new MBP or Ubuntu Dell?

[GrumpyTwig]

blueg33 said:

I agree. Surface devices are very good, built quality easily on a par with Apple. We have both in our office used daily by the land team. We have to replace macs more often than the Surface Devices usually because the keyboard or screen on the Macs fails.

Only really let down is Windows, or rather the lack of good touch screen support on Linux allowing me to move away from Windows

[13aines]

It sounds like a 12" MacBook would be suitable for your usage. Better battery life and is thinner and lighter.

I just bought a second hand 2017 13" MBP TB for around £1,000.

I'm using a magnetic USB-C cable from Amazon which works well. It's not as good as MagSafe, but certainly nice to have magnetic charging back. I already had something similar for my iPhone's worn out Lightening port to reduce wear and ingress of pocket fluff.

The tip that stays in the USB-C port on the MacBook only protrudes a few mm. I have two tips, one each side, so I can still charge from either side - retaining a big bonus of this whole USB-C only thing...

[AJB88]

Whats the difference between say a 2017 MBP 13 and 2017 MB 12?

Apart from the screen size, all as I can tell is you get a worse processor? i5 vs duo core, you get the same ram and get a bigger SSD?

all for £100 more?

Edited by AJB88 on Friday 21st September 16:27

[Corso Marche]

AJB88 said:

The PB does everything apart from the dedicated COBB software as its MacOS/Windows only. I did ask their development team about Android/Linux support but they said there wasn't a market for it.

I'd go for the Dell with Ubuntu then. Run COBB in a VM, or even have a Windows partition setup if you preferred to run COBB in a native Windows environment.

[AJB88]

Corso Marche said:

I'd go for the Dell with Ubuntu then. Run COBB in a VM, or even have a Windows partition setup if you preferred to run COBB in a native Windows environment.

Is the Dell machine going to "feel" worth the money being plastic mainly? Been using this 2010 MBP for like 2 years now and it still feels "premium" despite looking a little old now.


Notice they have a sale on right now the 13" with 256gb SSD, 8GB ram and the i7 is below £1000.

Edited by AJB88 on Friday 21st September 18:26

[Corso Marche]

Everybody's different, and the XPS 13 is a nice machine which looks better and feels better than most Windows laptops people usually see, but no it won't be as nice as something in an aluminium body.
All depends how much weight you place on that in your decision making.

[AJB88]

Depends if I can get Windows to work virtually as I've not had much look in the past of USB support working.

[mikef]

AJB88 said:

Is the Dell machine going to "feel" worth the money being plastic mainly

We have a Dell XPS 13 touch as well as MacBook Pros. It’s pretty good as Win ultra books go, but no it’s not in the same league as Apple kit in terms of quality feel. Then again, show me anything short of the Lenovo X1 that comes remotely close

What is that quality feel worth to you?

[Corso Marche]

I think now the MBP is for you.

If you were drawn to the Dell you wouldn't have come back so quickly with two reasons not to have it.

Sometimes what you want is simply what you want !

[AJB88]

I'm still 50/50 haha been reading that the XPS is aluminium on the outside? Battery life up to 19 hours? wonder if Ubuntu can manage that?

[downthepub]

GrumpyTwig said:

blueg33 said:

I agree. Surface devices are very good, built quality easily on a par with Apple. We have both in our office used daily by the land team. We have to replace macs more often than the Surface Devices usually because the keyboard or screen on the Macs fails.

Only really let down is Windows, or rather the lack of good touch screen support on Linux allowing me to move away from Windows

We've rolled out at least 10,000, probably more, Surface devices at work between the UK and US, and generally speaking they are hated or treated with suspicion by the user population. Kinda proved they are move of a toy than a serious business tool. YMMV however.

Edit to add, I've actually requested one for a project I'm working on, and I will use it as my primary device to actually "eat our own dogfood" and use our software on a device that's closely aligned to what the punters have. First time around, being a dirty contractor, the Windows 10 initiative gave me a 2nd hand HP (which is fine). So in a month or so, I should have more of a contribution to this discussion.

Edited by downthepub on Saturday 22 September 18:17

[AJB88]

Bit the bullet and purchased the XPS 13 Ubuntu with i7.

It's on sale at the moment and also managed to get another 10% off as sister is a student! £854 in total.

Will try to run VM Ware + Windows 10 + COBB accessport as soon as I receive the machine. If it works happy days will flog my 2010 Macbook Pro for what ever I can get for it.

[AJB88]

It finally arrived today!






So yeh it doesn't feel "as" premium as a MBP but it feels pretty good, aluminium on the outside and carbon fibre rubber on the inside. Ubuntu seems to be playing well with it as well. Feels very light compared to the 2010 MBP.

They have left the windows key on the keyboard which is an OCD thing for me haha.

I've got Windows 10 working inside VM Ware Player as well, its a educational version which isn't activated so will probably ditch it for a better version at some point, will test whether the USB support works tomorrow when I'm home.

Edited by AJB88 on Monday 1st October 23:22