Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dantaro 1072 days ago
Hey there, author here, for me personally it's about the windowing and file explorer. I spent 6 months trying to get used to it at a job, and even bought a M1 Macbook Pro last year to try, but I just couldn't find any combination of plugins and programs that made it feel right. I know, it's not a great reason, and I have no hate for anyone who yums my yuck, but at the end of the day it's what stops me from using MacOS.
4 comments

> I know, it's not a great reason

I think it's perfectly valid reason. At the end of the day a laptop is a tool, and your experience using the tool trumps any intrisic quality of said tool.

I can relate, the main reason i do not use Mac's as personal device ( i have had some issue to me in my professional life) is MacOS. It always existed in a sort of middle ground that doesn't suits my needs : Doesn't have the broad compatibility with windows (in my case gaming, CPU/GPU and tools like intel vtune) and it's a unix, but close to enough to linux where most of professional work revolves around (lack of virtualization, not elf format support, native toolings are different etc... etc...)

The hardware is amazing, the price is great, but the software is just not for me.

And it's sucks, because the landscape of high-end windows laptop is just plain embarrassing. I am currently driving a surface pro 9 : Garbage battery life, runs hot on anything but web browsing and worst of the all the screen (120 Hz minds you) have HORRIBLE ghosting.

The only saving grace of windows laptops right now is that if one is patient there are some sweet sweet discount deals to be had.

Yeah. I don't understand why no one on the Windows side can fully catch up to Apple laptop hardware.
> I know, it's not a great reason,

Seems like a fairly valid reason. I used Windows for the first time since early XP recently (in a VM; wanted to check that an interview question was doable in it without undue pain). I was just astonished at how bad it felt, and couldn't wait to shut down the VM. It's unsurprising that others have the same thing in the other direction.

> I just couldn't find any combination of plugins and programs that made it feel right.

This: I recently moved to Linux. I was happy on Windows, because with the right combination of plugins and programs it felt just right + I could get everything I wanted hardware-wise.

Last time I checked, this is not possible on Mac. You get a good battery life, but I don't care about that - I'd rather have a Zen3 AMD but I'm happy with my current laptop.

With Linux, I don't have to fight my OS to get everything the way I want it to be, I can get a nice 4k OLED touchscreen on my Laptop with an internal LTE/5G module so I don't have to carry a phone just for getting online, etc.

BTW I use arch (lol) and I think I'll stay - mostly thanks to Arch because before that I didn't like Linux due to Ubuntu questionable choices that made me prefer Windows before.

BTW you said " I don't have the 5G enabled version as it wasn't available when I bought mine, which I do regret, but if it's even half as good as it is on the SPX then it'll be totally fine. "

If you want to help to make 5G work, get in touch. I'd need to know if you have internal WWAN antennas- if not, you can add them. It's just about installing a M2 module. At the same time, you can replace the current 512G NVMe by a 2T like from Sabrent or WD SN730 (though the latter has some firmware issues when using ZFS due to the power states)

Hey, that's be really interesting to see. I haven't opened up my x13s yet, but I'll do that soon. In the middle of a move, so I'm not sure what box the tools are in, but once I find them I'll let you know :)