I'm writing this on my late 2012 MacBook Pro. Time goes by and I know rather sooner than later I'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.
I check notebookcheck from time to time. I read reviews, opinions about new laptops. The point is, I don't know if there is any machine that could be recommended in reasonable price. At work I'm using some new MacBook Pro which (i5/16GB/128GB SSD) which is noticeably slower than my current machine.
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). From time to time I work on web projects, so handling several instances of docker shouldn't be a problem for a new machine. I prefer Linux over MacOs over Windows, so good support for Ubuntu/Fedora would be nice.
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
Price is quite important for me, I'm from Eastern Europe. What computer would you recommend in, let's say, <2000$ ?
Sure mac is a weird mix of old bits of BSD tools and GNU but at least it's running natively, it's terminal application also has some crufty bits but it's still far more usable.
Oh also creating and modifying files in windows causes all kinds of issues with linux, because a) permissions and b) windows arbitrarily locks files... this really fucks with git. Someone goes and git pull some stuff and find out later that windows silently didn't let it's canned linux update the working tree properly... and then at commit time things get messy (where I come in), they aren't that experienced with git so it makes for a pretty shitty learning experience, even as an experienced git user it would piss me off if i had to put up with that all the time.
Anyway, if it was my choice and i _had_ to use windows for some reason, I would still stick linux in a VM or dual boot, you can trust it isn't half working that way.
Docker for Windows is similarly disappointing. The private network docker uses for containers conflicts with our corporate network. I can set the bip for a Linux daemon, but DfW just hangs and then crashes when doing so.
The keyboard is great, screen is beautiful, battery life is great. It even has a magnetic power connector similar to the old MBPs. I don't use it as a tablet much, but I do use the touch screen a fair amount.
It wasn't cheap, but neither is a MBP.
The filesystem is slow though, for e.g. Rails work you will feel the difference between WSL & normal Linux.
That being said, the existence of WSL at all is fantastic and it's a much nicer experience than booting up a VM or setting your dev environment up in the cloud. I'm still not sure if my next machine will be a MacBook again because of it.
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
If you're even slightly concerned about data privacy and user freedom, please do not be complicit in Lenovo's continued existence.
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/6/16261988/lenovo-adware-sup...
I'm on a ThinkPad t470s, amazing little machine, I love it more than my old MacBook Pro 2015.
Let's hope this changes soon.
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T400-T500-and-newer-T/...
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-wants-to-release-a-new-...
I got a model with the dGPU, and it's working fine so far—I only use the dGPU when I'm gaming on Windows. I might be losing some battery from not properly disabling the dGPU when running under Linux, but I haven't bothered to check yet (battery life has been good enough). The machine is very very fast.
One caveat on the T480: only the versions with the dGPU have two heat pipes—the iGPU models have one; therefore, apparently the dGPU model has better cooling, regardless of whether you're using the dGPU or not. The T480s has two heat pipes regardless of whether you have the dGPU or not.
The /r/thinkpad subreddit has a lot of conversations around the thermal engineering of each model—lots of information to consume there.
I greatly prefer my T480 to my work-issued Macbook Pro Retina—more ports (Ethernet!), more flexibility (I can configure it to not automatically go to sleep when I close the lid), and a vastly better keyboard. It's also easier to service and more upgradable. I was able to get seven+ years out of my T410, and I intend to do the same with my T480 (at least that's what I told my wife, to justify the cost... :-D ).
See <https://gist.github.com/cryzed/e002e7057435f02cc7894b9e748c5...
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-2018... 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.
I wish it had better speakers though and I still feel like the low power CPU in a thin package might get bogged down when thermally throttled compared to full wattage one in a bigger config. But so far no such problem.
Why does Lenovo (and Dell) make it so difficult to actually buy an X1 without being a product expert? The shop page has 6 or 7 base configurations that all can be customized. To me, this is a really good sign they are not consumer focused, but instead catering to the direct enterprise buyer. Someone who is more willing to spend hours deciphering the subtle difference between every configurations and go through multiple customization flows to find some ideal configuration for a large multi-unit order.
Can someone explain why it's so hard for PC companies to move away from this purchasing model when the simplified Apple flow is generating 10x or more sales directly to consumers.
When I bought a Lenovo Thinkpad T420 years ago, it came with a 3 years on-site warranty included, extendable to 4 years for a small fee. On-site as in "a technician will come on the next business day and do their best to change all components to make it run again in front of your eyes". Has this changed in recent years or just with the X1 Carbon?
I actually bought the XPS 13 first since it's much cheaper. But Dell messed up by having the keyboard totally unusable for fast typists. See the post at https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/XPS-13-9370-Keyboard-Skip.... Thinkpad's build quality does seems reliable still.
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.
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.
I too experience constant erroneous thermal throttling (in Windows).
The docking station has extremely poor construction; any connectivity that travels through it flickers with the slightest mechanical provocation.
External displays don't work at all unless you disable switchable graphics and have severe compositing glitches regardless.
The official ubuntu install is so old that neither Firefox nor Chrome can install latest (without offroading dependencies), a modern ubuntu install without special drivers causes the backlight to turn on and off at 30Hz (hadn't seen that before!), and Dell's instructions for packaging drivers (can't just install them, you need to build an image) have broken in enough places to sink my best efforts.
Both of them had really good Ubuntu compatibility.
Wayland is working fine, hdmi-out, no prop. Have not found time to test the dp however.
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.
The screen size is 14", which compared to a 15" MBP is no where near enough screen real estate. That and the bezel is too damn big.
The touchpad is just awful. The buttons are way too slim to hit accurately (I think they're about 1/4") and I always inadvertently hit the touchpad with my thumbs moving the mouse to random locations. I could probably fix the later by toning down the sensitivity, but there's nothing I can do about the button sizes.
Finally, the unibody case as a very sharp edge and tends to cause discomfort when typing for an extended period of time.
As for the OS, Mint went on without any driver issues. This is my first experience with desktop Linux in a long time and I'm very impressed with how mature it's become. There's just no way I could go back to developing on Windows. In fact, I've become so accustomed to developing on Linux that it's a pain to go back to macOS.
1. Enormous screen bezel, which made it silly to lug around a laptop with the screen real estate of one much smaller.
2. Without careful, tedious manual power management in linux the cooling fans routinely spin up to dust buster sound levels under normal use, which is unacceptable if you exist around other human beings.
The Surface Book 2 is an interesting option, but the linux support, while improving through community effort, is still spotty [1]. At the moment it has many power draw, heat, and noise issues. Also, everyone I know who has had a surface device has had to have it serviced or RMA'd at least once, which is not acceptable for something so expensive from such a large vendor.
Currently I develop in a VM or with vagrant.
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/
- for a fix you can go through the comments here: 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... )
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.
I manually installed the OS and drivers. I can't find a good reason why Intel enabled this horrible option by default.
i have a kaby lake FHD xps 13, which i love, but this is a valid complaint. that said, i am using the An Old Hope theme with vscode and it works fine. you just need to try out a bunch of dark themes before you find one that pops.
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).
One of my colleagues has a two-year old XPS13 and is very happy with it, too. I think they're both great choices.
I'll be in Japan later this month, and I'll probably buy an HP Envy. The XPS doesn't come in the aforementioned configuration and the Carbon X is considerably more expensive (and I can't make heads or tail of their Japanese site).
(portability is pretty important to me).
As the new 2018 XPS15 was announced 5 days ago [1], I'll probably trade up now to get the Nvidia GTX1050 GPU and RAM user-upgradable to 32GB.
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...
Razer Blade: https://char.gd/blog/2017/the-razer-blade-a-killer-macbook-p...
Eve V review: https://char.gd/blog/2017/a-startup-made-a-better-laptop-tha...
Replacement tooling for Windows (given how good Bash on Windows is): https://char.gd/blog/2017/essential-apps-for-switching-from-...
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.
http://bitcannon.net/post/a-year-away-from-mac-os/ also wrote briefly about it, and supposedly it'll run Fedora according to https://eve.community/t/summary-of-linux-and-the-eve-v-statu... .
Despite being fairly married to the mac platform I'm really curious, and honestly hope they make a larger 14-15 inch version.
People runing the Development channel already play around with various apps like VS Code: https://chromeunboxed.com/news/chrome-os-container-crostini-...
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.
[0] https://aws.amazon.com/cloud9/ [1] https://github.com/dnschneid/crouton [2] https://galliumos.org/
(I have no affiliation with any companies or projects mentioned.)
Crostini will be a game-changer.
I hope that stuff isn't limited to Intel -- I just bought an Acer R 13 and quite like it.
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.
My personal 13" 2013 MBPro has been fantastic. I haven't had an issue. My only complaint would be that it doesn't have some updated physical features but otherwise its great. If I upgrade my laptop, I'll be sure to keep this and go to town modding or whatever with it. It's been indestructible. And frankly I am hooked on the Mac trackpads—nothing else has been better for me yet
My personal rebadged Clevo running Linux is "better", as the screen never flickers and it pretty much never crashes. The Linux laptop is also more reliable at waking from sleep than the Mac.
I do like the Mac's body -- it's got a much better build quality. But it also cost twice as much for half the spec.
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
I run Fedora on an XPS 13. I've never run into #1 or #2. I hit super+L by habit before closing the screen so I don't know about #3, but closing it while typing this comment put it to sleep. I've only reinstalled the OS once to get rid of the built in Ubuntu in favor of Fedora for #5. For #6 I haven't had it crash on me, but I have been RAM-swapped to death after having too many Firefox tabs and Docker builds at once. The only audio/network/charging problem I've run into is that Spotify doesn't bind to the keyboard Play/Pause events.
I think the 2015 model has now replaced the older 2012 model (last that had upgradable parts) as the MBP that power users go for, even though it's almost $2k for hardware that'd be $800 on a typical windows machine.
I already had a TB2 hub and other TB2 peripherals and extra MagSafe 2 power supplies, so no additional investment in adapters, etc.
The kicker was the unit I bought has been purchased less than a year before I got it, so it was still eligible for AppleCare (you can check this w/ the serial number that most reputable eBay vendors provide). The time has probably passed for this, although you could still get a unit where someone else has already gotten it.
All in was US$ 2,050 including AppleCare
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.
Just curious, how has 32 GB ram on it affected battery life?
I couldn't agree enough. I went with the T470p, i7700HQ, 32GB RAM, and 1TB SSD. This this is amazing.
I unfortunately must dual boot just in case I need to use software or services that require Windows. I just wiped their default installation with Windows 10 Education edition, gave it 256GB of space, then installed Arch on the other partition.
I mainly use Arch and have only used Windows for the first day or two of having the laptop. I get around 8-10 hours of usage, similar to you, and everything is just awesome. Even while running a VM or two the battery like is still good!
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?
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.
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.
BTW, I must be one of the few that actually like the new (non-touchbar) keyboard. The only thing I would change are the arrow keys.
(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.
The thing has a soul. I love it.
I took > 20,000 photos today from a cessna using it's inbuilt ethernet port and four machine vision cameras. When you're paying for aircraft time and are bumping around a bit, having that thing on your lap makes you feel like you have a good wing man.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Windows 10 + WSL is awesome, the only minor issue being some permissions stuff. I find Windows 10 to be a more interesting, an effective interface. The only thing I miss is that the Mac trackpad has a bit better detection for when I accidentally brush it. Otherwise, I'll take my 3 USB C, 2 USB B, HDMI, SD, and audio ports any day - all of which I have used at some point in the past 6 months, incidentally.
The new Mac keyboard alone was enough to make me want to toss the laptop into the trash. But, hey, it's slightly thinner, so you know, major productivity gains there!
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...
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.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelBook/comments/7zxz57/howto_boo...
[1] https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform/crosvm...
[2] https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2/+/HEA...
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelBook/comments/89oq8o/just_laun...
EDIT: screenshot of Android Studio on a Pixelbook: https://imgur.com/a/vRU8l
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.
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/
[1]: https://storrgie.epiphyte.network/project-fi-archlinux/
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish
[3]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/11/dell-...
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We ended up just buying the regular docks (the previous model docks won't work)
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
However, Purism Librem 15 is interesting as well:
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...
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.
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.
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..
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.
or potentially look at a CI cluster if compilations/whatever is most taxing the laptop
(I'm using X-250 still, going strong and onsite warranty is amazing)
Are the current generation of Linux desktop environments as user friendly as MacOS?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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$
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.
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 ...)
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.
The Thinkpads have good keyboards, good-enough touchpads and screens.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Great budget option and very good with Linux.
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.)
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.
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
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.
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.
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)
https://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Apollo-11-The-compute...
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Why not get a stationary as your compilation / unit test server and a smaller, cheaper, more nimble laptop for out and about?
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.
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)
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)
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)
Thinkpad t480s - almost perfect but screen is a tad to short/small.
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?
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.
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?
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.
XPS 13 + fedora beats the crap out of a macbook.
There is an acclimation period, but it will pass.
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.
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.
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.
Seriously. Until Apple's fixes all it's mistakes, the 2015 model is still the best money can buy.
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.
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.
If this is true it's because of corporate antivirus or Enterprise spyware or something not running on your personal machine
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.
Modest CPU/RAM, runs Linux great. 14".
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
How is that possible,unless you bought a 2008 model and upgraded it?
I would say its probably the best laptop in its class - even beating the MBP.
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.
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.
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.
Great hinges too.