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Comment by fidotron

6 months ago

Same problem here.

Linux + KDE surpassed Windows many years ago, now I find I also prefer it to the Mac laptops, which are otherwise better only for portability.

Apple need to get their software act together. Such a shame because the hardware is awesome. A near perfect inversion of the era of Tiger on the G4.

23 comments

fidotron

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blahgeek  6 months ago

Apple is and always has been a hardware company. I would like to use the Linux ecosystem, however there’s simply no laptop other than Mac that is light and powerful and runs 15 hours in battery.

  • skydhash  6 months ago

    I much prefer to plug a charger every 5 hours (not that much of an inconvenience) than to suffer bad UX and distractions continuously.

    • olyjohn  6 months ago

      Where the hell do people go that they are away from power for 15 hours and are on the computer the whole time? Are they video editing while in the middle of a safari?

      And besides, every time I see comments like this, all I can think is that they never have even tried to find a PC laptop that is small, fast and has good battery life. Believe it or not they exist.

      5 replies →

  • dangus  6 months ago

    The gap is narrowing every day. I would come close to saying this isn’t true anymore.

    For example, the ASUS TUF A14 is only one hour shorter on the real world office productivity test than the M5 MacBook Pro:

    https://youtu.be/3Q837Uclwp8

    (Battery life section)

    It also lasts longer than the M4 Pro MacBook Pro 14”.

    Bonus points: it has replaceable, upgradable, DUAL full size SSD slots and replaceable WiFi card.

    You’re also getting a better discrete graphics chip that you can use for higher performance applications, or go on still-good integrated graphics to get that great battery life.

    Intel Panther Lake systems are rolling out and they have graphics performance slightly exceeding the M5 MacBook Pro along with excellent power efficiency.

    Macs still win out on certain CPU benchmarks and certainly on creative benchmarks like video editing, but the truth of the matter is unless you’re making money editing videos, that doesn’t matter. It’s not like Apple chips are so far ahead that buying something else will make you sit in purgatory waiting for builds to complete.

    I took the plunge recently and got off Mac. I was pleasantly surprised that, yes, other hardware is fine. Much of it is good, actually.

    There are even PC laptops with haptic trackpads, but also, you really don’t need that. macOS has made itself require it by designing around it unnecessarily, presumably to sell more $150 external trackpads (e.g., a three finger swipe is really not easier to accomplish than a keyboard shortcut, it’s just overengineering).

    Even if you can’t get the same battery life…that’s something a $50 external battery can solve, and I would suggest that anything above ~8 hours of battery is more of a nice to have than a necessity.

    Is it 100% as good in every respect? No. But if you’d rather use Linux and the hardware is the only thing in your way, I’d start actually looking at other laptops to find one that works for you rather than assuming MacBooks as the best. (One of the challenges is that there are so many options once you leave Mac-land).

    • neonstatic  6 months ago

      Hey there, quick question - are the alternatives perfectly quiet? Been on M1 Max train for almost 5 years now. I see people talk about performance, battery life, but the key feature for me is just how I never, ever, hear the fans.

      2 replies →

OsrsNeedsf2P  6 months ago

Linux + KDE has a significantly worse UI than Tahoe

  • dotancohen  6 months ago

    I'm a KDE user who is currently on his second stint using a Mac - the last was in 2017. I'm trying to be as objective as possible, but my list of "it works better on Linux" is far longer than the "it works better on Mac" list. I'd love to know your arguments.