Yeah, but... If it was a $5 part failing and an overall $80 repair in normal circumstances, I am sure we would all be annoyed that the design means the only option is a $600-$800 second hand replacement.
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I have #MacBookFear
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Yeah, but... If it was a $5 part failing and an overall $80 repair in normal circumstances, I am sure we would all be annoyed that the design means the only option is a $600-$800 second hand replacement.
Well I can't argue with that perspective and for many that is a point. For me having suffered for years with horrible overweight so called convertibles just to have a built in digitizer in order to paint with Painter, or having to use an extra tablet. The thin powerful, Surfaces were a dream come true. I accept that they cannot be upgraded. I only ask for longevity. So far they have delivered. My Surface Pro 3 for example is still working flawlessly. I bought at the top i7, 16 gigs, etc hoping for the best and so far it has delivered.
The only issue with these non upgradable units for all venders is that they need to be durable and last, in my view at least six years.
It does, it uses the Ubuntu distro, I don't know if that's good/bad/indifferent. I'm just putting that out there. If you can live within Linux, i.e., it has all of the apps you need, then Elementary may be a good choice.
Playing Devils Advocate, what is the out of warranty repair cost for a MBP if a soldered on $8 cable fails (i.e flexgate)? $600+ for a display replacement on your own second-hand computer vs $600-$800 for a refurbished (not second hand) replacement.
What about a touch bar failure? A guy in this thread claims his work order shows it would have been a $965GBP / $1247.21USD repair out of warranty. Probably pretty much the case for any top case repair.
In any case, when I purchased my Surface Pro I did so as a business purchase and added 4 years Microsoft Complete for Business with ADP. The accidental damage protection includes 2 instances where just get a new machine. The 4-year warranty was $314.10 with the 10% military discount, but even the full $349. If the device fails after 4 years, I would likely just purchase a new one rather than pay the $600-$800 for a refurb.
Out of Warranty replacements for Surface Devices are $899 (Studio/Studio2), $649 Surface Book 2 15", $599 Surface Book 2 13", $450 Surface Laptop and Surface Pro.
I understand that not everyone can purchase the Complete for Business, although they never asked for more than a business card, but it is an alternative to the standard plan for many.
Edit: Thinking about it, you are pretty much screwed on either brand for OOW repair
I really know nothing about Linux and have been willfully ignorant of it, not wanting to know more about it. But lately, after getting back into Windows a bit last year after 12+ years away, I have become more interested in learning a bit more about Linux as well.
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The average J Doe is not going to realize that a faulty surface laptop simply cannot be repaired and a warranty on that device really needs to be compulsory, not optional.
Most people are reviewing right when opening the box, or VERY shortly afterwards. It would be more fair to compare reviews of people that have had the laptop for 6 months to a year.
Warranty is pretty much compulsory on Microsoft and Apple for sure. Arguably on other brands such as Lenovo where you can replace RAM, SSD, WiFi, and other components. But I think I would still always get it on a laptop, just because of the nature of the device.
Yes, that is a very good point, thank you. When I viewed videos of Apple laptops, I purposely used any filter system to view videos from "This year" or "This month" after doing a search for 2017 models as well as taking into consideration the date at which each video was uploaded. I paid particular attention to any videos which had something like "After a year of use" or similar titles. I feel that gave me a better understanding of any issues, or lack thereof, contained in the videos.
Playing Devils Advocate, what is the out of warranty repair cost for a MBP if a soldered on $8 cable fails (i.e flexgate)? $600+ for a display replacement on your own second-hand computer vs $600-$800 for a refurbished (not second hand) replacement.
What about a touch bar failure? A guy in this thread claims his work order shows it would have been a $965GBP / $1247.21USD repair out of warranty. Probably pretty much the case for any top case repair.
In any case, when I purchased my Surface Pro I did so as a business purchase and added 4 years Microsoft Complete for Business with ADP. The accidental damage protection includes 2 instances where just get a new machine. The 4-year warranty was $314.10 with the 10% military discount, but even the full $349. If the device fails after 4 years, I would likely just purchase a new one rather than pay the $600-$800 for a refurb.
Out of Warranty replacements for Surface Devices are $899 (Studio/Studio2), $649 Surface Book 2 15", $599 Surface Book 2 13", $450 Surface Laptop and Surface Pro.
I understand that not everyone can purchase the Complete for Business, although they never asked for more than a business card, but it is an alternative to the standard plan for many.
Edit: Thinking about it, you are pretty much screwed on either brand for OOW repair
I really know nothing about Linux and have been willfully ignorant of it, not wanting to know more about it. But lately, after getting back into Windows a bit last year after 12+ years away, I have become more interested in learning a bit more about Linux as well.
Linux is interesting but it can be a pain in all the wrong places. It recovery from issues can be a nightmare, basically it always boots up to the command line, and you had better know what it wants. If not prepare to spend days searching for the right answer (command).
My last issue came out of the blue. I was working in Lib office and all of a sudden it sent up a cryptic error message. Then I realized it wouldn't save my document. Frustrated after 10 minutes I copied the whole thing to a note app just to have my work. It wouldn't save there either. Then I discovered that the drive had become read only! What the??!!! Then the whole thing fell apart, I couldn't even get into the settings. Rebooted and you guessed it... The command line waiting for the right input... The command window on my 4k screen was the size of a postage stamp... As it turns out the whole problem that brought the entire system to a halt was that the clock was wrong... Yes you read that right. A clock in the wrong time zone caused all those issues.
Wow. You may have killed my interest in Linux in one post. Congratulations
. j/kThat is crazy though. What a headache. Did you lose all your work? I think my willful ignorance of Linux began 20-some years ago when I was working at a computer shop and some guy brought a Linux machine in with some issue, maybe his clock was wrong? We informed him that we didn't work on Linux systems and he became visibly angry and started lecturing us about how naive and short-sighted we all were and how Linux was going to be by far the dominant operating system for personal computers within the next 5 years. That didn't really work out for him and I just kind of ignored it. But now I am kind of curious after reading an article about System 76 and how they were moving manufacturing from China to Denver and also about their own homegrown version of Linux Pop! _OS
Wow. You may have killed my interest in Linux in one post. Congratulations
That is crazy though. What a headache. Did you lose all your work? I think my willful ignorance of Linux began 20-some years ago when I was working at a computer shop and some guy brought a Linux machine in with some issue, maybe his clock was wrong? We informed him that we didn't work on Linux systems and he became visibly angry and started lecturing us about how naive and short-sighted we all were and how Linux was going to be by far the dominant operating system for personal computers within the next 5 years. That didn't really work out for him and I just kind of ignored it. But now I am kind of curious after reading an article about System 76 and how they were moving manufacturing from China to Denver and also about their own homegrown version of Linux Pop! _OS
Oh yes, all my work was lost the moment I rebooted. I then went to the support groups and there discovered that Linux had locked the drive due to being confused about the time. I wasn't about to try and run the commands on that "postage stamp". The utility for scaling the screen only worked on the desktop that I couldn't get into. I ended up blowing the whole thing away and starting over. Fortunately I was working in a VM. I discovered an option in VMware to make sure that the main system would update and set the correct time.
To stay on topic those who are thinking to jump ship there beware, it is not as polished as MacOS.
The command line is where Linux is most powerful, so you need to know it (enough of it). You can throw any skin you want over the top but it is still a command line OS. I work with it every day on servers, I only recommend it for those that are willing to learn.
And that is where it differs greatly from Windows and macOS, it is not simply plug, play and forget.
It's where my connection to Apple and macOS comes from. The command line is pretty much identical, I spend a significant amount of my time in macOS working within terminal.
That's why I switched W10, losing data is not remotely entertaining for a spit second. I like Linux a lot, equally the distro has to be stable, another factor is applications. I've a good 12 hours work in the current open documents spanning multiple days of operations, loosing them due to hardware/software error on the date of delivery is simply not an option
Q-6
Well yes I know that. I have dealt in Linux for over 20 years, Mandrake was where I started, and it continues to surprise me. I have nothing against the command line, but in the above mentioned case I simply could not see it. But I am not claiming to be an expert with Linux I just enjoy visiting with it from time to time.
No question the terminal is more powerful in Linux and macOS. I've read that MS wants to improve the command shell, but they do have the linux subsystem. I'm probably going to install the subsystem, just because I'm nerdy like that.
WSL is very good, Microsoft are trying to encourage developers away from other OS's by providing it. The issue for me and many others though is that there are so many tools built by the developer community that are specific to macOS, it will take a long time to encourage us away from it with a combined solution of Windows and a Linux subsystem.
macOS is currently the sweet spot for so many.
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Not correct. Elementary is a Linux variant based on the seriously awful Gtk. Elementary‘s look is pretty much based on Mac OS, but functionality is rather basic; not even a close match.
Mac OS is in parts derived from FreeBSD (the subsystem, mostyl) using a custom kernel (XNU/Darwin) and has nothing to do with Linux at all.
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Certainly within the area I am, server management and server side development, Apples current design decisions don't have so much of an impact on that community, well sure they do if you want new kit, but 10 year old kit is over-powered for that type of work.
Not an excuse for them, just more of a relief for us that we don't need the latest kit, bummer if we want it.
I'm one of those people, i swapped my 2017 MBP 15" with a colleague's 2015 15", for now I have to be on macOS for work reasons, at least some of the time, so leaving the ecosystem is just not an option short term. But I get where you are coming from and I agree, hopefully company will become less invested in macOS/IOS as time goes by and I can get a modern computer again.
Right now the feeling of being boxed in is not comfortable, at all, and not tenable for even mid term.
I really want to consolidate my 12 inch MacBook 2016 AND 15 inch MacBook Pro 2016 to a 2018 MacBook Pro. Decent price at the refurb store but all these issues are definitely discouraging. I might just keep both of them for another year since they both work perfectly fine. I use the 12 inch for traveling and the 15 inch for the office and home.
Pretty tempted in getting the new Razer stealth or Razer Blade 15. Also hoping Microsoft will release a surface book with tb3 as well.
Pretty tempted in getting the new Razer stealth or Razer Blade 15. Also hoping Microsoft will release a surface book with tb3 as well.
The price of the 4k razer is very expensive. That's why I opted for the ThinkPad
I was simply going by what is said on the FreeBSD web site and the computer guy on YouTube.
If you want to try out Linux I would recommend Ubuntu or Mint, both have most of the tools ready to go that you would need. Most distros are a flavor of another, you're not so much getting better in any, just different.
Debian is great but not really for beginners, Ubuntu is based on Debian, as is Mint but both are designed for ease of use. As I say each offers something different but overall I would say that Ubuntu is the place to start if you want to get as close to macOS in terms of operation as you can without it being a ball ache to maintain.
ElementaryOS if you want it to look like macOS but put you off actually using Linux for life.
If you just want to get a quick feel for any or all of them, install Parallels Desktop Lite from the App Store, it's the free version that only allows you to install Linux distributions. Not saying Parallels is great overall but for testing the water with Linux it is quick and easy and ensures your keyboard and mouse work as they should.
Debian is great but not really for beginners, Ubuntu is based on Debian, as is Mint but both are designed for ease of use. As I say each offers something different but overall I would say that Ubuntu is the place to start if you want to get as close to macOS in terms of operation as you can without it being a ball ache to maintain.
ElementaryOS if you want it to look like macOS but put you off actually using Linux for life.
If you just want to get a quick feel for any or all of them, install Parallels Desktop Lite from the App Store, it's the free version that only allows you to install Linux distributions. Not saying Parallels is great overall but for testing the water with Linux it is quick and easy and ensures your keyboard and mouse work as they should.
Interesting. You mean the "computer guy" claimed Mac OS is a derivative of Elementary Linux? Actually quite hilarious if he really said that. Its of course the other way round: Elementary's UI is heavily inspired by the Mac; so probably he mixed that up somehow.
Elementary is in no way a precursor of Mac OS. Not only is Elementary waaay to young, all its got in common is that both Mac OS and Linux are kinda Unix-ish, where Mac OS is actually derived from Unix, whereas Linux an attempt of a Unix reimplementation; or, as Linus Torvalds puts it: Unix-like.
Mac OS is based on the Mach kernel and in itself is derived from NeXTStep, which used some parts of FreeBSD's and NetBSD's Unix implementations.
Mac OS (Leopard, I am not aware if this is true for newer variants as well) is UNIX-compliant and was in parts certified.
Not that important really, this is just fyi. There is a fair bit of misinformation out there on Linux and Mac OS and how those are historically related, so I sometimes feel obligated to straighten that up.
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