I honestly will never understand why people buy macbooks.
Number of reasons. Works well with Apple products, long battery life, way more powerful for most normal (sometimes applies to even some basic UI devs and small project video editing). It’s got great hardware. However Apple is a nightmare capitalist company that’ll try to dime and nickel you for every possible thing.
Unified memory. On a current gen Mac work station you can functionally have 512GB of VRAM for AI tasks for under $10k. Good luck getting anywhere close with Nvidia or AMD.
They’re also idiot proof, when I fuck up my CUDA drivers sending me down a 4-hour-long hunt for improperly installed visual studio files, a part of me is envious of Mac owners who will never know my pain.
People pay for the simplicity.
They’re also idiot proof
Real reason right here. They want a machine that essentially protects them from themselves. It’s also why Chromebooks are so wildly popular in US schools; the kids can’t fuck up the software.
Honestly, I’d love a cost equivalent laptop in could put Linux on in Europe, but for the money the MacBook Air is just really hard to beat
I get the hate that goes Lenovo’s way but I’ve had a 2022 P1 Gen5 since launch and I’ve absolutely kicked the living shit out of it and it keeps keeping on. Don’t regret it.
Ah yes, great post in the year 2010 when thinkpads weren’t complete crap, yet.
My work gave me an HP piece of crap laptop, I’d rather have a MacBook.
HP consumer equipment is pretty trash to be honest. Even their “business” models. Servers are solid though.
I can’t stand Lenovo due to their Fn and CTRL key swapping places, dell is my go to for last 10 years.
They went back to the correct layout on newer models
Damage was done. I don’t use Lenovo anymore.
you can swap their locations on bioslevel and never think about it again (unless one of your colleagues actually reads the labels, gets it wromg and you have to explain it to them)
I know, but I don’t want to have to. Why can’t they just match every other keyboard I’ve used my whole life? Wouldn’t cost them anything, in fact I’d argue it was more effort to put a bios setting for it. CTRL is always bottom left key, no question. This is akin to changing homerow keys and telling you how to fix it in bios although the keys will still physically not match. Just wasted energy.
Using a generator to power a computer is a really bad idea. You’ll significantly shorten the lifespan of the power supply. Ask me how I know.
Yea man, you need an inverter generator for that. Thankfully small inverter generators are very affordable these days.
Best power yours off solar then, cos everything else is generators.
Ask me how I know.
Ok. How?
<airplane>By typing the question in the comment box, but that’s not important right now</ariplane>
I ran a full sized office photo copier off a generator once, it ran fine, but you could really hear the engine chugging when the fuser started to heat up.
I’m trying to figure this out at the moment.
What is the best way to power a laptop in an off-grid setup? Mine will be primarily solar + AGM battery.
I think the simplest “just works” set up is to get a “pure sine” inverter and go:
solar > battery > inverter > power supp > laptop
The thing is, if I understand correctly you have a big inefficient inverter to AC only to transform back to DC, with the only benefit being that the plug fits in the socket.
I’m curious to know how a generator ruins a power supply? Is it something to do with the arcane sine wave magic from the inverter?
The “best” would be some kind of DC to DC converter, but I’m not sure there’s anything plug and play atm because there’s a wide range of specs laptops want. If your laptop happens to change with USB c PD or whatever the spec is that’d be the most efficient that I’m aware of. No sense in going dc->ac->dc if it can be helped.
The “best” would be some kind of DC to DC converter
No sense in going dc->ac->dc if it can be helped.
Most laptop chargers can actually run on DC, and with as little as 48 volts. Here is a german guy demonstrating it. So if your battery bank runs on 48 volts, I think you might be able to just connect it directly to the input of a laptop charger and it will work.
But why would it? Is the output not voltage controlled?
I’m guessing the cheaper ones don’t have sine-wave inverters (they use a dressed up square wave which can be produced by purely digital electronics) so quality of the output waveform is bad. The power supply of the laptop (or PC) ends up having to work harder to cut out the extraneous bits of the waveform (that is it’s job) but all that extra crap is just turned into heat. Laptop PSUs are small , so have less heat dissipation and likely aren’t built for this. The ideal use case for these cheap inverters are purely resistive loads (like heaters) but even some less sophisticated electronics would probably be fine. Computer however, are generally designed for clean power.
If it’s a sine-wave inverters and the generator is working properly then idk why it would matter.
Use an inverter-controlled one and you’ll be fine. Our emergency communications shelter runs off one of those just fine, with a cheap offline UPS in there.
Yes, those that control frequency using the engine rpm aren’t that great for most switching power supplies.
Oh shit, you just made me realize when I get my first pay check I should really invest in a decent UPS. I had to sell my old one before moving state lines to condense space.
I hope they used the official Apple cleaning cloth that’s certified compatible with that model of MacBook
You mean the iRag?
Is that little red thing a dead body?
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/saddam-husseins-hiding-place and a word-play on Iraq.
Thanks, I needed these references. That was enjoyable.
Saddam Hussein
Comes as part of the iRack.
Oh you crafty SOB.
Bravo… sneaky bastard
Apple Cleaning Cloth Pro, coming this October
Normal: too small size to be useful, have apple logo
Pro: super expensive, includes 6 gallons of cleaning fluids, is enormous, logo in gold
Actual gold, so it actively scratches your device; Apple Support blames you for it.
Well maybe you were cleaning it wrong
Also now you have to buy a special cloth from Apple to clean the gold logo on the Offical Apple MacBook Cleaning Cloth Pro without scratching it.
(It’s cleaning cloths all the way down!)
ah, remember the time that Lenovo shipped spyware in the UEFI of Thinkpads?
Some context…
For one, it wasn’t spyware, it was UEFI that, if a user had admin/root privilege, they could modify the firmware despite signinging procedures that should have prevented that. There was no spyware, there was no root kit, there was a vulnerability.
For another:
IdeaPads, Legion gaming devices, and both Flex and Yoga laptops.
Technically it never touched the ThinkPads. Despite some areas where things blur, ThinkPad is still relatively independent of the rest of the product line. While I may not think Lenovo is trying to actively spy on their consumer brands, they do screw up enough that I wouldn’t want to touch them (not just security, they cut too many corners in general).
sterileness is the aesthetic of rulers
Apple: The Gucci of the tech world.
I dunno man, I’ve made it a point of pride to be rough with my Macbook over the years. They hold up well to repeated beatings and last a long time. I’d rate my 2017 Macbook Pro as hardier than the Thinkpad X1 Carbon I had as a company computer for my last job. And the MacBook might have been cheaper new too.
It really is. I once dated a girl that would rip on me for having a Samsung. She said she needed an iPhone for work cause she takes a lot of pics and uses socials a lot. She couldn’t fathom that my Samsung could do all of that and arguably more
needed an iPhone for work cause she takes a lot of pics
She takes a lot of pictures…so she needed a worse camera?
Whoa, I dislike iPhones for plenty of reasons, but the cameras are consistently among the best. Maybe not spec wise, and you can complain about post processing all you want. But to an average user that’s just clicking the shutter they turn out great.
Oh they’re by no means bad cameras, it’s just that in my experience Samsung cameras tend to be the best, as far as phones go. My wife has a fancy DSLR that just collects dust because her phone camera blows it out of the water (meanwhile there’s me with my Motorola that I quite like, but the camera is a potato)
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Her problem was that her fans would then see a Samsung phone in the social pics, instead of the seasonal variety ornament that is the iPhone.
Not sure if it’s changed by now but a lot of the social apps for Android would just take a screen grab when taking a picture, so when uploading from Android the pics looked much worse than iPhone.
Apple vs Samsung aside, she wasn’t concerned with using her own phone for work?
Why would this concern anyone?
ThinkPad is a work tool. MacBook is a fashion statement.
Not where I work. My thinkpad is managed by the understaffed IT department, and is severely crippled by clownstrike and other garbage and bloatware. Linux is not allowed, only windows.
But my colleagues who chose a MacBook don’t have all that crap because said IT department haven’t figured out how to remotely manage Macs yet…
It was sad when my work figured out how to lock down the Mac’s. It’s not too restrictive, but it’s more than nothing.
Yeah, the firmware lock is some crazy bullshit. My old job was dissolved which means I get to have a perfectly usable iMac but… oh wait. I can’t do anything with it because of the firmware lock and I can’t return it because the company literally shuttered. So, I keep it for the day that MAYBE I will be able to use it. LOL
I mean, if it was a computer that your job gave you to do your job, they have every right to lock it down.
Now, unlocking it when the company dissolves is another story.
Maybe go butter up one of the old IT guys for the password.
I was only there for two months before they shuttered, unfortunately, so I was not able to meet many of those. It didn’t help with that matter that it was completely remote work. :(
My MacBook survived after I left it on top of my car as I drove off. It was flung off into a pedestrian area at the first intersection and has a nice dent on the corner.
It’s so funny to see how macbooks are either super durable, or die from the smallest dust particles. My dad’s macbook fell down 3 flights of stairs, and embedded itself into the wood floor boards at the bottom floor. There’s not even a scratch on it even though if fell from pretty high up.
And my mother’s macbook dies every year because dust ends up in between the display cable which then punctures it when the lid is closed
That’s Apple engineering for you: 60 percent of the time it works every time. I grew up with Apple products and the company’s history is lined with head-scratching design choices. It’s been like that since the Lisa.
I like repairable, self-built desktop PCs myself. But for work, the MacBook has been a tank.
Lol I drove at least a mile with my Thinkpad on top of the car. Some dude next to me at a stop light honking and miming saved me. Got up to 40mph with it still on top though!
Also did this with my cell phone and numerous water bottles. I really need to stop considering the roof a viable temporary storage location.
I gave my old macbook air to my kid for Minecraft and he dropped it several times, still just fine with no problems. Also my 10 year old macbook pro still works perfectly fine with a quad core i7 and 16GB RAM for anything I need a laptop to do. Still has the original battery with decent runtime too.
Never regretted a purchase more than my macbook after visiting their subreddits.
I bought a MacBook Pro in 2011 to play games when I’m not at home (installed Windows on it) and it still works amazingly to this day. I did swap the DVD drive out for a solid state drive and increased the RAM to 16GB. It lasts 1.6 playthroughs of Beetlejuice on maximum brightness on the original battery… but the battery only has like 26 cycles cuz I always had it plugged in.
Zero regrets.
I got a MacBook for free and I regretted even that. Someone spent money on it, what a waste, even if it wasn’t me. I have a refurbished ThinkPad now and I love that one.
That’s all I’ll buy laptop wise. I’d be a fool to buy a new laptop for my use case.
Give me an off lease Thinkpad with no SSD
I’ll furnish my own drive and OS.
I thought of getting a laptop from tuxedocomputers, the original reason I got a mac was I was fed up with windows, my last laptop was toast, and needed something asap, that i didn’t need a time investment to use since uni courses were starting soon. Learning there’s a company that makes fair priced, built for linux machines with their own distro, that now seems like the perfect device for me.
The one good thing about macs is they don’t loose that much value, so I can resell it and buy something other than a mac
Idk how scratch-prone the post-touchbar models are, but I’ve had a series of MBPs that I’ve been profoundly uncareful with and never had a problem.
Used a 2009 model until 2016, no scratches. 2016 model that I use to this very day, no scratches. 2017 I used for work until 2019, I ran it across an exposed screw-tip on a broken desk and it left a line you could see if you held it just right to reflect a light, but I can’t imagine anything shrugging that off. 2019 model I used for work until a month ago, no scratches.
Meanwhile, the other devices that have coexisted in the same backpack have not done as well. Dented USB hub, dented dock, broken screen on an Android device, shattered screen protector on another device.
Edit: That said, I did just buy a Thinkpad to derp around with NixOS on, so I can compare and report back in a couple of years if anyone wants.
ThinkPads do scratch, but they are ugly from factory so that no one has to be anxious about it. That’s the beauty of it. They also are very prone to collect finger smudges with their strange plastic soft coating. Very hard to clean even with detergent. I would know because I am a freak about keeping my laptop clean, and I can tell you from all the ThinkPads have used in the past 10 years that you will touch them the first time taking them out of the box and they will never look clean ever again.
there’s a specific technology you can look for when buying a phone. this is not an apple/android phone issue. many mid and high end phones have the same anti-scratch technology apple uses. you’re looking for the latest version of corning’s ‘gorilla glass’ product. honestly anything made with ‘victus’ or newer is kind of ridiculously hard to scratch.
this is not a special apple-only feature, this is a part/technology they buy/license from another company, non-exclusively.
there are also cheap android phones. those exist. for people who prefer a cheap phone to a mostly indestructable phone, or cannot afford to spend 400 dollars on a ridiculous premium phone. or however much apple charges for an equivalent product with worse features and less compatibility.
Nobody cares about thinkpads getting scratched up because the shell shows fingerprints like a motherfucker.
I love my Thinkpads though…namely because I use Linux at home and I’m cheap about laptops…used T-series is probably the best cheap Linux laptop, in general.
Indestructible little fucker
