[thomashobohm]

Have you seen any Windows laptops in the past five years? Many Windows ultrabooks rival Apple's in terms of "ports and bezels." The XPS 13, for example, has significantly thinner bezels than the MacBook Pro I'm typing this on, at a much more reasonable price.

[sneak]

Look at the external power supplies and the packaging thereof in the box to see the difference in ethos and approach.

Even these “nice” PC laptops still come with a PSU that has ugly plastic-coated white wraparound paper stickers and labels on the black cords with meaningless unimportant shit on them (leaving oily adhesive residue on the cord even if you cut it off), bricks in the middle of the cable (AC and DC lines out opposing ends), plastic twist ties, in plastic baggies covered in meaningless production stickers. Apple doesn’t even do that on the cheap AppleTV.

This is to say nothing of the ugly metallic stickers they slap on the wristrests to spam you for the life of the machine.

The janky plastic trackpads are one of many issues with the approach that most of the industry takes. There are very few machines that even remotely aspire the level of care Apple puts into their each and every product.

Apple also just overhauled the speaker system in the 16” rMBP, making it easily 50% better than any laptop I’ve ever heard. It’s startlingly good, sound I never thought I’d hear out of a laptop.

I’m at a place in life where I have broken my iMessage dependency and find KDE to be delightful; I would absolutely love to pay a premium for an equivalent quality PC laptop, but there aren’t any in the ballpark, even. There are ones that are merely “good” (Razer Blade), none “great” (though the Pixelbook Eve comes close!), and zero have ever been insanely so, AFAIK.

Happy to be corrected if I’m wrong!

[karatestomp]

> bricks in the middle of the cable (AC and DC lines out opposing ends)

Huh? That's a feature. Apple's are awful without the AC extension cord. They're way too short (with the packaged USBC cable) and they eat a couple outlets on a power strip, rather than one. Bricks that don't have both, or at least the option for both (as Apple's do, though last I saw the AC cord is an add-on these days while it used to be included, which is bullshit on a laptop that expensive) are inferior, unless they're very small and for a device rarely used very far from an outlet while plugged-in (the newer, small-style iPhone charger bricks are OK)

EDIT: in general though I agree that even "high end" PC laptops are so terrible that Apple can repeatedly fuck up and dawdle on upgrades and raise prices for years on end and still not really have any competition.

[chrisseaton]

Why do you need such a comically long power cable? I appreciate the compact nature of the Apple brick. I don't understand why you think they take up more than one outlet. It doesn't for me.

I mean it's just an absolute joke how ugly they are.

https://www.amazon.com/adapter-Dell-Precision-M4800-Serie/dp...

Why are they covered in so much writing that doesn't matter to me? Just have a discrete model number that I can look thing up from. Why are there so many icons? It's noise. Why do they have those massive ferrite cores on the cables? Twice even! Apple seem to manage without them. Why do they have those boots on the end of each cable? Apple manage without them.

Why are they so ugly?? Does nobody at Dell ever say 'hang on why are Apple able to do without all this _stuff_?'

[karatestomp]

> Why do you need such a comically long power cable?

The USB-C cable in the box is, what, one meter? That won't even reach through a cable-hole in a desk down to the floor. Maybe they've fixed it but I distinctly remember receiving a brand new MBP shortly after the all-USB-C shift that had a uselessly short included cable and no AC cord included.

> I appreciate the compact nature of the Apple brick. I don't understand why you think they take up more than one outlet.

If your power strip's ports are arranged sideways I guess it might be OK, though then they're prone to "tipping" out of the port if bumped. Otherwise they're definitely the length of two ports on a power strip, at least with US-style plugs. I don't understand how you could look at it and not think it takes up two since it just is for sure longer than one port, unless plugged into the one on the very end. And I'm looking at one for a 2014 Magsafe model right now—the ones on newer MacBooks are even larger (I have those, too)

[EDIT] even my iPad Pro charger is longer than one outlet and blocks the second, and it's smaller than any MacBook Pro or even Air brick I've seen.

[iphone_elegance]

Yeah mine comes unplugged constantly, barely fits in the wall on a power strip at the office we can barely fit two or three plugged in at once

I didn't know people actually liked them at least it pleases some people I guess

[asdff]

The big 96W ones come unplugged pretty easily from their weight alone. If you have an old house it won't even plug into the wall without falling out immediately. Less of an issue with the 61W, or if you get a GaN charger from another manufacturer.

[sneak]

The XPS 13 power supply is a pretty comprehensive Apple-esque ripoff (but in black), and doesn't have any of the stuff, so we know Dell is capable of it.

https://youtu.be/pRuDoJx8Rv4#t=22s

They did shit-up their included usb-c to usb-a adapter though with a pointless ugly hang tag. (To be fair, Apple doesn't give you one at all, but I'd rather buy a non-ugly one out of pocket than use the Dell included one for free.)

[bcrosby95]

> They did shit-up their included usb-c to usb-a adapter though with a pointless ugly hang tag.

Cut it off? I also read a comment in this thread complaining about the laptop coming with stickers on them. You realize you can remove this stuff, right? Or are we really that lazy?

[sneak]

I have a lot of hardware, so I have spent a lot of time doing precisely that.

Cutting off twist ties, removing those pointless little white HDPE condoms they put on the blades of the AC plug, plastic bags, more plastic bags, the sticky superthin protection plastic film that almost every china manufacturing plant puts on any shiny plastic flat surface, peeling keyboard stickers, carefully applying goo gone to remove the glue, then glass cleaner to remove the goo gone, cutting the stupid labels off of AC cords (being careful not to damage the cord in the process), et c.

You also have to be careful not to scratch the case with the metallic wrist rest stickers when removing them, as well, because the corners are sharp and the glue is serious so you have to pry them up with a tool. The large, ugly stickers on the bottom have important things like serial on them, so you can't remove those if you ever want your warranty to work (Apple, of course, laser etches the serial into the aluminum case in small type).

Why was any of that useless shit shipped to me in the first place, on a high end computer?

It's not about the hang tag, it's about a fundamental lack of empathy for the customer and their experience. That's the root cause, and it manifests itself as everything from building relatively decent computers and then shipping them with ugly accessories, to using plastic trackpads, to not pushing back against Intel's ugly marketing case sticker demands, et c et c et c ad nauseam.

It's like buying an $80k car and on delivery suddenly finding out it doesn't have keyless entry, or that the brand new key fob is shipped in one of those hand-slicingly-difficult wraparound plastic blister containers.

Come to think of it, the key fobs on high end cars shouldn't be made out of cheap plastic, either. A replacement one for my car cost me over $400 which I'm sure is all margin. Step up, hardware makers.

[karatestomp]

The stickers on PC laptops tend to require cleaning with solvents to remove all the goo. It's absurd one has to spend time removing ads and wrist-scratchers (some of the stickers are quite tall, as well) from the case of the computer one just paid for.

[chrisseaton]

Can you see how it’s user-hostile to put a sticker on my laptop and tell me it’s my job to take it off?

[DanBC]

> Why are they covered in so much writing that doesn't matter to me?

I don't get it. Just turn it over. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81I5aA2rwtL...

That cable may be ugly, but I know that the insulation isn't going to disintegrate within a year, which is a known problem with Apple's PVC-free devices.

[chrisseaton]

Why are people at Dell tolerating it being ugly? What is wrong with the company culture that nobody says - hang on that looks like garbage shall we fix it?

[DanBC]

From Dell I can buy a 30w charger for £11.63, or a 90w charger for £19.55.

From Apple I get just a mains lead for £19.95. Apple have 30w USB C charger (with mains plug) for £49, and all their other Mac chargers are £79.

The Apple chargers are nice, but I don't get the hostility to the Dell chargers. Why are people looking at the charger?

If we're talking about chargers, what's wrong with the company culture at Apple that nobody says - "hang on, why are we gently electrocuting our users? shall we fix it?"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12946673 (note this isn't just people using it in ungrounded outlets, there are UK users in that thread).

[likeclockwork]

Wow. I guess you can honestly criticize strain relief on cables if no Apple power cable has ever failed due to fraying.

[chrisseaton]

I've never experienced this.

[asdff]

In time, my friend. Every apple cable I've had has failed after a few years. Usually the sheath by the end will get squeezed off of the insulation and expose the wiring. Over time this gets damaged and eventually the cord stops working. Typically I would fix this with a layer of gaffer tape if I notice the cord starting to slip out of it's shielding.

There's also something about the wiring material that makes it prone to breaking the insulation at the mid point. Small pinches turn into a crack that becomes a gaping hole, and can also be a point of failure. Most of my old magsafe cables that have seen years of service look like zebras with all the black gaffer tape patches I've had to put on them, but they work at least.

Here are some images of this, it seemed to have become a serious issue when apple switched to that grippy rubber coating on their cabling:

https://www.mobilefun.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/...

https://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2012/10/FYGXC4BGR...

https://brokenapplecords.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/wave-3-...

This one isn't broken yet but showing some of the first symptoms:

https://i.insider.com/5cc1cac5d1a2f83ea64c99ea?width=1200&fo...

Inspect your apple cables once a month for any signs of damage or pulling at the ends. Until Apple changes the material for their wiring insulation and beefs up strain relief at both ends, it's not a matter of if your cable will fail, but when. You can prolong this with patches of gaffer tape, but it will look like hell.

[asdff]

I kinda love the apple charger situation. They never changed the long cord, so I have like half a dozen accumulated over the years tucked around my house, be it by the desk in a power strip or behind the couch in some hard to reach outlet. If I want to plug in, I just slap on the brick to the nearest convenient long cord, and there are plenty. If I am out and about, I'll throw the nub on the brick and tuck the whole thing in my sleeve. Then again with modern battery life, rarely do I need the charger when I'm out and about (nor is there much of that going on right now with the pandemic).

My biggest gripe, other than the lack of magsafe, is that they removed the cord wrapping arms from the brick. It really kept things tidy in the bag.

[seph-reed]

> This is to say nothing of the ugly metallic stickers they slap on the wristrests to spam you for the life of the machine.

What is up with these? I bought a Win laptop recently to test it out, and one of the first things that struck me at the store was that all of them had literal ads on the inside front of the lap top.

This might have just been Marketing team fucking it for everyone else, but my gut feeling was that any company that stoops that low is certainly not above severely cut corners.

[sneak]

I think Intel makes them do it, and it has become such a tradition/standard that everyone just expects their computer to have ugly-ass nearly-impossible-to-remove stickers there now. High end, low end, whatever. They all do it, and I think PC users have just tuned it out, like non-cordcutters with the 17 minutes per hour of commercials.

It’s utterly gross.

TBH, the lack of it was so surprising on the Pixelbook (Eve) that it caused me to take a longer/deeper look at the hardware, and it's actually top-notch. I own about 5 of them.

[DenseComet]

Is ChromeOS really enough for everything that you do? Or do you end up installing Linux applications?

[sneak]

ChromeOS runs a full linux in a VM, so I use that for stuff like signal-desktop. It also ships with docker. 99% of my daily tasks are chrome + zsh,docker,ssh,vim,go,python,git,syncthing.

I also just got the special closed case debugging orange cable that will let me reflash the bootloader (even the normally r/o parts) to turn them optionally into normal computers. I rather dig the security “guarantees” provided by ChromeOS but I also simply adore the design and build quality and screen and keyboard of the Eve, so I will probably do that to my 16GB/nvme one and put Gentoo hardened on it (all the others are 8GB/sata).

[DanBC]

> labels on the black cords with meaningless unimportant shit on them

Legally mandated in many regions, and Apple applies the stickers in those regions.

> This is to say nothing of the ugly metallic stickers they slap on the wristrests to spam you for the life of the machine.

I agree those stickers are ugly. I wish they'd stop putting them on. They're really easy to take off though.

[sneak]

No, not the large curved shiny ones that show the specs that you are expected to remove immediately after purchase.

The small square ones made out of little metal plates that are glued on there like there’s no tomorrow, the ones you are never intended to remove, like the intel one you’ve now seen so many times it’s invisible.

They’re anything but easy to remove: you have to pry them up with a tool like a spudger, being careful not to scratch the case with either the tool or the opposite edge of the metal plate, and then use a solvent to get the 0.5mm thick glue pad off the case, then use a cleaner to get the solvent off. Years back before I resolved to stop buying cheap plastic computers, some of the solvents I used to remove the glue actually permanently damaged the surface finish of the wrist rest.

Now I just don’t buy computers with ugly spam on them. I was impressed and amazed that my iPhone 11 actually has no writing whatsoever anywhere on the case, which is a regulatory feat I didn’t think was even possible (they put the required regulatory markings behind the info button on the pre-activation screen), and I think a first for the whole mobile phone industry.

[DanBC]

> The small square ones made out of little metal plates that are glued on there like there’s no tomorrow, the ones you are never intended to remove, like the intel one you’ve now seen so many times it’s invisible.

I've never had a problem removing those smaller rectangle stickers, and it's something I do to any computer I buy. For second hand computers there is a problem that you'll be left with a small discoloured patch.

> some of the solvents I used to remove the glue

A tiny drop of oil is usually good to get the glue off.

> Now I just don’t buy computers with ugly spam on them.

I definitely agree! I really do wish they'd stop using those stickers.

[thomashobohm]

You're wrong, I owned an XPS 13 before my MacBook and the power supply was small and well designed.

[Daneel_]

Thinkpads.

[foldr]

Which of the OP's points don't apply to thinkpads? The points about trackpads and speakers certainly apply.

[mdtusz]

ThinkPad speakers are terrible to the point of being basically unusable even in a quiet room for most video calls.

I can live without the trackpad (once you learn to love the trackpoint you'll never go back to a trackpad) but the speakers and display are the two lacking points. Even though it's a 1440p display, it just doesn't look as nice as a "retina" display and getting a 4k display on a 13" laptop is in my mind an absurd waste of battery and money.

[the_hoser]

The good ones aren't much more reasonable than a MacBook Pro. Premium laptops tend to cost the same no matter who makes them.

And most of them have shitty touchpads. Apple excepted, of course.

[thomashobohm]

That's not really accurate; a similarly specced XPS 13 is several hundred dollars cheaper than my laptop. But Apple is certainly winning the touchpad game, you're right about that.

[asdff]

You've proved his point. Similar spec with some components, but the Apple machine costs a few hundred more because other components are better than the XPS.

[foldr]

The XPS 13 isn't much cheaper than a MacBook Pro once you opt for the high res screen.

[thomashobohm]

Yeah, but almost nobody opts for the super high resolution display because the screen is so small that the difference is basically unnoticeable. A similar configuration to my laptop is several hundred dollars cheaper, and that's a not insignificant difference.

Edit: I owned both.

[ilikehurdles]

The high res screen is the reason I switched to macbooks after a lifetime of windows laptops in the first place. I still have and use my 2012 macbook pro retina which is about 6 more years of functional life than I've gotten out of any windows laptop, and it cost the same then as the base XPS 13 does now.

The prices between manufacturers aren't really all that different; but, if they happen to be important for you, Apple has a few features and components that others haven't been able to replicate at any price point, which is why paying the Apple tax is worth it to some.

[foldr]

The standard res screen on the XPS isn't high DPI at all. It's clearly inferior to a retina display for text and image rendering.

[thomashobohm]

I'm not going to engage in some arcane debate about the particularities of random windows laptops vs. apple ones. The fact is that there are comparable windows laptops at this point when it comes to "bezels and ports," in particular, but also when it comes to most things that make a laptop nice to use.

[foldr]

I was just responding to your claim that the difference between the standard res screen and the 4k screen is unnoticeable. There’s a very easily noticeable difference between them, and the retina display on the MacBook Pro is much closer in quality to the 4k display. So it doesn’t make sense to compare the price of an XPS with a standard res screen to the price of a MacBook Pro with a retina screen.

This is actually a paradigm example of Apple getting it right. Other manufacturers offer you a choice between a crappy low DPI display or an ultra high DPI display that drains your battery. Apple offer you a sensible compromise.

[jotm]

I'm so getting downvoted for this, but let me just say it: the iPhone IPS not-even-FullHD displays are sad. The exact same inferiority you mention, in reverse -_-

[read_if_gay_]

Why do you think "not-even-FullHD" is an issue if it passes the benchmark of not being able to see individual pixels? Higher resolutions than that aren't just pointless, they're counterproductive.

[Sangeppato]

The only important factor is Pixel density IMHO. And this is where Apple consistently get it right

[jotm]

I guess some people see better... I like 17 inch displays, and while 4K looks great, FullHD is better for actually working. Maybe my eyes are going bad...

[solarkraft]

> the screen is so small that the difference is basically unnoticeable

At the same scaling, maybe. But I use the high resolution display on my work-provided MacBook at 125%, which means a massive virtual screen estate gain.

[thomashobohm]

Presumably the vast majority of people are not going to want to scale their 13-inch display so that everything is significantly harder to read for the sake of increased screen real estate. But I'm glad that the MacBook works well for your specific use case.

I currently work on a MacBook Pro 13 and I switched from a XPS 13 with a 4k display. They're largely comparable, and the only difference I notice or care about is the OS. It seems that is how it is for most people.

[OJFord]

When I use other screens (including the iPhone SE I'm typing this on) the reason I struggle isn't lack of real estate, it's everything looking so massive and oddly hard to read because it's too big.

[thomashobohm]

Both iPhone SEs have retina displays?