<story><title>Everything about the state of the Mac</title><url>http://mjtsai.com/blog/2016/10/27/new-macbook-pros-and-the-state-of-the-mac/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>comex</author><text>Much the flak that&amp;#x27;s been posted about the new MacBook Pros implies there are better offerings from PC manufacturers, and certainly there are plenty if your priorities are very different from Apple&amp;#x27;s (e.g. you care more about upgradeability than sleekness).  My personal priorities are pretty similar to Apple&amp;#x27;s, but not quite the same: I&amp;#x27;m skeptical about anything that reduces key travel.  So I browsed around to try to find something that could compete with the new 15&amp;quot; MacBook Pro for my next purchase.  To my surprise, I couldn&amp;#x27;t find a single model from the major vendors that had all of the following:&lt;p&gt;- 15&amp;quot; or close&lt;p&gt;- In the general &amp;quot;thin and light&amp;quot; category (ideally at least as thin as my 2012 rMBP at 1.8 cm; latest is 1.55cm)&lt;p&gt;- Higher than 1080p screen resolution (old and new MBP are both 2880x1800)&lt;p&gt;- At least 7 hours of battery life (advertised battery life of my 2012 rMBP; latest advertises 10 hours)&lt;p&gt;It seemed to generally come down to 1080p and good battery life, or high resolution (usually higher than the MBP) and crappy battery life.  I think the Surface Book was most tempting, but it has a significantly smaller screen.&lt;p&gt;If anyone has suggestions, I&amp;#x27;d love to hear them.  But for now my plan is to suck up the reduced key travel and buy a new MacBook Pro...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>caconym_</author><text>This is the thing. I was as bored by the new MBPs as everyone else, but they really do still seem to have a combination of power, screen quality, portability, and battery life that isn&amp;#x27;t matched elsewhere (not to mention the more intangible benefits e.g. great touchpads). Every time someone tells me about a PC laptop that supposedly beats the Apple equivalent, the PC ends up either not being a reasonable equivalent or falls flat in at least one of the areas I mentioned.&lt;p&gt;Maybe if the price is right then making sacrifices is fine, but that&amp;#x27;s up to the individual buyer. Speaking for myself, a boring computer that&amp;#x27;s quietly excellent is exactly what I want. My biggest problem with the new MBPs is that i think the Touch Bar is a gimmick and losing the physical escape key is a real bummer.</text></comment>
<story><title>Everything about the state of the Mac</title><url>http://mjtsai.com/blog/2016/10/27/new-macbook-pros-and-the-state-of-the-mac/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>comex</author><text>Much the flak that&amp;#x27;s been posted about the new MacBook Pros implies there are better offerings from PC manufacturers, and certainly there are plenty if your priorities are very different from Apple&amp;#x27;s (e.g. you care more about upgradeability than sleekness).  My personal priorities are pretty similar to Apple&amp;#x27;s, but not quite the same: I&amp;#x27;m skeptical about anything that reduces key travel.  So I browsed around to try to find something that could compete with the new 15&amp;quot; MacBook Pro for my next purchase.  To my surprise, I couldn&amp;#x27;t find a single model from the major vendors that had all of the following:&lt;p&gt;- 15&amp;quot; or close&lt;p&gt;- In the general &amp;quot;thin and light&amp;quot; category (ideally at least as thin as my 2012 rMBP at 1.8 cm; latest is 1.55cm)&lt;p&gt;- Higher than 1080p screen resolution (old and new MBP are both 2880x1800)&lt;p&gt;- At least 7 hours of battery life (advertised battery life of my 2012 rMBP; latest advertises 10 hours)&lt;p&gt;It seemed to generally come down to 1080p and good battery life, or high resolution (usually higher than the MBP) and crappy battery life.  I think the Surface Book was most tempting, but it has a significantly smaller screen.&lt;p&gt;If anyone has suggestions, I&amp;#x27;d love to hear them.  But for now my plan is to suck up the reduced key travel and buy a new MacBook Pro...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>acabal</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been using a 2015 Razer Blade and it&amp;#x27;s a great machine.  14&amp;quot; 3200x1800 screen, 16GB RAM, decent battery life, very thin, great trackpad with click buttons, which I like.  Excellent Linux support; I run Ubuntu on it as my daily OS.  However it&amp;#x27;s expensive, and has a pretty tacky color scheme.  Parts are proprietary and repairs are expensive, though compared to Apple that&amp;#x27;s a wash.&lt;p&gt;At the time I bought it they were for sale in Microsoft stores, so you could try it out in person too.</text></comment>