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Comment by jp0d | Hacker News Reader

very true. I've used several other brands of laptops, mostly because they're cheaper. None have lasted more than 2 years. I've had Compaq, Fujistsu, HP, Asus and a ThinkPad. Only the ThinkPad still works. I had one of the early Intel Core 2 Duo Macbooks and it lasted 6 years before I sold it. It was still working. My wife's Macbook Air is 6 years old and has only 4 gigs of RAM and it still supports the latest OS and works. Even the battery last 4 to 5 hours easily. I've tried working with Linux on some other laptops but I'd to deal with a lot of support issues. Macs just work. I'm using a 2017 model Macbook Pro with 16 gigs RAM, from work. The keyboard is not the best so they gave me a Magic Keyboard. It's just a stress free computer.

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I can feel all of that. I went from a custom gaming PC, which was ok aside from having to re-install windows once every few months, then to a 2009 MBP 13" which lasted 4 years until I sold it for a ridiculous sum, then a late 2013 13" MBP which I used until 2018 until it was stolen. I then went to a 2017 non-touchbar model, which was just... fine, but had the keyboard issue, delamination, and an insanely hard to troubleshoot deep-sleep/wake from sleep issue which led to it being replaced by Apple under warranty (when I finally re-produced the issue 100% of the time) for my current 2019 MBP 13" w/ 16gb of ram.

Other than that, my impression of Thinkpads is that, while they seem a bit clunky for me, they are at least in the top tier of non-MBP laptops. Likewise, my brother just picked up a 2019 XPS 13" which has earned some praise from HN folk and seems to be pretty solid. I'd personally like a gaming rig of some kind, but if I'm realistic, I won't get that much use out of it until the rainy season.

I know what you mean. ThinkPads are definitely chunky and are in the similar price range as Macs. If I didn't have the Macbook pro (16gigs with core -i5) from work, I'd probably buy a Macbook air. I feel that the Air series offer a lot of value for money. I have the touch bar Macbook pro. It's great. I use the touch bar sometimes but all I really want is the finger print sensor. Great feature. I'm wondering if Apple will ever open up the iPad OS a bit and allow terminal access and enable installing compilers and dev environments like the Mac OS. I wouldn't mind switching to an iPad in that case. The ARM Macbooks are going to be just non-touch iPads with MacOS X on them anyway. I don't do a lot of gaming. Mostly play casual games on a Nintendo Switch. So my desktop PC has been barely touched in the last three years.

I'd love to see iPads become more versatile. The iPad Pro seems like a pretty nice device, particularly because of the high refresh rate screen. But it's very heavily consumption and illustration oriented. My iPad 3 has been passable since it was new, with some degradation in performance, but I haven't found a more interesting use for it besides YouTube and Pocket. I imagine that it could be a great device for interactive systems or 3D modelling, but I'd really be trying to justify the purchase at that point. I do also agree that the fingerprint sensor is a nice addition, but along with it they made it almost impossible to recover data in the event of catastrophic failure.

Yeah, absolutely. IOS is very restrictive in terms of what you can achieve on it as a developer or a power user. But it's an amazing device for artists and content creators. Packs enough CPU power for their needs. My wife has been considering buying one for illustrations etc. Now with the new iPad Air supporting Pencil 2, the choices are even more confusing. She is torn between getting the pro or the new Air.

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