Not saying I'm not considering it given the current political climate, but I'm spoiled by my Macbook Air. The Thinkpad I've been issued for work costs about the same, runs hot like crazy, always has fans running, is cheap-feeling plastic, thicker, heavier, garbage touchpad, weird keyboard layout (printscreen right next to the arrow keys, what were they thinking?), mushy keys, barely serviceable display ... what do I buy if I want something as sleek and well-built and polished as Apple?
I don't think anyone will build as nice hardware as Apple anytime soon, so I think if that's your primary requirement then any other choice will be a compromise. I don't really like Apple, but it must must acknowledged that even a few basic things (the monitor turning on immediately as I open the screen, the touchpad quality, etc.) seem totally elusive to other manufacturers.
Apple's pretty imperfect, and it's sad to see that they've neglected and regressed their desktop OS, however I don't think anyone can argue that macOS is anywhere near as bad as Windows 11.
Apple's only just started getting good hardware. For so long their hardware was so below standard and in a lot of areas it still is. Apple users will sit there with a straight face telling me about how much they care about a good cpu when I know they paid 3k for a low tier intel cpu and 8gb of ram not to long ago.
Also when they talk about how their laptop can handle all this stuff without fans spinning up its only because the laptops come with next to no cooling and spend most of the time thermal throttling.
Eh. debatable. my work MBP frequently dies and the screen never turns on when i plug it in. I have to wait 15-20 minutes for it to turn on. My Linux laptop on the other hand, the screen turns immediately power or no power/just plugged in
I'm pretty sure Apple is unavoidable if you work as a mobile app developer. I mean, no iOS SDK for Windows/Linux.
If your work area is anything other than it, perhaps the Mac isn't necessary.
While not strictly required, for me macOS has been less cantankerous for running Android Studio on compared to Windows/Linux too.
Don't they offer downloads of Xcode outside of the App Store if you pay their developer program fee? That includes their SDKs. Theoretically there is only an expenditure of time and effort to build an iOS app on Linux. I forget if it is against their terms or not, but I don't think the SDK available is a barrier.
> If your work area is anything other than it, perhaps the Mac isn't necessary.
How about photography and video production?
Some of the stuff coming out of CES is nice. Whether the apparent quality survives in production is another question.
To each his own. I liked may company issued ThinkPad so much I ended up buying one myself and I have been pushing back getting a replacement (HP Elitebook).
Some of your points are common, such as the touchpad being garbage, or that it runs hotter than an Apple Silicon MacBook Air. But most people consider ThinkPad keyboards to be way better than Apple's and while most (not all) ThinkPads have a plastic shell, they certainly don't feel cheap. Apple displays are typically really good, but ThinkPads have a lot of options, so it is hard to tell.
Your comment, especially regarding the keyboard makes me think you just love your MacBook. Why buy anything else?
Linux support is not great, but a lot of a significant part of what makes Apple great is in their hardware/software integration and they are not doing it open source. It means a MacBook without OSX is a lesser MacBook, but at least, it is not Windows 11.
ThinkPads run the gamut. Their flagship line is nice. In most regards, I enjoy my first gen X1 Nano — good keyboard, screen (even if it annoyingly requires fractional UI scaling), body feels solid despite being lightweight, soft touch plastic makes it feel nice to hold. Trackpad is just ok but the trackpoint makes for that.
It likes to spin up its fan doing the most insignificant things though (even plugging in a pedestrian 1x scaling external monitor can while idle can do it) and its battery life is somewhat abysmal. Standby time is also quite poor.
Some of these things are in theory improved by a newer CPU (Lunar Lake in particular looks decent) but sadly they discontinued the Nano. The Carbon isn’t that much bigger, but the size difference is noticeable in some circumstances.
Are you running windows on this?
It dual boots Windows 11 and Fedora, and I’ve played with other distros in the past. They have minor edges over each other in various ways but none offer a major concrete advantage over the others in any category (except harassment/junkware, which any distro has a major upper hand over Windows 11 in, but Windows 10 accomplishes that almost as well).
Either there’s simply a hard limit on how good this hardware can be in terms of thermals and battery life or neither Lenovo’s tuning of Windows nor any Linux distro has gone far enough in properly leveraging power management and the like.
So the weird answer is... a better model Lenovo. They vary from plastic disaster to metal or carbon fiber dream machine.
Yeah, if you don't like the case quality of a T model Thinkpad, you are the problem ;) - fiber reinforced plastic is arguably a more suitable laptop case material than aluminum.
Lenovo's cheap laptops are as bad as anyone's.
Nothing is quite as slick as Apple, but companies are popping up doing pretty sleek Linux-first laptops, I have a Starlabs notebook [1] and am waiting for their new Starfighter [2]...
[1] https://starlabs.systems/pages/starbook-horizon
[2] https://starlabs.systems/pages/starfighter
Batter life claims are very bold. Also the starfighter launches with a 3 year old CPU .
Doesn't seem to me like a good deal especially price wise.
It looks like the best option for somebody who wants a great laptop and doesn't want a Mac.
And the price looks perfectly fine.
Don't buy one then.
As well as beautiful hardware that is a pleasure to use, Apple machines can be capable of running local models like gpt-oss-20B or Qwen Coder portably and without sweating. My 24GB M4 Mini was very cheap considering the local models it can run.
Yes hardware is great. Price per performance watt is also great. But UI sucks. Look at all then posts even macOS fans about new macOS release like the glass ones. I prefer ssh and running jobs in macOS.
> weird keyboard layout
Classic lenovo. Some models have FN as the most bottom left key, instead of ctrl. Gotta be the worst design decision ive ever seen. Everyone copy+pastes and finds, whoever thought that was a good idea really needs relieved of decision making power.
You've got history backwards. IBM Thinkpads did it that way 30+ years ago, when there was no consensus in the industry. Do you switch it now, and anger every lifetime Thinkpad loyalist, or keep it and annoy just the folks who switch back and forth between different vendors' laptops?
In a brief survey of laptop photos from the early 90s, IBM, Toshiba, Zenith, NEC, Packard Bell, Compaq, and Fujitsu all put Fn on the outside.
Epson, Apple, HP, Panasonic, and Sony put it as the second key.
A handful put it as the third key. Heck, one Toshiba machine had Ctrl left of A, Alt on the extreme lower-left starting out the bottom row, followed by Caps Lock and Fn and backslash and finally spacebar.
Only in the last 15-ish years have most of the Fn-Ctrl keyboards died out and the majority of the industry is now using Ctrl-Fn. Thinkpads are the last major holdout, but they didn't decide to buck the trend, the trend bucked them.
> Thinkpads are the last major holdout
ThinkPads were one of the last major holdouts, they went to the Control-Fn layout in 2024.
Whoah.
Is that the end of it, then?
You can swap those in BIOS for most models.
Yes. I use my Lenovo that way. Bottom left key is labeled "Fn" and act as Ctrl because I swapped them in BIOS.
Apple also puts fn/globe in the bottom left corner and control to its right.
Yeah, but that's conflating that a key labeled "control" for a Windows machine and a key labeled "control" for a Mac refer to different concepts.
All MacBooks have Fn at the left bottom corner too?
But CMD is generally used instead of control, and at least in my case, with the thumb rather than pinky. Different muscle memory.
Idk, I find it easier to press control on a Thinkpad because it's closer. It being in a corner would be farer away. Anyway, control should be (and traditionally was) where CapsLock is. Just remap it - everything is suddenly easy and ergonomic.
I really like my HP Omnibook 14 with the Ryzen AI HX 370 chip.. it's sleek, well built (so far, at least).. insane battery life.. the standby time on Linux is in weeks and the battery life when light browsing/YouTube viewing is easily 9+ hours. Even the finger print sensor finally just works. The touchpad gestures with kwin input actions are as smooth as, if not better than os x.
The only thing my work 16" MBP does better is the speakers.
edit: Updated the battery life to 9+ hours from 7+ hours based on what the battery monitor says.. I remember binge watching a couple of long movies/tv shows without ever having to plug in the laptop that day...
You can get more than double that battery time with an ARM
Once you cross the ~7h battery range the cons of having to use apple hardware and software is too much to bare.
But then you need Apple hardware and MacOS.
I think they mean snapdragon hardware?
Right, that works if you don't also need very high performance.
https://frame.work/
Nice for experimentation, but if you want a daily driver that lasts for years: Dell Latitude (now Dell Pro), HP EliteBook or Lenovo ThinkPad. Literally laptops built to last. Will last a decade with ease. Higher segments ofcourse better than lower segments, but in general very very good if you stay away from lowest tier
Mac hardware is overrated. Asus ExpertBooks, Thinkpads and Dell XPS models are all very nice, and have lasted for just as long as Macbooks do.
Maybe! But the fact that Apple also makes the operating system means the hardware/software integration can’t be beat. I’ve never used a non-Apple laptop where the trackpad worked a tenth as good as any MacBook.
Such is the cost of freedom, unfortunately. There is no free lunch. Historically, people abandoned comfort and made sacrifices for a greater social good.
I think I get what you’re hinting at. But is there a more expensive option that’s free (as in freedom) and provides an experience that the GP referred to?
And there will never be such option if we all collectively choose to perpetuate Apple's monopoly. It is us, of all people, who need to take a stance, because we have the necessary skill.
It’s a computer. Stop acting like a martyr. Your “suffering” is meaningless.
A computer (or a smartphone, basically whichever type of Turing complete Von Neumann machine you use) is your interface to the modern world, from interacting with your government to the stores you frequent and talking to the people you love to the media you consume.
So in that sense I think it does matter who is the ultimate arbiter of what it will and won't do, not only in an individual sense but a societal one. The more people switch to something they themselves control, the less power third parties have over their behavior.
My computer is my work environment and often an entertainment device. As such it affects my quality of life. It affects my mental health as well as my eye health.
Suffering can be real with a bad screen, an overheating laptop or difficult to use software.
My mental health definitely suffers if I'm forced to use software that enriches companies I dislike for good reason.
> The Thinkpad I've been issued for work costs about the same, runs hot like crazy
I have a personal Thinkpad (Linux) and a company provided one (W11). The personal one basically never turns on the fan. The company one is hot all the time. Guess why.
It's such a shame that Lenovo discontinued the X1 Nano series. It's my everyday casual driver. I would buy a newer model instantly if necessary.
X13 is not that much bigger I believe.
Snapdragon Elite X Gen 2 laptops are coming out as we speak. Assuming you're not doing GPU heavy work (or gaming), that's what you should be looking at. They are equal to M4 performance. Personally I'd look at the new Asus machines from CES.
That sounds like just what I want, that ought to have great battery life as well. Very promising, if someone were to build a nice light laptop around it...
Not so sure :(
https://www.phoronix.com/review/snapdragon-x-elite-linux-eoy...
This is also my problem. I am currently using my docked Macbook instead of my much more powerful desktop running Linux, even though I also want to use Linux more.
Why? Because as much as I want to get rid of my dependence on tech giants, Apple's products are just so damn good, and they Just Work^TM, especially with each other.
Having used Linux on/off for many years, I can say that it's definitely gotten better, but I am still waiting for the year of the Linux desktop. It doesn't have to be as polished as my Mac, but I'd like to at least not have to fight with Bluetooth especially, and things like the dongle for my headset not working and other issues like that.
I think we're always going to have that: there will always be That One Software that doesn't work on Linux, and you need to keep another OS around just to run it. I was able to get rid of Windows everywhere in my home except for one gaming PC, where I keep it around just for Fortnite, because of Epic's insistence on using their nasty kernel-level anti-cheat. So I keep that one machine around isolated from the rest of my network, for the sole purpose of playing one game.
I'm now in the process of un-Appleing my home too, and it's going pretty well, but I know I'll need to keep a single Mac somewhere in the corner of my garage in case I need to use Xcode to build an iOS app or something.
If you want something a bit more like a Macbook Pro, consider the HP Zbook G1A.
It's basically built like a Macbook in terms of case and screen quality, but it's based on an AMD Strix Halo chipset - mine is an AI Max Pro+ 395.
The chip design is somewhat similar to Apple Silicon in that it's one big chip with unified memory - you can get them with up to 128GB of unified ram - that thing is a beast for running local LLMs.
Since HP also sells them with Ubuntu preinstalled, Linux support is quite good, though it requires some bleeding edge packages for everything to be supported.
In my case, I have suspend and hibernate working perfectly, fingerprint reader, webcam, etc all work.
> I have suspend and hibernate working perfectly
In Linux? Seriously? How much tweaking did that require?
Do you dare to throw the laptop into a backpack in sleep mode instead of shutting it down first?
Huawei?
I mean, it's certainly not as seamless as an open x86 machine, but if you have an Air already you can always try Linux on it? The Fedora Asahi spin [1] supports pretty much everything on M1/M2 devices.
[1] https://asahilinux.org/fedora/#device-support
USB-C display support is coming soon too.