Thinkpad for the win

I hope they used the official Apple cleaning cloth that's certified compatible with that model of MacBook
- Apple Cleaning Cloth Pro, coming this October
  
  Normal: too small size to be useful, have apple logo
  Pro: super expensive, includes 6 gallons of cleaning fluids, is enormous, logo in gold
- You mean the iRag?
  
  Is that little red thing a dead body?
  
  Oh you crafty SOB.
  
  Bravo... sneaky bastard
- 299.99$ and can connect with the cloud
  
  *Will not work without an active internet connection.
  
  No they actually cut that feature in the latest model, which retails for $499.99
  
  Does it have AI capabilities?
- The cleaning cloth pictured is the one that comes with the particular brand of screen cleaner that Apple recommends using.

I have a pretty recent thinkpad that supposedly has "military grade durability". The plastic is literally falling apart at the corners after 2 years, and my fan grille is gone.
Fucking lenovo
- Military grade is bullshit marketing. Basically anything is military grade
  
  Military grade is code for "cheapest bidder"
  
  It depends, sometimes milspec is very demanding. For example, crayons need to be non-toxic even if you eat the entire box.
  
  In Ukraine nowadays it means "anything that can survive up to one assault". I hear they take donated cars that no-one sane would drive or even pronounce street-legal.
  
  I was in the Marines and I had to buy some of my shit on my own, so yeah, agree 100%.
  
  I guess aircraft-grade aluminum isn’t good enough anymore.
  
  "Military grade" means that it went through one extra round of inspection before it was sent out as far as I'm aware. This round of inspection is basically just putting it through certain weather conditions to simulate "will this survive a deployment"
- Sounds military grade to me.
- Which Thinkpad do you have? The "Thinkpad" line has been expanded to basically all professional grade laptops now.
  
  the x131e is definitely not professional grade
- I have a 16 year old T420 that's survived numerous falls drops spills and still ticking to this day and I love it. It's the best damn keyboard to type on. Only Thinkpads for me.
- IBM would've never
  
  Sell their product to lenovo?
- As others have eluded to, military-grade means "meets our minimum spec at the lowest price."
  So it means they said "Our casing was made of this material last year, and this is the lowest bidder for the same quality this year."

ThinkPad is a work tool. MacBook is a fashion statement.
- Not where I work. My thinkpad is managed by the understaffed IT department, and is severely crippled by clownstrike and other garbage and bloatware. Linux is not allowed, only windows.
  But my colleagues who chose a MacBook don't have all that crap because said IT department haven't figured out how to remotely manage Macs yet...
  
  It was sad when my work figured out how to lock down the Mac's. It's not too restrictive, but it's more than nothing.

MacBook user:
omfg, my MacBook got that big scratch. Gonna buy a new one then
ThinkPad user:
draws ThinkPad logo on the back using scratches
Love it
Essentially average MacBook fan vs average ThinkPad enjoyer
- Mine is covered in stickers.
  
  If your Thinkpad isn't covered in stickers, is it really a Thinkpad?
  
  The stickers hold it together!

ah, remember the time that Lenovo shipped spyware in the UEFI of Thinkpads?
- Some context...
  For one, it wasn't spyware, it was UEFI that, if a user had admin/root privilege, they could modify the firmware despite signinging procedures that should have prevented that. There was no spyware, there was no root kit, there was a vulnerability.
  For another:
  IdeaPads, Legion gaming devices, and both Flex and Yoga laptops.
  Technically it never touched the ThinkPads. Despite some areas where things blur, ThinkPad is still relatively independent of the rest of the product line. While I may not think Lenovo is trying to actively spy on their consumer brands, they do screw up enough that I wouldn't want to touch them (not just security, they cut too many corners in general).
- I certainly remember when lenovo pushed a keyboard firmware update so bad that it physically damaged a part on thousands of legion laptops and then refused to own up to it. Fuckers. Never again.
  *ok I half remembered, I don't actually know that a part was physically damaged but the only permanent fix involves soldering so close enough

Never regretted a purchase more than my macbook after visiting their subreddits.
- I got a MacBook for free and I regretted even that. Someone spent money on it, what a waste, even if it wasn't me. I have a refurbished ThinkPad now and I love that one.
  
  That's all I'll buy laptop wise. I'd be a fool to buy a new laptop for my use case.
  Give me an off lease Thinkpad with no SSD
  I'll furnish my own drive and OS.
- I bought a MacBook Pro in 2011 to play games when I’m not at home (installed Windows on it) and it still works amazingly to this day. I did swap the DVD drive out for a solid state drive and increased the RAM to 16GB. It lasts 1.6 playthroughs of Beetlejuice on maximum brightness on the original battery… but the battery only has like 26 cycles cuz I always had it plugged in.
  Zero regrets.

I mean… tools, not jewels. It has a robust design for a reason. Develop that patina, kid. Don’t lose your mind over a scuff.
- I've been buying second hand thinkpads for the last decade or so.
  They arrive pre-scuffed so I don't need to worry.
  
  Prescruffed? That's just the vintage look.

My MacBook survived after I left it on top of my car as I drove off. It was flung off into a pedestrian area at the first intersection and has a nice dent on the corner.
- It's so funny to see how macbooks are either super durable, or die from the smallest dust particles. My dad's macbook fell down 3 flights of stairs, and embedded itself into the wood floor boards at the bottom floor. There's not even a scratch on it even though if fell from pretty high up.
  And my mother's macbook dies every year because dust ends up in between the display cable which then punctures it when the lid is closed
  
  That's Apple engineering for you: 60 percent of the time it works every time. I grew up with Apple products and the company's history is lined with head-scratching design choices. It's been like that since the Lisa.
  I like repairable, self-built desktop PCs myself. But for work, the MacBook has been a tank.
- Lol I drove at least a mile with my Thinkpad on top of the car. Some dude next to me at a stop light honking and miming saved me. Got up to 40mph with it still on top though!
  Also did this with my cell phone and numerous water bottles. I really need to stop considering the roof a viable temporary storage location.
- I gave my old macbook air to my kid for Minecraft and he dropped it several times, still just fine with no problems. Also my 10 year old macbook pro still works perfectly fine with a quad core i7 and 16GB RAM for anything I need a laptop to do. Still has the original battery with decent runtime too.

Apple: The Gucci of the tech world.
- It really is. I once dated a girl that would rip on me for having a Samsung. She said she needed an iPhone for work cause she takes a lot of pics and uses socials a lot. She couldn't fathom that my Samsung could do all of that and arguably more
  
  needed an iPhone for work cause she takes a lot of pics
  She takes a lot of pictures...so she needed a worse camera?
  
  Not sure if it’s changed by now but a lot of the social apps for Android would just take a screen grab when taking a picture, so when uploading from Android the pics looked much worse than iPhone.
  
  Her problem was that her fans would then see a Samsung phone in the social pics, instead of the seasonal variety ornament that is the iPhone.
  
  Apple vs Samsung aside, she wasn't concerned with using her own phone for work?
- I dunno man, I've made it a point of pride to be rough with my Macbook over the years. They hold up well to repeated beatings and last a long time. I'd rate my 2017 Macbook Pro as hardier than the Thinkpad X1 Carbon I had as a company computer for my last job. And the MacBook might have been cheaper new too.

Nobody cares about thinkpads getting scratched up because the shell shows fingerprints like a motherfucker.
I love my Thinkpads though...namely because I use Linux at home and I'm cheap about laptops...used T-series is probably the best cheap Linux laptop, in general.
- i don't worry about scratching them because they already came scratched used

Idk how scratch-prone the post-touchbar models are, but I've had a series of MBPs that I've been profoundly uncareful with and never had a problem.
Used a 2009 model until 2016, no scratches. 2016 model that I use to this very day, no scratches. 2017 I used for work until 2019, I ran it across an exposed screw-tip on a broken desk and it left a line you could see if you held it just right to reflect a light, but I can't imagine anything shrugging that off. 2019 model I used for work until a month ago, no scratches.
Meanwhile, the other devices that have coexisted in the same backpack have not done as well. Dented USB hub, dented dock, broken screen on an Android device, shattered screen protector on another device.
Edit: That said, I did just buy a Thinkpad to derp around with NixOS on, so I can compare and report back in a couple of years if anyone wants.
- ThinkPads do scratch, but they are ugly from factory so that no one has to be anxious about it. That's the beauty of it. They also are very prone to collect finger smudges with their strange plastic soft coating. Very hard to clean even with detergent. I would know because I am a freak about keeping my laptop clean, and I can tell you from all the ThinkPads have used in the past 10 years that you will touch them the first time taking them out of the box and they will never look clean ever again.

Using a generator to power a computer is a really bad idea. You'll significantly shorten the lifespan of the power supply. Ask me how I know.
- Ask me how I know.
  Ok. How?
  
  Because I killed a PSU by plugging my PC into a gas generator once
  
  <airplane>
  By typing the question in the comment box, but that's not important right now
  </ariplane>
- I ran a full sized office photo copier off a generator once, it ran fine, but you could really hear the engine chugging when the fuser started to heat up.
- I'm trying to figure this out at the moment.
  What is the best way to power a laptop in an off-grid setup? Mine will be primarily solar + AGM battery.
  I think the simplest "just works" set up is to get a "pure sine" inverter and go:
  solar > battery > inverter > power supp > laptop
  The thing is, if I understand correctly you have a big inefficient inverter to AC only to transform back to DC, with the only benefit being that the plug fits in the socket.
  I'm curious to know how a generator ruins a power supply? Is it something to do with the arcane sine wave magic from the inverter?
  
  The "best" would be some kind of DC to DC converter, but I'm not sure there's anything plug and play atm because there's a wide range of specs laptops want. If your laptop happens to change with USB c PD or whatever the spec is that'd be the most efficient that I'm aware of. No sense in going dc->ac->dc if it can be helped.
  
  There should be options avoiding AC depending on your scenario. Most laptops charge off of DC. Easiest way would be if all your things support USBC or similar.
- But why would it? Is the output not voltage controlled?
  
  Use an inverter-controlled one and you'll be fine. Our emergency communications shelter runs off one of those just fine, with a cheap offline UPS in there.
  Yes, those that control frequency using the engine rpm aren't that great for most switching power supplies.
  
  I'm guessing the cheaper ones don't have sine-wave inverters (they use a dressed up square wave which can be produced by purely digital electronics) so quality of the output waveform is bad. The power supply of the laptop (or PC) ends up having to work harder to cut out the extraneous bits of the waveform (that is it's job) but all that extra crap is just turned into heat. Laptop PSUs are small , so have less heat dissipation and likely aren't built for this. The ideal use case for these cheap inverters are purely resistive loads (like heaters) but even some less sophisticated electronics would probably be fine. Computer however, are generally designed for clean power.
  If it's a sine-wave inverters and the generator is working properly then idk why it would matter.
  
  Oh shit, you just made me realize when I get my first pay check I should really invest in a decent UPS. I had to sell my old one before moving state lines to condense space.
- Best power yours off solar then, cos everything else is generators.
- Yea man, you need an inverter generator for that. Thankfully small inverter generators are very affordable these days.

Ah yes, great post in the year 2010 when thinkpads weren't complete crap, yet.

I have a thinkpad in the late 90s and it still boots up till this day. I added more memory and added an SSD and a fresh set of batteries. This shit just won't die.
- The actual IBM ones from before Lenovo bought the company, the fat ones, those were fucking tanks. I remember using them in middle school, they were the best.

My work gave me an HP piece of crap laptop, I'd rather have a MacBook.
- HP consumer equipment is pretty trash to be honest. Even their "business" models. Servers are solid though.
  I can't stand Lenovo due to their Fn and CTRL key swapping places, dell is my go to for last 10 years.
  
  you can swap their locations on bioslevel and never think about it again (unless one of your colleagues actually reads the labels, gets it wromg and you have to explain it to them)
  
  They went back to the correct layout on newer models

sterileness is the aesthetic of rulers
- Nah. Authoritarians love gaudy, showy, shit. They hate minimal modernist design. Hitler famously shut down the Bauhaus movement, and Trump is doing similar shit and pushing Classicism.
  Look at the residences of Kim, Saddam, Assad, Chávez, etc. Columns, ornate gold shit, etc.
  
  ye ur right, how about this sterileness is the aesthetic of the yuppies

Who cares about scratches on the outside?

Indestructible little fucker

I made the wrong comment to a wrong reply, but i think Thinkpads are great. Except the premium thinkpads have Apple-esque prices but non of the Apple-esque support.
If there was a thinkpad with a good price (especially the newer thinkpads that have soldered RAM) I would buy it and replace my laptop. Not that I don't like my laptop (Its a Clevo, so I know what I'm getting), but ThinPads are pretty good and all rounded for many things.

I honestly will never understand why people buy macbooks.
- Out here in Silicon Valley, the big driver is a) you need MacOS to develop for iOS, and b) people prefer the UX over Windows / Linux.
  Also, the hardware tends be well supported and performant for many years…. As long as you’re not gaming.
  
  I work at a big tech company in Silicon Valley and maybe 80% of employees use MacBooks... I was using Windows for a while, but I switched to Linux around a year ago. AFAIK there were only a few dozen people like me (running Linux, using Firefox as default browser) until we were all forced to switch to Chrome because of some security features in Chrome enterprise.
- Number of reasons. Works well with Apple products, long battery life, way more powerful for most normal (sometimes applies to even some basic UI devs and small project video editing). It’s got great hardware. However Apple is a nightmare capitalist company that’ll try to dime and nickel you for every possible thing.
- Unified memory. On a current gen Mac work station you can functionally have 512GB of VRAM for AI tasks for under $10k. Good luck getting anywhere close with Nvidia or AMD.
  They're also idiot proof, when I fuck up my CUDA drivers sending me down a 4-hour-long hunt for improperly installed visual studio files, a part of me is envious of Mac owners who will never know my pain.
  People pay for the simplicity.
  
  They’re also idiot proof
  Real reason right here. They want a machine that essentially protects them from themselves. It's also why Chromebooks are so wildly popular in US schools; the kids can't fuck up the software.
- Audio editing tools. I love linux but... its still catching up
- It's UNIX with a million and one creature comforts and high build quality. The ThinkPad touchpad gives me a rash.
- Disclaimer: Macbook user here.
  Its okay for a lot of things. And its great for people who don't expect much. But for power users, the moment you start installing stuffs for QoL or for more functionality, its there and then (the lack of RAM) really makes one want to bite the fingernails. I'm running 24GB, but even then my memory pressure is on yellow and i've "offloaded" a lot of stuffs into Ferdium (as that was the only reasonable way of maintaining certain things).
  But for those who use on the web stuffs for almost everything, a macbook is a much better chromebook, and it works really well for those who don't want to fiddle with anything.
  But that price though. If Macbooks were priced lower (especially the RAM and storage upgrades) I think there will be a huge uptick of people buying the M-CPU Macbooks.
  
  Agreed. I got the 16/512 (max specs) M1 Air for a decent price for the performance and battery life, and I currently run Linux on it, but I'm constantly bottlenecking both the RAM and SSD and it sucks that I can't upgrade it, will probably get a Framework when it dies
- Honestly, I’d love a cost equivalent laptop in could put Linux on in Europe, but for the money the MacBook Air is just really hard to beat
- You must not have any tech illiterate old family that likes downloading sketchy stuff from the Internet.
- Great battery life on macOS, although turns out a lot of it involves software-related optimizations since with Asahi Linux it's barely better than x86

I get the hate that goes Lenovo's way but I've had a 2022 P1 Gen5 since launch and I've absolutely kicked the living shit out of it and it keeps keeping on. Don't regret it.

11/10, that's so hot! I can fry eggs on it!
- Eggs too expensive, command aborted

Think(pad) different.

I played GTAV on T-430s

Mum?

I cant help but kinda be like this with my macbook. I work at a desk on my computer for the majority of the day. Because of this I tend to keep my desk clean. Even so, I have a special mouse pad that I use only to put my laptop on top of to protect him. I did more or less the same babying to my last laptop until I got rid of it. That one was an HP (fucking shit ass company for real)