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#clojure-uk
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2018-12-18
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thomas08:12:59

morning folks

alexlynham08:12:32

so I may need to finally replace my 2013 MBP at some point

alexlynham08:12:44

what's the current state of play for decent laptops?

alexlynham08:12:55

tempted by mac again b/c of logic, etc

alexlynham09:12:10

but not being able to replace the battery etc worries me in terms of its longevity

yogidevbear09:12:22

@alex.lynham I would highly recommend the Dell XPS 13 (budget dependant of course)

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alexlynham09:12:07

well so my 2013 is 512GB SSD & an i7... the new MBP with those specs is Ā£2550 šŸ˜±

yogidevbear09:12:32

Money well spent if you've had it for 5 years šŸ‘

yogidevbear09:12:06

Oh wait, misread that

yogidevbear09:12:23

Thought you spent that and your laptop lasted 5 years

yogidevbear09:12:58

I always find that Apple is way overpriced (IMO)

yogidevbear09:12:55

It's like buying into the religion (opinions expressed here area purely my own šŸ™‚)

3Jane09:12:47

Having used different brands I would totally buy another Mac IF the new ones were as good quality as the old ones

3Jane09:12:51

Which they are not

alexlynham09:12:00

that's what one costs now, I think they cost that back in the day. I bought it off the company I worked for when I left for Ā£1k, best deal evarrrr

3Jane09:12:19

(Direct comparison with people at work: whatever you do, donā€™t buy a new Mac.)

alexlynham09:12:21

> Having used different brands I would totally buy another Mac IF the new ones were as good quality as the old ones this is my worry

3Jane09:12:57

I was going to get a Huawei matebook pro, but realised I can get a used mbp for the same price, so will do that instead

3Jane09:12:20

Given Huaweiā€™s recent reputation

3Jane09:12:44

That said everyone says Dell XPS is awesome, and I also heard great things about Surfaces. Iā€™ve been warned to watch for touchpads on Linux though because apparently Apple put a lot of work into drivers to make theirs work just so.

3Jane09:12:35

(New Mac problems that Iā€™ve observed include keyboards breaking and screen leaking/pooling liquid. Thatā€™s rather high on the scale of ā€œbasic functionality unusableā€)

alexlynham09:12:55

the XPS looks good

alexlynham09:12:07

the lenovo thinkpad carbon also looks good (similar price)

alexlynham09:12:09

but I guess I'm stuck with the fact that I need a DAW and I know Logic best picard-facepalm

danielneal09:12:25

@bronsa is a big fan of the xps iirc

thomas09:12:51

I quite like my MBP 15", before that I always had Thinkpads (of course) and they were great as well and I didn't have any issues running Ubuntu on them.

thomas09:12:10

But I wouldn't buy a MBP with my own money.

dotemacs09:12:58

On the other hand, if you buy a macbook you get to run officially certified UNIX. And the main reason Iā€™ll probably get one is because you can tweak the touchbar to display the keys dependent on your application. And emacs fork has the support for it, so you can tweak to add ā€œslurpā€ ā€œbarfā€ā€¦ if in clj(s) mode or some other mode dependent shortcuts, say (git rebase -i, fixup the last commit) for magit.

alexlynham10:12:03

Ā£1986 for an equivalent spec'd thinkpad carbon... hm.

yogidevbear10:12:29

What about equivalent spec'd xps?

alexlynham10:12:10

1,468.99, and you can get 15% off until tmw so... ~Ā£1248

rickmoynihan10:12:21

Work bought me an MBP 2016 with touchbar (only because to get the higher spec you had to get a touchbar). Overall the hardware is great; and far superior to just about anything else however: - Touchbar is a total gimmick and far worse than a row of physical keys - Two or three keys on the keyboard arenā€™t pressing properly unless you mash them a bit ā€” this is a common known fault due to specs of dust getting under the keys; and is IIRC a Ā£800 repair to fix if you canā€™t dislodge the dust. Also this aside the new keyboard isnā€™t that great to type on in my mind. - Battery life is far worse than on my previous MBA I should add that I hate macOS though; and would much rather a Linux desktop if I could guarantee good hardware and compatibility and less time futtzing around with various issues. (I used to love this - but now not so much).

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alexlynham10:12:26

(that's w/o windows, shipped with ubuntu)

danm10:12:32

Wait, the 2016 MacBooks already had the touchbar? I didn't think it was that old

danm10:12:00

It is a total gimmick though. Laura has one, and has also already had a sticky key (hooray for air dusters though...)

danm10:12:25

I'm not a fan of the feel, but it does make the laptop marginally slimmer

rickmoynihan10:12:40

it does; but the previous generation keyboards felt better to type on in my mind

rickmoynihan10:12:20

these bottom out far too soon

danm10:12:28

Oh yeah, I agree. I'm just saying that's the only reason I can think of Apple had for using it

rickmoynihan10:12:31

yeah I could imagine the slimness saving might save a hundred grams or so in weight too

otfrom10:12:22

love my xps13. I don't have problems with it

rickmoynihan10:12:54

A colleague has one of thoseā€¦ If I was in the market for a new one, Iā€™d be tempted by itā€¦ though IIRC last time I looked Iā€™d wished the spec could be bumped a bit moreā€¦ more SSD & RAM IIRC wouldā€™ve been niceā€¦ but I also wouldnā€™t mind it being 15"

alexlynham10:12:34

there's a 15" XPS with more options

rickmoynihan10:12:07

might be worth getting one ā€” just so I can troll my coworkers with nostril cam footage šŸ™‚

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otfrom10:12:44

nostril cam is the only drawback on the xps13s

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otfrom10:12:33

these are all of the ones available from the US at http://dell.com/developer

otfrom10:12:45

if you ask nicely I think they'll do them for the UK too

alexlynham10:12:19

nostril cam?

3Jane10:12:27

prolly a cam placed in your keyboard, shows a view up your nose

3Jane10:12:35

(huawei has the same problem)

Ben Hammond11:12:09

haha yeah you get really big hands on the webcam when you are typing

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dotemacs11:12:22

This might be interesting to some, a free and open source laptop: http://mntmn.com/reform/

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maleghast12:12:25

Morning All šŸ™‚

zyxmn13:12:01

https://starlabs.systems/ They make nice Ubuntu light weight laptops . They are based in Surrey . I still have the MK1 version and it's pretty decent . Not sure about them lasting 5 years though .

otfrom13:12:35

needs MOAR RAM and SSD, but looks nice

alexlynham13:12:04

I guess if I'm spending 1979 Les Paul Custom money on a laptop (~Ā£2k, my ebay fu is wild) I'm expecting at least 4-5 years of use

alexlynham13:12:30

pretty sure there's EU consumer law supporting that as well... as in 'reasonable expectation of use', gonna have to google

alexlynham14:12:31

whoa that Star Labs laptop is decent for the price

3Jane14:12:34

ā€¦are they moddable?

3Jane14:12:52

as in, are there any unused slots for ram?

3Jane14:12:52

ā€¦some research, and apparently star labs are reselling stuff from these guys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clevo

3Jane14:12:50

if you want something from resellers, Novatech is really solid

3Jane15:12:36

I still use a tower I bought from them after like ā€¦ 6 years? (custom parts though) and a friend had a very solid gaming quality laptop

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Conor15:12:19

Once they actually come out here, I'd probably get a Matebook Pro X and install Linux on it (I doubt I'm important enough for the Chinese to spy on)

fmjrey16:12:06

5kg! That's a transportable, not portable

fmjrey16:12:58

Oh and charger would be 1kg more most likely

Conor16:12:10

You have to make sacrifices for your twin 1080 Tis or whatever it's got

dotemacs16:12:10

Wow, that system76 bonobo look like some sort of torture device.

3Jane16:12:18

it looks like you could kill with it

fmjrey16:12:49

At least you can kill your back transporting it

3Jane16:12:01

at this point might as well get a Razer

seancorfield16:12:54

I had a System 76 "ultra notebook" for several years. Great battery life, extremely portable. Wasn't quite powerful enough to do real work on the go (I only used it for conferences really). Other than that, I was very impressed with System 76.

jasonbell17:12:06

@alex.lynham <<I guess if Iā€™m spending 1979 Les Paul Custom money on a laptop>> Iā€™d be buying the Les Paulā€¦..

alexlynham17:12:57

Haha I have an 89 classic so probably no need for now :)

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