<div dir="ltr">You're not alone Doug...
their entire line of laptops are a solid do not buy at the moment as far as I'm concerned due to the keyboards.<div> <div>For a while there Apple really was making the best laptops/desktops... I bought a cheese grater when they went intel, sold it for $1000 after 8 silent and solid years.</div><div>Also agree on the apple trackpads... no one else has it dialed in/figured out quite as well when it comes to palm rejection or tracking accuracy.<br></div><div><div><div><br></div><div><div>I did buy a Dell XPS13 a few years back and ended up returning it due to track pad jitters... </div></div><div>Currently using HP laptops... not retail-store ish or cheap, but available on <a href="http://hpshopping.com">hpshopping.com</a></div><div>(Disclaimer: Employee in the family;Feel free to delete this email now.)</div><div><br></div><div>ZBook Studio G3 (closest thing they make to a macbook pro I guess)</div><div>ZBook 15 G2 (big/heavy,4k dislpay)</div><div>Zbook 14 (older, but I really like this one)<br></div><div>(I would avoid their entire consumer line personally...)</div><div><br></div><div>The Studio G3 has this thunderbolt dock which has been a complete driver nightmare for about a year since launch... but it's well sorted out now.</div><div>The only one I have linux on at the moment is the 14.. but if I'm not mistaken you can put the newer ones in legacy mode/non-secure boot or whatever it is to install.</div><div><br></div><div>All the best.</div><div><br></div><div>Stuart</div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jan 22, 2019 at 3:07 PM Doug Moen <<a href="mailto:doug@moens.org">doug@moens.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div><div>I've been using a Macintosh since 1984. My current Mac is a 2010 MacBook Air. At the time I bought it, it was the best laptop on the market. The build quality was much better than any PC laptop that I could find in retail stores, and it was also much lighter. I'm really pleased with how long it has lasted. I still use it daily as my only laptop.<br></div>
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<div>Unfortunately, Apple doesn't currently sell any hardware that I would consider buying, and I doubt they will sell hardware I want ever again. The current MacBooks have a bad keyboard with unacceptably low key travel, and they are unreliable, with an outrageous repair cost. The ribbon cable that runs power to the backlight is thinner and more prone to breaking than in laptop models from the past, with a really high repair cost. The boot rom is designed to make it impossible to boot Linux. Good trackpad, though, and nice display. The fastest Mac desktop you can currently buy is a reconditioned Mac Pro "cheese grater" edition, built in 2006 (from a third party) with upgraded CPU, RAM, GPU and SSD. Nothing Apple currently sells can compete, and new Mac desktops are mostly not upgradeable. And I have never considered buying an iOS device, due to the walled garden, and the impossibility of running my own software on it, and also because of the surveillance and spyware.<br></div>
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<div>So I view Mac as a dying ecosystem. At some point, my MacBook will die, and I will need to buy a Linux laptop to replace it. The Dell XPS 13 looks like a nice replacement.<br></div>
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<div>On Tue, Jan 22, 2019, at 9:01 AM, Chamunks wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div>The big reason I like apple is I just throw an ever increasing fist full of cash at them every 4-8 years and I get a toaster with a lever I pull and when I pull that lever I get my toast. If I can get a PC that behaves exactly as I expect with no superfluous bullshit like Windows and other crapware along with a colossal ecosystem full of spare parts online than I'll switch. But until PC becomes ubiquitous with at least some of the aforementioned game breakers then I'm sticking where I am for my workstations. <br></div>
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<div>If nothing else I would consider switching my laptop for a Chromebook if I could get a Chromebook without the Google in it.<br></div>
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<div><div dir="ltr">On Mon, Jan 21, 2019 at 5:20 PM Mikalai Birukou via kwlug-disc <<a href="mailto:kwlug-disc@kwlug.org" target="_blank">kwlug-disc@kwlug.org</a>> wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><p>This is priceless! Quote:<br></p><p>"""<br></p><p>Keeping older Apple products prevents you from living your life
to the fullest, as those products do not contain the latest
innovations. {#63: Plus, you won‟t look cool in Starbucks.}<br></p></div>
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><p>"""<br></p><div>On 2019-01-21 3:19 p.m.,
CrankyOldBugger wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div>Frequent KWLUG speaker Jason Eckert just finished a short
(70 pages) book on "Escaping the Cult of Mac"; and it's a
hilarious read. I recommend that you check it out.<br></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>You can download it from his Github page: <a href="https://github.com/jasoneckert/CultOfMac" target="_blank">https://github.com/jasoneckert/CultOfMac</a> <br></div>
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<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div><div>-- <br></div>
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