Bought a Thinkpad (T480s) as a replacement for the (great) 2013 MBA and it's running nicely so far, good quality, small. Dualboot BitLocker WinPro and LUKS Ubuntu could be easier, but gracefully the recipe in the Ubuntu wiki took care of it. Full boot up is slow, but I'm almost always running Linux and the sleep functionality works reliably and is quick. --
The (2017/8?) MBP of my work collegue starts having problems with the keyboard, he can still type atm but it is annoying to think that soon a service visit with all the hassle might be necessary.
did exactly the same, although I’m now thinking of that sexy X1 Yoga. That being said, having to deal with Windows 10 almost (but not quite) takes away the advantage of the superb hardware design - the keyboard alone still makes it a winner for me though.
I've got the X1 Yoga (based on HN recommendations) and I'd really think carefully before getting it.
The Dolby HDR screens have a really bad red/pink tint out of the box (about +10% to +15% shift) and I had to buy a Spyder color colorimeter to fix it. The speakers are really terrible, even for speech-driven content like Duolingo. Using headphones isn't much improvement, the Realtek audio drivers are really bad with clicks whenever audio starts & stops (also happens on the X1 Extreme). [1]
Most notably, the laptop sometimes doesn't charge. The orange charging light would come on, but when I came back the next morning, the battery level hadn't increased. It would only charge while Windows was running. I think it's been fixed in a recent firmware update, but it's been frustrating.
I do love the keyboard and form factor though. I haven't returned it, but often wonder if I should've got a Surface Book or even a Dell instead. Honestly I'd switch back to Apple if I could trust their hardware to be reliable & upgradeable.
thanks for the write-up! I see, there’s some minor problems with my 480s related to power, it seems that and more got worse. I can’t justify the price and lack of thunderbolt of Surface Book tbh. I’d switch back to Macbooks the moment they’d become reasonable about ports and keyboards again - who knows, maybe it’s going to happen when looking at the new Mac mini.
In any case I find it really annoying how things are going in PC-land. Around 2010 wasn’t just peak Mac, but peak everything it seems to me. Ubuntu 10, Windows 7, macOS 10.6(?), SSDs, fast and reliable I/O, it all came together. Maybe you can count till 2012 with Retina, but I’ve yet to wait for a machine with Hi-DPI that has both reliable hardware (GPU) AND software (i.e. without terrible scaling issues, especially when also connecting external screens).
The (2017/8?) MBP of my work collegue starts having problems with the keyboard, he can still type atm but it is annoying to think that soon a service visit with all the hassle might be necessary.