[coderdude]

I'm not sure what they're optimizing for. If they had some bad ass machine that wasn't the thinnest machine in existence I'd still buy it. I own a pro and an air from the last generation and I think they suck. Give me something worth the bucks and tack on a few millimeters to make it happen. I absolutely will not pay for their current trajectory of lackluster stats and a small physical footprint. I need better. If that means bigger, they should get over it and deliver.

[nicky0]

If you need huge power why are you trying to do it in a laptop?

[lucaspiller]

That's not really the point - other manufactures make laptops that are much more powerful than Apple. The ThinkPad P50 can be configured with a Xeon, 4K display and 64GB RAM for nearly the same price as the base 15" MacBook Pro.

Ok maybe it doesn't have all day battery life - but most people, especially people who want "Pro" hardware, probably only need a few hours max.

I've had an Air for two years, and I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I've used the full battery - all international flights and trains I've been on have had power sockets, so I can charge on the go. Plus thanks to USB-C, you can use a power bank to charge your laptop if you need more power:

http://www.macworld.com/article/3028132/consumer-electronics...

Apple is no longer giving consumers a choice, before there was the MacBook (old one) if you wanted a more-affordable entry level machine, the Air if you needed ok performance but great portability, and the Pro if you wanted performance in a laptop package.

Now everything is lumped together with portability as the #1 priority. If Apple had just launched this as a new version of the Air I don't think anyone would be complaining so much.

[chrischen]

Other manufacturers don't make computers as good. If they did, you'd have bought one of theirs by now instead of complaining about Apple's offerings.

Part of the reason why they make bad computers is they cave and make design decisions based on what random users ask. Users who potentially have no knowledge or experience in system design.

As the famous quote goes, if you ask people what they want, they'd tell you a faster horse.

[gurkendoktor]

> Other manufacturers don't make computers as good. If they did, you'd have bought one of theirs by now instead of complaining about Apple's offerings.

That would be a reasonable conclusion if I could run macOS on these computers. If I could develop iOS apps on a Razer Blade without running a fragile Hackintosh setup, I would have ordered one already. (Plus a sticker to cover up the gross green logo.)

[lucaspiller]

Not sure why people are downvoting you, but yes you are right. That's the reason why so many people are frustrated about this. I don't want a "Dell XPS Pro" I want a Mac. I hope this model is just a stepping stone (apparently even the 13" has thermal support for current gen quad-core CPUs) for something a lot more powerful next year.

[eropple]

I downvoted him because PC manufacturers make really good laptops these days. It's not the days of hollow-body plastic things like the old Dell Studios (my last PC laptop, from about 2008). The world's caught up. I probably would already own a Razer Blade Pro if I wouldn't be embarrassed by that green thing on the lid. Sager makes really solid machines that feel good to use, too, and right now I'm strongly considering a Thinkpad P50.

Apple makes kind of above-average computers, and ones that fall down for current-day, up-to-date professional uses. They make a better operating system. The reason people are pissed is because Apple used to do both, and it's rapidly becoming the case that the lousy hardware and high prices aren't balancing out the operating system. If not for already being comfortable, it would probably be more effective for me to switch between Windows and Linux as necessary on PC hardware (both desktop and laptop) than to use OS X anywhere. That's why I'm probably going to have to switch, and that's why I'm kinda mad.

[chrischen]

https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/3ygjbg/estimated_...

Estimated battery life is quite bad for it. This is I'm assuming the base configuration with 16gb ram, so if you jack that up to 32 or 64, battery probably drops significantly more.

It's these details of actual use that drive me to apple, as I've tried thick, full of ports, jacked up laptops with touch screens and in practice they almost always never work well.

[scholia]

Dell XPS is a high-end consumer brand, like Apple. They can be used by professionals but they're not really pro designs.

Dell's professional brands are Latitude, OptiPlex and Precision. If you want a power-user workstation, you could have a look at the Precision line.

[PuffinBlue]

Sort of. If what you are doing is CPU bound then the Precision line has more options with their Xeon CPU.

But, if anything you do could even be mildly improved with GPU support you're better off looking elsewhere. Most of the precision line are on some old Quattro's which are simply annihilated but the new released GTX 10 series GPU's.

Most of the base line CPUs are the lower 6300HQ models too, rather than the 6700HQ you get in others like the XPS 15 line or nearly all of the gaming laptops now released, so you have to bump the price straight away to get comparable baseline performance on many other models.

I'm very much looking around at the moment for a new laptop as a MacBook Pro (2010) refugee and have looked at way too many to list here.

So do consider the Precision line but it's certainly not the 'best' one out there.

Incidentally, one of the best I've seen is actually the new Razer Blade (if you put a skin or cover over that horrible logo) or even the Alienware 13 with the OLED screen.

Whilst these are traditionally 'gaming' setups, the Razer Blade certainly has the style and form factor to mimic the MacBook and the Alienware with it's toned down styling looks far more like the business Dell's of yesteryear. The Alienware also has what almost all reviewers/users state to be an exceptional keyboard (something where the XPS line has not done so well).

As for upcoming models, the Q1 2017 release of the XPS 15 would most likely come with a GTX 1050 (unless they copy Razer and find some Vapour Chamber cooling magic and stick a GTX 1060 in there) and it'll also probably have one of the first of Intel's Kaby Lake quad core mobile series too.

So it may be worth waiting if you can to see what comes in the next few months as there is a MASSIVE amount of change occurring with Nvidia's new GPU and Intel's new CPU offerings.

[coderdude]

Well, I'm tired of an employee coming up to me and saying "this thing is going so slow" and it's just Firefox and some other things open. The hardware can't keep up with today's software demands. Whether it's a memory constraint or otherwise. Apple today doesn't "just work". It's not like I'm asking my employees to render the next Toy Story. We're talking emails and opening pages in a browser.

I now do all my work on a beefy box running Ubuntu, as I did prior to my last year's stint in trying Apple hardware full time. I'm transitioning who I can onto similar setups and moving away from the laptop-as-the-main-computer setup. They just aren't good enough for it.

[scholia]

> I'm transitioning who I can onto similar setups and moving away from the laptop-as-the-main-computer setup. They just aren't good enough for it.

Beefy desktops also have much better ergonomics (unless laptops are used on a riser with an external keyboard etc).

This should mean fewer computer-induced injuries and fewer courses of expensive physiotherapy in the future.

I've needed two courses, after foolishly working full-time on laptops. As a result, I've gone back to desktops. The superior performance, lower prices, and the fact that they last much longer are extra benefits...

[Veen]

> he hardware can't keep up with today's software demands

Another way of putting this: modern software is so bloated and poorly designed that it wastes massive amounts of memory and processor resources.

[coderdude]

If you've ever used Firefox this isn't lost on you. However, it's a pitiful defense for a $1500+ computer.

[rocky1138]

As primarily a web developer this wasn't the case for me, but now that I'm essentially all in on VR the problem has become acute.

For the first time in a decade I went out and built a desktop.

[sadfsdfsadfsd]

Because we have to take our work with us? To meetings, to workspaces, etc. And, we're willing to pay a premium for high power, high portability.

I could probably go buy a big workstation/gaming style pc laptop, but I'd rather pay more for a lightweight model.

[coderdude]

This was exactly what I was shooting for, myself. I needed something powerful but portable. Ultimately what I got was very portable but not very powerful. "Time to reboot!" should not be part of the daily routine.

[arvinsim]

False dichotomy. Why can't there be a middle ground?

[nicky0]

Laptop form factor fundamentally goes against high power computing. It's very inelegant and I can see why Apple doesn't want to do it.