[itake]

cost? if im dropping $3k on a machine, I don't really wanna pay another $2k in cloud fees to do the dev work.

you might say, "well get a cheaper computer!" but I find that cheaper computers have worse screens, battery life, and overall quality.

[swagonomixxx]

I don't want to be _too_ pedantic but the M1 macbooks are significantly cheaper than their Intel counterparts. The 13 inch one is around $1300 USD.

But I do agree with you. Cheaper laptops means a worse experience with almost everything.

[jsjohnst]

> I don't want to be _too_ pedantic but the M1 macbooks are significantly cheaper than their Intel counterparts.

The M1 MBP is about 15% cheaper, which I guess might be significant to some, but isn’t a huge selling point to me like you’re making it out to be. GP was talking about a 15/16” MBP at $3k, not the 13”.

[TheOperator]

Developers for the most part have or can look forward enough to enough income to make a tool like a mac relatively inexpensive. My biggest problem with buying them has been how absurdly bad the hardware has been for years other than the trackpad. The screensize/weight ratio, the screensize/body size ratio, the keyboards, and the performance were all well behind the competition. MacOS only running natively on bad hardware was a great reason not to use it, the fact they charged a $500+ premium on their software was really just another nail in the coffin. You had to need or fucking love MacOS to justify buying a mac.

How things change in a year or two. Pretty much only the weight/size relative to the screen size remains substandard and I expect them to improve on those fronts.

[jsjohnst]

> The screensize/weight ratio, the screensize/body size ratio

Based on HN comments, one of the most popular non-Apple laptops seems to be the Dell XPS.

XPS: via https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_lapto...

- 15.61”

- 4.14lbs

- overall dimensions 14.06 x 9.27 x 0.66in or about 86in^3

Apple 16” MBP: via Apple.com

- 16” screen

- 4.3lbs

- overall dimensions 14.09in x 9.68in x 0.64in or about 87.3in^3

—-

So weight/screensize ratio:

Dell = 0.27lb/in vs Apple = 0.27lb/in

Screensize/bodysize ratio (higher is better):

Dell = 92.7% coverage vs Apple = 93.6% coverage

So just using your first two arbitrary criteria, seems Apple’s 16” laptop is ahead of or tied with, but not “well behind”, this competitor.

I’m sure you can pull out some edge case laptop that beats it, but as the XPS is arguably the most popular non-Apple laptop among devs, I feel it’s fair to say the Apple laptop is definitively not “well behind the competition”, at least using your criteria.

For a laptop that’s <3oz heavier and only 1.3in^3 larger dimensions, you get a screen almost a half inch bigger, almost 20% larger battery, the worlds best trackpad, 8 core i9 vs a 6 core i7 processor, option to get 64gb ram rather than being limited to only 32gb, etc etc.

[TheOperator]

The 16" slipped my mind, that varient to me was the first "good" laptop apple released in years but they were pushing a dated 15" model not so long ago. This laptop had quite a bit of overheating issues to the point you can't even drive all the monitors it says it supports on the spec sheet off the iGPU anywhere close to comfortably.

The 13" models which I'm more interested in are more dated and more behind in terms of weight although the performance makes up for that. What truly stunned me a few years back was comparing a 13" MBA to a T480s and seeing Macs just get tied or crushed in pretty much any area that wasn't related to speaker quality or the trackpad. This laptop had an extra inch of screen space and an extra 2 cores and better input overall and higher memory support and way more ports and about the same battery life and the same weight and all this for substantially less money especially if you bought memory aftermarket. It was nothing short of a humiliation - and this wasn't even Lenovo's top product - Apple wasn't even competing with second rate products. I seriously wondered how Apple had fallen so far from the heyday of the MBPr and if it was just going to let the MacBooks decay into irrelevance.

I also would compare Apple to the X1 line, not the cheaper XPS line with a 32gb memory limit just because it's popular. I could compare Apple to Inspiron which is even more popular and Apple would be even further ahead. Hopefully Dell can make some good laptops one day.

[jsjohnst]

> This laptop had quite a bit of overheating issues to the point you can't even drive all the monitors it says it supports on the spec sheet off the iGPU anywhere close to comfortably.

Also, which laptop is this claim in reference to?

Personal experiences:

13” M1 MBP - one LG 5K display, zero heat or fan speed issues.

16” MBP - I daily drive two LG 5K monitors with no increased heat or fan speed. Prior to picking up the additional LG 5K, I used one LG 5K and two 27” Apple Thunderbolt displays.

15” MBP, with 4 TB3 ports: LG 5K and two 27” Apple TB displays all working without higher heat than w/o them connected

13” MBP, with 4 TB3 ports: same triple monitor setup, same no heat / fan speed issues.

15” rMBP (2015): used two 27” Apple Thunderbolt displays + two 34” ultrawide LG displays, no heat issues or fan issues

The only time I’ve ever seen my laptop stressed by connected monitors is when I did an experiment and connected NINE external displays (ten total screens, as laptop screen was still on) as a test to a 16” MBP to see if it could do it. If I’d had more TB monitors to test with, I think I could’ve done higher count.

Setup in that test:

TB3 port back left: LG 5K display

TB3 port front left: two 27” Apple Thunderbolt monitors daisy chained and using TB3->TB2 adapter

TB3 port back right: eGPU w/ AMD Radeon 580 card connected to two 34” LG ultrawides and two 27” Apple Cinema Display monitors (the older non-TB models)

TB3 port front right: same setup as left, two 27” Apple TB displays

Even then, it definitely wasn’t “overheating”, but processors did idle much higher and fans stayed on during idle (but not at high speed).

[jsjohnst]

I’m not going to continue doing your laptop buyers homework for you, but I just checked the T480 spec sheet[0]:

weight/screensize ratio: .25lb/in Screensize/bodysize: 86.9%

So definitely not way ahead either, actually behind the first two on one of your criteria.

Look, it’s obvious you have a bias against Apple, likely even a justified one. I have reasons I hate them too. But can we please not post baseless claims like you seem to be doing? I personally feel folks doing that are contributing to the huge backwards slide of content quality on the internet. If you want to say you prefer non-Apple laptops, that’s entirely fine, just don’t try to justify your decision with arbitrary ratios without actually running the numbers and seeing if Apple really is “far behind the competition” on those arbitrary criteria.

[0] - https://psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/PDF/datasheet/ThinkPad_...

[qz2]

I've got a stacked 64Gb Dell XPS 5550 and an ass end M1 MacBook Air. I'd rather use the Air any day.

But I'd rather just use my desktop M1 Mini than both. It has a 27" screen and a proper keyboard (Durgod K320) attached to it. All my shit is in AWS now.

[jsjohnst]

> I've got a stacked 64Gb Dell XPS 5550 and an ass end M1 MacBook Air. I'd rather use the Air any day.

I’ve got a 12 core 3.3ghz Xeon Mac Pro w/ 256gb RAM and a max spec 13” M1 MacBook Pro. Like you, I’d rather use the M1 unless the workload really needs the extra CPU cores/memory/Higher end GPU. Single thread, the M1 is faster. Even up to 8 cores, the M1 keeps pace with the much higher TDP CPUs.

Also, re: 64gb being an option on the X5550, it doesn’t surprise me doing a search for the spec sheet for a 15” Dell XPS didn’t include information that there was a X5500 and a higher spec X5550. Why make it easily discoverable for customers like Apple does?

[Kwpolska]

The M1 MacBook Pros are cheaper, because they replaced the cheapest Intel MacBook Pros in the lineup. Before M1, $1299 was the price of a MBP with 1.4GHz Quad-Core Processor with Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz / 256GB Storage / Touch Bar and Touch ID: http://web.archive.org/web/20201105002246/https://www.apple....