Their support is amazing: "We're not sure what is causing it, but we'll send someone to replace the whole motherboard tomorrow." "OH, your currently halfway across the world on a island? No problem, we'll be there tomorrow"

I really don't understand how it's done. Clearly they must have parts distributed ahead of time.

I'm just amazed that it's included in the price considering the cost of sending a technician out to a customer. The fact that even here on HN a lot of people think Apple's support is good suggests that Dell might be able to save a ton of money by lowering their support level, so I don't really get why they offer it.

We managed to bundle it in with a 1600-device order one year and I was (un)fortunate enough to get to experience it.

“So if I understand correctly, You’ve just spilt a red bull on your work laptop at a LAN party you’re facilitating just now, and it’s 1AM, and you need your laptop tomorrow morning for bump out…?

Ok does 3:30am work for you?”

It's not a new play for Dell.

They flown someone with brand new parts to my home, more than a 1000km away, and replaced it all no question asked.

It's surreal.

Temps vary widely in the Bay Area—microclimates really are a thing. Freezing temps and >100F are common in the east bay, but quite rare out on the coast.

https://climate.copernicus.eu/surface-air-temperature-may-20...

Although I do not have an alternative that I have used, I know colleagues who love their new (last three or four years old) Lenovos, like the X series.

They're perfectly fine machines.

Dell officially supports linux on them (admittedly, only Ubuntu), you can get 32gb of RAM, and they perform just as well as any other intel based laptop (which is to say - I wish they sucked less power, but they're fine on the performance scale).

I'm... not a clean person with my machines, and I've never noticed any issues with the keyboards.

I have zero issues swapping wireless to wired (Arch linux) - it's basically instant for me, but I don't actually know how you're testing that, since none of the newer 13 models include an ethernet port (I use an adapter). Have you considered that you have a bad usb-ethernet adapter? Every one I've used is fine. Alternatively - are you sure you're not thinking of the Latitude line? Those are very different machines, which I also avoid.

Basically - I'd take an XPS every time over anything Lenovo puts out. I don't even really care about the hardware, I just think Lenovo can't be trusted a god damn inch. Chinese company selling computers with rootkits/MITM pre-installed. It was a sad day when IBM sold their personal computing line to them. I know a lot of folks still like the Thinkpads - but it's not worth it, IMO.

there isn't a fire capable of burning hot enough, to throw every huawei device into

just google the company man, it's a track record that's genuinely hard to believe

20190409 backdoored laptops - https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47800000

20190430 backdoored routers - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/30/alleged-h...

20210813 alleged widespread IP theft from a pakistani tech firm, repackaged with backdoors, and sold back to the pakistani gov - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/30/alleged-h...

I worked at Vodafone and all the routers get a security review, so it is highly doubtful that they left it in on purpose because they would have known that it would have been found. It was test engineering firmware that got left on some routers, and makes spurious claims even though in the article it points out that Vodafone didn't believe it was a backdoor.

And your first link talks about how someone appears to have added an additional chip to the design, which is unlikely to have come from Huawei. Sounds suspiciously similar to this

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h...

Do you want a list of everything that Cisco (replace with your preferred networking manufacturer) messed up and claim that it's all malicious?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/12/glenn-greenwal...

Tampering with these things is allegedly pretty simple.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/plant...

I would say that the Wireguard issue is worse than the speculation that pre-production firmware on unreleased routers was backdooring as they actually shipped it.

Of the three links about Huawei, one is someone in India claiming IP theft, one where they made up a claim of backdooring which the original security researchers rejected that claim, and one where it appears that hardware may have been tampered at the manufacturing stage by Americans.

Not exactly smoking gun, Huawei are evil and want to steal your data. I don't trust them, but then I don't trust a lot of the networking providers to not be compromised by a state actor.

Otherwise, they are probably the best of the bunch, purely because of the stack being mostly BSD.

at one point they were just straight ripping off cisco asrs, lucent gear, etc and presenting it as their own

I switched to a gaming laptop and am still comparing brands before I decide who to recommend, but after a year I'm still really happy with the performance and build quality of my current one. Most seem built to take a beating. Which makes sense.

If they truely have changed, they would have made a fuss about it, wouldn’t have they.

They throw in a year of that coverage on (most?) new purchases, but you can add at least 3 years.

For consumer and out-of-contract stuff, it's pretty industry standard. Their cheap stuff breaks a lot, but so does most brands.

[1] https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/XPS-15-9570-BIOS-1-3-0-sl...

Unless it pulled a breaking Windows update at night so the laptop won't boot anymore the next morning.

I have one of those DELLs for work. Don't.

Your experience might differ, but I'm not getting a Dell again.

happened to my XPS 15, Thats because they remives normal sleep mode and replaced it with always on standby. had to switch ti hybernation

I had one plugged in 24/7 for 3 years and it’s usually a few months until the battery swells until the keyboard stops working. I had the battery replaced three times.

If only they allowed running without battery I’d get one again. Or if they started testing their machines properly. Great support, sloppy thermal design and testing by Dell.

Get something with a bit of thickness to it, like the Latitude 5530 (which Dell will also sell with Ubuntu) and stick to the low-TDP CPU versions.

If your dev work is CPU-intensive you should be doing it on a workstation or server anyways. A machine where your cooling solution can dissipate 3-400W without batting an eyelid is going to beat the crap out of a "high-end" 45W TDP laptop.

When you're on the road, just use SSH with tmux or RDP or whatever you prefer. At your desk, set up a monitor and a workstation for the serious work and keep the laptop on the side for meetings, emails etc. A USB switch for the mouse and keyboard works well and is like $30.

It’s the same phenomenon that warps iPhones

The original Dell battery swelled up and was replaced under warranty. The replacement battery lasted a couple of months and was so swollen it broke my keyboard and trackpad.

Dell support refused to fix it and couldn't provide me with a battery because they were completely out.

I tried 3 different vendors and all 3 batteries failed to work because Dell has battery DRM.

I can't even use it plugged in because the GPU/CPU throttle themselves without a battery hooked up.

My i7, 32gb ram, 4k laptop is a giant dud. Never again.

Install the Dell Power Manager application as it has very granular controls to allow you to maximize battery life and avoid the swelling issue. Good luck.

Edit: Saw another comment on overheating - I only run mine on a coolpad, period. I think it fries the RAM otherwise.

Also, I'd say that Dell's customer support is horrendous. I bought an XPS 15 from them but had issues with the trackpad (which I think in hindsight were software/firmware related). It tooks months to resolve it, and by the time they did and they were going to replace it, they no longer sold the white XPS 15. They offered the gray one, which I didn't want, or a refund. They basically told me to buy a computer from someone else as there's "plenty of laptop makers around who might make a white one" (paraphrased). I also had to call them and tell them to stop the replacement, as they originally just kicked it off with a replacement that was not only not the correct color but had the completely wrong specs.

Basically every email and phone call was with a different person, for the same support ticket.

This seems like a less likely incentive than the expectation created by phones and tablets that the device become ready "instantly".

Qualcomm has moved into the laptop space and brands their products as "always-on, always-connected" such that your programs are not halted while the screen is inactive/lid is closed. Microsoft may feel like some of their laptops compete with iOS/Android devices that respond quicker. Maybe they want x86_64 Windows to work just as well as ARM Windows in this regard.

It can be both.

The laptop is amazing when it's working, default Linux support too, but so far have literally had to ship it back to Dell for at least two months total since I've used it. Usually the turn around is only a few days but they were waiting on a part at one stage for weeks.

I am now looking to do a system exchange with them but am not certain if it's going to go through. At this stage I can't imagine they'd be profitable on this machine given how many times I've had to ship it in for repair.

Hence I sadly cannot recommend the XPS 13 even though I truly love it when it's working and laugh with glee at having 32GB of RAM =]

Is this real? I travel quite a bit and have a ThinkPad with the highest level of support. When international, it takes at least 10 days to get replacement parts. The ticket is forwarded to the closest support. When I was in Cape Town, this happened to be the UK. It's easy to see how it takes that long to get replacement parts when they are shipped such great distances. The support reps, although friendly, weren't very responsive.

Last company I worked from had ~30 XPSs (various models). On average we had one break daily. Yes, they pick it up, and return it "fixed" within a week, but then it just breaks down 2 weeks later.

One of their "docking station" brick thingies went up in flames, while nothing was plugged into it, causing an evacuation of the building. Another one "exploded". Not bad enough to hurt somebody, but the coffe mug next to it was blown off the table.

My XPS 15 started to get hot, and smoke out of the keyboard while I was reading my email. Scaring the shit out of everybody in the coffee shop I was sitting in.

"Dude! You're Getting a Dell!" "Nah, thanks, I'd rather get a lobotomy."

For a long time, their failure rates were pretty high, i don't know if that's still true. The rock solid support made them competitive for big institutional buyers etc. Comparison then wasn't an apple but a thinkbook, which were way more robust.

I feel the only serious alternative is a Lenovo running Linux.

Older Latitude were great for dev work, and I still use my 7450.

No, clearly not. Apart from the overheating the first experience you’ll have is opening it: You pull the screen upwards, but the hinge is too strong, so the bottom comes with the screen, and then since the handle is slippery you lose the screen and the whole block slams on the desk.

That’s on paar with the DELL experience. Pretty much everything is wrong about it.

I've just always opened my laptops with two hands (I'm gonna type my password anyway?), so a hinge not being able to be opened with one hand always screamed "first world problem" type of issue to me. Maybe I'm just too used to crappy laptop hinges and using a nice one would be a revelation. I don't know.

It's not a big deal at all, I certainly wouldn't list it as a reason to not get a laptop like your parent comment does; it probably wouldn't even factor in to my decision. But it's certainly not a problem in all thin-and-lights.

Not consistent with my experience handling an ex's 11" macbook air. That thing would lift the chassis from a table readily when tilting the screen using one hand.

But it's not some apple-specific phenomenon. Even my chonky X230 with good hinges does this esp. when on carpet with the extended battery, there's no weight under the palmrest.

This laptop is really build to be repairable and modular and it does not suck at all. I think it will last a long time.

The ability to choose your own edition also means I got a reasonably affordable laptop with loads of RAM, which I find is quite useful for development.

It's a huge step down from my previous Thinkpads. The battery life is atrocious - a night in modern standby drains the battery from 80% to 35%. Outside the office battery life is a constant worry, I mostly use it docked these days.

The display hinge is wobbly - when I lift my Framework from my lap on a table it often folds back 180 degrees. Very annoying.

In general it feels less durable than my old Thinkpad X1.

Linux support is better than on most laptops and worse than on Thinkpads, e.g. no BIOS upgrades out of the box (only beta firmwares for months). Additionally, I experience rare kernel loops, sometimes the laptop doesn't shut off properly etc. Overall Thinkpads seem to be more stable.

Probably start here: https://community.frame.work/t/explainer-lid-rigidity-hinge-...

Key section: "However, we identified that for a period of time last fall, our hinge supplier shipped a subset of hinges with forces below our accepted spec range. We’ve since added additional tests both at the hinge supplier and at our laptop assembly site to prevent out of spec hinges from shipping out. If you have a laptop where the lid angle drops on its own while the laptop is stationary, write into support with a video of it, and we’ll send you a new Hinge Kit."

The hinge is not very wobbly when typing and won't move if I lift the laptop carefully. However, it won't stay in position when moving it quicker.

Maybe this is by design so one can open the lid with a single hand. I prefer the sturdy hinge on my old Thinkpads though - it's difficult to open them with one hand but they stay in position when I move them.

[1] https://community.frame.work/t/linux-deep-sleep/2491/5

I don’t own a framework, but will probably get one at some point. This issue, at least, has been fixed. You can swap the hinges out for the new ones— not sure if it’s a free fix or not, though.

And... It's not actually the batteries, it's just the newer CPUs. If you want good battery life on intel you simply have to downlevel the CPU as much as possible or go back a few generations to an i5. My old x260 still gets 8 hours of coding on a charge. But my recent X1 is lucky to get 3 hours.

I’m building a startup and it turns out trying to build a startup literally on a startup maybe isn’t the best idea.

I sincerely regret the purchase.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I regret it more than any other large technology purchase I’ve ever made. If it weren’t for the principal of the matter I’d just cut my losses, buy something else, and put this thing in a closet.

I also run a startup from it, wherein it's my software development machine when I don't feel like sitting at my desktop. It would need to be flawless in order to accomplish that as I can't really tolerate any downtime due to computer issues especially when I have a fully functioning high-end desktop, and flawless it has been. In fact, this is the first laptop that doesn't make me miss my desktop from being too slow or otherwise not performing the way I'd like.

Charging works regardless of the laptop being on or off, it performs beyond my expectations with no thermal issues while pushing the processor to its limit (something other laptops have always failed at for me), and the various expansion cards all work very well regardless of what configuration they're in. Overall, I've been regarding it as one of the best purchases I've made recently. After a month of ownership and using it over my desktop, I can honestly say that I picked the right laptop. I would lambaste the laptop if it had issues, but I can't think of one time over the past month where it's been problematic.

This doesn't even touch on the fact that if I were to have an issue, Framework's support has seemed to be very responsive based on others' reports (especially for a startup), and the fact that I can continue to use the laptop or even just have it in my possession while whichever replacement part is being shipped out. This alone would make me choose this laptop over any other.

There is also an issue where the built-in webcam stops working and you need to restart the computer to get it to work again.

Considering how much I spent on the machine I was hoping not to be bothered by issues like this...

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/12/07/macos-monterey-12-1-bug...

Perhaps there's some variability in the build quality between machines or batches. I've been happy with my purchase.

* Horrific battery life. I don't actually mind that the battery life under light usage is in the 6-7 hours neighborhood. What I do mind is that the battery life when the laptop isn't being used is abysmal. When I shut the lid, I lose 20% of the battery every day. Since I got the Framework to supplement a desktop, that really isn't acceptable. Fedora 36 doesn't do hibernate out of the box, but on OSes where that's doable battery life while inactive should be better

* The trackpad scrolling is annoyingly fast, and I haven't found a way to change it (on my mac I can just change the scroll speed under mouse settings, but Fedora doesn't expose that option)

* Speaking of the settings app, the settings app FREQUENTLY causes the laptop to lock up. This is a known issue and might only affect certain hardware configs, but it is super annoying.

* Brightness buttons don't work out of the box. Only way to use them is to disable the laptop's built in brightness sensor

* Don't love the fn key placement but maybe I'll get used to it over time

1: https://community.frame.work/t/framework-and-popos/2898

Quote:

“DeepSleep: My Framework is defaulting to S2Idle which is burning through battery like crazy during sleep. you can enable deep sleep by adding a kernel boot option in `/boot/efi/loader/entries/pop_OS-current.conf`

Just add `mem_sleep_default=deep`

At the end of the options line. Waking up from sleep will take a little bit longer, but you won’t be chewing up battery while you rest.”

https://gitlab.com/kirbykevinson/libinput-config

Last time I checked, they (notebookcheck.net) said it used a glossy display instead of matte; I cannot find a specifications table in the frame.work website and the closest thing I got is in the "Marketplace Parts" section, e.g. at https://frame.work/products/display-kit - where the non-trivial, simply critical detail of glossy vs matte is not specified.

However turning a matte display into a glossy one isn't possible.

FYI, https://community.frame.work/t/matte-screen-please/577/114.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/keyboard-marks-on-displ...

I stick with Lenovo because they make great displays with matte that can even do touch!

I used a firm that provided an excellent product and decent service, but two years ago they replaced the film they had used for many years and which was superb, with an appalling grater - you can see the pins with naked eye, and it even sounds when you pass a finger on it. I have stopped purchasing mobile devices because of lack of proper ways to finish the screen.

I was actually thinking of finding a "universal" solution to use at home.

For laptop displays, I think will insist that they are professional grade, for professional use, until () the "universal" solution is in place and () for ethical reasons: you have to guide the market to the best standards and counter the bad ones.

I met from a most prominent producer of chemical products the statement

> Glossy Protection Film offers a glossy finish to help maintain the finish of a glossy display or instantly upgrade a matte display to high-gloss

Repeat for disambiguation: they would """upgrade""" matte to, mh, glossy and highly so. There was also a picture for the monstrosity nearby. So, that «isn't possible» has a counterexample. (Which is not difficult: rub some oil on it etc.)

When I saw that further confirmation of the apparent ongoing process of the total eclipse of good sense and downfall of ethics for the perverse purpose of courting lunatic rubes for their wallets, I uttered something along the lines of Sean Lock's "Are you mental?!" (from the cab driver asked if free for giving a tiger a night ride) - only, in a discriminatory form that moderators would not approve.

The matte layer already damages the light. A glossy film can only make things worse.

I have also given up on Apple, but mostly because I can't see the value in it anymore, otherwise my experience with them has been satisfactory (Intel CPU models).

For the past few years I used a Microsoft Surface Pro because it seemed to have good build quality and high screen resolution, but despite this I have had to replace it as part of a recall due to a graphics hardware issue, so it was not without its flaws. On a side note, I found the Windows OS to be OK for non-dev work, but would always "work" on the Linux subsystem... so even though Windows supports it quite well, I would just suggest 100% Linux.

For 2022 I decided to buy a "gaming" laptop and switch to 100% Linux. The build quality is a little lower than Apple, and the screen resolution is not as good as Apple or Surface Pro, but it is still good, and when using my external monitor there is no difference.

The benefits are clear, however, for less than 50% of the cost I am getting superior performance, discrete GPU, excellent cooling, and NO LOCK-IN. There is also the added benefit of being able to play the occasional video game with great performance.

So far I don't regret it.

But now an M2 Macbook Air for $1500-2000 (depending on options) is hard to beat.

The only complaint seems to be in heat distribution. Some people use a cheap heat spreader on their desk. Apple definitely chose a stylish package over optimal thermal design. It's an issue but not a major issue.

EDIT: it's a sad day on HN when you mention how M1/M2 MBs are a big step up from the Intel MBs to a comment about laptop recommendations and you get a bunch of commentless downvotes. WTaF?

The comment was about them giving up on Apple because "I can't see the value in it anymore", and he pointed out how the value proposition changed with the non-intel macs

Exactly which deal breakers do you mean? it literally says "otherwise my experience with them has been satisfactory" ?

OP seems to have a poor experience with them and is switching for that reason.

But, at the same time, the particular shortcomings of Intel silicon MBPs is now out-of-date and it seems worth mentioning that.

>to a comment about laptop recommendations

The thread's title is "Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?"

The Apple experience is more polished for sure, but after Linux, I doubt I will accept any form of proprietary OS/hardware for my personal computer ever again.

Personally I find Linux desktop environments to be beyond awful with zero hope for salvation but to each their own. I certainly recognize a lot of the shortcomings of OSX but, more than anything, I don't want something I have to endlessly tinker with to get working (and keep working). For me, out of the box experience is paramount.

We live in an age of fast performance and great battery life on most any laptop. Having faster performance and better battery life isn’t changing the game —- that’s how the game has been played as long as laptops have been a consumer product category. If Apple’s support is the same, then the OP’s problem isn’t fixed. Their problem wasn’t performance and battery life.

P.S. I’m speaking as someone who owns both a MacBook Pro and a surface laptop, so I’m not exactly biased against MacBooks.

Battery life for one [1]. Many compare the Dell XPS 13/15 to the MBA/MBP and the XPS has realistically less than half the battery life [2] (the 5.5-7 hours being listed as "feasible" there also requires turning down the display brightness a lot).

The 2011 Macbook Air was heads and shoulders above anything else at the time for that combination of size, cost, power and battery life. Literally nothing else could compete on all of these factors. I mean Linus Torvalds used one [3] (and still does [4]).

On a pure hardware front, the M1/M2 Macbooks are at a similar point where nothing else can compete with that combination of price, power, battery life and form factor, to the point where people will run Linux or Windows on them. You can say it's not for you. You can also say you don't like OSX. That's all fine.

But anti-tribalism is just another form of tribalism. Being irrationally anti-Mac is no better than being irrationally pro-Mac. I'd argue it's worse because the anti-Mac tribalists think they're better than the pro-Mac tribalists.

[1]: https://www.laptopmag.com/news/macbook-air-m2-battery-life-s...

[2]: https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/dell-xps-13-...

[3]: https://www.cultofmac.com/162823/linux-creator-linus-torvald...

[4]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/linus-torvalds-uses-...

Like I said, the performance and battery improvements are marginal; it's the same game played a little better, not a changed game. The AS processor doesn’t enable completely new or novel ways of using the device, and in fact the form factor is still limited compared to competing options. The reason I use my Surface Laptop over my Macbook are old reasons -- touch screen support, pen support, and windows software compatibility. If my Macbook supported all of that, then that would be a game changer. But that's not what they did; they improved on some performance and some battery life, which as I said is a story as old as computing. It's not enough for me to consider my new Macbook as a "game changer" if the added benefits won't even cause me to pick it up over an alternative.

Before there were many tradeoffs for choosing a macbook, most of them around performance/cost, but all of those are gone when the base $999 macbook air beats way more expensive computers.

I'd recommend this machines to literally everyone that needs a laptop, which is something I can't say for the rest of Apple products or any other piece of tech for that matter

I don't get it, either. What Apple did with the M1 is nothing short of incredible. I bought a stock M1 Air (as in, 8 GB RAM model, since that's what stores carry) as my personal laptop a few months after launch, and could not be happier. The _only_ time I've experienced any issues was in running Minikube, and that was solved by installing Docker Desktop - on Intel, I use hyperkit to avoid that. I think hyperkit supports M1s now anyway.

It's awesome. Happily been running Guix on it for the past six months. (As expected, since it is Linux on an unsupported machine, I had to put in some time to get it running smoothly but the person after me does not have to do that anymore.)

2 big drawbacks: the plastic is super fragile and you will need an external microphone (or your coworkers will complain about fan noises)

I'm running Pop! OS linux and it worked out of the box, no special setup necessary. So far I'm happy with it and starting to ask myself why I didn't do this earlier. :)

I researched this option before opting for an LG gram. I might research it again soon.

Would you care to share exactly what gaming laptop you picked?

Last gen i7, 3050/3060, up to 32GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, 3k 16:10 screen, good battery. And i think they sell it without dedicated graphics card too.

Now I have an Inspiron 7677 which works great on linux except for the fingerprint and the webcam.

Oh, I forgot.

The Tuxedo Pulse 15 gen2 is also a great laptop I think. It's not a gaming laptop, it's more like a Macbook. Ryzen 7 5700U, up to 64GB of RAM, 2k screen, huuuuuuge battery, good connectivity, etc. And you can put your own logo on the lid.

What made it worse is that locking the Nvidia drivers to a specific version is not straightforward — if you only lock the main driver with Windows policy manager, Windows Update will update other parts of the Nvidia driver and leave you with drivers that are partially broken.

I didn’t try Linux since this machine was intended mostly for gaming.

I ended up returning it at the end of its return window, because I don’t have time for a machine that won’t run properly without absurdly specific drivers. Built a gaming tower with the money instead, which has not only been better behaved but doesn’t sound like I’m cooking it alive when I’m running games on it like the G15 did.

It doesn't necessarily look great, but it's not offensively gamerish. There's a nice utility that lets you turn the fans off/on and GPU on/off, so it gets good battery life with GPU off. USB-C charging supported, nice matte screen, 120hz+ refresh rate. I have mine setup with 40gb of RAM (one 8GB dim is baked on, one is upgradable) and with a replacement Intel wifi chip.

When I need a replacement, I'll probably get the newer 2022-ish G14. They upgraded the USB-C ports (both now support display out), they put better WiFi in by default, and they went all-AMD for CPU+GPU, all of which seem like great ideas to me.

The thing I will ding Asus about is serviceability. It's easy enough to remove the screws to take the bottom panel off, but there was always one screw for NVME/Wifi that had so much loctite that I ended up needing a special pair of plyers to remove.

The trackpad is also terrible.

Overall, its been a solid machine so far and had sufficient battery life for me to program on flights half-way across the US without concern. My only regrets are I wish the thunderbolt port used the integrated gpu (never need discrete and sometimes windows gets stuck switching) and no webcam.

Ultimately the deciding factor was the price and the GeForce RTX 3070 GPU, it was on sale, and Linux drivers were available for all of the hardware.

I'm running Pop! OS and haven't had any issues.

LG Grams aren't cheap laptops. They don't have the retina display. But they're nice, lightweight (lighter than Mac laptops) and overall feel good.

I'd say it doesn't feel as polished as the latest Mac laptops but it feels way sturdier. My M1 Macbook Air always felt like it's screen was brittle: some porcelaine to be manipulated with the greatest care or it'd break. And break it did, after 10 months, seemingly for no reason.

While my 5 years old LG Gram is still going perfectly fine.

I use it every time I'm not at my beasty desktop.

~10h battery life on Linux with minimal tweaking, decent keyboard and touchpad, huge screen (I've tried to use the tiny laptops that are popular these days, and they just do not work for me).

Things I don't care much about and so explicitly won't review: camera, internal audio (I only ever use headphones), battery life when closed (I just go put it on my desk and plug it in when I'm not using it)

My one major complaint is that the edges are unreasonably sharp. Seriously, I don't know who designed this thing, but they apparently use laptop keyboards very differently than I do. I have been considering filing them down.

I also got it on ebay for what I now realize is significantly below the price it would've been new. I don't think it's worth $1800, but I don't think any (personal) computer is worth $1800, so adjust your weighting of this opinion as desired.

A privacy-oriented OS that allows me to run photoshop Lightroom etc. in addition to dev things.

At this point I wouldn’t touch Windows with a 10-foot pole.

Eluktronics has some well spec'ed machines

Linux compatibility is very good with current kernels (I had a few DRM/GuC restarts with 5.18, those seem to be fixed in 5.19), all hardware works out of the box. ADL-P power management is still being worked on afaik, so for the time being it seems like the power profile you set does have a larger than usual impact - powersave results in 20-30h runtime, balanced more like 10. The base models have a 1240P, which is an "4C8T + 8C8T" CPU (for a total of sixteen threads).

The CNVi Intel wifi in these doesn't seem to have the 5G bug.

Edit: One issue with virtually any better-ish new laptop will be that the display won't be native sRGB. The LG Gram series uses P3 displays, for example (most will be similar), which means that colors will be over-saturated and especially reds will be very intense and orange-y. MacOS has the correct color management to deal with this, Windows and Linux don't really, and Wayland in particular has very poor support for color management. I've manually set a generic P3 profile in Firefox and that pulls most colors back into a more agreeable shape.

I use a 16 inches 2021 model (so an 11th gen Intel CPU instead of Alder Lake) on a daily basis both at the office and on the go, running Ubuntu 20.04LTS

I really, really like it:

    - runs Linux out of the box

    - *extremely* lightweight

    - battery lasts forever even with CPU-hungry workloads, typically a full day.

    - very nice 16 inches hi-rez (2560 x 1600) screen

    - very comfortable keyboard and touchpad

    - supports an external 4k screen through USB-C without a sweat

    - super fast (especially if you install your OS on raid-0 dual SSD)

    - 4 12th gen cores (8 with hyperthreading on)

    - built-in GPU (Intel® Iris® Xe MAX Graphics) has enough oomph to run blender @ 4k with very large textured scenes

    - on my specific version (I believe the 2022 models have fixed this), built-in speakers don't seem work on Linux, only windows (the earphones jack works, just not the built-in speakers which Linux can't seem to control the volume of properly)

    - when the laptop is not on a flat surface and a bit twisted, the left click on the touch pad sometimes fails.

As far as external displays go, if I understand it correctly these can drive a total of three external displays, both of the USB-C/TB4 ports should have DP alt mode and MST besides the HDMI output.

I'm honestly a bit surprised about the LG Gram series - you'd think there would be more talk about it. I didn't even know LG was making laptops, let alone such good ones; I only learned about them a few weeks ago by a random drive-by comment here on HN were someone mentioned them and that Linux just works, few weeks later I ended up having to buy a laptop on very short notice and remembered that comment.

Costco sells them, and when they go on sale, the value can't be beat IMHO.

Great screen, amazing battery (even after 3 years), zero issues on Linux (Fedora), love the dual NVMe option.

I'm thinking of upgrading to a 16" model, but I'll probably wait until another year.

Edit to add: Costco now carries 14 different models.

The only downside on the specs was the screen brightness only 350 nits for the latest model.

Also I read some negative comments on Amazon about CPU throttling that seems to be more aggressive than for other laptops. I don't have more information at which temperature throttling starts and to which frequency it goes, so it might be a false alarm but I would be interested to read owners comments.

This is a big issue for me. Sway/wlroots in particular seems to have no standardized way to assign an ICC profile to a monitor (Gnome and KDE do have the option though), or at least not one I was able to figure out.

I spent a week fine tuning Linux/Win11 with a new Dell monitor because reds were really weird. I know nothing about color management so it was really frustrating.

I settled on the Thinkpad X1 Nano. It weighs less than a MacBook Air, has a matte HiDPI screen, which is great for sunlight, a built in camera shutter, and most importantly, a great keyboard experience. I also splurged and added a 5G modem. The laptop is spill and dust proof and can clearly take more of a beating than a MacBook could. It's designed to be rugged while traveling.

This laptop has been an absolute delight. It feels like nothing is in my backpack, which is a nice complement to my stronger desktop at home. The performance is good enough for my development workflow, and the battery is fine to last during my workday. The only negative I would say is that the battery life is noticeably shorter than the M1 MacBook Air I previously had, but it's not terrible. Just not amazing. The laptop runs relatively quietly, which was another factor I wanted.

I'm running Fedora Linux on it, which I've come to enjoy more than MacOS. If you're looking for a nicer laptop to rival a MacBook, you'd be hard pressed to find a better option in my opinion. I spent about $1300 in total on this laptop.

Once it was a a worn out SSD that was replaced with one twice as big as that was the only thing they had in stock (Sweden), another time it was a broken connector on the motherboard (Hong Kong) and the third time it was a broken display (Mexico, Cozumel). I was most impressed by the service in Mexico as it's pretty far from any major cities and the technician came out after only a day.

If good warranty service is important to you I cannot recommend enough to get a Lenovo (T, P or X series) laptop and shell out for the extra warranty.

Note that you have to purchase it as a company to get access to the premium support.

Just beware that Lenovo makes some great laptops as well as some really really crappy models.

Everyone can probably agree that a desktop is better if you have the space, don't need to move it and doesn't mind a bit higer power consumption. A laptop has some clear usecases to.

Desktop for work, laptop for when I travel and might have to work.

That plus having a trackpad centrally located and a second screen below my main monitor really works for me.

I haven’t used a desktop in 20 years. Horses for courses I guess.

But then you did say ignoring portability, so it depends what you value most, as most things do.

I have a nice desktop setup, 5k2k, keeb, trackball, stream deck, my laptop runs it without making any noise, slowing down, or otherwise misbehaving.

I can easily drive to the manufacturer's authorized retail outlet in the event that it has problems, which has indeed happened twice over the nine laptops I've owned from this manufacturer in the last 15 years.

YMMV. Brand not mentioned out of respect for the aesthetics of this thread.

The only thing I ever did with my laptops when it wasn't plugged into a docking station at a desk was surf the web, and I can do that from my phone.

I can't work in bed for hours. But I can for a half hour after lunch, take a nap, then set back up at the desk as I am now.

I lived without a monitor for several years, you get the hang of it. I did have to bump up from 13" to 16" so I can use it without reading glasses for a few more years.

I'm definitely more efficient with more real estate, but not in a way that holds me back most of the time.

I've also trained myself to type on a laptop in a way that's hard to describe but: left hand V to Q, right hand N to P/[, so at a natural angle for my wrists. I've been using a split keyboard for long enough that twisting my wrists to accommodate a narrow keyboard isn't something I was willing to keep doing. This lets me get paragraphs/pages written without pain, whether I'm at the desk or not.

Airplanes, coffee shops, recliners, internetless cabins... a laptop's been all I needed for doing everything from web development to audio synthesis algorithm development.

All that being said, I'm typing this on an M1 MBP and the perceived day to day performance is better than any desktop computer I've owned, even if it will no doubt lose out a 'real' workstation when it comes to running 24 hour CFD simulations.

But then again, the M2 Air has this bulky UPS called „laptop battery”, so they can afford such little lies as long as the OS itself won’t shit itself and die randomly. Granted, it happens rarely, but nevertheless.

Citation needed. This definitely does not match any of my experiences at all.

* Docker daemon

* backend container

* frontend container

* database container

* local web server

* browser with Gitlab, Slack, Email, etc.

No idea how dev work is suppsed to be mostly single-threaded.

Something similar can be said for Gitlab/Slack/Email - in the background, they could easily be using the spare CPU time rather than competing for time, and you wouldn't actually notice it. But they also should spend most of their time waiting around doing nothing.

So I think the claim is specifically true for some stacks with poor test coverage.

But if you have compiled code, it should probably be compilable in parallel (and if it isn't, you should be complaining to the compiler writer and/or refactoring your code). Likewise, unit tests should in practice be runnable in parallel - if they are not, they're probably closer to integration tests. Even integration tests should be writable so that they can run in parallel, because you hope to have more than one user acting in parallel. And you generally shouldn't be testing your feature development manually. Even if you prefer to visualise your process, you can code it up in something like cypress so that you can run them later or check up why you missed this special case when the bug reports come in.

So I disagree with the original assertion, but I don't think you've provided an effective counterargument.

If it isn't, why do some controversial comments get into a lighter font?

Are you joking?

Which means that, when the parent poster started using this site, these Javascript-only thread collapsing buttons didn't exist (I took a quick look at archive.org to confirm). Since these buttons are so subtle, it is plausible that the parent poster didn't notice when they appeared.

For my next laptop, I'm waiting for Framework to open shipping to Switzerland. It won't come this kind of warranty but its full repairability will make up for it.

It was also bought with Ubuntu, but I have wiped that and I have installed Gentoo, as this is what I prefer. Support for Linux has been perfect, for all included peripherals, e.g. Thunderbolt, video camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, card reader, etc.

This heavier model has a modest battery life, which is normal for a laptop containing the top Mobile Xeon CPU and the top NVIDIA Quadro GPU of that year. Unlike lighter laptops, it has excellent cooling, which allows the CPU to dissipate 60 W for an indefinite time (despite the official TDP of only 45 W) allowing the fast compilation of large software projects, without thermal throttling and without excessive noise.

I develop software for embedded computers, so a I need a laptop like this Dell Precision 7000 series, with a large number of USB ports and with Ethernet, to be able to connect to various prototypes and development boards.

In conclusion, I can recommend the Dell Precision 7000 series for software development, especially under Linux. Unfortunately, they are rather overpriced, which is also true about all the other laptops labelled as "mobile workstations".

I’m glad it lasted as long as it did, but they don’t even have parts for it anymore so I can’t get it repaired.

It still hasn’t completely died so I’m still using it as a laptop but ended up getting a little System76 Meerkat for my desk and I love it. I just use the laptop as a 3rd screen with Barrier.

I'm currently experimenting with gaming laptops and am much happier with build quality and the great performance doesn't hurt either.

I don't see it very often, but I've seen it on a Surface Pro (the store display model!... I had to point it out to the staff and suggest they replace it before it caught fire and hurt a shopper), on my 2014 MBP after 4 years, and some other device I now forget about.

Unless lots of people are reporting this for a given device, it's probably just a fluke. It can happen, but it usually doesn't.

If you pay for the on-site “pro” warranty Dell just sends a tech, quickly and no questions asked. Even to small rural towns.

Can the Framework laptop be powered via USB-C or are they still using power jacks like in the 20th century?

Powering via USB-C would be OK only on laptops with at least 4 or 5 USB-C/Thunderbolt ports, but such laptops are non-existent.

Laptops with only 2 USB-C ports, where 1 is blocked by the charger, are useless for me. When I have access to a power plug, I usually also want to use an external SSD and an external DisplayPort monitor, which need 2 USB-C ports.

> Powering via USB-C would be OK only on laptops with at least 4 or 5 USB-C/Thunderbolt ports, but such laptops are non-existent.

Isn't the Framework an example of a laptop with 4 USB-C/Thunderbolt ports? (IIRC, there's also some Apple laptop model with 2 USB-C/Thunderbolt ports on each side, for a total of 4, said model being infamous for having performance problems whenever a charger is plugged on the "wrong" side.)

My Macbook Air M1 with only two USB-C ports has been just fine. I have a small but effective Anker "hub" which adds SD, HDMI, USB, and USB-C. Usually I don't need it, so it stays in my primary bag while my nice and portable laptop goes everywhere.

perhaps that's all you often need, it's a little presumptuous to say so about others

My little Anker has two USB-A, two USB-C (one may be thunderbolt I think), HDMI, and SD card slot.

You're not going to find a laptop with more than those ports. So I stand by my comment that 2 ports (and the optional little hub in your bag) are all you need.

If you somehow need more, then you probably aren't traveling with all that gear... or at least not using it while in transit.

that is significantly less convenient and more expensive than a computer that has the same functionality without needing the extra hardware or a bag to carry around "accessories" that bring the laptop up to snuff

In my case, the port expander is smaller than a phone, and I rarely need it. My laptop has 2TB of drive space, so I don't need external storage except occasionally at home to do a physical backup. But my important data is frequently syncing to the cloud, so I don't need to travel with a backup drive.

So more than 99% of the time, all I need is the laptop (and usually internet, which I have via wifi or mobile phone hotspot.

And with one 65W Anker power adapter, I have 2 USB and 1 USB-C power so I can charge my laptop, phone, and a third small device if necessary.

The MB Air is very thin, pretty light, and very rigid. That makes traveling so much more pleasant compared to the bulky heavy XPS 15 I previously had. Yes, I only have 13" display now instead of 15", but the difference in screen real estate isn't very significant.

the specific use cases aren't as important given that they exist and are unsatisfied by 1 standard USB port (though my latest MBP has zero, lol)

People are suggesting Frame Work laptops but if you don’t have official Apple support, it’s even less likely Frame Work ships to this country and if you managed to get one you’d have no support.

I imagine you need to go the Dell XPS or Lenovo route.

Aiming to sell my 13" XPS and replace it with an M2 Macbook Air, after work gave me an M1 16" Pro and it's just so unbelievably efficient and never gets hot, plus the battery last all day under heavy load.

I use a top of the line XPS for several years, and there were two common user-fixes that really improved this heat issue: adding a thermal transfer pad between a couple of the power-related chips and the case, and running a CPU voltage tool to reduce the voltage a bit. Undervolting really made a huge difference, including making the laptop overall faster. The stupid thing, even in a good environment, would go into heat-reduction mode after a few seconds of heavy load, cutting the clock speeds in half. But just by reducing the CPU voltage a few tenths of a volt, the heat was much lower and the CPU almost never throttled. Even so, the fans were loud and usually on.

On paper it looked like a phenomenal laptop. In actual use, it was very unpleasant.

In contrast, my M1 Air has been a dream. I'm trying to think of a negative about it, but honestly I can't think of anything. I've been using it most of every day for a year, on a desk with a big monitor as well as in several places around the world. Even the 16GB RAM limitation has rarely been an issue (except occasionally with my last client that was deeply in love with Docker... 8 running containers plus JetBrains IDEs and of course Firefox with a couple dozen tabs does eventually slow the laptop a bit, but only occasonally).

The new M2 with 24GB will be perfect, especially with the slightly brighter screen for those beachside moments ;)

I try to wait for Black Friday/cyber Monday because ThinkPads are usually 1/2 off.

Macbooks aren't perfect either despite having better wifi, audio (and lower noise-floor). I would not choose a Macbook unless an employer gave it to me for free, but then I would without a doubt choose one. Will the logic board fail after 1 year warranty or a year after? Or have other quirks? Most likely!

Android is the same btw, ask me why I run iPhone despite being the largest android fanboi previously.. everything was terribly broken and half-baked.. The only android device I own now is my SONY X900H TV and since latest update it has started to reboot itself at random.

I'm fed up with this..

What are you talking about? My S22 Ultra works great.

Going with something like NixOS would make this even easier as your operating system setup could easily be migrated to another machine when the time comes.

In the past, Linux compatibility was not great because the desktop userbase was considerably smaller. Today, compatiblity is not great because hardware got considerably more complex.

It's possible that some hardware is very compatible. That's great! But one has to be very careful. For example the alleged Dell XPS compatibility with Linux is a half-scam (I've worked on such laptop), or brands like Lenovo, which used to be very compatible in the past, now are not necessarily so (e.g. Ryzen 6000 laptops are a dumpster fire on Linux).

How so? I'm using one with ubuntu 22. 04 and it works great. Haven't seen a laptop that properly sleeps and wakes up with Linux before so it has been a pleasant experience. Only thing that doesn't work out of the box is the fingerprint reader.

1. The fingerprint reader needs some older and/or patched versions of the corresponding tools/daemon. I fixed it upon setup, but don't really use it so didn't bother checking if this works now with the latest vanilla versions.

2. Something related to Bluetooth causes random CPU lockups (I think the kernel/driver is the culprit), so I have it disabled.

(3. IIRC the Wifi wasn't properly supported by the mainline kernel for some time upon release - but I bought the laptop quite late into the product cycle, so this didn't affect me)

4. The WiFi chip does not support promiscuous mode

If it was really as Linux-compatible as the ads suggest, everything would work out of the box with mainline kernel & upstream versions of user-space tools.

Mostly they probably should have picked a better supported WiFi/BT combo chip (e.g. something from Intel) instead of using a chip that barely works (yes, it's soldered on and I the dev variant probably has the same PCB as the non-dev variant).

Besides that, the UX is quite good. As you say, sleep works well (but I'm expecting that from any decent laptop; I know, I'm expecting too much). The touchscreen is awesome in Chromium (too bad Firefox doesn't touch-scroll, but maybe that can be reconfigured in about:config).

[edit] light rephrasing, added 4. + last two paragraphs.

Tracking bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1808957. It's a bit mad - even if the fix has been released, it seems to still affect users of other XPS models.

Other bug, affecting keyboard lights: https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/keyboard-light-keeps-turning....

On the other hand, the recent XPS 13 Plus, is officially certified by Ubuntu, so there's hope :)

Don't expect to run anything that isn't packaged. Don't expect packaging some binary blob for NixOS is easy.

The problem isn't that it's not easy. It is easy. The problem is that it's an entirely new ecosystem and language, and takes time to learn. But it's worth it.

I recently bought Asus Zenbook 14 Oled (12th gen) over M1 MacBook Air and I absolutely love it. It has 75Wh battery, excellent speakers and with a nice 90Hz 14inch display.

However, I can't use Fedora on it since sound over speaker doesn't work yet.

Dell's Inspiron 14 is a decent purchase for around 65k ( with on-site & accidental damage warranty )

On a side note, my gaming laptop MSI GF 65 died and I was able to walk into a service centre in Bangalore, and they literally replaced the motherboard for free and returned it in 3 weeks. The entire process was extremely simple.