No surprises here. Just like the lockdown on iPhone screen and part replacements, Macbooks suffer from the same Apple’s anti-repair and anti-consumer bullshit. Battery glued, ssd soldered in and can’t even swap parts with other official parts. 6000$ laptop and you don’t even own it.
Framework laptops are getting better. Not Apple levels good, but it certainly beats them in average longevity.
The only hope with Apple is having the EU step in again to stop this kind of bullcrap.
I love the idea of Framework and I want to get one, but the price is multiple times of what I paid for my current machine… and this is better than the Framework in several ways. I’m hoping that a few of the Frameworks make it onto the second hand market and I’ll buy one there. The idea of a laptop that’s easy to replace and lasts forever is brilliant though, and I hope they take off.
What did you get and for how much? To me it seems the framework (at least the 16) is only a bit (100-200 out of 1600) more expensive than laptops with similar specs.
I paid approx $700 for a i5 with a Geforce 3050 and a 144hz screen. The RAM was weak but it was upgrade able so I got it up to 40GB, about $800 all up. It’s an MSI.
The only downside is that it’s such a pain to take apart and it’s put together in a way where there’s a very real chance of doing permanent damage when taking off the cover, since the case actually wraps around the ports and makes the motherboard bend when you apply any pressure to it. It came with 8GB of RAM out of the box, so basically unusable without the upgrade; still, I’m very happy with it atm.
Yeah the upfront cost is more, but personally I think it’s more than worth it since it will probably end up being cheaper in the long term, especially if you like to upgrade frequently. I’m personally thinking I’m going to try the framework 16 route once I decide to rid of my current laptop. I hope they take off too and I’m more than willing to show support for a company pushing right to repair.
ThinkPads are far superior than MacBooks for longevity, user repairability, durability, keyboard and thermals. Also Linux compatibility is highest alongside System76, Framework, Tuxedo and others.
Not that I’m advocating for Apple’s inexcusable behaviour, but as someone who’s worked in IT managing fleets of hundreds of Thinkpads (among others like Apple, Dell, Acer, HP), respectfully, they are far less reliable and durable than a MacBook. The only devices I had with higher failure rates than ThinkPads were Acer laptops.
They are certainly more repairable, but so are others like Dell and HP. Lenovo were one of the earlier manufacturers to pull some anti-repair moves such as soldering memory to the mainboard (on the Yoga models).
I think your statement is far more accurate in the days when IBM owned the ThinkPad brand, but unfortunately Lenovo have run it into the ground as far as quality goes.
All that said, I certainly hope we see more projects like Framework so that these big manufacturers can get some sort of reality check.
Lenovo did not run ThinkPad to the ground. User repairability has become a lot more accessible to the average user since, and unlike greedy IBM, Lenovo prices them at various tiers. The only thing that has become less accessible is the battery, which is behind a few screws and a back cover now, to make the laptops thinner and lighter.
I have seen plenty ThinkPads being given to employees in corporate India, and they just work, unlike Dells and HPs, and are not astronomically costly to to buy and repair like MacBooks.
You’re just flat out wrong on this.
There’s a Wikipedia article for each series of thinkpad/idea book or whatever and it’s got a color coded chart you can scroll through to see the progression from more user replaceable to less.
Lenovo still has some lines that are modular, but they’re doing what everyone else is.
Only the X serie ultrabooks and Yogas are not as modular. What else is so non-modular among ThinkPads? Hot swappable battery versus battery behind few screws does not practically count, because they are easy to replace.
The e series and non-yoga L13s after 2019 (no surprise there), the t-series is available with partial soldered ram and a bunch of other stuff after 2013 (O.O) and only has a few configurations without soldered parts after 2020. Even the p series has partial soldered skus and one fully soldered one.
Oh yeah and all that is true for cpus as well. I didn’t feel like deciphering the two incredibly close colors they use on that chart for “socketed” and “soldered” so I’m not making specific claims but there’s a lot of soldered cpus in the thinkpad line now.
There has been a movement industry wide towards soldered components and Lenovo hasn’t completely committed the thinkpad line to it but they’re absolutely dipping their toes in.
Non-soldered CPUs basically have not been a thing since a decade, and only the most niche maker Framework has something resembling that today. That is less on Lenovo and more on how the “slim” trend has gone for laptop industry as a whole.
I have noticed the soldered RAM in the E/L serie, but did not know T has that now. But I think the general essence of a ThinkPad with user repairability and durability is retained even now, with even the base E serie since E480 having MILSPEC certification. Great ThinkPads are simply more expensive, and any ThinkPad you get will be way better than consumer grade laptops, which I think has merit.
ThinkPads are far superior than MacBooks for longevity
Not sure that’s true. I have a pretty top-of-the-line ThinkPad (3 years old) and it started falling apart after like a year of regular use. Maybe years ago that was true but nowadays I feel like everybody except maybe Apple has crap build quality.
Falling apart after a year? Maybe it was a lemon? What is your use case?
I do not think Apple has good build quality, when the smallest bump can dent it for ever, and it cannot take falls. Its keyboard is also a joke compared to most laptops…
I’ve had pretty much the opposite experience. My friend has a macbook that he drops all the time and still works.
Also it’s not like other brands are immune to denting, it’s just kind of the nature of the material.
Kinda agree on the keyboard but I got used to it and also most brands have that type of keyboards nowadays anyway.
I dropped my Dell inspiron and watched it plinko its way down an entire set of stairs and still worked fine, too.
and its a (comparatively) cheap plastic crap bag.
Build quality vs. The aluminum build materials are not equivalent comparison
I’m a PC person, I do NOT like apple, however about 7 years ago I started traveling for work more and had the option to get a MacBook (at the time way way better battery, screen) than our windows laptops. I was just carrying a thin closed laptop with me around, and others had their laptop, a charge cable, and a mouse to achieve the same level of use.
I fell in love with the thing as a whole. Could go 8h on battery, didn’t need a mouse, didn’t use a mouse or external monitors like I did when “home” with my windows laptop.
I still do not like apple, own/owned many generations of Pixel phones, I build my own windows PCs (last winter the most recent)
But we replaced our old HP 360 which was also aluminum, flip/touch screen (still a nice laptop) with a MacBook Air M1 when they came out because of my experience in both longevity, quality, ease of mobility use (the touchpad).
Still a PC guy but the three (2 from work) MacBooks I’ve had have been pretty amazing.
ThinkPads, until Apple switched to ARM, had more battery life. They continue to be the best battery life laptops as far as x86 machines go. I used to go 9-10 hours on my 48 Wh L470 without a charger, which does not even have the 72 Wh battery or extended hot swap pack that T models have.
I am not dunking on you when I say this, but people have a lot more needs for old and new programs that work in Windows, as opposed to Mac being dictated by Apple, and only having the newest shiny software largely incompatible outside of Apple ecosystem. Your needs are minimal, but most people’s needs are variable and legacy based.
Your analogy, commonly cited, is beyond flawed when you say that people are carrying a multitude of accessories with their Windows laptops. Mac users need dongles since a few years now. A base model MacBook Air starts at $1000, and Windows laptops range from $300-$3000. You cannot compare the average $450 Best Buy Windows laptop to even the cheapest MacBook you can buy, and if you bought a $1000 Windows machine, you would get a lot better one than what Apple gives, unless you value the Apple Experience™ that treats you like a kid and not a power user with extensive needs that allow to work with other people and not just Mac users…
My analogy was not flawed. I was referring to my experience, while at work in / around warehouses while doing large installs between 2015-2017. What I wrote, was my experience. I literally watched people having to carry their charges out with them knowing their laptops were not gonna make a couple hours, much less a full shift. Also had their mice because we’ll, windows touchpads are not a replacement for a mouse.
I’m not saying there were not better windows machines available, I’m saying at work what windows laptops they were using always seemed to struggle with battery life, were “ok” screens at best.
I’ve also still never owned a windows laptop that has a touchpad as good as a MacBook. I’ve also not searched for one. The HP360 I had had a “decent” one but still not as good as my experience with MacBooks.
I still don’t like apple I still build use windows PCs as my primary device and 100% it’s easier to use a windows machine for it’s general compatibility of apps, both old and new.
I still like my MacBook Air, and my work MacBook pro (s) more than any previous work or home LAPTOP I’ve owned.
My work laptop at 4yo still had about 6h battery, and I was not wanting/needing a replacement. Most of my coworkers, including my personal experience were counting the days to get a new laptop once the warranty expired at 3y.
I do know that after I started using a MBP at work the windows laptops did get significantly better battery life and overall didn’t seem to wear out as fast as the old ones, but I had no desire to switch back.
Keep in mind that my use case / experience with laptops is only as a primary device at work. At home all our laptops have been portable devices for general use, taking on a trip etc. So the need (at home) for it to do everything doesn’t exist for US.
No doubt, owning a MacBook in a windows house has its challenges. It was quite a pain getting printing working. Ultimately had.ti spin up a docker print server that supported airprint so I could print to my Multifunction Brother printer. That doesn’t, however change my general opinion of the MacBook hardware and ease of use as a laptop compared to my experience with Windows machines.
Your personal experience/testimony is based on your personal needs, unlike most people that would need a bunch of dongles for any Macbook bought in the last few years.
The analogy is very much flawed since it ignores majority users with different needs than you. Yes it is good for you, and the average Macbook buyer who never pays below $1000 is getting a better experience than the average Windows laptop buyer who pays ~$450. Does this make Macbook better? Not one bit. An equivalent priced Windows laptop will be better than Macbook for more or less everyone.
Touchpad and speakers are Macbook’s strengths. But what about the weaknesses like:
- a bad keyboard
- subpar thermals (until Apple dropped x86 for ARM)
- bad durability
- lack of repairability
- user not being able to swap RAM and HDD/SSD
- not being able to use Windows/Linux freely
- lack of ports
- lack of free software
- incompatibility with non-Apple users
- x86 incompatibility
- WHAT IS THE NOTCH DOING ON THE SCREEN?
… and so on?
Macbook is only good for people with the most basic surfing machine needs, something even a Chromebook can do. Its just a glorified Chromebook unless you are a Final Cut Pro user. Objectively, this does make Macbook an inferior prospect for any user who want to do anything more serious than surfing the web. Generalisations account for masses’ needs instead of personal testimonies.
This is the opinion of someone who has not used a Thinkpad nor a MacBook built within the past three years.
That’s my thought, too. My IBM T20 is still in great working order (with the original hardware, except for the PCI card, which I lost). My Lenovo T440 just died a couple months back. The T20 had Win98SE then Win2000 then XP and was used as a daily driver for about 5 years, before I had to retire it due to hardware specs (I still use it occasionally, but it now has antiX on it). The T440 had Win7 then Win10 and was a daily for about 3 years before it started having mechanical issues, then finally fried. I got an E595 and stuck Fedora on it. Hopefully, it will last long enough to get me saved up for a Framework, but I doubted. A part of me believes that the old IBM ThinkPads will outlast humanity, along with cockroaches and McDonald’s fries. Honestly, I should learn my lesson and stop buying Lenovo (used or otherwise), but I had to have something since the T440 letdown and the E595 was on a liquidation sale.
Linux compatibility is highest
The L14 Gen1 I have must be an exception then. The fingerprint reader isn’t compatible at all (I feel kinda taken for a ride there since it’s seemingly the only Synaptics reader without Linux compatibility) and both Bluetooth and USB are very buggy. I haven’t used it with Windows, so the latter two may also be down to crappy firmware. Either way I’m rather disappointed for the price tag and probably not buying Lenovo again any time soon.
T14 Gen 2 (AMD) has Linux compatibility issues with the touchpad of all things.
Unfortunately, the Synaptic FP reader in yours might unironically be an anomaly, as the one in my L470 was supported even during Ubuntu 16.04 era. It may be possible that since the *80 generation of ThinkPads, the E and L series closed the gap on mediocrity, unlike the T/X/P series. Lenovo does maintain though a Linux compatibility chart for ThinkPads.
I would love a Framework laptop, but my current laptop (a Dell XPS 15 from 2017) is still going strong. Buying a new repairable laptop defeats the whole sustainable thing if there’s nothing wrong with my current one. I’ve done 2 fixes to my current laptop: Replaced the speakers that had died, and added thermal pads to the VRMs to fix an overheating / throttling issue. Even the battery is fine still.
Agreed, a lot of people get into sustainability and rush out to buy sustainable stuff. Even with something like a plastic bag, it’s better to use it for as long as you reasonably can than to throw it away and rush out to buy an organic cotton one.
Hey there, fellow 2017er! Different worlds, I know, but I’m just finding out my specific model 2017 MacBook Pro–the 13" without a “touchbar”–was the last model with a replaceable SSD, so I’m about to upgrade it to 2TB. Eventually I’ll probably replace its battery, but, for now, I’m even pretty happy with the remaining battery capacity. I’m just hoping it keeps working long enough for the right-to-repair movement to force Apple back to replaceable wear-and-tear parts (particularly SSD and battery) before I have to decide whether to choose between a completely unserviceable replacement model or switching platforms again.
another example of why apple laptops are so expensive.
80% of the price is to cover the R&D for fucking over the consumer.
Seriously, tying the goddamn *hall effect sensor to the system so it cant be replaced? Thats some freaking cyberpunk level corpo shitbaggery.
Apple is making really good hardware but we should stop buying it because of what they are doing against repairabality or because of the fact that they trying to capture you in their ecosystem.
I have a MBP 2015 and I love all the integrations with other stuff like my iPhone and Apple Watch, but every time I see a convenience feature like “Scan from iPhone” I just stop for a second and think “Imagine that was an open source, documented API that any developer could both hook into and implement into something like Windows or Linux.”
Apple is so good at making everything just work when everything is Apple. Truly, I think if this problem was solved for PC users, it would take away from Apple’s market share
True, though Apple does contribute some things, like MagSafe for iPhones is becoming part of Qi 2. I think Apple get a bad rep just because they’re a large target sometimes, but I don’t recall other big platforms releasing a bunch of their work as FLOSS either.
I’m also on the fence about the repairability thing. It’s nice to be able to open up an old computer to add more RAM/Storage/etc., but I also get that making everything integrated and soldered improves durability and reliability. I do think they take that a little too far sometimes. While RAM/SSDs should typically last a long time, the battery life often becomes the limiting factor for usability so making that repair simpler would go a long way. Pricing can be hard to bite too, while I don’t mind the idea of soldered RAM, I don’t like that upgrades are pretty heavily marked up compared to most manufacturers.
Then again, I’m still in the ecosystem, so unless there’s some government oversight setting standards for Apple to follow they’ll continue doing what’s profitable and their sales keep steadily growing despite the occasional bad press.
It’s nice to be able to open up an old computer to add more RAM/Storage/etc., but also get that making everything integrated and soldered improves durability and reliability.
If you’re willing to believe that soldering in a hard drive has anything at all to do with reliability I don’t even know what to tell you. The fact they apple will, with a straight face, charge $300+ to upgrade from 256gb of ssd capacity to 512gb should also be a clue…you can get 1tb for that price. and that price gauging on selling the customer parts at over 100% markup is the sole reason they solder them in.
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They’ve significantly overcharged for their products for the past 20 years. If you can’t get people to give a fuck about the bottom line, good luck getting them to care about anything else
I’m going to put this out there as just an idea, don’t buy apple products.
They’re shit they’ve always been shit and they’ve never been financially worth buying.
I just got an M2 MBP. In my personal experience it is very much not “shit”.
Expensive and a PITA to fix? Quite possibly.
+1 apple products are very much not shit. Otherwise people wouldnt buy and use them as prolifically as they do.
I started using Macbooks because the user experience on windows laptops sucks in comparison.
What kind of user experience issues are you facing on windows?
Let’s start with sleep mode not actually sleeping about 50% of the time and turning my backpack into an oven and killing the battery whenever it does?
I wish Mac laptops were crap but they function so much better than windows laptops in so many little ways I find myself having a hard time justifying fighting windows laptops anymore.
Modern standby fucking sucks, luckily my laptop is from before that existed (and it runs linux but that’s besides the point)
Amen to this. I have to deal with it on my Zephyrus M16 which has shit battery life to begin with.
IDK, I’ve had exactly the same problem with my work MBP. I was late to something and the computer locked up, so as soon as I got some level of control I put it to sleep and it seemed to sleep. An hour later and the fan was going crazy and it was super hot.
It doesn’t happen a lot, but macOS isn’t immune to stupid issues like that. I’ve had far more hard crashes with macOS than I have with Linux.
@legion02 @CorruptBuddha, don’t blame laptops, blame Windows. The difference between PC/laptops and Mac is compatibility, to use any OS you want, Mac is only compatible with Mac, apart from costing twice as much as a PC/Laptop with equivalent system performance and features.
Does it matter who’s at fault? The end result is the same, a dangerously hot laptop. Even though I’m a huge Linux advocate it’s not an option for work reasons.
wildly gestures at everything
Always speaking of bad experience using Windows, but never explaining it.
They replied and explained it. Try again mate.
Yeah, a different person after I made my comment speaking from anecdotal experience.
Yeah, a different person after I made my comment speaking from anecdotal experience.
Yeah my bad
so you’re saying windows laptops are better because they have better market share?
it def sounds like you’re saying that
except im pretty sure you would disagree with that, so i think, mayhaps, your argument is deeply flawed.
Agreed. I work in computer simulations and their great. CPU is crazy fast, stays cool and silent. Battery life is solid.
Better: https://frame.work
If I bought a framework laptop I would not physically be able to stop fiddling with it. I think I may end up spending more money in the long run. It’s too configurable for its own good.
I wonder if they’ll ever consider adding an e ink screen option, with a separate normal screen. There have been a few concept laptops like that, but I don’t think the demand is enough to actually make that profitable, but if it was just a configuration option of an otherwise more normal laptop, then I could see it being viable.
That’s sweet. Do you have one?
Not yet!
I’ve got a framework 13. It’s not better than a Macbook except in terms of user-serviceability.
- It’s hot and loud (hopefully the AMD upgrade will fix this)
- Battery life is atrocious (hoping AMD and battery upgrade will fix this)
- Trackpad isn’t as good (piano hinge, and the coating has more friction.)
- fewer ports(!) (limited to 4 expansion cards)
- sleep is broken (modern standby, ugh. S3 exists on the 11th gen model but it’s no better than s2idle. I’ll have to see if the AMD one is any better)
- Keyboard has bigger keys than I’d like, and while the key feel is pretty nice, it’s also heaver than any macbook I’ve used. Also, the layout is standard laptop garbage. The only reason the layout works on a macbook is because of macos’s shortcuts. On a PC I want a full PC keyboard like we had on 2011 ThinkPads.
That said, I do really like the laptop. I just find myself reaching for my macbook especially due to the issue with battery life.
Ya maybe, but it’s not an Apple product and that alone makes it 10x better to me. It’s not surprising a new company with products you still need to be on a waiting list to get are not as refined as one of the largest companies on the planet with decades of history.
They are a lifestyle brand and play on that to keep people trapped. People who buy Apple like the aesthetic of appearing wealthy. It’s classism through consumerism, even if the consumers don’t realise it.
Apple’s terrible privacy policy (yes, despite the word privacy appearing in the ads), atrocious right to repair stance, and aggressive software lock-in tactics should put any person who cares about those things off.
There was a purpose to buying Apple when they were the only player in the specific niche. Audio engineering is a great example of this. In the 90’s, Apple were really the only valid choice in a highly specialist field. Microsoft caught up in the 2000s, with Linux not too far behind in the 2010’s.
So nowadays, the limitations are effectively self-imposed. You can spend whatever money you want on a setup that will do whatever you need and the OS is a personal preference.
I don’t like Apple very much but it would be stupid to not admit that their new M1 and M2 SOCs aren’t great. Their battery efficiency far surpasses any from Intel or AMD and the performance is great.
I think MacOS looks stupid though, I mean, it looks like fucking Gnome.
I assume most people that buy Macs and iphones do it for their software and hardware, not because they want to appear wealthy. Like you said OS is a personal preference and some prefer MacOS and iOS.
…lock-in tactics should put any person who cares about those things off.
Unfortunately most people don’t care.
…lock-in tactics should put any person who cares about those things off.Unfortunately most people don’t care.
And once you are locked-in, the barrier to get yourself out of it is often so high that it dissuades most people from even trying to get out. I moved from macOS to Linux last year, and even though I was only using a small portion of the Apple ecosystem (iCloud was the only thing I believe), it still took a lot of time as they are designed to make it difficult/time consuming to migrate. Not to mention the macOS/iOS only applications you might’ve ended up using, as cross-platform functionality was not top-of-mind when choosing. In my case, the notes app Bear was such an example.
The EU needs to fuck their shit up.
Mandate that laptops must have user replaceable storage and RAM (and tablets to have user replaceable storage). My old Dell laptop has windows in the bottom to get to both of those.
The loss of 3.5mm headphone jacks is nothing compared to the loss of that. They’re common failure points and easy upgrade paths.
Nobody is stopping you from buying a laptop with user replaceable storage and RAM. Why do you need the EU to get involved? That’s ridiculous.
Companies are slowly moving in that direction, except doing it worse in most cases (i.e. cheaply)
Upgradable RAM isn’t as fast as non-upgradable RAM and that this is especially true for the way Apple Silicon is designed. So no we shouldn’t be mandating something that reduces computer performance for the sake of an upgrade most people would never care to perform.
We should however force them to produce laptops with a certain minimum RAM and to reduce their ridiculous upgrade pricing.
Edit: also I don’t own a single Apple product. I aren’t a fan boy at all and I know they do a whole bunch of anti-consumer bs. I also know that modular RAM for Apple Silicon would be a terrible idea for that specific design. Modular SSDs on the other hand would be very doable.
A quick look at the claims suggest 100GB/s is the RAM speed for the M2 Macbooks.
A single DDR5 RAM stick is about 50GB/s. So that’s two of those in a dual channel config (effectively quad channel since each DDR5 stick is now a dual channel on it’s own).
There’s a good argument for introducing a new smaller DDR5 module so size isn’t an issue, but I’m not sold on speed being the main problem. RAM is fast even when it’s slow, and having more of it is almost always better than having it faster. No amount of RAM speed will ever compensate for swapping to storage when you run out.
At the very least mandate that the manufacturer replace the RAM at a reasonable cost at a later date, if you need more for future apps or if it goes wrong. We go on and on about fighting eWaste, yet entire laptops go in the bin when they don’t have enough RAM.
Go look at the RAM speed of the M2 Pro and M2 Max. They are essentially quad and eight channels respectively to get the speed they achieve. Good look doing that with SODIMM modules.
Actually good RAM speed is absolutely essential for GPU performance. Saying how more RAM speed isn’t important for a use case like the Apple Silicon Macs is ignorant AF.
You’re getting heavily downvoted by people who obviously don’t understand how RAM works. Or how computers work?
Guys, Apple is shitty, we all know this, but onboard RAM is the least of their anti-consumer practices.
The problem with socketed RAM is the length of the traces going back to the CPU. That 100% reduces performance (and battery life) by a significant amount. Especially when using that socketed RAM as iGPU VRAM.
Dell’s CAMM standard reduces the latency compared to SODIMM, for socketed RAM, but what we really need is for someone like Apple to invest R&D into really tiny RAM sockets that are super close to the CPU, instead of researching ways to lock users out.
Doesn’t even sound that complex. Little LGA style socket, tiny heatsink clip to hold it in place.
There’s even laptops that have soldered RAM and a SODIMM slot. Could you limit the GPU to using the soldered RAM? Still won’t help you if it develops a fault though.
The RAM is built onto the substrate. Every contact you add increases signal degredation. Plus actually trying to fit eight sockets on a SoC package would be a complete nightmare.
Dividing RAM like that into two pools would violate the permise of the whole unified memory system. You’re really asking for the wrong thing here. Why not convinve them to do something like a modular SSD that’s far more achievable? Also memory that doesn’t come at sky high prices with an actual sensible mimimum (8GB on MacBooks in 2023, really?).
For other laptops there is actually a solution to this problem called a CAMM. It would even work for the M2 Macbooks possibly (not the M2 Pro or Max) if apple are willing to sacrifice size or battery life of the laptop. The reason this wouldn’t work for the M2 Pro and Max is you would need two or four of these things. It would be diffcult enough to fit just one in a Macbook that have tiny, tiny logic boards to begin with.
Thanks a bunch. The level of ignorance here to Apple’s design choices is palpable. Some of the stuff they do is very anti-consumer. Soldered RAM isn’t one of them - at least on Apple Silicon. Having modular GPU RAM hasn’t been a thing for over a decade for good reasons.
I doubt the difference in performance is that significant. If it was 50% faster then sure. But odds are it’s something like 3% speed difference. Same for the storage, I doubt that apple’s proprietary interface is that much faster than a regular high quality nvme, definitely not enough to justify the multiple that they’re charging for it compared to an off-the-shelf nvme.
Erm yeah it’s more than 50% faster in bandwidth for M2 Max, because it has more memory channels than two SODIMMs would allow for. It’s specifically at least twice as fast. People upvoting this are showing their ignorance here about Apple hardware.
The storage isn’t particularly fast so that part I believe.
Upgradable RAM isn’t as fast as non-upgradable RAM
Really? Why though? Is soldered-in RAM attached differently to the CPU?
Way differently.
Soldered RAM is much much closer to the CPU, and so the time it takes for signals to propagate back and forth is significantly reduced…
It’s probably the increased capacitance (think of of it as a puddle that needs filling before the water can move beyond it) of a mechanical connnection system vs direct soldering that makes most of the difference.
I was going to call you out on the distance thing but I made the maths and indeed at 100GHz light only travels about 3mm between waves and electric signal propagation on a line is roughly lightspeed (if you disregard capacitance) so even though this memory bus is likely not working at 100GHz to get 100GB/s (it’s actually using paralellism for increase bits per cycle) it is none the less already within clock speed ranges were distances of centimeters do mater.
That said keep in mind that rountrip propagation only really maters at the very biginning of the download of a memory block as that when the address goes down and the data starts coming back and the roundtrip propagation affects the delay between them.
But yeah, I can see how you would start worrying with centimeter and even millimiter distances when trying to extract a bit more performance from data exchanges at these clock speeds.
This is an argument that just gets repeted. My question is this, is a macbook faster than a gaming pc? Because that has replaceble ram, cpu, gpu, ssd, etc. If yes, then please seek help.
The PC GPU does have it’s own soldered RAM. But then the performance of a good GPU goes way past that of a MacBook, which while good for integrated graphics, is still only on par with a GTX 1660, a four year old budget GPU.
Well fucking said dude. You know dGPUs used go have upgradable RAM? They removed it because it dosen’t work for that application. Apples iGPUs struggle to compete even being soldered partly because the competition is using GDDR and they aren’t. Not soldering would make them even further behind.
I guess in a way they are stuck to a form factor, as slim as possible. And they got stuck so they had to do something. But then why would they make everything locked to the system by hardware id. It just seems that they used the speed argument to justify anti consumer pactices.
The M1 design is very similar to the SoC in your phone. The RAM is literally soldered on top of the CPU.
Erm yeah. Have you never seen an M1 chip? It’s on the same substrate.
Say that to Muricans and 90% of iPhone ownership.
iPhones tend to be more affordable in the US than in other places in the world. An iPhone SE is only $400, and used iPhones aren’t that expensive.
oooh, only $400 for a low-end phone with poor battery life? sign mee uppp
I’d say $400 (minus whatever subsidies from your carrier) is the minimum I’d spend on a new smartphone. Could also get an iPhone 12 or something for a bit more.
Point is, iPhones are more affordable than people claim they are, especially in the US. Can’t speak for other places where they might be marked up or have high import tax.
As much as I do like the looks and compelling as the M1/M2 chips might be, I cannot help but agree.
you don’t have a choice if you need Xcode for iOS/MacOS development
You, correct, if you need to develop for iOS or something Apple related you’ll need the appropriate hardware and software.
Which brings us back to my original point don’t buy Apple products.
mac mini’s are pretty cheap for that purpose. And besides, just because you personally don’t use a platform doesn’t stop you from making money from people who do.
Except they’re not. They’re excellent products and since Apple silicon are actually half decent value in some cases.
Except that they are. There is absolutely no value to anything they make. It’s all over priced proprietary crap.
Apple products right now are almost entirely home use there’s almost no commercial industry anymore.
Developers graphic design artists music producers most technology firms most offices like doctors and lawyers whatever don’t use Apple products. They’re almost exclusively windows.
Literally the only thing keeping them in business right now is the iPhone. They don’t sell enough of any other product.
honestly one of the reasons I use a macbook is because I interned for a tech company that handed out macbooks as standard-issue laptops.
What world are you living on? Most of silicon valley use Mac. Most the professions you listed DO use Mac. Since Apple silicon, performance for price ratio beats most Windows options for most people.
What world am I living on. Wow. No.
Most of silicon valley does not run on apple.
The delusion that your mind is under that makes you believe that performance to price is better with Apple you need a seat professional help.
You mean my neighbor won’t be able to think that I’m badass, rich, fancy and living my American Dream? 😱 You want to ruin my social status? How dare you 💔
All of their products are anti consumer and they have been for years. I don’t understand why people still buy their products
They’re great work laptops, as long as you treat them as basically disposable. If I have a problem, just turn it into IT and grab another, pull down the repos and I’m off. Wouldn’t buy one with my own money, though.
Because I love the platform. I’ve been a Mac user for decades. People harp on marketing making us foam at the mouth for these products, but I genuinely love them. I also hate some decisions, but the time to switch platforms is not today or in the foreseeable future.
Yes, Linux would let me do most of what I want to do. But I appreciate the design of indie Mac apps. They’re far beyond the polish of apps on Linux and Windows.
Sad to say it but yeah. I’ve never really used MacBooks, but I had an ipad pro 10.5 for years, and it finally died on me a few months ago. I recently replaced it with a 2 in 1 thinkpad, but the level of usability is just not the same. Tried windows (kinda half thought out) and currently going through Linux distros (mostly buggy when in purely touchscreen only mode) but it is a far cry ipad os, even if I have issues with it.
Yeah, I’m really trying to find a tablet that is about 8 inches and has extremely smooth usage of web browsing and YouTube, that isn’t an iPad mini (or Samsung, just don’t like their UI), and it seems like nothing comes close anywhere in the industry, maybe with the possible exception of the Google Pixel Tablet. It feels like the entire industry gave up trying to innovate tablets because iPads were that good.
Not to mention that they all abandoned headphone Jack’s, even though if they kept them they might have actually got me. If you don’t need a headphone jack, I’m pretty sure Huawei has some tablets running their harmonyOS (fork of android, I think), have heard they’re pretty decent.
Really really good marketing, packaging and fomo overall
Not being forced to use Windows or having to hope that Ubuntu works, battery life, raw SoC performance, good keyboards (after they fixed the duds from 2016-2020), best trackpads in town, good quality apps, native Unix shell?
I was really looking into buying the Framework laptop but apart from that, everything seemed to be more or less crap (for my use cases) if you don’t want to deal with Thinkpads.
They are just used to them. OS X has one specific way of working that, once you learn it, is quite good. It sucks completely if you try to use it in different way so if you don’t like magic mouse (which sucks) and don’t like using their laptop keyboard (which sucks) and touchpad you will not enjoy it. But if Mac is all you know, you’re used to their hardware and know how it works you will love it because any other OS will be different and feel way less ergonomic. In my opinion if you’re skilled Linux/Windows user will customized workflow OS X will feel limited and be painful to use. If it’s you first computer or you don’t have any established workflow you will like it a lot.
It sucks completely if you try to use it in different way so if you don’t like magic mouse (which sucks) and don’t like using their laptop keyboard (which sucks) and touchpad you will not enjoy it.
This isn’t true for me. I use the same (cheap Logitech) mouse with Win11, Linux, and my MBPs. What’s meant to be the issue? It’s just like every other setup I’ve used in the last 30 years.
In my experience the only quick way to switch between windows of the same app, different apps, maximized apps and virtual desktops is using magic mouse/touchpad gestures. Without them it’s simply painful. Maybe you found some setup that works for you but I wasn’t able to reproduce the way I like to use WM in OS X. For example I use keyboard shortcuts to move windows between monitors and according to this https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/367858/does-macos-have-a-keyboard-shortcut-for-moving-an-individual-window-to-another-m in OS X it was only made possible in 2020 (I stopped using OS X before that) or you had to use 3rd party app. Same with sending windows to different desktops: https://superuser.com/questions/184763/is-there-a-way-to-move-the-current-window-to-another-desktop-without-using-a-mou
That’s a really interesting answer - it all makes sense that those things can be irritating, and also why I had no idea about them:
For years I have had my applications and windows (IDE, tabbed console, browser(s)) set up in fixed positions. I rarely switch between them in a way which isn’t a keyboard shortcut (99% command-tab) or involves the mouse anyway (for testing, or video calls). I never normally move windows between screens or anything like that in my workflow.
In the good and very old days I literally just had emacs maximised and that was it, all day long 😇
I guess I got lucky in a sense - that not needing functionality meant I wasn’t affected by it being missing, but it might partly be a positive side effect of desiring simplicity and less from the WM so I can focus on my own things.
Yes, that’s exactly my view of OS X. If you can adapt your workflow to its limited functionality you will have a pretty stable, simple, easy to use environment. If you’re workflow doesn’t fit you’re out of luck and using it will be very painful. Linux on the other hand just offers you all the settings you need so everyone can work the way they like.
I can’t stand their keyboards. The keys have virtually no travel on them, they’re all low profile, and for some insane reason that I can’t work out, because isn’t their core market supposed to be audio engineers and graphic artists, the keyboards have no buttons for bindable macros.
Meanwhile I can get an excellent keyboard with decent travel and macro buttons for very little money. I get why the keyboards have to be low profile on laptops but why do they also have low profile keyboards for desktops? They are objectively the worst possible keyboard for a desktop. But they look sleek and modern so I guess that’s all that’s important. And because they are anti everything they are anti-choice, so I don’t get an alternate option, and have to buy an independent keyboard.
I don’t any more because of this kind of thing but I can understand. A few points at the top of my head
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Great desktop OS (note how Windows and Linux still to this day have inconsistencies on high DPI displays, to name just one example!
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Integration between them is good
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Security and privacy practices are great
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The phones are very consistent with camera quality and battery life
Windows has pretty great high dpi, Apple privacy is pretty awful and they hide everything they are doing, security is definitely getting worse on MacOS while the opposite is the case on Windows. And Apple still doesn’t super touchscreen which is an immediate deal breaker
There’s a lot of [citation needed] here, as for touchscreen I can see Apple’s point also, I’ve never had any desire at all to sit there with my arm outstretched poking a PC display (and covering it in fingerprints too). I’ve played with touchscreen laptops and it feels just as arm-tiring and unnatural as they said.
I guess if you’ve only played with it briefly you could feel that way but it’s really not the case, especially when you consider convertibles. Fingerprints on the screen are no more of an issue on a laptop as they would be on your phone obviously. Apples only point for not supporting touchscreen doesn’t actually have anything to do with any of those factors actually, their reasoning is only related to maximizing revenue from the iPad as a convertible laptop well replace the need for a tablet. I mean you can stand around and say touchscreens are bad and uncomfortable but there is a reason they are so popular and used so commonly.
Windows privacy is shocking. Windows security used to be shocking so it improving is just returning to average. I don’t see any reason to think Apple devices security is getting worse. If anything it’s actually getting better.
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You’ll own nothing and be happy.
No third party repairs = not owning? May I suggest a dictionary
i would love for you to define a version of ownership which doesn’t include being permitted to do what you’d like with it (barring interactions with other human beings – ie no you can’t bring guns with you everywhere because that implicitly threatens other people)
i would love for you to define a version of ownership where you being unable to find someone to pay to repair your shit means you do not own it
actually most of human history – its a relatively modern invention that you should not be permitted to repair your own property
for example from 1939, it was taken as a given that repair was within the rights of the property owner: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/233177352.pdf
its also part of most property definitions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_property
From your link
European Convention on Human Rights
acknowledges a right for a natural or legal person to "peaceful enjoyment of his possessions
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
No repair mention anywhere so idk what youre on about, also by your logic you dont own your 1950 fridge anymore because theres no one left to repair it, your argument is so stupid
No repair mention anywhere so idk what youre on about, also by your logic you dont own your 1950 fridge anymore because theres no one left to repair it, your argument is so stupid
He’s talking about the right to repair you’re own stuff or have someone look at it. Not the right to a competent repairman. Those are two different things. I am not sure if you’re arguing in bad faith or if this is just a mistake to be honest.
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Does someone forbid you from repairing it? I am not sure if you’re arguing in bad faith or if this is just a mistake to be honest.>>>
No answer, evil government took him out after taking away his repair rights >.< (which rights arent even mentioned anywhere so idk what the fuck u feel entitled to that is allegedly being taken away here)
peaceful enjoyment of his possessions
so how do you enjoy your possessions peacefully if they break? is repairing them…not peaceful?
No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
So if it breaks, and i can’t repair it, then I lose this property.
Now, one area where i had not previously gone but makes sense in this particular statement, is that if a company prevents you from repairing your equipment and that company is either unwilling (ie they banned you for trying to repair your john deere yourself) or unable (ie bankrupt) to repair your equipment, is that not depriving you of property? Or do you consider the failure of the property to be an act of god which the vendor is in no way responsible for, even if they deliberately design the system to fail you?
peaceful enjoyment of his possessions
That obviously means government recognizing you have the right to own it and not arbitrarily depriving you of your property, maybe the other declaration below should have given you a clue 🤠. Now if u wanna claim the “peace” is referring to your mental state, then I can also claim I’m not at peace if my stuff cant give me a blowjob. Be reasonable and stop grasping at straws.
So if it breaks, and i can’t repair it, then I lose this property.
No, if your property breaks you still own property, broken property. The company is only responsible for a certain lifespan, it is called guarantee, dont like it, dont buy it.
if a company prevents you from repairing your equipment
They dont you are allowed to do whatever you want to it
that company is either unwilling
Theyre only responsible for guarantee
do you consider the failure of the property to be an act of god which the vendor is in no way responsible for
He is responsible for guarantee
I just recently had a 2020 gen MacBook pro die on me. When I took it to the genius bar, they said that it was a power issue that they couldn’t repair unless they changed the whole logic board which would cost me $500 and without the ability to recover the data on the soldered SSD. What’s worse is that they sent me to a 3rd party data recovery company to recover my data for $1200. I ended up declining the data recovery and just accepted that my data is gone and bought a thinkpad to replace the laptop.
You may want to check out these two videos.
So, genuine question.
What other laptops are there with comparable screens? Colour gamut, accuracy and all the good stuff Apple does so well.
Some day I might need something to work with on the go, and I need a good display.
Edit: Well, didn’t expect so many answers in as little time, thank you
Asus OLED laptop screens are as good (or better depending on what your criteria are). If you do print, they are Pantone Validated.
I’ve been using a Lenovo Yoga Pro 9i (or Slim Pro 9i if you’re in the US) for around half a year now and have been loving it so far. 14" MiniLED screen, 100% DCI-P3, can get really bright, has a touch screen (if that’s something you like) and a 165 Hz refresh rate. Can’t speak for the color accuracy though.
I got the i9 variant with 32GB RAM and an RTX 4060 GPU during a “Mega Power” sale and with an additional 10% off as a Student for just over 2000€, but even the normal price is “only” (compared to your MacBooks and XPSs) around 2500€ iirc.
RAM is sadly soldered onto the motherboard but at least you get 6400MHz for it. Storage is upgradeable.
Connectivity is great (2x USB-C with PD3.1 for 140W charging, one also supporting Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, full-size SD Card reader, 2x USB-A…)
Dell precision 5570.
ThinkPad X series ultrabooks, equivalent of MacBook Air. T and P/W series have great screens too. T is like MacBook Pro, and workstation series is in its own class.
I own a MacBook Air now but prior to that I’ve used thinkpad, dell xps, Asus zenbook and hp envy lineups.
If i were to ditch MacBook I’d have picked up a zenbook since they’re budget friendly, great oled screen, long battery life, lightweight and good build quality. You can even do casual gaming on it.
The biggest thing i miss switching to mac has been losing my steam library and unable to play games with my friends.
I own recent OLED Zenbook and it’s super creaky squeaky, plus, the screen unglued itself from the frame. The build quality isn’t very good I’d say.
Maybe the ProArt Studiobook from Asus
None that I’ve met. But that’s why they’re apple. They get to control everything on their hardware.
But I’m happy running a framework 13 for a few business trips and I love it.
Battery is not too amazing. Hitting only about 5-6 hours rather than the 8-10 that I truly want.
I’ve used Macs for a while, but I’d take Frameworks over Macs now. The fun at the start of having a mac is not worth all the hassles that come down the line when things start failing and can’t be fixed.
Basically, none.
A display is only as good, as the OS running it. Otherwise you’re seeing random, usually oversaturated shizzle.macOS is still the only, properly color-managed OS. (Usually running P3 displays)
If you have a windows laptop with a display that’s not sRGB, you’re in for some “fun”, if you’re doing any sort of creative or design work.
Edit: I’m getting downvoted because “apple bad >:(”?
No, you’re getting downvoted because you can buy non-apple laptops with quality screens. Also, you could just plug in a cheap monitor that is properly calibrated, or buy a nicer color correct monitor. Apple doesn’t have monopoly on color.
MacOS does know how to handle colours, I’ll give 'em that.
I just have no idea if Windows does it better, worse, or the same.
Windows is not a color-managed OS. It only manages a few applications, like “Photos”. The rest of color-management is done by separate applications, which is far from ideal.
Linux had a chance to match macOS with Wayland, but blew it by not taking in constructive criticism and letting their egos dictate the features.
Edit: If you’re going for a Windows laptop, just don’t get a laptop with a “wide-gamut” display. Go for a good sRGB screen and your life will be easier.
It just blows that everything Apple sells can only barely be repaired or upgraded, if at all.
I can replace pretty much any part of my current laptop fairly easily, and I’d love to have something like that again.
I don’t use Apple products, simply because of their crappy ethics and questionable product design. But that means I suffer in my day-to-day work-life thing. That, and I need a good GPU for rendering.
Still, I’d ‘hackintosh’ everything and anything just because of color-management. :'(
Was it Framework who sells nicely repairable devices? Maybe I’ll see if they have reasonably good screens, and use Adobe through a Windows VM. I’d prefer that over bare metal anyway.
I would hope that if I ever need a truly high end display, it’s going to be an employer who pays for it. One can hope.
This is false, it looks like you haven’t read or understood my comment.
Sorry. You’re right. I lied. It’s impossible to buy color calibrated monitors. https://www.amazon.com/BenQ-PD2500Q-2560x1440-Monitor-Calibrated/dp/B0749RC47S/ And it’s impossible to calibrate the color of any other monitors. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=color+calibration&crid=1DCVNFPWWTQR2&sprefix=color+calibrat%2Caps%2C132&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_14
Apple does have a monoply on color. Can’t wait to get their VR headset so I can experience the true color of reality. You’ve really opened my eyes to the false color life I was living.
My god, if you’re that clueless, just shut the fuck up.
The person is asking what laptops have “good screens” whatever that means, and you’re offering an external monitor?
Do you understand what color-management is, and that calibration is means jack shit if the OS doesn’t properly manage color?
“monopoly on color”. Christ almighty, I’d be embarrassed to spew such nonsense, even anonymously.
Couldn’t find a chart for this year, but here is one for 2020… https://www.notebookcheck.net/The-Best-Notebooks-with-the-Best-Displays.120541.0.html
Spoiler, MacBooks don’t even make the top 10. As for my “apple doesn’t have a monoply on color” comments. You’re the one insinuating that it’s impossible to get good color on any other platform, I just digested your meaning a bit. And yes, it is dumb, almost as dumb as asking why you are getting downvoted for repeating fanboi dribble based on Apple marketing department talking points.
Lmao. It seems like you’re just ignoring the part you don’t understand lol. As I said. A clueless parrot.
Is this what you are talking about?
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/auto-color-management/OS level colour calibration and management, regardless of the app?
New feature in Windows 11 2022.Is this what you are talking about?
Yes.
BUT.Can you turn it on?
New feature in Windows 11 2022.
As available as “full-self-driving-next-year”. Planned for 23H2.
You have to be a “Windows insider” run beta-test version of windows, and set it up via .bat from github.
That being said, I am a “windows insider” and I do run their beta-test OS, and I still don’t have that feature.
I’ll believe it’s released and tested, because the quality of my work directly depends on it.
It’s also going to be available for 12th+ gen iGPUs only, which means that any laptop running a wider-gamut built-in-monitor with an older iGPU can get fucked.
I appreciate the ‘gotcha’ tone.
Hmm, fair.
There is also the colour profile system.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/about-color-management-2a2ed8fa-cf09-83c5-e55c-d1428519f616I just tested it on my computer. Installed the “driver” for my monitor, which then loaded the correct profile for it (changing from the “generic PnP” driver/profile to one for my specific model).
It certainly changed the look of my monitor.
I’ll have to test drive it a bit.But I guess it’s deeper than that, isn’t it.
Like, if that sets the colour profile to sRGB, and I’m dealing with BT.2020… although that would be bonkers cause I don’t think sRGB can represent BT.2020.Color standards break my brain.
Your monitor has a very specific set of RGB lights that need a profile made for that specific monitor. Loading random profiles from the internet will result in incorrect colors in some areas. The one that comes with the driver is closest you can get without a calibrator.
The wcm in your link is the standard Windows Color Management which only works with a handful of windows Apps. Rest is a random mixture of unmanaged, locally managed, and Windows managed colors.
My advice is, it seems that you have an external display, set that to “sRGB” via the buttons on the monitor, and set the driver-installed profile to sRGB. If you have such options. This is the only way to get as close to “correct color” on Windows without much effort and worry about color management.
They bring a sex doll to their meetings and spend hours trying to figure out the best way to fuck consumers.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/clip/UgkxhgZEK-CfdGLZ0YVIfnrhyb-A0A9EULvV
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Awesome!
Always like people that fight for right to repair!
Anyone know if Louis Rossman and these and other people have done collabs or something similar?
Louis Anthony Rossmann (born November 19, 1988) [2] [3] is an American independent repair technician, YouTuber, and right to repair activist. He is the owner and operator of Rossmann Repair Group in Austin, Texas (formerly New York City ), a computer repair shop established in 2007 which specializes in logic board-level repair of MacBooks.
It’s so annoying. I want to love Apple, heck I’ve been there and HAD Apple everything. They have a great *nix OS, well polished ecosystem, very good security and privacy practices… but hostility towards repair, along with planned obsolescence, ended up turning me off. One aspect is sustainability. Repair is more sustainable than recycle. They have good recycling credentials but that should be last resort.
Enshittification intensifies
Recycling credentials are nonsense. I work in the ewaste industry, very few things actually get recycled. Resale is the goal of these companies. Otherwise most ewaste companjes just trade thier scrap back and forth until it eventually ends up in a landfill in a country with poor regulations.
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It’s tight to balance between the demand on how impossibly small things are getting, the space requirements for user serviceable latches, and just straight up reduction in component sizes.
I remember back when it was easy to desolder a capacitor/vacuum tube to replace a part; then they got smaller and replaced by IC chips. I remember back when we can just pull out a and replace memory modules on cards; then they got soldered on, but hey the card can still be ripped out of the PCI slots and replaced. Now we’re seeing the GPU, CPU, and memory all getting smaller, all getting fused into a single SOC on the ever shrinking logic board… It is just the inevitable future if the world continues to want things smaller (to fit in pockets) and faster (lesser distance for signal to travel).
Unpopular opinion: I find this whole “right to repair” really pointless endeavour pushed by repair shops wanting to retain their outdated business model. In 50 years, when the entire system that’s more powerful than the most powerful supercomputer today lives entirely in the stem of your glasses, and the display is fused into the lens or projection, no one will have the necessary tools to pull apart the systems nor the physical precision to repair things… and that future will come, whether these right to repair people want it or not.
It is probably better use of our collective resources to focus on researching technologies that will help us deconstruct these tiny components into their constituent matters (stable chemical compounds), such that they can be reused to build into newer equipments, as opposed to sitting in a landfill never being used again.
Unpopular opinion: I find this whole “right to repair” really pointless endeavour pushed by repair shops wanting to retain their outdated business model.
Either you’re a shill, or you have zero clue what you’re talking about. It’s one of the two.
Think what you want. The eventuality is either humanity’s own undoing or Computronium; good luck rearranging literal atoms at home.
PS: incidentally, before the previous reply, I just shared a bunch of info to show someone how to replace soldered RAM module. So I’m probably/hopefully not completely clueless. But, again, think what you will.
“good luck doing magical thing without magical tool” is…technically accurate, but not useful.
Why not explain why you think this rather than level accusations. It’s not clear to me why this person has “zero clue” or is a “shill”.
Because it’s not only about being able to repair everything at home, but forcing the companies to avoid anti-repair practices and making you to either pay an (purposefully) exorbitant price to have it repaired by them or just having to buy a new device altogether.
That’s why that dude is a shill, because he is talking as if companies act in good faith (for whatever reson) and the devices are simply “too complex” to repair. They are not, companies are puposefully making it as obscure and hard to repair as possible so that, again, you have to either pay a shit ton of money for them to repair it for you or just buy a new device altogether because changing shit like the glass of the back of the phone is half as expensive as a new device or a design “flaw” that should be covered by warranty gets turned into a simple “motherboard is faulty and warranty doesn’t cover it”.
the guy’s neither, of course. It’s a valid opinion, well-described.
I completely disagree with him, but his point has obviously been considered over the course of a long career actually repairing gear.
And, based on downvotes, experience and perspective are valueless.
I take issue with some of the statements here. First of all:
I find this whole “right to repair” really pointless endeavour pushed by repair shops wanting to retain their outdated business model.
Right to repair is definitely not just being pushed by repair shops. If you take a good look at the rate Framework is selling devices at (batches instantly sold out until Q1 2024), you’ll see that consumers want this more than any other group. We, as the consumers will ultimately benefit the most from having repair options available. Right to repair is not meant to halt innovation, it is not about forcing manufacturers to design products in ways detrimental to the functioning of said products. It is about making sure they don’t lock third parties out of the supply chain. If you replace a traditional capacitor with a SMD variant, someone is going to learn to micro solder. If you convert a chip from socketed to BGA mount, someone is going to learn how to use a heat plate and hot air gun to solder it back in to place.
The main problem is manufacturers demonstrably going out of their way to prevent the feasable.
The second part I take issue with is this:
It is probably better use of our collective resources to focus on researching technologies that will help us deconstruct these tiny components into their constituent matters
From my 12 years of experience in design of consumer goods and engineering for manufacturing I can tell you this is not happening because no one is going to pay for it. The more tightly you bond these “constituent matters” together, the more time, energy, reasearch and money it will require to convert them back into useful resources.
There is only one proper way to solve this problem and it is to include reclamation of resources into the product lifecycle design. Which is currently not widely done because companies put profits before sustainability. And this model will be upheld until legislation puts a halt to it or until earth’s resources run out.
In terms of sustainability the desireable order of action is as follows:
- reduce: make it so you need less resources overall
- prolong: make it so you can make do as long as possible with your resources. this part includes repair when needed
- reuse: make it so that a product can be used for the same purpose again. this part includes repair when needed
- repurpose: make it so that a product can be used for a secondary purpose
- recycle: turn a product into resources to be used for making new products
- burn: turn the product into usable energy (by burning trash in power stations for example)
- dispose: usually landfill
Only thing is that repair technically should belong to “prolong” I think, so even more desireable.
In the very long term you are right. The thing is we aren’t there yet. Lots of companies are making things unrepairable for no reason right now. This is at a time when we need to produce less stuff to help the environment.
I agree we’re long way from it; but, I don’t think the secure signing of components would necessarily equates to “no reason”, though, that’s definitely not a blanket statement. Personally I’m huge proponent for locking down components with secure signing on the portable devices — less likely to experience theft, if thieves cannot get into the device nor salvage for parts (though right now they just skim passcode and reset iCloud account to circumvent it; but this can be fixed with more security around the workflow). However, for fixed devices, it makes less sense.
Yeah nah. Signing components isn’t gonna stop people stealing phones just like iCloud dosen’t now. Nobody apart from you actually wants this feature.
This sounds like it’s better to wait for imaginary benefits than do the things we really can do. Anyway, there is absolutely no reason not to repair things even if you want your scifi disassembler. Our collective resources are not strained in the slightest by repairs.
I can see an eventual future when the cores, RAM and storage are all on one IC or something which would also be great for performance (I just bought a desktop processor that does some clever stacking of extra L3 cache on top of the cores). As others said though we’re not quite there yet.
Ever since Steve Jobs (I think perhaps as a way of coping with illness making him thinner himself) Apple has done this thing of telling consumers that they want thinner, thinner, thinner at all costs (and other manufacturers following Apple because of course they do) but I’ve seen no real evidence of consumers actually wanting this. I for one (and I know I’m far from the only one) don’t actually mind a bit more thickness if it means a bigger battery, using an M.2 slot (oh no a few mm difference) etc.
Yeah I’d love them to rid the camera mesa plateau by flushing the back with extra thick battery… but apparently consumers don’t want the extra weight… 🤷 can’t win them all I guess.
I mean, you were never blocked from replacing ICs. Most people just didn’t have the capability to solder. Today, IC replacement is blocked by hardware DRM.
I might agree with you if the boards themselves were disposable. If a high end macbook were $300 then sure, just get a new one. But they’re $2000 or more just for an “ok” model. At that price they should be repairable.
I think people’s anger stems from the fact that it wouldn’t be hard for laptops to be repairable and in fact Apple’s putting in additional roadblocks over time to make repairing harder. At the very least, having broken components be removable would do a lot for hardware lifespan.
It’s nothing new. Have you ever opened up a laser disc player or discman from 1989? Extremely intracate parts Ave mechanisms that are nearly impossible to work with.
Even a basic VCR or DVD drive has a ton of small moving parts which are difficult or impossible to fix and designed to break early and often.
Yep. And the steady march towards even smaller parts that are not user serviceable will continue to persist. The pipe dream of being able to self service will fizzle out — if not in 50 years, in an inevitable eventuality of the Computronium; good luck self repairing by rearranging literal atoms at home.
Do you need to rearrange atoms to change the display panel of your laptop?
We’re not at the computronium age yet, but as technology progress, that’s the eventuality. As such, repair shops’ attempt to rally clueless regulators to put in right to repair law is merely getting in the way and slowing down the inevitability.
the ability to repair may or may not grow with the ability to manufacture, but there is no reason to assume it will not.
when we reach your magical future, the right to repair may be represented as DRM installed on your replicator unit which prevents your replicator from repairing a device unless you take it to an Authorized Apple Technician, or it might be represented as nothing because nothing is actually repairable. But assuming your version of the world is absolute fact on the time scale of 100 years is absolutely ridiculous.
It’s not just repair shops that want right to repair.
We’ll reach a point where performance improvements are largely unnecessary. Sure, governments and corps will still privately compete to get those precious nano seconds ahead on trades or whatever.
Technology doesn’t proliferate as quickly as you’d expect. Most people aren’t on the cusp of the latest and greatest. I worked for a fucking multibilliondollar international company 2 years ago, and they still pick product, and communicate inventory adjustments with pen and paper.
People rely on the previous shit they’ve bought.
yea this is why i couldnt care less about apple silicon. atleast with AMD/Intel and most ARM CPUs/SOCs you have the flexibility to do whatever you want. With AS you are limited to whatever shit Apple provides.
I am not particularly very pro Apple, but there is Asahi Linux and now Fedora collaborated with them to make a Fedora Remix distribution. But then, its just way better to buy a nice Linux/Windows machine.
As someone who generally makes a point to buy laptops with as much upgradeability as possible, I ended up going with an M1 Pro then M2 Max MBP.
I really don’t like how much Apple charges for RAM and storage and that I’m stuck with 32GB and 1TB until I buy an entire new laptop, but I just can’t ignore how ridiculously powerful and efficient Apple Silicon is for programming, compiling, and even limited gaming.
It also helps that it’s made of metal, unlike most PC laptops at similar prices. I’ve always had terrible luck with plastic bodies: broken hinges, broken traces on the motherboard from excessive flexing, etc.
In my fantasy utopia, Apple would have slots for adding extra storage and “slow” RAM to all its computers, but that’s not happening.
I have a 2011 MacBook Air and it isn’t supported anymore but I’ve put Fedora Linux on it. It’s snappy and the track pad is still fantastic.
My 2008 MBP is still running with a Linux distro. It was more for the fun than the usability with the Core2duo and 2go of ram.
I had that. I must say I loved that thing. I used it to death, although that said I only really got around 5-6 years out of it. Replaced the battery once the motherboard once, the fan once, the charger twice. Hmmmm.
It performed absolutely admirably throughout its lifetime though and it had a nice big screen even if it made it quite a chonker. I really appreciate the expansion slot because I was able to give it USB3.0 slots even though it didn’t have any when it came out.
Laptop of Theseus? Is the laptop the shell or is it it’s motherboard?
I have a 2015 Macbook Retina (mid 2014) that I only have to replace the charger, replace the screen (staingate), and the speaker.
I’m a big believer in self-repair. And right to repair. I buy framework laptops. Because I believe.
I just can’t deny however that Apple MacBooks last forever. I personally have a MacBook that still working after 9 years. Right to repair has less meaning when the laptop lasts a decade.
So my current recommendation to people is get a MacBook Air, but if they’re technical, then I recommend a framework
“last forever” is an overstatement, the lastest macOS only supports device until 2017: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213264 ; That is only 6 years old, that is around the phone support period around a later pixel phone, which is not even a company that focus on sustainability.
Although you can probably throw linux on it to extend its life, but I dont know if it is as easy as install it on a normal laptop.
On Intel Macs, Linux is pretty easy to install. A lot of people put a lot of work into having most Macs just work out of the box on Linux.
On Apple Silicon, most of that work is still unfinished. Asahi Linux is the main project to get Linux on M1/M2, and the goal is to upstream everything, but it’s a long road.
Either way, the sheer popularity of Macs basically guarantees a usable experience on Linux. It’s just going to take a bit for Apple Silicon to catch up.
Also, I think “last forever” with Macs is more about the hardware itself. It’s hard to deny the build quality is really good (except the keyboard from 2016-2020 on MBPs), and I’ve seen people using 2011 MBAs stuck on Catalina as their daily drivers because the hardware just keeps working.
Point of clarification, that’s only for upgrading the OS, not for security patches. Those go back further, with a recent example covering 10-year-old models.
You’re right. They’re official timelines aren’t super duper long. But it’s still longer than any other laptop I’ve ever owned. I’m not supporting Apple here. I’m just acknowledging their laptops last a very long time. To the point where most people are going to upgrade out of the laptop before it breaks on them. That at least that’s my personal experience
I am confused, it seems like two of macOS’s competitor: windows and linux, all have much longer support period than apple.
I am using a surface laptop 2 which is almost 5 years old, and given that there is no major version of windows planned, it is hard to imagine that it will become unsupported in 2 years.
Granted many people unnecessarily update their hardware, simply because “new one is better”, which is honestly a quiet disappointing trend for me. From my personal experience, apple product buyer seems to have a higher tendency to engage in this trend, for reason unclear to me.
The major difference is Windows and Linux are not as tightly coupled as Mac OS. You can have a Windows laptop which gets updates to Windows operating system even though the hardware is no longer getting driver updates. So if there’s a known security issue in your Bluetooth driver for example, nothing will get patched. And you will continue going forward blissfully unaware that you’re exposed to a major security vulnerability because Windows itself is not responsible for your Bluetooth driver. And the same for Linux. Just because it can run on the hardware doesn’t mean the ecosystem is being maintained.
Apples is the extreme other end of the spectrum. Everything on the computer is being maintained by Apple every piece of hardware is getting hardware updates from Apple, and they’re integrated into the operating system. So because of that Apple’s providing stronger guarantees if you’re within the support window. If you fall out of the support window you can still hack the Mac to run the new versions of Mac OS, and you can still run the old versions of Mac OS without updates.
So it’s down to the business guarantees that you’re being given by the ecosystem. Apple gives very strong guarantees for a very long period of time.
Windows gives weak guarantees for a very very long period of time, and strong guarantees almost never. Unless you’re buying directly from Microsoft and even then they’re not guaranteeing hardware updates for every piece of hardware in the system.
And Linux gives no guarantees for hardware
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The raw performance isn’t everything for me. I already have a gaming laptop that pumps out heat like a 1500W space heater even when it’s not doing anything. I really didn’t want that in a second laptop, especially with how bad my experience has been with Windows’ Connected Standby, where the laptop will just sometimes decide to fully wake up in a bag and overheat and drain the battery.
There were a lot of reasons I went with a Mac for this, but one of the biggest ones was how efficient Apple Silicon is. The M2 Max may take an extra minute or two to compile a large project vs an i9-13900HX, but it also manages to not give me first degree burns if I want to use it on my lap.
I have a lot of problems with Apple and their decisions around macOS and hardware pricing, but for me, that efficiency ratio was really important. I’m not trying to say everyone should buy a Mac, but if we’re “saying it like it is”, Apple Silicon is years ahead of Intel, AMD, and even Qualcomm for high performance portability. That trade-off might not be worth it to you, and that’s fine, but there’s literally no competition for what I needed.
The fact of the matter is that the M2 Max rarely goes above 70C under load, even with Apple’s ridiculously conservative fan curve, while pretty much every x86 laptop I’ve owned idles right around there.
Every other post is about how shitty of a company HP is, I’m not sure you’d be winning any integrity points.
A lot of people who talk about how bad Apple laptops are ignore how the rest of the industry is basically moving towards Apple’s design language, but doing it cheaply. If you hate apple, you’ll hate HP even more.
Yea I hate the way Apple is treating customers with upgrades but they make a damn good product that is unbeatable compared directly. I hope hackintosh lives on. I hope there’s better efficiency to power ratio on PCs. I’m hoping my current Mac could be my last Mac.
The issue is not so much Apple but the lack of real challenger. If only Sony didn’t give up on the PC market. I guess they bought in about tablets killing the conventional PC.
I really dislike Apple’s business practices. I remember replacing a screen on a friend’s iPhone and the display flex cable would not provide a proper connection without the little metal bracket over the top of it being installed. Honestly thought the replacement display was broken at a point. Never seen such on an android phone.
Considering the serious move EU as made regarding right to repair and imposing that any equipment must be repairable and have parts for it for at least 10 years, this ia going to be another serious pain for this brand.
I’ve also read an article recently where it was reported that all cell phones circulating in the EU must have replaceable batteries. And from what I took from the article it was meant replaceable by the end user.
Serious anti obsolescence legislation.
This will hurt Apple again.
10? That’s one way to discourage competition from new companies.
How is that?
As it is, that same argument was used by Apple to try to dodge from complying with the demand for having an industry standard for data and charge port/cable - the USB-C.
Planned obsolescence is a thing. Having law put in place to curb it is a good thing.
If you know you can buy something and you know that something will be repairable at least for a decade, it passes confidence to the end user.
Competition is welcome. Innovation as well. Legislation like this just means companies need to share standards and cooperate more and not aim to skin the client in an endless cycle of replacing expensive items that get thrown out before they are worn out.
