[micaksica]

Your story resonated with me because I had the same experiences with a 12” MacBook.

While I can’t really use you as an example, since you kind of need a Mac for a lot of the work you do specifically, I’ve heard the same complaints about Apple hardware from other long-time Mac users that don’t actually need to have a Mac.

I am curious how many of those of us that don’t need macOS day to day have voted with their wallet away from Apple’s pro line, and what they switched to. I still use a mid-2014 MacBook Pro at work, but at home when it was time to upgrade I took the same path you did and went for the 12” MacBook. It sucked in every way.

Now I’m the owner of a Dell XPS, the supposed most Mac-like PC, and I’m simply stuck with another set of problems: it’s developed a great amount of coil whine, thermal management is spotty to say the least, and the sound card drivers have to be reinstalled every few reboots else it will not detect when I have plugged or unplugged headphones, which has me carrying around a USB DAC. When I need macOS, I’m still running High Sierra on a quad-core Mac Mini server from 2011.

The sad thing is that I don’t think there is a good option at this point. All of the “alternatives” to the MacBook contain their own faults.

[Vanit]

Also migrated to a Dell XPS 15 as new Macs stopped exciting me.

No coil whine in mine, but it was hell finding just the right bios version so sleep would work. And if you don't use a specific Intel you driver version you get screen flicker. Le sigh.

[madeofpalk]

Hey, but at least your computer is exciting now, right?

[TrickyRick]

For all it's faults, the MacBook Pro is still the best computer for what I do, as someone who doesn't have to use a Mac. macOS being a big factor in favor of it.

[FabHK]

Sure, I also bought the MBP, but for the first time in a decade I bought an Apple product grudgingly, getting it not because it's the best machine at a reasonable price, but because switching would be too expensive.

The MacBook Air was a great little nifty machine, powerful enough for my (modest) needs. The MBP is expensive (even the "cheap" "Escape key" edition) with a finicky keyboard and 3h battery life if you actually use the CPU.

[untog]

I was very jealous reading about the announcement of the Surface Book 2 yesterday. I suspect it will be the ultimate as far as Windows laptops are concerned.

Sadly, iOS development is part of my work, so I'm stuck with Apple. I'm dreading the next laptop 'upgrade' I get.

[mswiss]

I did the same as you and migrated away. I was looking at the XPS and ended up going with the Razer Blade Stealth. What's actually surprised me most is how much I enjoy having a touch screen. I could see checking out the new surface pro 2 at some point now.

The other huge thing that surprised me was how easy development is becoming with the new Windows Linux Subsystem. The only thing i haven't gotten to play nicely with it is Postgres, but I just set it up in windows and have the wls connect to it and I'm on my way.

[CoolGuySteve]

I switched to an Asus UX305 with Ubuntu a couple years ago for the matte screen and the fact that it has no fans. No complaints so far.

[wingworks]

That's the thing, even if I wanted to there is nowhere to go to but Apple, the closest I've seen is a Dell XPS or one of the MS Surface models, but they seem to have there own problems, not to mention I heavily use the Mac trackpad and the gestures, which I've yet to see so well done on a Windows laptop :(

[KGIII]

I am quite fond of the mobile workstations from Titan. They are a bit heftier, but I'm okay with that. You can customize them into real beasts.

[bitexploder]

I am going to give the Dell Precision 7520 a whirl. Xeon processor. ECC RAM. No mic/camera. Full size keyboard. Decent discrete graphics. Comes with Ubuntu.