[samatman]

> But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU.

People love to say this without linking to a model. That's because the models in this price range are obviously not in the same weight class as a MacBook.

Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... literal-minded Hacker News commenters will understand what I mean, but let's start there.

[HumblyTossed]

Lenovo Ideapad 5 Pro 14" 14ACN6. Got one at Costco over a year ago for around $700US. Runs Pop_OS! really well.

Weight is very much light enough for me.

Edit: There is one downside I found. I replaced the 512GB SSD with 1TB and nearly needed stitches because the bottom plate was so sharp. Oh and I just looked it up, it's listed at 3.04lbs

[moolcool]

A big factor is how these machines age too, though. 4 years ago the 2020 M1 Macbook Air dropped, and it's still a fantastic computer today. On the other hand, I don't think I would enjoy using a 4 year old Lenovo Ideapad today

[ftrobro]

I'm still using this beautiful 12 year old Samsung series 9 laptop. Unlike my 9 year old Macbook it still receives official security updates (Win 10) and can run any new application (Xcode refuses to install on the Macbook, too old).

https://www.theverge.com/2012/7/16/3160289/samsung-series-9-...

[Moldoteck]

can't you install linux on an older mac? (similar to how you installed win 10 on a 12 yr old laptop) for newer m1+ macs we still don't know the max age support

[ftrobro]

I probably can install Linux, but I'm fairly certain Xcode would still refuse to install... The upgrade from Win 7 to 10 was seamless, replacing MacOS with Linux would be like replacing the computer.

[HumblyTossed]

Why not? It benchmarks really good:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+5+5600U&i...

Here's the M1:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Apple+M1+8+Core+320...

[moolcool]

I'm just thinking more in terms of hardware. Trackpad, keyboard, display, hinges, ports, support, battery life-- all of those (in my experience) tend to either be poor out of the box or decay rapidly for many machines. I've used an "enterprise" HP laptop that's just a couple years old recently-- the battery is totally cooked and it feels like it's made out of takeout containers.

[HumblyTossed]

I'm a year and a half in and everything is running smooth. I still get a full workday out of the battery - and that's using Linux. That's plenty for me. It opens smooth. The keyboard is good - no deck flex. The screen is fine - even at only 300nits I don't need it brighter as I don't work in bright areas.

I really really don't see how this won't last another 2 and half years or even more.

[lelandbatey]

Eh, I've been using a Dell Inspiron (the ones with aluminum chassis) since 2019. I've been using a 13 inch Dell model of the same type since 2016. They're great quality, great track pad (actual clicking, instead of haptic garbage of the MacBook) and quite reliable. I say this as someone who also owns and uses an M1 Air, and uses a 2019 MBP and a 2023 M1 for work.

Apple isn't the only one making great machines that're nice to hold and nice to use.

[JonChesterfield]

A 4 year old Lenovo is an eight core Ryzen with 32gb memory. Battery still lasts a day. I'm not sure there's anything significantly better available yet.

[Moldoteck]

is a day a figure of speech or?

[JonChesterfield]

I charge it overnight and usually leave it unplugged for the day. It's rare for the laptop to give out before I do. T14s gen 1.

Ymmv. I got the low power screen instead of a touch screen and it spends most of the day rendering Emacs from a server elsewhere.

Browsers and local compile&run probably comes in around six hours. Some very cheap external monitors bring the runtime down to a couple of hours.

[King1st]

I have a Thinkpad T480 from 2018, bought it last year for $100. Peoples needs in a laptop are far lower than marketers would have you believe. Where as many M1 macs users are finding their laptops a struggle to do basic tasks. I use it for programming, 7 hours battery life with hot swappable battery. My fan spins up less often than the Apple silicon pros in the office which is nice because I hate fan noise.

[itsoktocry]

>I don't think I would enjoy using a 4 year old Lenovo Ideapad today

Why not? I have a M1 Max supplied by my employer, and it's awesome. But guess what I use as my daily driver? An old t450s, running Ubuntu. Does everything I need, I can fix and replace anything in it (including the battery), and the keyboard is awesome. I think it's 10 years old.

I mean, for most of the work I do my computer is just a client anyway.

[uticus]

Dell Latitude 5400, i5-8265U [0], 14" matte screen. Bought refurbished, self-upgraded to 32GB and 1TB M2 PCI SSD with about 10 mins worth of work.

Currently running Firefox (14 tabs), LibreOffice Calc (spreadsheet), LibreOffice Writer (word processor), 3 WebStorm project windows (JetBrains JavaScript IDE), Kitty (terminal emulator), on Arch Linux w/Gnome (Wayland). No fans running, about 6 hrs battery life on WiFi being productive. Around 3.4 lbs, so maybe a little heavy for a 14" machine. But the extra 0.x lbs is worth it.

Total cost under $600, been using as daily driver and dev machine for about 4 years now. Handles VMs, containers, whatever with no fuss. Parts are easy to source, easy to find repair helf for, and not too bad to replace. Spends about half it's life plugged into an external 42" 4K monitor, I get 30 FPS but that is just fine for everything I do. Point being, it handles fancy external display just fine. And that's with integrated graphics.

It's not a fancy computer. Fellow nerds sneer at it. I have people wonder at the fact that I do so much with like the same Dell that their non-tech acquaintances bought at WalMart or Costco or maybe second hand off Facebook, but this thing just works. I don't care if it breaks, or if I drop it, or if I spill something on it. The cost for replacing or upgrading is easily justified by ease of doing so - plus the money that has been saved by not getting a higher-priced machine. It is silent during web browsing and most day-to-day tasks.

[paulmd]

Literal skylake processor is not in the same performance class as M3 no matter what you tell yourself. The battery life alone is literally an order of magnitude different.

Just like OP said, this is not really a comparable machine. It’s fine if it meets your needs, but the apple is also a better machine and you shouldn’t dump on people for acknowledging this reality.

[uticus]

> not in the same performance class...it's fine if it meets your needs...the apple is also a better machine

all responses here have been along the lines of 'i have x many tabs open no problem. i develop y no problem. i use z containers no problem.' i tried to mirror that, in my response. sounds like the same class for most people in this thread by real usage, if not same performance class by benchmarking.

> you shouldn't dump on people for acknowledging this reality

sorry if i burst the bubble a little, if you excuse me i'll get back to being as productive as the other people crowing about the machine - possibly more so because I've spent the remaining $700-$2200 on other things that boost my productivity.

[paulmd]

> sorry if i burst the bubble a little

Pfft. Okay. I wonder if there’s a name for this kind of reaction, “door slamming”?

Normally it behooves you to be in the right when you do it.

[miggol]

Hello, laptop buddy!! Paid more than $700 in euros for it two years ago though. Can totally relate to the sharpness, but otherwise still very happy with it. Had to patch my ACPI to nuke S0 and get decent S3 suspend though. Did they ever patch that with firmware?

[HumblyTossed]

I recall doing this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Lenovo/comments/zq3tc5/how_to_disab...

And it worked for me.

[bowsamic]

> Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... literal-minded Hacker News commenters will understand what I mean, but let's start there.

Just don't ever use a metaphor on Hacker News. People will always misinterpret it

[fennecbutt]

People don't think about sports or boxing etc in the context of talking about laptops, and some people here speak English as a second or third or more language.

But no, let's be snarky about HN peeps being literal and misinterpreting things.

[bowsamic]

I agree, let’s do that. Thanks for saying it

[dividedbyzero]

> Just don't ever use a metaphor on Hacker News. People will always misinterpret it

I've always wondered why that is. No other community I'm active in insists so much on explicitly spelling out everything and very literal language – most will actually reward playing with language, if done well. Writing as if targeting Commander Data seems to work quite well though.

[bowsamic]

This might come off as projection, but in my experience, HN has a lot of people who pride themselves on their rationality, and part of this is giving off the image of never joking and always being serious. You can see this when people get mass downvoted for making jokes, which is also uncommon in other programming communities. Somehow this often spills over into metaphors as well as jokes. I think that jokes and metaphors are quite similar in that regard, both not to be taken totally seriously and/or literally. The HN insistence of being above jokes inevitably leads to being above metaphors.

[e63f67dd-065b]

Tech is known for being international, and even in the US is staffed with a lot of foreign-born labour. I don't find it surprising that a community with a high amount of non-native speakers sometimes misinterprets metaphors.

[silisili]

It's just not a good metaphor in this case, where weight is an actual determining factor. In boxing, weight class is literally your weight, saying nothing of your power.

League or class would have probably been better here.

[wfhBrian]

The other issue with linking is that the "best" in the windows market is that it's heavily dependent on current promotions. It's easy to find windows laptops discounted >20% which really throws off the direct comparisons at retail prices.

[johnnyanmac]

>That's because the models in this price range are obviously not in the same weight class as a MacBook.

Hard to be when other oems need to profit from hardware and pay windows/Intel/Nvidia/etc. For using their parts. But the upside is that those companies want to make repairs/upgrades easy for themselves, which in turn makes them easy for the saavy consumer to do.

Apple just metaphorically throws out a MacBook at the slightest inconvenience, they don't even bother trying to fix their own devices.

[dividedbyzero]

> But the upside is that those companies want to make repairs/upgrades easy for themselves, which in turn makes them easy for the saavy consumer to do.

Do they? At least for the slimmer models, I was under the impression most have copied Apple and transitioned to soldering and gluing everything into an unserviceable mess.

[johnnyanmac]

>I was under the impression most have copied Apple and transitioned to soldering and gluing everything into an unserviceable mess

ultrabooks, yes. everything is so crammed and specs are relatively low, so you're mostly stuck with what comes in the machine.

Most other laptops (the "pro" competitors) tend to not do that. There's no good reason for an OEM to do that if they aren't optimizing for some sub 4lb laptop.

[bombcar]

It's part of the reason Apple has so few SKUs compared to others, because everything is conjoined; Dell will have five SKUs that are identical except two removable pieces (RAM and SSD) are varying sizes.

[justinclift]

Personally, I'm ok with getting 2nd hand business grade models off Ebay. They're generally pretty good (and cheap).

But a lot of people (especially the less technically inclined) will only buy brand new, which I think is for safety.

Anyway, 2nd hand laptops on Ebay can be both really good and in that price range. :)

[gnicholas]

I'm not sure it makes sense to compare new laptops with used laptops, especially since the latter generally don't come with any sort of warranty. And when you're buying off ebay (and can't inspect beforehand, like with craigslist/nextdoor), you don't even know for sure if it will work on day 1.

[samatman]

> not sure it makes sense to compare new laptops with used laptops

It of course makes no sense at all. For any given laptop, you can also buy it used. Including MacBooks, believe it or not. It's a way of puffing up a comparison when the person making it knows the comparison doesn't stand on its own.

[justinclift]

Yeah, I'm kind of 50/50 about comparing them for the purposes of this conversation too.

In practical terms though, when I'm looking for a new laptop I do check both pricing of new and what's on Ebay. Sometimes I'll go with the new thing, and other times I'll get the Ebay thing, depending on the situation.

[bombcar]

I always keep an eye on those, but certified refurbished from manufacturers (whether Apple or Dell or HP, etc) are really good deals, quite often, and a known quantity.

I've no problem buying certified refurbished for work, whereas for home eBay off-lease is more acceptable because I know it's me dealing with issues if they crop up.

[gnicholas]

Yeah, I've bought refurb Apple devices from Apple, partly because they're always in pristine cosmetic condition, but mostly because you can buy AppleCare for them just as if they were new.

[jwagenet]

I think for the general public this is a reasonable comparison, since the performance is good enough for most things on a 2 year old eng pc for less than half the msrp. I would expect most corporate refurbs on eBay to be moderately reputable, and eBay is know to be consumer friendly.

[WesleyLivesay]

Shouldn't you then compare it to a 2 year old Air? They seem to be in the $600-$700 range on eBay.

[bombcar]

You can get a refurbished Air direct from Apple for $749. Cheaper from other places online.

[justinclift]

Probably a good comparison point as well. :)

[gnicholas]

I would consider buying a used computer from a person, if I could test it in advance. I don't think I'd ever buy a computer sight-unseen off ebay. They may be customer friendly on balance, but they're unpredictable enough that I wouldn't want to spend that kind of cash and risk being completely screwed.

[janalsncm]

> I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class"

I think “class” is the term you’re looking for. Or ballpark.

[silisili]

Are we talking weight class as in weight or performance?

I find the Acer Chromebook Spin 714 'in the weight class' with about the same weight, but with a less performant CPU and not as high res screen. It's also 8/256, has good battery life, and is fine for a lot of workloads. It can be had for $400ish factory recertified, or 100-200 more new brand new depending on sales.

Keep in mind I'm not saying that the two go toe to toe here, I'm just listing a lightweight alternative.

[NotSammyHagar]

This is an excellent laptop, I've found it to be great. Plenty of people can't stand chromeos, but you can run linux in vm mode, I find the ability to have a safe env but run any x / linux apps natively makes for a very compelling combo. You can run emacs, any x-windows software like dev tools natively. I also like the ability to run android apps - with the limitation that some app disallow running them unless they are on a 'native' phone; over time it seems more and more mainstream apps allow this.

[silisili]

Yep same. I wanted a cheap decent laptop for when I'm traveling, which isn't often, so didn't want or need best of the best. It dawned on me I spend about all my time on the web, in vs code, or on the command line. With their Linux VM setup I can install about anything, and it both installs and runs as if it were a native app. Perfect for my use case, at least.

I'm not a huge fan of the ChromeOS UI and whatnot, but spend very little time interacting with it or Gnome on my main machine, so it's fine enough.

[michaelcampbell]

> not in the same weight class as a MacBook

Which might not be a consideration whatsoever. It isn't for me; I bring my laptop to the office, or from the office, and am never using it where weight makes one bit of difference.

[n42]

“Weight class” as in “League”, not weight

[BHSPitMonkey]

Commuting to/from an office is usually a prime example of when a laptop's weight would matter.

[michaelcampbell]

Again, not for me. I throw it in a backpack and because I'm in the US without good public transport, the distance I carry it is precisely from my house to my car (25'), then from the parking garage to the office.

I "carry" it maybe a total of 3 minutes. The weight is literally not an issue for me.

I get it can be for others, but not EVERYONE.

[dividedbyzero]

Commutes can be very different, too. Someone who walks and uses public transport will feel differently about the weight of their laptop than someone who just has to lug theirs to their car and across the parking lot. Same with travel: Flying with just a carry-on bag and crossing big airports on foot makes lightweight laptops a lot more attractive.

[theultdev]

Speaking for myself, weight and battery life are the two most important factors for a portable.

I mainly use a desktop if I'm at home or the office.

I only use a laptop occasionally in bed or heavily when traveling.

[Our_Benefactors]

The term you’re looking for is “caliber”, since many will interpret “weight class” to mean the actual weight of the laptop.

[ecopoesis]

> “caliber”

What are you talking about? Laptops aren't even round.</literal>

[paulmd]

also, there isn’t even a barrel let alone any sort of rifling? So how could we conceivably measure laptops in terms of barrel length if there’s no diameter or length?

I just don’t see the metaphor here /s

[switch007]

> People love to say this without linking to a model

Because they all have a crap screens (1920x1080) and bad battery life and we would point it out lol

[rfoo]

> same weight class as a MacBook

Except that there are plenty? As long as you avoid Dell it's easy to find a good deal.

Oh, and I prefer plastic. Aluminum adds weight for nothing.

[konart]

Why not just name a few with links to benchmarks, temperature and battery profile etc?

[jiqiren]

lol reply guy didn't leave a model name either...