a hackintosh. I needed MacOS for work. I loved having the trackpoint, thinkpad keyboard, and user replaceable parts. Work eventually upgraded everyone to new MacBook Pros and I did the switch too. I found myself using the MacBook over my ThinkPad due to longer battery life, better trackpad experience, and worryfree use. My x230 had a bluetooth dongle that would fail occasionally and my x370 had touchscreen issues. The x370 also had a crummy PWM issues and was giving me headaches. On top of it, updates were less than ideal on the x230 hackintosh. I eventually sold both. I have an iPad Pro, iPad mini 5, and Macbook Pro now. They all work great together. I like running Juno notebook on my ipad to work through data science. If I need to, I travel with the iPad and remote into the macbook. ymmv
We buy refurb MacBook pros. Our specs are 256g ssd, 16g memory, hexcore + Applecare. We buy 15in machines because the vast majority of the company wanted 15in machines and I'm barely going to put the brain juice in to support one line of machines let alone two.
You're paying around $2.2/2.5k a piece. We buy 1 or 2 every month depending on hiring or whenever I find someone who has a machine like the one you describe (128g/8g ew).
Similar x1 carbon off amazon is maybe $1.2k with taxs, no apple care.
Say we buy 15 in a year, math:
Apple/applecare = $2.5k * 15 = $37.5k
Lenovo = $1.2k * 15 = $18k + say $50kish for a decent help desk employee because there's no way in hell I'm working 60 hour weeks on product AND dealing with laptops beyond, 'run diagnostics and take it to the apple store.'
The value proposition isn't hard. We're going with the MacBook Pros. For the grand total of 5 people who have to have windows for reasons we just run bootcamp.
Typically for corporate use you would pick a Lenovo model with next business day onsite warranty. So in case it breaks, somebody will come over to fix it.
(This is why the components are easy to replace in those laptops)
MacBook Pros of recent years have "2K" (2880 x 1800) displays, that renders at 1050p with extra pixels used for "sub"pixel aliasing. Plain 1080p on a laptop is pixelated for text viewing.
This. I tried using a Dell XPS and a Thinkpad as replacement to Macbook. But had to return both because I just can't get used to any other display after using Retina display, specially because the laptop is my TV as well.
The XPS and Thinkpads have both offered 4k for a few gens now. The real question is when Apple will offer matte screens. I can't stand the glare on the Macbook screens.
I don't think the current XPS:es have a matte screen option, last I checked the only ones with matte and known brand names and professional specs where thinkpads with low-res screens.
XPS:es have superb 4k displays too, but you might have got the version with a 1080p. Retina is after all just a marketing term for "High DPI", with no real standard for what "High" is.
The X, P, and T series Thinkpads have 2k and 4k options depending on the model. The 4k options in particular are extremely nice with excellent color gamut.
I have a X series with nVidia graphics. Quite nice machine! But gid, does the graphic card eat battery life! It is charging extremely fast, so. Didn't opt for the 4k display due to battery life, but the option is there.
The reason I took the standard display, the graphic card is power hungry enough. Thankfully the machine charges really quick! And what do I have a second screen on my desk for anyway? But I'm either playing games or working, so I have no idea how graphic design would be affected by the display.
They're not all gorgeous - 1080p displays with pretty poor color gamut are the default, and they still offer comically bad 1366x768 options for a base model. But some models do have 2560x1440 IPS glossy, 3480x2160 IPS anti-glare, or 3840x2160 OLED displays with 400/500 nit brightness and decent color gamut coverage (100% Adobe or 100% DCI, depending on the model).
If current trends hold, the not-yet-released T14/T15/P15 will all have an optional screen available that's pretty good. Some of the lower-price L14/E14/AMD options will only have options for crappy screens. And, the point that's most important for Thinkpad enthusiasts, the majority of the business-lease sales that end up on eBay for $400 in 2023 will have the crappy screens and/or L and E series devices.
Still, I'm curious what the "ThinkPad Thor-TP" might be.
> they still offer comically bad 1366x768 options for a base model.
Believe it or not, there are still corporate legacy apps that run on DOS and looks great on 1366x768 and look like crap in 4k.
In fact, Linux still look like crap in 4K today.
I can believe that there are corporate legacy apps might look bad on 4k - you might not even be able to do a naive 1:4 upscale if it's forced to be full-screen. But I wouldn't optimize my display experience for that.
However, I'm going to have to disagree strongly with your latter statement: Linux looks great in 4K. I'm running Ubuntu 19.10 to an external 4k monitor from a T430 right now (native display is a 1600x900 TN unit, which kind of sucks) and it looks great. I've had no significant aliasing or other problems.
Even Windows guests with Virtualbox scaling look good. You could easily use that to run corporate legacy apps, and probably should, knowing the stability and installation difficulties associated with legacy apps.. a .vmdk is probably much easier to version and distribute!
I use a 4k 13" (an XPS 13) laptop for 8 hours everyday under linux, and as long as I use wayland with firefox and VScode (my two main apps) they look pretty good, even comparing to my macbook using colleagues.
Not sure if it is because of the apps or wayland or the laptop, but it works for me.
What tablet do you have? My wife had a nearly top-spec X1 3rd gen tablet and the stylus lag is terrible compared to something like an iPad Pro with the pencil.
I was feeling pulled back towards non-mac laptops for a variety of reasons, but I think I just came up with a good strategy looking forward. If I were just doing my own dev work, I'd probably have a well-specced thinkpad running some version of linux. But I need to support people using all OSes, so I need a mac. If I need a mac, I'd like that to be my only computer, and just run windows and linux in VMs.
I got a 13" MacBook pro a couple years ago, when I started needing to support mac users more consistently. I was on a budget, so I got an 8GB version. I wanted to upgrade, so last fall I bought the last new 13" I could find online that still had physical function keys, with 16GB ram. I was having trouble running VMs effectively with the 8GB system. I would love to have 32GB ram, but I don't want to go to a 15" or 16" laptop.
I thought I would sell my old 8GB laptop, but I found a really good use for it. I work at home, and I have a multiple-monitor setup that's really nice to do extended development work on. I don't like to disconnect my laptop if I don't have to, but I want to work in other parts of the house sometimes. I realized I could just use the older MacBook as a thin client when I'm not doing memory-intensive work. It's been nice to be able to do more casual work in other parts of the house.
That got me thinking, though - with this setup, there's no reason I need a laptop to power the desktop setup. It's been over a decade since I've owned a desktop computer, but I think I might buy a mac mini next time I upgrade, and keep the 16GB laptop as a thin client around the house, and also have a decent laptop to travel with.
I do something like this - Macs as thin clients mostly used to SSH into a Threadripper workstation running Ubuntu. Add tmux with automatic attaching upon login via ssh to make your ssh sessions persistent. Add port forwarding to your router and a cronjob to your workstation to periodically ping a dynamic dns provider (entrydns works well), and you can ssh into your workstation from anywhere you have internet access.
It works really well, and means you never have to futz around with things like homebrew.
It’s an unfortunate and expensive approach that would unnecessary if Apple would only at least step short of soldering the SSD/RAM to the Logic Board.
Years ago, we didn’t have this problem. I don’t know I’ll ever be able to buy an Apple
laptop again at this point. I refuse to pay $1200+ for something I can’t upgrade a year or two later.
Not sure on your exact requirements, but I did the opposite. High end desktop, dual boots to PC and Linux. Then got the cheapest macbook air. Reduced the apple tax this way. Got tons of performance for cheap, check out latest AMD CPUs.
That is a great idea! I've been wanting to go back to Linux as my main OS for a long time, but I was in a Windows world when I was teaching and then I had to have a mac.
I use iPad as my thin client, LTE, better battery life, Blink terminal is great. Bought a 16 inch 2019 MacBook and forgot how annoying it is running things locally (weight and heat).
I know lots of people here need mac hardware, but it always surprises me just how many fans of macs and macosx are here. For me Thinkpads combined with linux is a great computing experience. I love the unification of package updates and installation and being able to pick from several mature desktop environments to suit your style of working. Thinkpads are pretty tough laptops - they don't have quite the fit and finish of macbooks, but they more than make for this in durability, usability and modularity.
I assume this is the new AMD 4000 line of laptop CPU/GPUs they're pushing out this year? I've been looking forward to seeing more reviews of these. So far Dave2D/Linus have only done reviews on the Zephyrus G14 (GA401) and neither one could say much since it was an engineering sample.
It will be interesting to see these come to market.
I use this. I like it. Upgraded the SSD and added the motherboard max of 32G RAM. If you are using Linux on a laptop, you have a choice between dealing with NVIDIA's proprietary garbage or bad integrated graphics. AMD GPU on a laptop is a godsend.
Heh, I was hoping for the same, but in reality I get sleep issues quite often, subpar battery life, and overall unpolished experience... on AMD with Ubuntu.
I'm using Fedora, haven't had any sleep problems. If you're using GNOME or KDE, they are notorious for hijacking ACPI handling. Try "# systemctl suspend" to rule out it being Linux's fault.
> Just double capacity after 9 years isn't that impressive, is it?
In their defense, there's a limit to what you can fit into and cool in a laptop chassis. The most expensive MPB you can buy now (with Coffee Lake?) can fit a max of 64GB. You can build an AMD (or Intel, if you want to waste money) desktop with >1TB RAM.
Got my SO a E485 AMD ThinkPad for Christmas. It's slick! Battery life seems fine, but the big kickers is not having Intel's onboard graphics, which just can't keep up. My SO does casual gaming and the AMD graphics seem to be right in the sweet spot for performance and their needs
X13? XTRA line started from X20/T20/A20m/R30. Before that was 3 digit like 600E or iSeries 4 digit like i1420. Doesn’t look like there’s so much room in that number scheme.
Why is it "ridiculous" to use a 10Gbps (or 40Gbps if you're spendy) bus to carry data?
'Cause I just sit down, plug any of my laptops (all of which have USB-C in, and everything just works. Windows, Linux, Macs (n.b.: this required a bit of a hack because they don't support MST, but it's not a huge deal)--sit down, go.
Vendor-locked lower-bandwidth docking ports are an antipattern.
The one thing I miss about old docking stations is that they were basically a bunch of dumb wires. I've had to power cycle my Thunderbolt dock a couple of times because its software managed to hang itself.
I use a Dell Latitude with Thunderbolt docks and for the past two years I have had consistent problems with the Thunderbolt dock in one location, while in the other location I frequent the Thunderbolt dock has been rock solid. In the problematic location I have gone through three different Dell TB16 docks despite staying current with device driver updates, and finally gave up on the TB16 model and went with a D6000 which has been stable since its installation.
That's definitely a thing in some configurations. I had a T580 that really didn't like Lenovo's own dock under Fedora 29. Smooth sailing with every other machine I've tried, though.
Because I can lock my laptop to the docking station, because it can also transfer power, and gives me access to many more ports than regular usb based docking station has.. and back in the good ol' days you could have a docking station with such ancient devices like cdrom and floppy - something that I don't need to carry around, but would be nice if I could access while sitting at my desk.
Lock your laptop to your desk, if you're so inclined.
My Lenovo TB3 dock has two DisplayPort outputs, two HDMI outputs, Gigabit, a 3.5mm jack, 5 USB3 ports, and a USB-C port. It can also daisy-chain Thunderbolt 3 to another high-bandwidth device; I haven't tried it with a PCIe dock or anything, but in that kind of extremity my X1 Extreme has a second TB3 port onboard anyway.
And USB-C PD can charge my X1 Extreme--not as fast as the dedicated 135W charger, but a less hungry laptop charges rapidly.
Really? With the cost of SD cards what they are? Like, I can get a 128GB SD card for $30.
That would be 170 CD’s - nearly 30 DVD’s - which will eventually suffer disc rot.
DVD/CD write speeds are very slow, comparatively speaking to even USB 2.0 transfer speeds - and increasing the speed, in my experience, makes exact copies of discs extremely error-prone.
Explain how this is efficient? Genuinely curious, with the price of solid state storage these days.
(I understand even solid state storage has a shelf life, but at least it also can’t be so easily harmed as a CD/DVD)
SD cards are not intended for long-term archival purposes, not 10+ years. They don't go bad per se, but the data on them may not be readable after slowly discharging offline in cold storage for a decade or more.
How about bluray? 25GB for ~$0.70.
Personally had so many sd cards, and even usb sticks fail that adding another type of storage as a backup for important files really makes a lot of sense.
A microSD card can hold 500GB. DVDs (and even blu-rays) are far from "dense".
They also require an order of magnitude longer to write, lose their data to bit rot faster than SLC flash, and require devices with mechanical motors for both reading and writing.
I wouldn't call them convenient compared to flash memory, and I'm surprised anyone would.
These days, there are monitors with USB-C style ports that both deliver power to the laptop and accept display over the same cable. And they also connect that port with other downstream ports like HID/etc (presumably a USB optical or floppy drive would also work here).
I'll admit it's not quite as satisfying to plug in the cable, but it's still very functional and stable.
I think you need to take a second look at USB-C docking stations.
The one I use at work delivers power, has five USB-A ports, four monitor ports (pretty sure it doesn't support using all four at the same time, haven't tried) a thunderbolt port, and a headphone jack.
New thinkpads dont have dock connector on bottom. they use usb-c + thunderbolt + dock connector on left side.
works without installation of any drivers.
To this and one above comment, just to clarify to other readers -- USB-C is a connector, can be 2.0 or 3.0 or 4.0, visually identical. There are USB-C cables with only 2.0 support and so on, in fact popular for people who just want to charge their devices.
I’ve got a 2017 MacBook Pro and a 2016 Lenovo ThinkPad and the ThinkPad runs circles around it.
It’s also literally a hybrid drawing tablet laptop running MacOS - so unimaginably useful as a creative - and something Apple doesn’t offer, unless you want half-baked iOS software (no Illustrator, no Animate, no Blender) on an iPad Pro.
Even if it wasn’t for that awful keyboard (went to the Apple Store, tried the 16” keyboard, still not impressed) - there’s a ton of other factors. (Not to mention the ThinkPad keyboard is so tried and true my 2016’s keyboard is nearly identical to my 1996 ThinkPad...)
From the awesome amount of ports, tablet/ink support (if your ThinkPad has it), great battery life, native updates (I‘ve not had an issue with .x updates on Mojave or Sierra/High Sierra), and about half the price for the equivalent specs, it’s, IMHO, the literal best of both worlds. Even the build quality of ThinkPad laptops is lovely.
I’ve never had a single issue with MacOS not running as well or significantly better than the equivalent Apple hardware, with the exception of SSD write speeds.
EDIT: Forgot to mention the #1 benefit - replaceable HDD/SSD and upgradable RAM.
I will not, on principle, buy a computer whose hard drive I cannot remove with a basic computing toolkit.
And I will also not, on principle, buy a computer that cannot be internally upgraded.
The environmental impact alone is preposterous.
So what if you make your computers out of aluminum instead of plastic if you design them to have no future?
I think, specifically, of the ludicrously-limited 128GB SSD models of the 2016/2017 MacBook/Pro.
Using that, for basic development - (it was sadly what we were given at the startup I was working at during the time) - was useless, by the time I put Unity and XCode on it, and started making builds, I daily saw the ‘your hard disk is almost full’ message - and what is there to do about that, except get a whole brand new computer?