Comment by koonsolo
2 days ago
I switched as a long time Linux user to a MacBook because of the hardware:
- Battery: no other laptop comes even close
- Trackpad: I don't use a mouse anymore, no other laptop comes close
- Audio: No other laptop comes close
"Sharp edges" really don't bother me to be honest, I wouldn't have noticed it if nobody told me.
I have a nano-texture screen, and it works great in daylight.
Just goes to show how opinions can differ.
I remember multiple reviews of other laptops that indeed came close in all of those categories. So those statements are objectively wrong.
Problem is that I dont remember which, and if I remembered the model might very well not be in stock anymore. The other vendors with their always changing lineup of models make that impossible by choice.
But the above criteria are mostly subjective, so objectivity largely doesn’t apply.
The HP ZBook G1a comes close in computing power, screen, sound and trackpad quality - but not at all in battery life: about 7 hours. It's also pretty overpriced, but discounts are common.
"comes close" in itself is a very relative concept. So how can you claim my statements are "objectively wrong"?. Depends on how close "close" is, right.
If you can provide me an example of a laptop that beats one of those categories, it's objectively wrong. In all other cases, nope.
My only complaint is with the EN-international keyboard my company prefers - there is no way to reverse the tilde key position back to the same place next to 1 on the US keyboard. The OS knows what keyboard the laptop has and refuses to change it.
I've created my own keyboard layout plus do some key remapping on my mac. Are you sure this won't work for tilde?
The tilde key exists in the key map here: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/technotes/tn2450...
You can see how I did mine here if you're interested: https://github.com/bruse/dotfiles/tree/main/macOS (I suspect com.local.KeyRemapping.plist is most interesting, but the key layout file is there too, with some comments on how it was generated).
Thank you. I'll check as soon as I can. I remember having asked that in the Ask Different Stack Exchange forum, but I couldn't even find my question.
> Trackpad: I don't use a mouse anymore, no other laptop comes close
I always hear this but don't get it. Every time I use a Mac laptop, I hate the touchpad. Maybe it's the defaults but I don't feel it's more accurate or anything... Why do people think it's good? A certain acceleration profile?
I much prefer the commodity Synaptics trackpads I've had on my last 2 laptops, running Linux with Gnome and now Hyprland. I just crank the sensitivity, have all the gestures enabled, tap to click and 2 finger reverse scrolling and am happy.
I hate the tap to click, so that's probably our difference. I really want to physically click, and a tap should do nothing. I always get fake clicks in the other case.
Dragging also becomes more natural when you have a real click.
The trackpad is also big enough to easily cover the whole screen.
> Dragging also becomes more natural when you have a real click
Agree to disagree. I find tap to click + hold turns into a double tap but hold on the second tap which I find quite intuitive. And two finger tap is "right click".
> The trackpad is also big enough to easily cover the whole screen.
So is mine with the sensitivity up. But I don't have to move my hand at all, only my fingers.
> I hate the tap to click, so that's probably our difference
Ok fair enough. I have noticed most Macs I use for whatever reason don't have tap to click enabled. So larger size + probably a nicer click could be reasons.