[HN Gopher] Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review - with Linux
___________________________________________________________________
Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen3 Review - with Linux
Author : narmontas
Score : 284 points
Date : 2022-05-02 06:21 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ernestas.me)
(TXT) w3m dump (ernestas.me)
| beebeepka wrote:
| What an odd entry. Looking at the specs, this is one horrible
| device. What is the point of promoting this old brick featuring
| one of the worst CPUs ever released? If you're in the Intel camp,
| there are much better choices using 12th gen processors
|
| My slick 5800h Lenovo laptop also runs Linux but is faster,
| lighter, cuter, and simply better in every respect. Battery lasts
| over 15 hours easily, depending on display brightness.
|
| Seriously, I can't stress enough how bad this specific hardware
| is.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Why does GPU get a green dot (ie: "good") if the reviewer opted
| for the non-NVIDIA model and doesn't require GPU for their
| workload? The biggest issue I had with the Gen2 (aside from the
| atrocious trackpad) was the fact that with the GPU enabled,
| battery life was miserable, with it disabled HDMI didn't work (no
| external monitor!) and switching modes required a restart of
| Xorg, unless you spend a week trying to figure out arcane
| bullshittery. I say this as a Linux veteran who currently runs MX
| Linux on a MacBook pro 2015: the gen2 was terrible _for me_.
| narmontas wrote:
| This choice of GPU (Intel) works with Linux perfectly, that's
| why it's a green dot.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Good point. I never think of the integrated Intel version as
| "GPU".
| frant-hartm wrote:
| For developers, going with Intel only (no Nvidia discrete card)
| is the most sensible choice. I have P15 and it's riddled with
| issues - not that they are not solvable, but it needs
| workarounds, restarts of X (logout/login), or running discrete
| only (which eats battery).
|
| The problem is they don't make the larger workstation laptops
| with Intel only.
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| > The problem is they don't make the larger workstation laptops
| with Intel only.
|
| This might be a Lenovo-only problem. With Dell, you can
| customise-to-order a Precision 7760 with an 8-core Xeon, 128 GB
| unbuffered ECC memory, a _lot_ of storage, and no discrete
| graphics card, if you so desire.
|
| Many of these options aren't available on the site, but you can
| always call/chat in and from my experience, Dell will be happy
| to customise a machine to your requirements.
| mciancia wrote:
| That is IMO a very shitty experience, why would they do this
| when they already have an online shop where you can configure
| stuff? You cant blame people people for not knowing this when
| such thing is gatekeeped. IMO fuck dell for that approach
| frant-hartm wrote:
| That's another thing I don't understand, these
| configurators are not available in my country (Czech
| Republic) - neither for Lenovo nor Dell.
|
| Fortunately I was able to find a local Lenovo partner, who
| has some internal access. But I don't understand why they
| don't have it public for whole EU.
| gaasdggasd wrote:
| all-amd systems are a solid alternative as well. if you only
| have an igpu, it's effectively the same experience as an all-
| intel system. if you additionally have an amd dgpu, offloading
| work to it is as simple as setting DRI_PRIME=1 in the target
| process environment
| frant-hartm wrote:
| Yeah, AMD would be the way to go (I switched to AMD on my
| desktop when Ryzen came out) only if there were reasonable
| laptops available.
|
| AFAIK there are no AMD laptops with 128 GB RAM. Quickly
| looking at Lenovo site, I couldn't even find one with 64,
| only 48.
| csdvrx wrote:
| Besides the lack of OLED display, the limited RAM on AMD
| laptops is another showstopper then. I want a minimum of
| 64GB ECC, which I can get on a Thinkpad with an Intel Xeon
| CPU.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| The Alienware M15 r5 Ryzen edition (amongst others) does
| support 64GB of RAM, but not ECC.
| dhbsdfgv wrote:
| It also isn't an all-amd system, so your external
| displays and prime offloading all become way more
| awkward.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I have one - prime offloading works exactly the same as
| on Intel. As far as external displays it's very simple,
| when I plug one in it is owned 100% by the NVidia GPU.
| Which is not an issue because I have access to AC.
| shrx wrote:
| Huh, I didn't know you could force to use discrete GPU only on
| the P15. I am considering switching to this laptop from T480,
| where this doesn't seem possible.
| Avamander wrote:
| > For developers, going with Intel only (no Nvidia discrete
| card) is the most sensible choice.
|
| Absolutely not. Even the latest gen Intel ThinkPads are power-
| hungry and wasteful. They either throttle to shit, run way too
| hot or run way too loud and you have increasingly terrible
| battery life in all three cases.
|
| AMD resolves a few of those problems, you get more with the
| same power consumption, but still a good few steps behind a M1
| Mac things combined.
| e12e wrote:
| As I don't think Linux on an m1 Mac is going to be viable in
| the near term - I don't think it's all that relevant as a
| Linux workstation?
| Avamander wrote:
| It does seem fairly usable already. I'd say it's going to
| be viable as a primary workstation sooner than later, but
| things like polished GPU drivers will take more time.
|
| There are other ARM machines as well, that run Linux more
| easily, but those aren't as high-performance yet.
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| I don't think something is usable without GPU
| acceleration.
| e12e wrote:
| I imagine this is even more true for a device with a
| "retina" display.
| Avamander wrote:
| Some acceleration for sure is necessary, though things
| like video acceleration (that belong in the set "polished
| GPU drivers") are quite secondary. Linux is a good
| example of that, accelerated video decode is still quite
| rare and finicky.
| e12e wrote:
| I hope you're right, but I think you're wrong...
| masklinn wrote:
| > For developers, going with Intel only (no Nvidia discrete
| card) is the most sensible choice.
|
| Seems a right shame it lock you out of the 4K display though.
| plafl wrote:
| I came to exactly post this. I previously had a HP ZBook with
| Nvidia Quadro inside and although I managed to get it running
| nicely I recently bought an LG Gram with integrated graphics
| and I'm not looking back. Both came with a Windows which I
| immediatly changed to Linux.
|
| If you are not into gaming you can save big bucks and weight
| buying a laptop with integrated graphics. If you need a GPU for
| work you most probably need one with >8GB anyway.
|
| PD: Why do so many laptops come with crapware instead of
| vanilla Windows? Why??? Why do laptop manufacturers tarnish
| their product so much? It remembers me so much of Android
| phones.
| pmontra wrote:
| I also own a ZBook and I looked at an LG Gram as a possible
| replacement in case something happens to my laptop. I use the
| 3 physical buttons (click, paste - a Linux thing, right
| click) and the LG doesn't have them. That made me immediately
| discard the idea. On the other side this Lenovo has the
| physical buttons. I wonder how terrible the touchpad actually
| is. I only need to move the pointer and scroll. No gestures,
| no clicks.
| xemdetia wrote:
| If you don't care about gestures as they've always been
| fine in my experience. I can't speak for gestures because
| the only one I use is right click (two finger tap). But for
| pointing the cursor and pulling the trigger the
| touchpad/trackpoint works fine I use both constantly since
| sometimes the trackpoint is easier to reach or the touchpad
| is easier to reach. I also use _both_ sets of buttons as
| well as sometimes it 's easier to have your left hand at
| home position and your right hand trackpaddin' but you use
| your thumb on space to left click.
| sireat wrote:
| Sadly I am jaded by my Thinkpad P1 Gen2.
|
| It is ok, but you do not get the yeah this machine feels "solidly
| awesome" like I got with older Thinkpads 420, 440P or older
| Dell's Precision lineup.
|
| The real show stopper was that Lenovo used some no name Chinese
| made M2 SSD as the primary, leaving more respectable WD in a
| secondary slot.
|
| The no name SSD failed without warning in a year.
|
| So check your SSD makers.
| adamors wrote:
| > 7-9 hours of typing, browsing and some programming.
|
| > 3-4 hours of video/audio conferencing or other CPU intensive
| tasks.
|
| This is one of the primary reasons I can't even consider moving
| away from an M1 Mac. I used to love ThinkPads but not being able
| to use the machine for 10+ hours without charger is a dealbreaker
| in 2022.
| shusaku wrote:
| I wonder what the battery life is like using windows on the
| same machine.
| rr808 wrote:
| I have a XPS 15 with a 10th gen processor. Its absolutely
| perfect, linux support is great. Except it gets hot an battery
| life in 2-3 hours max. M1 stats seem a dream, just too
| expensive and screens are too small I can't justify it.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Same here. Although for some projects lately that needed quick
| a bit of docker infra running, I found battery life dropping to
| 7-9 hours for the m1 and then my x220 (which doesn't notice
| docker much unlike the m1) performs better with it's 11+ hours.
| zhdc1 wrote:
| I have to ask, how are you getting 11+ hours with an x220?
|
| Aside from the screen, battery life and difficulties finding
| quality battery replacements are among the main reasons why
| switched to an M1 from an x220.
| rxhernandez wrote:
| Not having good linux support is a deal breaker for me.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Yeah, I am getting there; I just like working under Linux
| more and mac OS X does a bit, but nothing is like Linux with
| i3 for me; it is so much more productive (for me).
| jitl wrote:
| i3 runs fine on macOS
| plafl wrote:
| This is a usually cited concern for so many people and I'm
| curious to know why because I rarely unplug my laptop, like
| most people I know.
| notemaker wrote:
| This mindset is similar to what people with wired headphones
| think of Airpods et al. It's not an apparent benefit when
| you're in the bubble of thinking it's normal to have a wire
| going across your torso all day and hearing the thuds and
| bumps propagate through the wire to your ears. But when you
| buy a pair of wireless buds and have them for a week - you
| don't go back. You've discovered freedom.
|
| Likewise, with battery, you don't think it's an issue now
| because you know your laptop's limitations and therefore
| rarely unplug it. But when you get the ability to do so -
| you'll start to adapt to your new freedoms.
| Okawari wrote:
| I don't think this is true for a large majority of us. Use
| cases and therefore priorities differ, its not that we just
| haven't "seen the light".
|
| My laptop lasts a good 6-7 hours doing normal tasks, but I
| hardly ever use more than an hour or two at most as that is
| as much time as I usually spend in meetings. Anything above
| that is wasted on me as I prefer my dual monitor and
| keyboard setup too much and subsequently can keep it
| connected pretty much 24/7.
|
| It's much similar in the case of wired headphones. I bought
| a wireless headset many years ago. As the battery has
| deteriorated a bit since then I feel that I too often had
| to stop listening to music during work hours because they
| needed to charge. If I forgot to charge them when not at
| work, they would have to charge during work hours when I
| would much rather use them. I decided that this annoyance
| was greater than having a cable that I didn't notice was
| there. The sound is better too so yay
| COM2323 wrote:
| Both wireless headphones and laptops have downsides that
| you pay for the convenience of portability/ease of use.
| Sometimes it's worth it, sometimes it's not.
|
| I use laptop only when I don't have any other option
| (traveling, meetings) and there is no way in hell that I'm
| going to work on a unplugged laptop for more that few hours
| simply because I don't like the ergonomics, performance and
| lack of "monitor space". This means that "battery life"
| after certain treshold (few hours) is useless for me and
| not something I would consider while buying one.
|
| I understand that different people have different workflows
| and battery life is crucial for some of them, but it's not
| something everybody needs.
| plafl wrote:
| I actually have wireless keyboard, mouse and earphones,
| both for work and for sport.
|
| But like other commenter says I need nevertheless an space
| for a 27" monitor, keyboard/mouse and a comfortable office
| chair. I don't think I have a "mindset", I'm all about
| improving my day to day, I spend an insane amount of hours
| in front of my computer. I have been told that my next work
| computer is going to be a MacBook Pro so I will get a taste
| of the Apple experience.
| avl999 wrote:
| > This mindset is similar to what people with wired
| headphones think of Airpods et al. It's not an apparent
| benefit when you're in the bubble of thinking it's normal
| to have a wire going across your torso all day and hearing
| the thuds and bumps propagate through the wire to your
| ears. But when you buy a pair of wireless buds and have
| them for a week - you don't go back. You've discovered
| freedom.
|
| What is abnormal is that in 2022 people think it is
| acceptable to be forced to use wireless headphones and have
| to constantly have to think and worry about keeping them
| charged, esp when they are used in a context where you
| quite possibly have them plugged in your ear all day.
|
| Wireless headphones have their place (primarily in outdoor
| active settings in audio only contexts for small periods of
| time). But if you are sitting in front of your computer all
| day, there are these magical devices called wired
| headphones with infinite "battery life" and world class
| sound quality that you don't have to worry about being out
| of charge in the middle of an important meeting. Unlike
| wireless ones they also guarantee audio always being insync
| with video if you are watching a video regardless of the
| type of device/machine/operating system you are using them
| on, something I have never been able to get consistently
| working to my satisfaction with bluetooth headphones.
| l30n4da5 wrote:
| i mean, as far as wireless headphones/headsets are
| concerned, my counter-argument is this:
|
| I really don't like having a wire constantly tethering me
| to my desk. With my wireless headset, i can get up, walk
| around my office, throw something away, or walk out to
| the other room and grab a coke from the refrigerator; all
| without pausing my music or taking my headset off.
|
| I charge it at night and it is good all day. no worries
| here.
| avl999 wrote:
| I don't want to have to keep track of charging yet
| another device, esp one as important and frequently used
| as headphones. Heck, some days I forget to plug in my
| phone to charge let alone headphones. Not worth the
| headache esp when there is another version of the device
| available with "infinite battery life". If some people
| prefer wireless and don't mind having to deal the
| potential inconvenience of always having it charged then
| more power to them... my problem is when companies try to
| push wireless headphones on us by taking away the 3.5mm
| jack.
| vel0city wrote:
| My headphones (Sony WH-710n) have ~35 hours of battery
| life. That's a bit over 4 workdays of battery life. They
| seem to recharge from very low to full in less than an
| hour. So every few days I'll plug them in at my desk for
| about an hour, and I'm good for another few days. Its not
| too difficult for me to find up to an hour every four
| days to charge them. Its not like I'm having to
| micromanage charging them, needing to plug them in every
| night or else I don't have headphones at all the next
| day. And they charge off the same cable as a lot of the
| stuff in my bag already, USB-C.
| l30n4da5 wrote:
| my wireless headset can be used while charging. not
| really a headache. at worst, my wireless headset just
| becomes wired for the time period that i am using it
| while charging.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Yea I find them a huge PIA for anything other than gym
| sessions or running. For that, however, they are amazing.
|
| Then again the battery has just died in one of my
| wireless headphones (luckily not the primary) which means
| I can now only exercise with one side. Not a crappy brand
| either. I have wired headphones going on 10+ years that
| work flawlessly.
| brimble wrote:
| I have wireless headphones. They were cheaper than
| AirPods (they're Jabra) and have pretty good sound.
| They're full-size, not earbuds.
|
| The battery lasts for a couple days of fairly heavy use,
| and they degrade to... wired headphones, essentially,
| since I can use them while they're charging. Also they
| have a 3.5mm jack if I want to use that. And they've got
| a microphone, so I can walk around while on calls.
|
| Best of both worlds.
| l30n4da5 wrote:
| same. mine are HyperX Cloud Stingers for work, and they
| are fantastic. Range is so-so, but I believe that is due
| to it being plugged into a docking station.
| atoav wrote:
| As an audio guy I tried, but I don't like the sound. My
| Sennheiser HD-25 cans are perfect for the road. The cable
| and the cups are propperly decoupled from the headpart, the
| cable comes as a plug and play replacement should it fail
| after 3 years of rough (including sports) use.
|
| I have had one pair of these headphones for 16 years now. I
| wonder how airpods would compare in terms of pure
| surviveability.
| sturza wrote:
| I have the 1st gen and the Pros. The 1st gen lasted 2
| years on the mark until they started switching off
| without warning. I used them for music/audiobooks/calls.
| Now, i cannot really count on them for anything so i use
| them when i get (rare) gsm calls. I got a pair of 40EUR
| airbuds from amazon wirh great battery life and
| sound(although i use them just for calls - i am in calls
| 10h per day and use just one at a time) but i cannot pair
| them to more than 1 machine. For other cases i use the
| pros.
| abxytg wrote:
| I stopped traveling with my ath m50s when I got a half
| decent pair of noise cancelling cans.
| atoav wrote:
| The hd-25 are not noise cancelling, but they have such a
| good attenuation that I can easily use them as a hearing
| protection when I forget mine when at band practise with
| a loud drummer.
|
| This might also be the reason why they are quite popular
| with DJs
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > Likewise, with battery, you don't think it's an issue now
| because you know your laptop's limitations and therefore
| rarely unplug it.
|
| No I rarely unplug it because I need the screen real estate
| and the decent keyboard experience that I get at a
| workstation.
|
| There is maybe 30% of my work where I can afford to work on
| a small screen and just work on it from the garden or a
| cafe.
|
| Company issued laptops have become the norm but other than
| the occasional travelling scenarios most people still need
| workstations to get things done.
| hef19898 wrote:
| >> wired headphones think of Airpods et al.
|
| Funny, people accept limited (I don't use Bluetooth
| headsets, but I assume battery life isn't an issue in real
| life) battery life for fancy headsets but complain about it
| with laptops. I'm the opposite, I embrace the limited
| battery life of my laptop (running purely on the nVidia GPU
| and sporting a i9, on Linux, the most I get out of it are 6
| hours, less when playing games), but use wired headphones.
| Not judging neither side, just a funny when you think about
| it.
| JodieBenitez wrote:
| While I do share the general idea and I do enjoy the
| battery life of my M1, I can't relate about earbuds, at
| least not those I tried. Until then, I'm happy to keep my
| DT-770 wired.
| brimble wrote:
| You can just get up and go and not even think about power.
| You can even take an overnight trip and not bother to bring
| the power brick. It's very nice.
|
| ... plus, crazy, excessive-seeming battery life at purchase
| means you still have "all-day" battery when the device is 5
| years old and the battery has significantly degraded.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > when the device is 5 years old and the battery has
| significantly degraded
|
| When the battery has significantly degraded, I usually buy
| a new one. Changing the battery in a Thinkpad is not very
| hard.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| When I owned a Mac laptop a decade ago, I always had my
| laptop positioned near a power outlet.
|
| When I got laptops with more battery life, the charger is now
| used to charge the laptop overnight so I can use it
| throughout the next day.
|
| If you never use your battery, why own a laptop at all? Why
| not buy a Mac mini or an iMac?
| plafl wrote:
| > If you never use your battery, why own a laptop at all?
| Why not buy a Mac mini or an iMac?
|
| Sometimes I need to move, for example while travelling,
| otherwise I would use a desktop computer.
| dialogbox wrote:
| > This is a usually cited concern for so many people and
| I'm curious to know why because I rarely unplug my
| laptop, like most people I know.
|
| > Sometimes I need to move, for example while travelling,
| otherwise I would use a desktop computer.
|
| People travels often. I do everyday.
|
| I have one corp laptop and I don't have charger in my
| home. I don't want to have one more power brick for my 16
| inch M1 macbook so I usually borrow a line from my wife's
| M1 Macbook Air but that rarely happens like only during
| weekend.
|
| After switching to M1, I feel very safe to be unplugged.
| Even if I need to charge it, some 20W level of phone
| chargers can charge my mac while I'm using it. This guy
| only uses around 15~20W even with tons of chrome tabs +
| zoom meeting. It is using 9W ATM.
|
| This is really a game changer for me.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I have a laptop not because I want to use my computer on my
| lap or while unplugged, but because I want to be able to
| carry my computer between different workplaces.
|
| As an industrial controls engineer, I'm constantly bouncing
| from my desk to my rolling cart in the shop, to putting it
| in my toolbag and driving to a local customer's site, to
| putting it in my carryon and flying to a remote customer's
| site, to my home office. At each location, I have power
| available. At some locations, I have external monitors and
| a keyboard/mouse, so I could easily plug in a Mac Mini or
| luggable mATX desktop, at others the laptop is often
| perched on some convenient stack of pallets and peripherals
| like monitor stands would be highly inconvenient. A
| 10x15x1.5" slab with a power brick (and a spare power brick
| can be left at frequently used locations) is just a really
| nice form factor to carry around, it's superior to separate
| parts like even a small Mac Mini, SFF, or mATX desktop, an
| external monitor that probably needs a box of some sort to
| keep it from being damaged, and a keyboard and mouse.
|
| I use too much Windows-only proprietary software to make
| the iMac sensible, but I like the idea of the power and
| legibility of a large display, desktop-grade CPUs, and the
| larger thermal envelope available by ditching the battery
| and requiring wall power. Does anyone make an all-in-one or
| a carrying case for all-in-ones (with probably a Bluetooth
| keyboard and mouse) that would make jumping between
| different work locations make sense?
|
| I'm aware that's sort of what a gaming laptop is, and it's
| pretty similar to the Lenovo Thinkpad, Dell Precision, and
| HP Elitebooks that I've used in the past...Especially after
| a couple years of 24/7 charger connections while baking the
| battery with a Quadro GPU running Solidworks, you barely
| have enough battery capacity to carry the laptop from one
| desk to another. Unfortunately, all those workstation
| laptops make concessions to try to pretend they're a
| Macbook Air where you can do...something? apparently some
| people do some kind of work with the laptop running on a
| battery and balanced on their knees. It's just a foreign
| concept to me. I'd rather they were 2" thick with a 120V
| socket, no battery, and 400W of CPU+GPU.
| pmontra wrote:
| A battery is nice as an integrated UPS, to be able to move
| the machine between rooms, put it into a bag for hours and
| resume from suspend in a different place without having to
| restart every single application, same thing over a night.
|
| About Macs, in my case I never liked their GUI since the
| very first Mac (the top bar, the menu, etc) and that's an
| instantaneous show stopper.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > About Macs, in my case I never liked their GUI since
| the very first Mac (the top bar, the menu, etc) and
| that's an instantaneous show stopper.
|
| I'm a huge fan of the modern UI seen in Windows and Gnome
| where the "wasted" space of the title bar can show open
| tabs in Windows Terminal or Edge: with a minimized
| taskbar, the browser and the terminal can be used in
| fullscreen with 0 vertical space lost.
| pletnes wrote:
| I just switched the other way from an older gen P1. I got maybe
| 1-2 hours battery out of the P1. I could barely go to one
| meeting without a charger. The M1 macbook lasted several days
| on one charge. I'm mind blown, having used wintel laptops for
| years.
| sz4kerto wrote:
| Videocalls kill M1 Mac batteries too. (Typing this from a 16"
| MBP M1 Pro that last around 4 hours if you're using Google Meet
| on it.)
| bnt wrote:
| 16" i9 Intel calling in: 90 minutes of Zoom max (100% to 10%
| battery)
| alkonaut wrote:
| On most laptops I find using a battery for any kind of heavy
| work a non-starter anyway. I might send an email or take a call
| on battery but I wouldn't even launch a heavy IDE. Without
| aggressive power saving (I.e CPU sits under 1GHz even att full
| load meaning less than half the performance) then battery is
| often less than 30 minutes. I should add that this is for
| scorching hot "desktop replacement" (45W) laptops. But I also
| wouldn't want to compromise on perf while plugged in, in order
| to get more battery time.
| adamors wrote:
| This may be true on Intel/AMD based CPUs but it has not been
| my experience on an M1 machine. I have the same workflow both
| connected to power and not. Multiple docker containers
| running, slack, zoom etc. There's definitely no performance
| compromise.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I mean, there is still a performance compromise; Docker on
| Mac sucks. Being forced to use APFS is incredibly slow for
| local Docker development.
| abxytg wrote:
| What?? I use mine for all heavy work (ide, video editing,
| Ableton) on battery. Why would you ever purchase a laptop you
| can't use lol.
| Avamander wrote:
| It's not that the OP would like that, it's just how it is
| with Intel+Nvidia "desktop replacements". Those setups do
| not scale too well between workloads.
| alkonaut wrote:
| I don't intend to use it away from a socket so I dont want
| to conpromise 1% of the performance when plugged in by
| getting a lower power CPU that has better perf only when
| not plugged in. What CPU do you have that doesn't throttle?
| It's not an Intel H, I'm guessing an Intel U version, M1,
| or Ryzen then.
| byefruit wrote:
| For what it's worth this is comparing against a 10th gen Intel.
| The 12th gen ones look like they'll outperform the M1s on a
| similar battery life:
|
| https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-XPS-13-Plus-with-i7-1280P...
|
| Note that that is a 12th gen P. I suspect the U CPUs won't
| perform quite as well but will offer much better battery life
| than the MBP.
| Avamander wrote:
| You'll get similar battery life only if the Intel gets
| severely power limited.
|
| A newer AMD would be more comparable.
| byefruit wrote:
| If you scroll down on the link above you can see some
| graphs that show the 1280P is significantly faster than the
| M1 and the battery lives are very similar 11 hours vs 13
| hours.
|
| AMD are also doing a good job. The 7000s look very good.
| Crazy that this is still on a larger process node than
| Apple.
| Avamander wrote:
| That graph is about light load.
|
| The Intel is fast only with a ridiculous power usage,
| thus low runtime. It comes nowhere close to the M1's
| runtime when forced to the same high load.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Well... yeah. Apple is running 5nm silicon, there's no
| way Intel can squeeze the same battery life out of that
| performance profile on their 10nm node. The flip side of
| this coin is that it's really good battery life for
| casual use, and it's not like that performance is going
| _nowhere_ : it's thrashing the M1 in benchmarks.
|
| I think things will get a lot more interesting in 2024,
| when Intel and Apple are on similar nodes. Right now
| Apple is making chips with transistors that are 2-3 times
| as dense, but they're consistently losing the performance
| crown to x86 machines on dinosaur silicon. The
| performance-per-watt gap is bound to start closing, and
| when it does there won't be much of a benefit left to
| using ARM, _especially_ if your casual users can get
| Macbook-beating battery life with it.
| pram wrote:
| The focus on node size conveniently elides that this is a
| comparison between a 14 core CPU and an 8 core CPU.
| smoldesu wrote:
| How is that relevant, though? Even the M1 Max gets smoked
| by an i5 in single-core performance, and stands neck-and-
| neck in multicore. In a "fair" fight, Intel still takes
| the performance crown home. Density is relevant because
| the only argument I hear from M1 pundits is about
| performance-per-watt, which is only achieved through
| monopolizing the 5nm supply chain. When Intel is standing
| neck-and-neck on power draw with significantly higher
| clock speeds, single-core performance and IO bandwith,
| Apple's chips are going to lose their luster.
|
| Plus, it's not like you need to use ARM to compete with
| that efficiency. Just 2 years ago AMD was shipping Ryzen
| laptop chips (like the 4800u) with similar x86
| performance at a similar price point in a similar power
| envelope. How'd they do it? They designed it with 7nm
| lithography. It's not magic, just the obvious benefits of
| using the latest technology.
| Avamander wrote:
| A fair fight in this case, laptops, is one that takes
| dissipated heat and cooling into account.
|
| Intel might beat the previous generation of their
| competitors, but at what cost, absolutely impractical in
| reality. Scorchingly hot or noisy as hell, with poor
| battery life.
|
| It's not magic and Intel is losing in a lot of aspects.
| pram wrote:
| No, the M1 Max beats the same processor in the article
| (i7-1280P) in Cinebench multicore: ~12365 to 11480. That
| is a 10 core M1 Max vs the 14 core i7. Your "fair fight"
| is just moving the goal posts to some other random non-
| specified (probably non-laptop) processor.
| l30n4da5 wrote:
| > not being able to use the machine for 10+ hours without
| charger is a dealbreaker in 2022
|
| say the only laptop that is viable in your opinion is the M1
| mac without saying the only laptop that is viable in your
| opinion is the M1 mac.
|
| seriously though, by those standards, there aren't many laptops
| that aren't 'dealbreakers'.
|
| 7-9 hours of use is actually pretty goog, judging by the
| broader market.
|
| 3-4 hours of intensive use is...arguably on the low end of
| battery life.
| l30n4da5 wrote:
| pretty good*
| Stratoscope wrote:
| I have two of these machines. They are very nice.
|
| Actually, one is an X1 Extreme Gen 3, and the other is a P1 Gen
| 3. Same machine with different GPUs.
|
| My work provided me with the X1E with Ubuntu preinstalled (that
| is our standard dev environment). But I found the hardware
| support very unsatisfactory.
|
| I use a specific display configuration. Three monitors in total:
| the ThinkPad's 4K display, with a 24" 4K display above it, and a
| second 24" 4K display to the left _in portrait mode_.
|
| With Linux on the ThinkPad, I never got that to work. The best I
| could do was a single external monitor, not both of my external
| monitors plus the internal.
|
| And I never got any of my Bluetooth headsets to work at all:
| Apple AirPods, Plantronics, and a couple of no-name brands. They
| all paired fine as headphones, but the microphones never worked.
|
| I noticed that this work ThinkPad had a Windows license sticker
| on the bottom, so I figured what the heck, let's see what happens
| if I reinstall Windows.
|
| The triple monitor config worked with no hitches. The AirPods
| worked fine.
|
| So I set up a VMware virtual machine and run our dev environment
| inside that. Now everything works great! (I also tried VirtualBox
| but found the display responsiveness much better in VMware.)
|
| Once this was sorted out, I was so happy with the machine that I
| bought a matching P1 for my new personal machine. (Regarding P1
| vs. X1 Extreme, I just went with availability: Lenovo was out of
| stock on the X1E's but had a nicely configured P1 ready to ship.)
| danhor wrote:
| > They all paired fine as headphones, but the microphones never
| worked.
|
| To me that doesn't sound like a hardware problem. I need to
| switch the codec & profile[0] in pavucontrol to use the
| microphones, which is not done automatically. That _might_ be
| the issue here.
|
| [0]: Damm you, bluetooth SIG
| noisy_boy wrote:
| I have a similar setup - X1E Gen 2 with two Dell monitors - the
| secondary one on the right rotated to portrait mode. The
| primary monitor connects directly to the laptop via USB-C (and
| it is able to charge the laptop too over the same cable so
| thats a bonus). The secondary connects over HDMI via a hub[0]
| that connects to the laptop over USB-C. These two + my laptop
| screen work fine though I usually keep my laptop closed (though
| I have noticed that the GDM login screen appears sideways on
| the secondary but once I login, everything is fine).
|
| The main issue with this setup is that both my USB-C ports are
| taken up but since most of my peripherals are wireless, it is
| not a problem for me. Another issue is that if I try to use the
| Intel graphics to drive this setup, everything basically crawls
| and is unusable so I can only use NVIDIA graphics with this
| (switching to Intel graphics is fine when I'm away from my
| desk).
|
| [0]:
| https://www.amazon.sg/dp/B083RQHF3Y/ref=pe_12283492_38132264...
| [deleted]
| yulaow wrote:
| For the screens the problem could be related to the dp(via
| usbc)/hdmi ports.
|
| Most of the times if the port is directly connected to the dgpu
| it doesn't work under linux (this is, for what I understand, a
| problem with nvidia and their closed source optimus technology
| driver that is very hard to solve)
|
| That's why I always made sure to buy Linux laptops with only
| the intel or amd igpu, and without any dgpu. Yeah, it sucks
| hef19898 wrote:
| Getting multiple screens on a docking station to work was a
| pain with my X1E Gen 2 as well. Under Windows. Since I used it
| for work (office, not development) and gaming, I resorted to
| turn of the Intel GPU permanently. Reduced battery life, but
| not in any way it hamper it's use. Since I switched to Ubuntu I
| have yet to see any difference in battery life. And multiple
| screens work just fine under both OS.
| halotrope wrote:
| Generally great machines for Linux. Just a PSA from a X1E gen2
| owner: Do NOT get the NVidia GPU, do NOT get the fastest CPU and
| most importantly: do NOT opt for the 4k screen.
|
| With 1080p and Intel GPU it is a good, even great laptop with ok
| battery life (if you can look over the touchpad). Wonderful
| keyboard, good Linux support (even fingerprint reader works). But
| just as with the last Intel macbook, the GPU, 10th gen CPU on
| 14nm and thermally constrained chassis will make this a hot mess
| with 2 hours battery life , fans always spinning and poor
| framerates on desktop. That being said, Ubuntu has come a long
| way and in general. Not sure if I would go for a M1 mbp, or
| another Thinkpad today.
| pooper wrote:
| > Wonderful keyboard, good Linux support (even fingerprint
| reader works).
|
| I am on a T490s with Fedora now (this machine). Any tips on how
| you got the fingerprint sensor to work? $
| cat /etc/os-release NAME="Fedora Linux"
| VERSION="35 (Workstation Edition)" ID=fedora
| VERSION_ID=35 VERSION_CODENAME=""
| PLATFORM_ID="platform:f35" PRETTY_NAME="Fedora Linux 35
| (Workstation Edition)" ANSI_COLOR="0;38;2;60;110;180"
| LOGO=fedora-logo-icon
| CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:fedoraproject:fedora:35"
| HOME_URL="https://fedoraproject.org/"
| DOCUMENTATION_URL="https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-
| US/fedora/f35/system-administrators-guide/"
| SUPPORT_URL="https://ask.fedoraproject.org/"
| BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/"
| REDHAT_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT="Fedora"
| REDHAT_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT_VERSION=35
| REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="Fedora"
| REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION=35 PRIVACY_POLICY_URL="h
| ttps://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:PrivacyPolicy"
| VARIANT="Workstation Edition" VARIANT_ID=workstation
| belter wrote:
| Not the person you asked to, but heavy Fedora and Thinkpad
| user here. I know that already as of Fedora 33, for many
| users, the fingerprint reader worked out of the box with the
| T490.
|
| It seems the T490 can have different models of fingerprint
| reader and maybe not all are supported.
|
| You should start by identifying your model with something
| like this
|
| sudo lsusb or # lsusb
|
| then look for the details of the line corresponding to the
| fingerprint reader model.
| pooper wrote:
| Is this how I do that? $ sudo lsusb -s
| 004 --verbose Bus 001 Device 004: ID 06cb:00bd
| Synaptics, Inc. Prometheus MIS Touch Fingerprint Reader
| Device Descriptor: bLength 18
| bDescriptorType 1 bcdUSB 2.00
| bDeviceClass 255 Vendor Specific Class
| bDeviceSubClass 16 bDeviceProtocol
| 255 bMaxPacketSize0 8 idVendor
| 0x06cb Synaptics, Inc. idProduct 0x00bd
| Prometheus MIS Touch Fingerprint Reader bcdDevice
| 0.00 iManufacturer 0 iProduct
| 0 iSerial 1 [redacted]
| bNumConfigurations 1 Configuration Descriptor:
| bLength 9 bDescriptorType
| 2 wTotalLength 0x0027
| bNumInterfaces 1 bConfigurationValue
| 1 iConfiguration 0
| bmAttributes 0xa0 (Bus Powered)
| Remote Wakeup MaxPower 100mA
| Interface Descriptor: bLength 9
| bDescriptorType 4 bInterfaceNumber
| 0 bAlternateSetting 0
| bNumEndpoints 3 bInterfaceClass
| 255 Vendor Specific Class bInterfaceSubClass
| 0 bInterfaceProtocol 0
| iInterface 0 Endpoint Descriptor:
| bLength 7 bDescriptorType
| 5 bEndpointAddress 0x01 EP 1 OUT
| bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type
| Bulk Synch Type None
| Usage Type Data
| wMaxPacketSize 0x0040 1x 64 bytes
| bInterval 0 Endpoint Descriptor:
| bLength 7 bDescriptorType
| 5 bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN
| bmAttributes 2 Transfer Type
| Bulk Synch Type None
| Usage Type Data
| wMaxPacketSize 0x0040 1x 64 bytes
| bInterval 0 Endpoint Descriptor:
| bLength 7 bDescriptorType
| 5 bEndpointAddress 0x83 EP 3 IN
| bmAttributes 3 Transfer Type
| Interrupt Synch Type None
| Usage Type Data
| wMaxPacketSize 0x0008 1x 8 bytes
| bInterval 4 Device Status: 0x0000
| (Bus Powered)
| belter wrote:
| Yes like this.
|
| Looking at your idVendor and idProduct it does look like
| it's supported: https://fprint.freedesktop.org/supported-
| devices.html
|
| Also looking a little bit on what others tried.
|
| First page: http://linux-
| hardware.org/?id=usb:06cb-00bd&page=1#status
|
| Last page: http://linux-
| hardware.org/?id=usb:06cb-00bd&page=25#status
|
| I see it working with T490 and Fedora 34: http://linux-
| hardware.org/?id=usb:06cb-00bd&hwid=b31796679ad...
|
| I see it working with T490 and Ubuntu 20.04:
| http://linux-
| hardware.org/?id=usb:06cb-00bd&hwid=fdd063171e2...
|
| For Fedora 35 but a X1: http://linux-
| hardware.org/?id=usb:06cb-00bd&hwid=c740d7ae4be...
|
| So the recommendation here would be to make sure you have
| the drivers ( although this would not normally be
| required post install)
|
| https://github.com/freedesktop/libfprint meaning
| https://fprint.freedesktop.org/ ( page I also linked
| above)
|
| Also make sure you have all the latest bios updates for
| the Thinkpad.
|
| If this would be a fresh install, even when wanting to
| use Fedora 35 :-) I normally try with previous versions
| of Fedora or another Linux, like Ubuntu just to confirm
| it's not a hardware issue before anything else. :-)
|
| While still on Fedora 35 you should also check, and
| taking on the suggestion from @JustFinishedBSG
|
| fwupdmgr refresh
|
| followed by
|
| fwupdmgr update
|
| and check if succeeds.
| amanzi wrote:
| I have a T480 and used the following to get the fingerprint
| sensor to work: https://github.com/uunicorn/python-validity
|
| I'm using Pop_OS (Ubuntu-based), but they also have
| instructions for Fedora.
|
| One thing I found on Pop_OS is that I didn't need to use
| `fprintd-enroll` because after installing the package I was
| able to use the GUI in my user account settings to enrol my
| fingerprints.
|
| Hope that helps.
| zeropoint46 wrote:
| on my carbon x1 I had to use fwupdmgr to update the
| Prometheus fingerprint device firmware. Additionally the
| firmware that was "current" in the repo didn't work and I had
| to allow using the beta or experimental version. can't
| remember exactly the steps I took to enable the beta
| firmware, this was almost 2 years ago as well, so it could be
| that that version is the now the correct latest version in
| the repo. after that I just installed fprintd and followed
| those instructions. But for sure it didn't work for me until
| I updated the firmware. good luck.
| JustFinishedBSG wrote:
| You need to do a `fwupdmgr update` to get a Linux friendly
| firmware of the fingerprint reader.
| hef19898 wrote:
| If have one those, without the 4k screen. No complaints so far,
| even GPU heavy games like the early versions of Battletech
| worked fine, battery life under gaming conditions is somewhere
| between 2 and 4 hours. Non-gaming around 4 to 6 hours. With the
| Intel GPU deactivated, getting external screens working while
| the machine was in hybrid mode was too much of a pain. After
| all I wanted it for the nVidia GPU.
|
| Ubuntu is working right out of the box, I didn't try the finger
| print reader so. I prefer something I know to unlock over
| something I have.
| halotrope wrote:
| Yes, I suspect it should be fine with dGPU and 1080p screen.
| I think in addition to the greater power draw, the compute
| needed to drive the 4k is just greater. In fairness I keep
| the dGPU active all the time as the Intel GPU produces
| significant UI lag under Linux at least.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| I have never experienced UI lag with Intel graphics on
| Linux (only ever on Nvidia, actually), so it's probably
| fixable. What DM are you running, and what are your PRIME
| settings?
| hef19898 wrote:
| I hate non-dedicated GPUs with a vengeance. As a gamer,
| they never are up to par anyway, and never were. Even way
| back, Windows struggled balancing both. So you had to
| switch one of them off. I get that they are useful for non-
| GPU heavy use cases, in a gaming machine I can perfectly
| live with dGPUs. As a result, I never tried the Intel GPU
| under Ubuntu.
| halotrope wrote:
| Yes agreed. But as a gamer a thin Thinkpad running Linux
| would not be my first choice anyways.
| hef19898 wrote:
| The X1E Gen 2 was a nice compromise between a business
| and a gaming laptop. For the first 2 years it ran Windows
| anyways, now it is dual boot. With some exceptions,
| mostly older games, it runs my complete Steam library
| just fine. And for those rare occasions it doesn't, I can
| still boot it in Windows.
|
| Linux, well Ubuntu, is refreshing to use. First time I
| tried Linux, and it feels a lot more like an OS should
| feel. Not crap or bloat ware, no calling home, no cloud
| account.
|
| The machine does get hot sometimes, getting some more air
| under it mitigates this all the time, the X1 doesn't have
| a lot of space under it.
| ziml77 wrote:
| > and most importantly: do NOT opt for the 4k screen
|
| Good advice for any laptop purchase. You will burn through
| battery driving that and the pixel density is much higher than
| necessary. Yes, 1920x1080/1200 is slightly too low when it
| comes to pixel density at 15", but it's still very reasonable
| and with decent eyesight you won't have to worry about any of
| the mess of DPI scaling.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > > and most importantly: do NOT opt for the 4k screen
|
| > Good advice for any laptop purchase. You will burn through
| battery driving that and the pixel density is much higher
| than necessary.
|
| Hard disagree. I use my thinkpads on AC most of the time, at
| home.
|
| The crisp fonts in a terminal is a game changer. That has
| spoiled me: the bare minimum I can work with now is 2k.
|
| Likewise for OLED: except the X1 nano which I use in the
| daytime, I can't see myself ever using a non OLED screen, so
| much that I would be ready to pay a huge premium for OLED in
| a Thinkpad with the X1 nano form factor.
| Melatonic wrote:
| 2K is only a few more pixels than 1920 x 1080 ?
|
| I find the sweet spot minimum for my 27" desktop monitors
| to be 1440P. Anything that and above looks great.
| filoleg wrote:
| > 2K is only a few more pixels than 1920 x 1080 ?
|
| Given you said you use 1440p monitors yourself, I think
| there is a misunderstanding somewhere here, because 2K is
| just a less commonly used term for 1440p. And 1440p is
| definitely a bit more than just "a few more pixels"
| compared to 1080p (iirc around 78% more).
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| Note that the newer P1/X1E Gen 4 have a much upgraded cooling
| system if you configure it with an Nvidia 3070 or higher. I
| don't experience any heat issues, even during heavy compilation
| and integration test work. The exception is if I run games at
| 4k resolution on an external monitor, then the GPU appears to
| overheat, resulting in the screen randomly going black.
|
| See also https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-
| ThinkPad-P1-G4-laptop-r...
| linuxhansl wrote:
| Hmm... I have the model with the NVidia GPU. By default I have
| it turned off (using no extra power) and I have a simple script
| that I use to turn it on when I want to.
|
| ThinkFan works well to control the fans too.
|
| Lastly I found that the SD card reader prevented the CPU
| package from entering C10.
|
| With all that I find that in idle mode my laptop (X1E Gen2,
| almost identical to P1 Gen2) consumes 3.9w, which is pretty
| good. The fan only turns on when I compile something large or
| do something with the NVidia card.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Battery life is perfectly fine with an NVidia GPU on any modern
| laptop with Optimus or a MUX. You just have to set it up to
| fully power down the GPU. I get 9+ hours of battery life with a
| 3070 on Linux, it's just always fully powered down.
|
| Even at 1440p 240hz, pushing 2x more pixels than 4k60, I still
| get 5-6 hours of battery life.
|
| Yes, it sucks that you have to go through the weeds to get it
| to work, but once it works it works.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > You just have to set it up to fully power down the GPU.
|
| Can you please tell us a bit more?
|
| I have a NVidia + Intel GPU. I was thinking about using the
| NVidia for KVM (the NVidia would be powered down when not
| using KVM), and the Intel for native linux display with Pop
| or Ubuntu 22 LTS as another attempt to use Wayland (since I
| read NVidia GPUs can cause many issues)
| sudosysgen wrote:
| On modern Linux systems the way to do it is using PRIME
| render offload.
|
| That way, the Intel (or AMD in my case) integrated GPU will
| be used normally, with the Nvidia GPU fully powered down
| (you need a new enough card for this). Then, when you need
| it, you can use a command or environment variable or
| graphical launcher to signal to use the dGPU for
| offloading.
|
| The GPU will then power on and render to a virtual display,
| and the framebuffer will be copied to the framebuffer of
| the relevant application on-the-fly.
|
| Once no more applications are using the NVidia GPU, it will
| power down.
|
| This way, there is no need to use a KVM, or do PCI
| passthrough, or anything of the sort, it mostly "just
| works".
|
| If the (very small) overhead of passing through the iGPU is
| too much and your laptop supports it, you can also using
| MUX graphics and restart the DM with a config that will
| allow the laptop to rewire the screen into the dGPU, but I
| have never found this necessary or helpful.
| awill wrote:
| It's weird to me that now, when Apple is firing on all cylinders
| with their best ever hardware (both the M1, and the new MBP with
| improved keyboard, ports and removal of the touchbar), someone
| would switch away from Apple.
|
| I've used Linux for 20 years on desktops, but laptops, where
| hardware/software integration is crucial, I've never found
| something trouble free. Wireless and video drivers tend to be
| good only if you use intel. That limits you on a GPU choice.
| Probably an AMD APU would work well, but the dual intel
| iGPU+nvidia is terrible on Linux
| howinteresting wrote:
| Everyday I use my macbook for work I'm reminded of how janky
| and terrible macOS is compared to my lovely Linux setup.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > It's weird to me that now, when Apple is firing on all
| cylinders with their best ever hardware
|
| Are they firing on all cylinders on the software side too?
| Great hardware combined with software that makes ones life
| unnecessarily difficult would cause one to bail to something
| that's better suited to them _overall_.
|
| I've been keeping a wary eye on how Apple controls root access,
| and I'm on the fence regardless of how great the M2 is, though
| the Asahi folk could earn Apple a few purchases
| beached_whale wrote:
| I am just waiting for Asahi to become more stable and support a
| bit more before I get a new one. But at the price of Apple HW
| and getting perf/battery life it's hard to compare. The
| Lenovo's are in or above Macbook Pro prices.
|
| I want to not be tethered to a desk while working and not lose
| perf to get ok battery life. These P1's are the closest I have
| seen though.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| > I've never found something trouble free
|
| If you are specifically choosing something that works trouble
| free with Linux (i.e. popular with the kernel and distro
| developers), then this needn't apply. And practically speaking
| there could be nothing more popular than workstation ThinkPads.
| jphsnsir wrote:
| I'd love to buy a new Thinkpad But it doesn't exist.
|
| Thick design: 15 inch 4k, backlit full keyboard, replacable big
| battery, replacable ECC ram, gpu or igpu but no Nvidia(swaywm on
| nixos), 2 ssds (zfs mirror), ports: rj45, usb-A and usb-c at all
| sides(left/back/right), hdmi
|
| No need for webcam, fingerprintreader nor touchpad(trackpoint
| with 3 buttons is king)
|
| And yes, it can be thick/heavy. If I need it light. I'll use a
| smartphone...
|
| Privacy hardware buttons would be a bonus, as is open firmware.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Would have been more interesting if the review covered anything
| about the actual experience of Linux on this rig other than
| "works". In particular, rough edges that a long-time Linux user
| might expect such as suspend/resume reliability, backlight
| control, peripheral power management w.r.t. bluetooth, webcam,
| fingerprint reader, nvme device, sound codec, etc, whether Linux
| is able to continue if a usb-c display is removed while the
| machine is suspended, etc. For the most part I do expect many of
| these things to work out of the box on Thinkpad X-series machines
| but you never know, and power management in particular has often
| been a mess. The author's claims about battery life are so poor
| that I suspect power management is not really optimal on their
| machine, either.
| mhb wrote:
| Great keyboard? Wow, the bar is pretty low for laptop keyboards
| since the demise of the IBM-era X2xxs.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I have a model from this series. I find the trackpad to work
| great and I don't see the problem the author is having with it.
| Dragging works just fine, assuming you use the correct drag
| gesture (quick double tap, then drag, like usual).
|
| Compatibility wise, my experience has been slowly degrading. I've
| had to force the Intel GPU driver to use DRI 2 or X11 wouldn't
| work (this might have something to do with the manual config in
| the sound system I needed to get the sound working when I bought
| the laptop because Intel hadn't released proper drivers yet).
|
| I'd use Wayland, but that just doesn't work with the Nvidia GPU
| (even though it should in modern drivers). A recent kernel update
| broke sleep for me, it now no longer goes to sleep and
| immediately wakes up.
|
| I also occasionally get full system freezes whenever GDM tries to
| load the login screen, either on boot or when switching users.
| Those have been becoming more rare lately but it's still
| happening every now and then. Just a black screen, the computer
| slowly heating up and nothing.
|
| Lastly, for firmware updates you just need to boot Windows every
| now and then. Some firmware updates come through fwupdmgr, but
| others need to be installed manually or through a Windows
| install.
|
| Perhaps I need a reinstall Linux, perhaps I need to switch
| distros. It works fine with it works: touchpad is nice and
| responsive, has full multi finger gesture support in Wayland, the
| keyboard is good and the palm rejection is a pain when trying to
| game on the touchpad but it works great for normal typing. I've
| also found it a lot quieter and longer lasting on Linux than on
| Windows, where the CPU and GPU either underclock dramatically or
| the fan spins up constantly.
| PhDuck wrote:
| Honest question: Have you ever used a MacBook trackpad long
| term?
|
| From my experience with Dell XPS/Precision, Lenovo Thinkpads,
| IBM Thinkpads, and finally MacBooks, the MacBooks are far
| ahead. The Thinkpads trackpad are way too small, and Dell's are
| now days large enough but too imprecise. Both the Dell ones
| will sometimes trigger a click when typing on the keyboard
| since the trackpad is too sensitive.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I've tried them every time someone with a Macbook came over
| and told me I have to try the touchpad because it's the best
| thing since sliced bread. It's definitely a big touchpad, but
| that's about all I can say about it. It's definitely not
| worth the extra spend on Apple hardware and neither is it
| worth dealing with macOS. It's not a bad touchpad at all,
| it's just unremarkable in the higher end laptop space.
|
| I'll agree that they used to be exceptionally good before the
| Windows 10 precision drivers became widespread, though. Those
| made a huge difference in the PC world, for Windows and Linux
| support, and it took the industry many years to get to that
| level.
|
| Going by the current state of my touchpad, I use about 60% of
| the area of my current touchpad so honestly I'm fine with the
| size on my Thinkpad P1 gen3. The HP Probook I had before that
| (which, to be fair, is eight years old now) definitely had a
| touchpad that was too small.
|
| Apple also seems to be the only company that produces a
| decent external touchpad, which is irritating. I feel like
| I'm more productive with a touchpad but finding an affordable
| touchpad with decent reviews is nearly impossible, except for
| Apple's magic trackpad. The best alternatives seem to be
| Chinese clones from Aliexpress but I don't feel like writing
| my own drivers to get those to work well with Linux.
| boltzmann_brain wrote:
| holografix wrote:
| 2022 and this guy wants to use a 15.6 inch 1920x1080 screen?!
|
| I guess 2015 was the year of the Linux desktop.
| notorandit wrote:
| I find the lack of Ethernet port quite annoying, even on a dev
| laptop.
| sgt wrote:
| Ethernet ports can be a bit dangerous though - trip on that
| cable, and you end up ripping the entire port out of the
| motherboard. I've done that once on a iBook G4 in 2003 or 2004.
| Could never get the port soldered back on.
| Sherl wrote:
| T15G2 is another great machine if you want P15 but with consumer
| graphics and full kb.
| Sherl wrote:
| *T15p G2
| etiam wrote:
| Anybody know whether it's possible to mitigate Intel ME on these
| yet?
|
| I've been thinking of maybe moving to one of them, but ME Cleaner
| doesn't seem to have Coffee/Comet Lake covered yet.
| https://github.com/corna/me_cleaner/wiki/me_cleaner-status
| macco wrote:
| Why they have this bad touchpads is beyond me. Then it would be
| better to ditch them completely and position the keyboard nearer
| to the user.
|
| Like tho good Linux support though.
| ccouzens wrote:
| My work ThinkPad (Carbon X1 gen 8)'s touchpad is fine. The
| gestures work fine with Fedora. The touchpad wasn't a downgrade
| after coming from a work MBP running OSX.
|
| In some ways it's better because I can use 3 finger click to
| close tabs and open links in new tabs.
|
| Unlike in the article, I'm not a fan of the fingerprint reader.
| It rarely recognises me and (at least on fedora) I need to try
| it a few times before it will fall back to letting me type my
| password.
| helij wrote:
| Thinkpad P52 here. Touchpad is good. Better than on my work
| MacBook Pro (2019) actually and very similar to touchpad on my
| own Air (2015).
| another_story wrote:
| I have a P53 as my personal device and trackpad works great,
| but the P15s for work is garbage. It jumps all over the place
| at times and even feels worse as in not smooth enough.
| matsemann wrote:
| I've been very happy with both my P1 and Carbon touchpads. Not
| as customizable as a mac's (using BTT) out of the box, but the
| feel is fine. Much better than the Dell XPS I'm writing this
| from, dragging anything is literally impossible.
| IE6 wrote:
| > Why they have this bad touchpads is beyond me. Then it would
| be better to ditch them completely and position the keyboard
| nearer to the user.
|
| I think some brands have tried this (like ones that include a
| mechanical keyboard or a screen) and the feedback about having
| the keyboard closer to the user and not having a "shelf" you
| can wrest your wrists on is almost always negative. YMMV.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| I have a ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 1 and the trackpad works great
| in Manjaro and Windows. I donno what the post is complaining
| about.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Many Synaptic touchpads don't have proper gesture support in
| X11. They work out of the box in Wayland, but on X11 gestures
| are meh even if you can get them to work. You can use a tool
| to execute commands on certain gestures, but you don't get
| the immediate response or the ability to pause halfway
| through.
|
| The author bought a model that can come with an Nvidia GPU so
| I'm guessing they might be on X11. That could explain their
| problems.
| [deleted]
| jeswin wrote:
| > Then it would be better to ditch them completely and position
| the keyboard nearer to the user.
|
| I'll need to carry a palm rest as well then.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| I'm reluctant to let go of my X220 for exactly this reason.
| On typing-heavy/pointer-minimal tasks, the keyboard and wrist
| rest ergonomics are basically perfect. To the point where I
| made a wrist rest for my desktop keyboard out of carved pine
| wrapped with leather that precisely matches the X220
| geometry.
| lukego wrote:
| I have one of these with a Nvidia GPU and my complaint is that
| the fan runs hard all the time while driving a pair of 4K
| displays (one HDMI and one USBC.) Drives me nuts.
| schipplock wrote:
| You should be lucky it isn't throttling, a common issue with
| several models of Lenovo :).
| Avamander wrote:
| At least it's not throttling because it never runs the fans
| fast enough unless forced.
| foolinaround wrote:
| Can you please share why Fedora was picked over Ubuntu or Arch or
| others?
| parasense wrote:
| We use this exact same laptop at Red Hat, and meh!
|
| I like the laptop sometimes, but I've actually had plenty of
| times where it's more of a pain. For example, I run multiple 4k
| displays on my desktop, and using the Lenovo thunderbolt docking
| station with multiple 4k displays does not work. two 1440p
| displays are fine, but not two 4k UHD displays. Another issue
| Iv'e seen is the laptop simply reboots mysteriously, presumably
| due to thermal panics. I have to run chonky k8s cluster on my
| laptop requiring at minimum 20 giB memory, and like ~ most of the
| available CPU... and it gets hot, and reboots.
|
| Fedora support is fabulous, and well you might expect that when
| you have the single largest open source corporation, not to
| mention Fedora's benefactor, using the laptop at scale.
|
| I've personally switched to using an Intel NUC for the daily
| grind, but still use the laptop for travels and what not.
| make3 wrote:
| this doesn't really sound like the type of workload a laptop
| should be evaluated on... although it is an extremely strong
| laptop so without gaming I wonder what the intended workload
| really is
| fpoling wrote:
| To prevent overheating on my X1 ThinkPad under Fedora I set the
| CPU governor to the power safe mode. As an added benefit it
| makes the laptop almost silent even when using all the
| cores/threads to compile huge C++ code base that may the memory
| usage towards 32 GB. Surely it compiles slower, but the
| slowdown is less than 25%
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| I noted it is on a stand. There are better stand which is more
| flexible, which adjust the angle of the screen and keyboard and
| height. I found it is making use of portable great.
| alluro2 wrote:
| I had to chime in that, if 14" vs 15.6" is not a deal breaker,
| P14s Gen 2 with Ryzen 5850U, 32GB RAM and integrated GPU is the
| most performant, silent, portable and generally capable laptop I
| ever had (and I've changed a lot).
|
| I got greedy and switched to a MBP 14 with M1 Pro, which is also
| great, but almost everything (speakers and trackpad excepted) on
| P14s was either on par or even better (perf, ports, weight,
| noise, keyboard, build, screen, battery...). MBP is excellent,
| but I miss my Arch setup a lot and don't think I would miss
| anything from the MBP actually if I switched back.
|
| I know Lenovo is going downwards with Thinkpad line, but P series
| seems to still hold well - for now at least :/
| elric wrote:
| I hope the P14s Gen 2 is better than Gen 1, because that's the
| worst device I've ever owned (by a very wide margin). It
| constantly overheats, the CPU throttles down, and it becomes
| slower than my now ancient x230 ...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Wonder whether it is ease to use usb to try it on. Got my wife
| one port broken thinkpad. The windows subsystem sort of work. But
| it is hard to use x-windows.
| intsunny wrote:
| I've been holding off on purchasing a new Lenovo laptop. Shortly
| Lenovo will start shipping latops with the new generation AMD
| Ryzen mobile chips that have RDNA 2 GPUs. [0][1] This is a real
| game changer.
|
| The amount of power and open source VULKAN friendliness is going
| to be incredible.
|
| I look forward to being able to do container work, and emulate
| Gamecube games all on a single Linux machine.
|
| [0] https://www.aroged.com/2022/04/16/lenovo-
| thinkpad-t14s-gen-3... [1] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-
| ThinkPad-Z13-Exclusive-...
| vegai_ wrote:
| Yep, that's what I'm also looking for. I bought the Thinkpad
| E14 Gen3 not because it was the best I could afford but because
| it was the best Thinkpad with AMD chips in it. I'd happily chip
| in +1000 euros for a higher build quality laptop with similar
| stuff inside.
|
| Something significant has to happen before I buy another
| Intel/Nvidia combo ever again. I'd much rather suffer the
| mediocre OS and go to Apple.
| tazjin wrote:
| I have an AMD Thinkpad (X13 AMD 2nd gen) and it's one of the
| most frustrating devices I've had in years. Linux support is
| superficially fine, but in continuous use lots of tiny,
| annoying incompatibilities (and sometimes pretty significant
| impairments) show up.
|
| There's a set of known hardware issues (e.g. unable to resume
| from suspend, USB ports stop working until hardware reset is
| performed through the pinhole, ...) and I've been experiencing
| _all_ of them regularly. Never had these kinds of issues with
| an Intel machine (as they have much more battle-tested
| hardware).
|
| I'd recommend to only buy an AMD laptop if you have a fallback
| and can afford to treat it more as a tinkering toy type thing.
| Note that some of the hardware issues also affect other OSes
| than Linux.
|
| Personally I'm getting rid of this thing in favour of an Intel
| machine again.
| cfallin wrote:
| You're not alone -- I recently had a heck of a time trying to
| get a T14s AMD 2nd gen to work well in Linux (mostly same
| CPU/chipset/hardware as your X13).
|
| I never got wakeup from S3 suspend to work, it just froze;
| wakeup from S0ix actually worked _ok_ for a while with a
| recent kernel (5.16 iirc), _with_ a random kernel commandline
| addition (iommu=pt) to avoid a random 14-second pause on lid
| open (always exactly 14 seconds!). But wireless was still
| flaky on wakeup.
|
| I played a bunch with powertop and different settings to try
| to get reasonable efficiency. Tried getting hardware video
| decode to work with YouTube/Firefox (vdpau / va-api); it sort
| of did, except when it crashed.
|
| Then one day a week into the adventure, it just stopped
| waking up from suspend, after I-don't-know-what changed.
| Needed a hardware reset each time I opened the lid. I
| returned the laptop and bought an M1 Air instead; I love my
| Thinkpads and open systems but I also love good engineering.
|
| System integration / QA / getting quality polished firmware
| is an underappreciated art it seems!
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| Seconded. As much as I like rooting for the underdog and was
| really hyped by AMDs success after so many years of failure,
| my laptops always have been and will continue to be Intel
| based. I actually tried a few times, last time with second
| gen Ryzen, and as the parent comment says, it's always random
| little things that sometimes don't work.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| Anecdotally, I'm running a T14 as my personal system and I've
| never encountered any of these issues, so I suspect some of
| this is model-dependent.
| leeoniya wrote:
| same. i just set up a P14s Gen 2 AMD (with 4k display,
| ryzen 7 pro 5850u, 48GB ram) and after swapping out the
| garbage wifi/bluetooth module for an Intel 210 and the NVME
| for a 980 Pro this machine is _excellent_ with EndeavourOS
| /KDE (5.17 kernel with AMD p-state support).
|
| the only tweaks i've had to make are
|
| 1. enabling bluetooth service to autostart (disabled by
| default by distro for security)
|
| 2. installing the amdgpu vaapi drivers to get hardware
| video decoding in MPV and tweak some Chromium flags to get
| hardware video decode on Youtube, etc.
|
| the only "issue" i've run into is getting TRIM to be re-
| detected properly for UASP-capable USB storage devices [0],
| but it's so minor that no one except me will notice :).
| it's not a ThinkPad problem, but likely something in
| linux's udev.
|
| i dont use the fingerprint sensor, TPM or secure boot, so
| cant say anything about those.
|
| (supposedly switching suspend mode to linux in bios helps,
| too)
|
| [0] https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/700672/udev-
| rules-o...
| alluro2 wrote:
| I'm touting everywhere how P14s Gen 2 AMD is the best
| laptop I ever had - performance, portability, silent,
| ports, battery, keyboard...Even compared to the MBP 14
| I'm using now, I'm missing it, and Linux, while I doubt I
| would miss anything from MBP if I switched back, even
| though it's objectively great.
| csdvrx wrote:
| Unfortunately, no OLED option is a dealbraker for me.
|
| I haven't seen even a frankenpad option to transplant an
| OLED on the P14s Gen 2 AMD
| leeoniya wrote:
| the 4k panel is much better than the 2k/QHD IPS one i
| have on my previous T480s, and that one is better than
| all previous ThinkPad IPS panels! the colors are much
| better and actually pre-calibrated. still not OLED or
| Mac, but for a non-touch/matte ThinkPad display, it's
| definitely the best i've used so far.
| green7ea wrote:
| That's funny. I have a Thinkpad P14s for work and an HP x360
| for personal use which are both running Linux with AMD. They
| have the best Linux support I've ever seen. The graphics
| drivers are especially nice, fast and bug free. I can't image
| ever going back to Intel.
|
| The only thing that bothers me is that lack of S3 sleep on
| the HP but that was a choice by HP and can the ACPI tables
| can be patched in the BIOS.
| alluro2 wrote:
| Same here! With Intel-based Thinkpads, especially X1 Yoga
| Gen 6, frequent issues in Linux. But Yoga Slim 7 with 4800U
| and afterwards P14s Gen 2 with 5850U, amazing experience,
| and the latter is the best laptop overall I ever had
| (including MPB 14 that I'm using now).
| ho_schi wrote:
| I'm also waiting for the X13 Gen3 AMD becoming available, with
| RNDA2. Shall work well with Archlinux, enough performance for
| programming (GCC), playing (CSGO) and very portable. A lot
| better in a backpack on a roadbike or while traveling (plane,
| train).
|
| https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-announces-the-ThinkPad-...
|
| Using privately a X220 and begin mobile with it is just remains
| a nice device. Standard keyboard, standard performance and
| pleasure to carry around without worries.
|
| PS: I'm surprised that Lenovo still don't give users a "quick
| start manual" explaining how to use the TrackPoint. It is a
| game changer for everyone capable of touch-typing. Why leave a
| good keyboard when your fingertips can remain there? I don't
| blame the users here. Apple contrary uses video advertisements
| as hidden "introducton guide" to buyers. Remember when IBM just
| didn't build in TrackPads? The area was used a palm-rest.
| kettleballroll wrote:
| Fwiw, i have a Thinkpad x395 with AMD Apu. It's mostly nice,
| but there are GPU driver issues that have been unsolved for
| almost 3 years now with that generation of ThinkPads (0). Let's
| hope such issues are sorted out for newer models
|
| (0)
| https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1870971
| hs86 wrote:
| With such issues, don't expect Ubuntu to fix it while staying
| at the same kernel version. Instead, either try their HWE-
| stacks or upgrade to the intermediate non-LTS releases.
|
| Fedora, for example, will always use the latest upstream
| kernel while keeping the rest of the packages reasonably
| stable. Usually, this plays nicer with new hardware.
| kettleballroll wrote:
| What gave the impression that I stay with lots releases?
| New kernels,.distro releases, different amdgpu ppas....
| I've tried a lot of stuff, but these errors don't go away
| BeefWellington wrote:
| Yeah Fedora is my go-to for anything business related
| because of this. In my experience it's the best mix of
| platform stability while still getting the good stuff that
| gets added to the kernel on a regular basis.
| poser-boy wrote:
| Don't need AMD RDNA 2 for Gamecube. I'm able to play Gamecube
| on Dolphin just fine on my Thinkpad T430 with Intel Integrated
| Graphics.
|
| Framerates are very playable, but fall short of perfect. No up-
| scaling used.
| nspattak wrote:
| I have been looking for one but unfortunately 95% of lenovos
| with ryzen have soldered ram which i a hard no for me :(
| philliphaydon wrote:
| I have 2. Lenovo Legion 7 with aand AND cpu. And a ThinkPad X1
| Extreme gen 1. I'm hoping new job I can get the X1 Extreme gen
| 5 cos I love the 16:10 screen.
| dzogchen wrote:
| The Lenovo Legion 7 Pro and 5 Pro also have a 16:10 screen.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| Yup that's Why I want my work computer to have one too. Try
| to keep work and play seperate.
| nirui wrote:
| > The novelty (T14s) features ... USB-C 4.0 Gen 3
|
| This one could be a better value compare to the Intel one, if
| it provides support for Thunderbolt 3 eGPUs.
|
| One downside I can think of is that T14s usually only comes
| with soldered on RAMs, no DIMM slot, meaning it's less
| upgradable (say to 64G of RAM). That's why I'm waiting for a
| new AMD T14 which should come with a DIMM slot and hopefully
| USB4. And if Lenovo failed to deliver the T14 that I want, then
| I'll probably just get an E14/old-style XPS13. I don't really
| need cellular connectivity, fingerprint scanner and backlit
| keyboard anyway :-\
| cosmiccatnap wrote:
| Trackpad and screen are the only real things I wish they would
| improve. Remove the buttons, make it wider and go from the base
| up to the keys. Whatever nostalgia people get out of the Thinkpad
| it's not it's trackpad...it's the nub you had to use because of
| how bad the trackpad has always been. I think for a laptop where
| you are paying for dedicated GPUs you should get an option for a
| 4k ips screen. It makes text so clear and crisp and really
| doesn't drag down the performance on a modern chipset
|
| Keyboard is excellent, not old school X or P good, but it's
| better than any other keyboard you are going to find on a laptop
| sold now.
| 4ad wrote:
| No, I will never buy a ThinkPad that doesn't have three
| physical buttons.
|
| They tried making a few of those over the years, and it was
| (thankfully) always reverted in the next generation.
| bhaak wrote:
| > Lenovo is famous for their TrackPoint (that little red thing on
| the keyboard), but I am not sure if I'll take the time to learn
| using it. Some say it's far more precise and comfortable as you
| don't have to lift your fingers from the keyboard. I might give
| it a shot sometime.
|
| Why buy a ThinkPad if you don't use its most important selling
| point?
| mixedCase wrote:
| The rest of the laptop, is the obvious, but clear answer.
|
| I bought a couple of ThinkPads because they're well tested on
| Linux, have the best non-mechanical keyboard on a laptop that I
| know of (even after Lenovo), and have a decent build.
|
| I can't stand using the TrackPoint despite having tried a few
| times, but my workflow relies more on a keyboard and any decent
| scrolling device, for which two-finger scroll on the touchpad
| more than suffices.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| I like the Trackpoint, but beware. I used an old 760 years ago
| with OpenBSD, and after many months of using the Trackpoint, my
| pointer finger started to have RSI issues.
|
| (Similarly, I used a thumb trackball for a long time, and
| eventually my thumb started to have issues as well.)
|
| For occasional use, these things are great. Long term under
| heavy use, I have my doubts. It's always better to use the
| bigger muscles and joints if you can.
| bhaak wrote:
| I've been using the Trackpoint for almost 20 years now and I
| never had any problems with it. Not exclusively though, for
| desktop applications I still use a mouse.
|
| But for couch surfing at home I haven't used a mouse in
| years.
| deltarholamda wrote:
| I'm sure it's very dependent on each person. Some people
| get tennis elbow, some don't.
|
| The Thinkpad 760 I had only had a Trackpoint, so when I was
| using it as my main machine, I used it 8-ish hours a day.
| The last joint in my pointer finger was pretty sore by the
| time I stopped using it.
| klazutin wrote:
| I've also switched from a MacBook to a T14 Gen 1 about a year
| ago and the TrackPoint is the one problem I struggle with on
| Linux.
|
| On Windows, it's buttery smooth and a joy to use. On Linux, the
| refresh rate tops out at 80 Hz, and if you so much as lightly
| touch the touchpad with your palm, it goes further down to ~45
| Hz for the next few seconds. All of this makes for a very
| rough, jerky and imprecise movement.
|
| I really want to use Linux on my T14, but this problem just
| makes the experience a pain. I really wonder if everybody
| recommending using TrackPoint and running Linux have somehow
| solved this issue?
| bhaak wrote:
| I don't use the trackpad at all so I don't have that problem.
| :)
|
| You could try playing around with the settings in
| /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/. The file "sensitivity"
| or "rate" might be what you're looking for.
| klazutin wrote:
| Sadly, I've tried it all. It seems that the 80Hz cap is
| enforced by the kernel PS/2 driver, for whatever reason,
| and is shared between the touchpad and the TrackPoint since
| they are on the same bus. I can only imagine drivers under
| Windows employ some proprietary trickery to get around that
| limitation.
| jotm wrote:
| I used to be really good at using that. Even played FPS games
| using just the TrackPoint and laptop keyboard. I have had one
| on nearly every laptop I owned (OmniBooks, later Elitebooks and
| ZBooks) but kinda stopped using it and now it feels really
| awkward.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I found it not nearly as good on the HP's compared to a
| Thinkpad
| rgrmrts wrote:
| They're still one of the better options if you want a powerful
| laptop (read: desktop replacement) to run Linux on. The only
| competitive option is Dell Precision series (imo).
| tarek_computer wrote:
| Anyone with P1 Gen 2 had issues with the built_in speakers? I can
| only get the right-sided speaker to work even after replacing
| them.
| tarek_computer wrote:
| I am running Arch Linux with Kernel 5.17.5-arch1-1. The
| speakers do work fine on Windows but for some reason I cannot
| get them both to work in Linux? Whatever settings I do using
| Arch's wiki, I can get everything working fine with external
| speakers, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, but just not the
| right-sided speaker. Not sure if anyone has the same issue.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| Big fan of these with Linux.
|
| Have used T42, T500, T440p, X1E gen2 throughout the years, all
| with versions of Fedora.
|
| Most things just work.
|
| The X1E gen2 needed a bit work to curb (idle) power consumption.
| The SD card reader would prevent the CPU package from entering
| C10, and the fans were always running even when the machine was
| not warm.
|
| I have the version with the NVidia dedicated GPU, which works
| pretty well. It's off most of the time, and is only turned on
| when needed.
|
| Idle power consumption is now as low of 3.9w.
| mciancia wrote:
| Eh, I have been using latest gen x1 carbon for last year or so
| that I got from work and recently bough a p15 gen1 for some
| personal windows usage.
|
| I have to say, both machines are terrible. X1 is pretty slow
| (some 4c i7 with basic iGPU) - running dual 4k displays, webex
| and similar apps is pretty slow, even scrolling websites is not
| smooth quite often. Also, fan never turns off and battery life is
| well, not great.
|
| P15 is just ridiculous for it's MSRP, touchpad is shit, battery
| life is shit, CPU sometimes gets stuck at ~400Mhz just because
| (x1 also has this problem actually) and after googling it seems
| to be common issue with lenovo hardware (WTF)
|
| Also, why they they included 2 thunderbolt ports and 1 usb-c
| where not one of them supports charging is beyong me, having to
| use this stupid lenovo psu every time is PITA)
| another_story wrote:
| Also have P15 from work and trackpad is terrible. I think it's
| a P15 thing as my P53 works well.
| lvl102 wrote:
| I still wonder what could have been if IBM just kept the Thinkpad
| lines. Those IBM-designed Thinkpads were built like tanks.
| Industrial. Legendary keyboards. I really miss those machines. I
| had some of the best coding sessions on them and can't help but
| think Thinkpads played a role in creating that experience.
| jotm wrote:
| I don't know, I think they would've gone with cheaper and
| cheaper materials and ended up with pretty much what Lenovo has
| nowadays.
|
| Dell and HP also had great business machines. I'm particularly
| fond of the Elitebook 8530/8730 - built like tanks, easy to
| repair, good keyboards, and still so thin for the time (even
| today, they look and feel good).
|
| Quality went downhill ever since - newer models are still
| pretty good, but not as good as older ones. More plastic, fewer
| screws, trash keyboards, just kind of average for the price.
| scrlk wrote:
| I'll give HP some credit for being the last out of the 3
| major business laptop manufacturers to put 2 SO-DIMM slots on
| their flagship laptops (EliteBook 8xx series). Everyone else
| has moved to soldered RAM or 1 slot with soldered RAM.
| jotm wrote:
| They also still use 4 RAM slots and an MXM slot for the
| graphics card on their ZBook workstations. Sadly the CPU is
| soldered and availability of MXM cards seems to be
| extremely limited nowadays.
| middleclick wrote:
| The quality has noticeably deteriorated after Lenovo brought
| the Thinkpad line but then in general the quality of
| electronics is only getting worse not better.
| boatsie wrote:
| The skeptic in me thinks that long lived, upgradable,
| serviceable, resellable laptops would never have survived long
| anyways. It's far more profitable to sell new machines to
| people and businesses after 3 years. Those long lived tank
| laptops were actually just too good.
| yencabulator wrote:
| I think we're seeing a resurgence of that in
| https://frame.work/ -- from a startup, not a big name like
| IBM.
|
| This laptop trend could combine with phones starting to
| legitimize spare parts, DIY and iFixit style businesses, into
| something great.
| nix0n wrote:
| IBM was selling service contracts too, which increased their
| incentive to make the machines last. Some businesses (and
| governments) would still be willing to shell out the money
| for that kind of quality.
| philg_jr wrote:
| Lenovo still offers up to 5 years, next business-day onsite
| service for the Thinkpad line that is somewhat reasable.
| Unfortunately, the battery warranty is an additional line
| item. Usually the 3 year NBD onsite option with battery is
| about $250 for a T14 or X13.
| lvl102 wrote:
| If I remember correctly, people regularly shelled out
| $5,000 plus for those Thinkpads. They had some insane
| "Rolls-Royce" type of support for business executives.
| eklavya wrote:
| One of my college seniors had one. It was such a beauty with
| that small yellow light bulb protruding from the top.
| Absolutely gorgeous experience.
|
| I used to want one so much, none of the laptops since have ever
| enticed me like that, the MacBooks I use since then are nothing
| compared to that. Computing was so much fun those days (rosy
| eyed fallacy likely).
| smoldesu wrote:
| I can't recommend picking one up enough. You can own an x201
| with a first-gen i5 for ~80 bucks, I paid $50 for mine
| without memory or an HDD, and then outfitted it with a 256
| gig SATA SSD I had laying around and maxed out it's memory at
| 8 gigs. Totally worth the price and novelty of owning a tiny
| laptop like that!
| jcranberry wrote:
| I had a T15g and my only regret was getting the anti glare
| display. The matte cover just looks like crap compared to a
| glossy display. I believe Lenovo calls the non-matte display
| "anti-reflective".
| tommiegannert wrote:
| _> Lenovo is famous for their TrackPoint (that little red thing
| on the keyboard), but I am not sure if I'll take the time to
| learn using it._
|
| Who's still using this? I removed the red rubber because it was
| leaving residue on my screen.
| raegis wrote:
| I use it. Go to any Thinkpad enthusiast website and you would
| think the opposite. There are different types of trackpoints.
| The one I use is flush with the keys.
| Aldipower wrote:
| In an industrial environment with dust, rough hands or maybe
| gloves on, this TrackPoint is very useful.
| feanaro wrote:
| I refuse to buy a laptop without a trackpoint (which in
| practice means ThinkPads only).
| pimeys wrote:
| It is the only thing that prevents me of getting any other
| laptops. Three mouse buttons and the trackpoint right next to
| the keyboard is the perfect way of using a laptop for me.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Me; I do not like trackpads; take up space and are not as
| efficient for me.
| rxhernandez wrote:
| Me; it's far superior to anything outside of a mouse.
|
| And yes, I have a MacBook M1 (I didn't realize how poor the
| support was for Linux by the time the return window closed).
| randalluk wrote:
| > Me; it's far superior to anything outside of a mouse.
|
| I used to love the track point - it felt so efficient to have
| my pointing device right on the home row of the keyboard.
|
| Eventually I realised it was the cause of some pretty bad RSI
| (or something) in my index finger. Now I have to remove the
| plastic cap to stop myself from using it.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I can see that happening. Interestingly though, while I'm a
| right handed person and use mouse with my right hand, I use
| the trackpoint with my left hand! It actually thus helps
| prevent RSI for me - I get to mix it up and switch my hands
| :). I also find that it's a very different position - I
| think stretching right thumb to hit left button is harder
| than using left thumb to hit left button, which is just
| naturally resting there (understanding of course these can
| be remapped:).
| mateuszf wrote:
| I'm curious - do you really consider trackpoint better than
| apple touchpads?
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Yes. With some important asterisks depending on person,
| usage and preferences :). Let's say it's far better FOR ME
| :->.
|
| I really like sibling comment's comparison with Keyboard
| shortcuts. Keyboard shortcuts don't make mouse or touch
| screen wrong or bad; some of us just prefer them and find
| them more efficient and effective.
|
| Using trackpad disrupts my flow whereas trackpoint is
| embedded on the home row. Further, I am much faster and
| more precise on trackpoint. I have never on any machine
| achieved easy effortless pixel-perfect precision on a
| trackpad, and have never found a way to quickly in a single
| motion repeatedly reach the extreme buttons/locations I
| want to. Now, I'm a trackpad newbie, but watching other
| trackpad proponents use their laptop has only confirmed my
| feeling. It looks easy but slow.
|
| This is not to say there aren't people out there who use
| trackpad quickly and efficiently; I very much assume there
| are, plenty! I just have not witnessed them.
|
| My feeling therefore, possibly incorrect, is that trackpad
| and trackpoint fulfill different purposes: Trackpoint is a
| high-learning curve, high-skill ceiling option that is
| ultimately more efficient for some. Trackpad has FAR lower
| learning curve and is much easier to start using, and is
| right choice for majority of casual users or those who
| don't prioritize input efficiency - but it feels like it
| plateaus earlier, or at least those in my group of family /
| friends / co-workers plateau with it far sooner.
| pimeys wrote:
| Yes. You can keep your fingers in the hjkl and still use
| the mouse without moving your hands.
| viraptor wrote:
| I love the nipple. I'll take it over any touchpad and for some
| weird reason I end up faster with it when aiming for small
| elements, even though it's completely counterintuitive.
| cseleborg wrote:
| I sorely miss it since switching from ThinkPad to MS Surface a
| few years ago. I almost always use a mouse, even on the go, as
| TrackPads just don't work for me, the need to keep my fingers
| raised produces discomfort quite quickly. The TrackPoint is one
| of the reasons I'm considering a ThinkPad again.
| reirob wrote:
| I'm using it since +20 years and many ThinkPads (had one Dell
| with a trackpoint in the early 2000s) - it's the thing why I'm
| staying with ThinkPads. If you are touch-typing, working on the
| go, in rough environment, then there is nothing better. Last 3
| and half years I had X1E Gen1, was the worst ThinkPad
| experience of all the ThinkPads that I ever had (extremely hot,
| bad Linux support, loud, worst ever battery life, mirror
| display) - and the 1st ThinkPad in 20+ years that just stopped
| working after 3.5 years. Now I have the P1 Gen4, without
| Nvidia, the QXGA resolution and matte screen - and I love it.
| Was afraid because the key travel, got less, but I actually
| have to say that I prefer it compared to the previous ThinkPad,
| and it's less noisy when typing.
|
| However I have to say that none of the ThinkPad trackpoints
| match the easiness and the precision of the Tex Shinobi
| external keyboard - it's just delightful how it feels, though,
| typing on it is very loud.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| This is a bit like asking "who still uses keyboard shortcuts?"
|
| After all, there is really no reason that anyone using Paint in
| Windows would ever type Alt+F and then A when they want to do a
| Save As...
|
| Right? Sure, it worked for the last 30 years. But come on, who
| ever would type Alt+F and A? It has to be less than 1% of all
| the Windows users out there. And our telemetry proves it!
|
| If you have a billion Windows users, and you rewrite Paint - as
| Microsoft did in Windows 11 - so it no longer knows the
| keyboard shortcuts that 1% of your users rely on, no big deal.
| You've only inconvenienced ten million of your users.
|
| Or you hit Alt+F4 on Paint and you have an unsaved image. There
| is a nice dialog that asks "Do you want to save your work?" And
| there is a really common case where you were just using Paint
| as a scratchpad and you would like to type Alt+N here to say
| "no worries, I was just fooling around."
|
| This dialog used to read "Yes | No | Cancel". And Alt+N let you
| say "No".
|
| In later days, the dialog changed to "Yes | Don't save |
| Cancel". But with a clever trick, Microsoft made the "n" in
| "Don't save" the shortcut key. So even with the updated and
| much more clear wording, your Alt+N still worked!
|
| Until Windows 11, where this code was all rewritten by people
| who never knew that anyone ever used these keyboard shortcuts.
|
| The TrackPoint may be something like this. Those of us who
| insist on it may be small in number. But if it is ever removed,
| then the one reason why we will only buy ThinkPads is gone. We
| may as well get a Dell or an HP or a Mac M1 or whatever.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| >>We may as well get a Dell or an HP or a Mac M1 or whatever.
|
| I agree with everything you say; note though that power-user
| oriented versions of HP & Dell laptops do come with the nub,
| or at least they did until recently (I've used both a Dell &
| HP with a nub as recently a ~18 months ago; it's possible in
| the ever-growing Applefication of the world [shudder],
| they've been discontinued). I think even some Toshibas have
| it - generally it'd be in whatever the brands consider their
| "Road-warrior" models :-> . You see a LOT more of them used
| on the airplanes of business corridors (e.g. Toronto-Ottawa-
| Montreal) than anywhere else :).
| murermader wrote:
| Thanks for pointing that out. The Windows 11 dialog does not
| take any keyboard shortucts. I can't even use Enter or
| Escape, or switch between the options using arrow keys. This
| has to be a bug, right. Right?
|
| I think it is literally impossible to exit the program
| without a mouse, after you did something that requires
| saving.
| capableweb wrote:
| > Thanks for pointing that out. The Windows 11 dialog does
| not take any keyboard shortucts. I can't even use Enter or
| Escape, or switch between the options using arrow keys.
| This has to be a bug, right. Right?
|
| Lately I've been thinking of finally upgrading Windows 11
| since they keep pushing untimely prompts to do so more and
| more frequently, but reading this makes me glad I've hold
| off. If they still have major bugs like that, I'll wait
| another year or two before considering it again.
| ihateolives wrote:
| > The TrackPoint may be something like this. Those of us who
| insist on it may be small in number. But if it is ever
| removed, then the one reason why we will only buy ThinkPads
| is gone. We may as well get a Dell or an HP or a Mac M1 or
| whatever.
|
| You could buy Dell or HP with trackpoint already years ago.
| Not sure the current state, but trackpoint is not ThinkPad
| exclusive feature.
| tommiegannert wrote:
| _> This is a bit like asking "who still uses keyboard
| shortcuts?"_
|
| No, it was a good-faith question of who finds it useful (for
| what type of work) these days. I think it's a fair question
| since every other manufacturer has settled on trackpads. As
| context, I added that I, personally, find it ruins my screen
| on an otherwise good laptop.
|
| Why the rant about keyboard shortcuts? The only answer you
| gave to my question was essentially, "over my dead body." No
| explanation that would help me understand you.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| It does not appear to be a good-faith question or at least
| there does not appear to be a true effort to understand it.
| FWIW, I use pointing stick and the poster's analogy is the
| one I wish I could've used for decade - it is friendly and
| detailed and perfectly represents my use case and feelings
| (and is much better explanation than my own sibling
| comment, which was admittedly more of a "over my dead body"
| :). Like keyboard shortcuts for those who use them, it has
| more of a learning curve but (we feel) is ultimately a much
| faster, more efficient and effective method of doing
| things. You don't have to agree, it may not be for everyone
| - as I mentioned in sibling response, my wife and I will
| forever use our laptops differently, and that's OK!
|
| (if we want to start a parallel religious war, let's talk
| about 3.5mm on phones too! :> )
|
| >> every other manufacturer has settled on trackpads
|
| Note that at various points, until very recently, Dell, HP,
| Toshiba etc all had power-user oriented models with
| pointing sticks. If they've gotten rid of them in the last
| year or two, that is indeed a sad news for many of us - it
| was never a "either/or" proposition. There's already Apple
| and many knock-off for those who prefer it; I hope that a
| laptop for power-users still has a profitable niche :-/
| tommiegannert wrote:
| Thank you for providing a useful answer, despite not
| believing it was posted in good faith. You might be right
| about other producers still making sticks. I haven't been
| in the market for a few years.
|
| What should I have done differently to make it appear as
| a true effort to understand?
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I'm a random stranger on the internet, so with _no_
| intent on telling you how to live or interact :), My own
| limited biased subjective 0.0005 cents:
|
| 1. Original question: "Who's still using this?" is direct
| and to the point; I grok it. But note that some people in
| many contexts may interpret it... aggressive. Human mind
| fills in detail in blunt / short sentences. Politeness in
| some cases is filling in those blanks pre-emptively.
| Uncharitable reading of your question would fill in the
| blanks in "Who's still using this?" as "WHO is still
| using this?" expanded to "WHO is still using this???"
| expanded to "WHO is stupid enough to still be using
| this???". They/We would be wrong, but be cognizant of
| good and bad interpretations of writing.
|
| But that's very minor and extremely audience specific.
| Bigger point:
|
| 2. Charitable reading. This is such a hard thing to do
| for all of us, especially on the interwebs, especially
| when there's even a minor difference opinion. I
| thoroughly, genuinely, believe that the keyboard-shortcut
| poster provided best possible explanation and tried very
| heard to type it up and come up with meaningful analogy.
| I will totally steal it! :) When you read it /
| interpreted it as a rant / over-my-dead-body, I in turn
| did not feel you gave them a charitable reading, which
| subconsciously meant I did not give you a charitable
| reading either.
|
| So what I think would've made it appear as a true effort
| to understand, would've been... making a true effort to
| understand - reading the keyboard shortcut post with a
| mindset of "what information can I gleam from this / what
| can I learn / which insight can I take from this". Which,
| FWIW, is an approach that I think is phenomenally useful
| in life, I'm actively working on myself, and am
| successful some small percentage of time :D
|
| (again, not claiming some useful insight, but since you
| asked, my 100 Croatian Lipa :). All the best!
| Stratoscope wrote:
| You are right, my rant about keyboard shortcuts was not
| really related to your question and did not answer it. So
| with apologies for my rather tangential analogy, let me
| explain how I got there.
|
| I recently read a ThinkPad review where the author said
| something like "Why does Lenovo insist in keeping this
| stupid red nubbin when nobody uses it?" In other words, "I
| don't use it, so I can't imagine that anyone else would."
|
| I misinterpreted your question as being in that same vein.
|
| Others have given some more direct answers, but let me add
| mine. As a touch typist, the TrackPoint is the only
| pointing device that is directly available with my fingers
| on the home row.
|
| With a touchpad, and especially with a mouse, you have to
| be in "typing mode" or "pointing and clicking mode". You
| can't intermix the two modes seamlessly, as you can with
| the TrackPoint.
|
| Another advantage is the presence of physical mouse
| buttons. Some other laptops do have these, but they seem to
| have fallen out of favor to allow a bigger touchpad. The
| physical buttons let you position the mouse pointer and
| then click without any chance of the pointer drifting a few
| pixels while you click.
|
| I also really appreciate your followup question, "What
| should I have done differently to make it appear as a true
| effort to understand?"
|
| My suggestion there would perhaps be along these lines: "I
| don't use the TrackPoint and in fact I removed the cap
| because it was leaving marks on my screen. But I'm curious
| to hear from those who use it. What do you like about it?"
|
| In any case, thank you for stimulating an interesting
| discussion!
|
| p.s. Regarding the screen, I think some of the older
| ThinkPads may have been more susceptible to this. I also
| wonder if the screen marking may be due to putting the
| ThinkPad in a backpack where other objects put pressure in
| the middle of the lid. I generally carry _two_ ThinkPads in
| my backpack, my personal and work machines, and I pack them
| with the tops facing each other and a cotton dishtowel in
| between. I need a towel anyway to clean the screens and my
| eyeglasses, and putting the towel between the two tops
| prevents them from scratching each other. This way the
| bases of the machines are facing out, and these are much
| more robust than the lids.
| [deleted]
| go_elmo wrote:
| Dont have to lift hands from keyboard. Great for the 0.5% of
| cases where keyboard only isnt enough for navigation with i3
| etc
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| It's the reason I'm locked into ThinkPads and never buy other
| laptops, even if I might prefer them in other respects. It's
| immensely better (for me) than a trackpad. Faster, less tiring
| and more precise. To the point that for most task, I won't ever
| bother to take the mouse out of the bag.
| tommiegannert wrote:
| _> tiring_
|
| Ah, thanks. I have the opposite reaction. It's too stiff, so
| my finger tip gets tired after a while. The friction against
| the pad is also tiring, but not as badly.
| eemil wrote:
| I use it. It lets me keep my hands on the home row, which is
| great when I need to alternate between clicking and typing. And
| the pointing stick is great ergonomically, if you're using your
| laptop in any kind of mobile setting. You don't have to contort
| your hands to reach the touchpad, which can be difficult if
| your laptop is, you know, on your lap.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| FWIW: I will literally not use a laptop without it. It does
| have a learning curve, but after you've gone through it,
| watching people use trackpads is pa-a-ainful. Like being a
| touch typist and watching somebody finger peck while staring at
| the keyboard at 20WPM - you just want to take over and get it
| done :D . Yes, trackpad has a minimal learning curve, but it
| plateaus so early.
|
| Especially in small format computers - it actually really
| bothers me that we are sacrificing keyboard quality, size, and
| standardized layout, for this gigantic yet inefficient ever-
| growing trackpad (and thus killing the home/end/pgup/pgdwn
| section, arrows, functional row, etc), when the nub has minimal
| foot print and would allow full keyboard and practical design
| even on smallest laptops.
|
| But it's all about different approaches. If able, I will always
| prefer an ergonomic keyboard, ergonomic mouse, large mousepad,
| and a couple of large monitors when working. My wife on the
| other hand will happily use 13" laptop with trackpad in awful
| position on the couch for hours! We have different priorities
| and preferences and will never persuade each other :->
| motiejus wrote:
| I am. I use it so much that I buy lenovo external keyboards for
| my workstation.
|
| Much easier to move the cursor "half a screen" while typing
| without moving hands off the keyboard.
| pmontra wrote:
| Selection bias: Lenovo is selling some (I bet a fair one)
| percentage of laptops precisely because they have the
| trackpoint. Remove it and lose even only one million customers
| forever? Why?
| LeonM wrote:
| Based on all the comments on HN about how great Thinkpads are
| supposed to be with Linux, I bought an X1-Extreme some time ago.
|
| From my experience, Linux support for Lenovo devices is terrible.
|
| ACPI, power management, and UEFI are consistently causing
| problems. Grub has an issue with the 4K display, causing it to
| render at about 1 FPS. The dual-GPU (Intel and nVidia) situation
| is unworkable under Linux. Suspend on lid close is unpredictable.
| The fingerprint reader has never worked, and the driver for the
| TPM appears unfinished business under Linux. The battery life
| under Linux is about half of what you can expect from Windows.
|
| My setup with the AN40 Thunderbolt dock probably makes it worse,
| the AN40 (even under Windows) is a terrible buggy mess, after
| about 10 firmware updates it is now somewhat usable under Linux.
| Resume from stand-by is a gamble each morning. Prepare to reboot
| and power-cycle often if you want to run this dock under Linux.
| fwupd does not work for all peripherals (such as the TB dock), so
| you'll often need Windows to perform firmware updates.
|
| Maybe I could solve some of this stuff if I'd spend some time on
| it, I don't know. I do know that as long as I run Linux as my
| daily driver, my next laptop won't be a Lenovo.
| ochoseis wrote:
| I have run into issues when the hardware is very recent, but
| usually have a "works out of the box" experience if the model
| has been out more than 6-12mo. This often coincides with good
| deals on those models since Lenovo refreshes every 6-12mo and
| has sales to clear out the prior year's inventory.
| fps_doug wrote:
| Yes, people who tell you that you can blindly buy any Lenovo
| laptop for Linux are lying. You have to do some googling first.
| Or check the inofficial Thinkpad Wiki. But other than that, if
| you pick a device that's recommended for use with Linux, it's
| as good as it gets regarding Linux on laptops if you ask me.
| Saying that your next Laptop isn't a Lenovo because your random
| purchase sucked is a little :rolleyes:
|
| Oh and yes, avoid nvidia if you do Linux. Some people say it
| "works for them", but I for one would recommend just completely
| staying away from Linux if you want nvidia.
|
| The truth is, and will probably always be, that you have to do
| some research before buying HW if you're using Linux and don't
| feel lucky.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Not lying if you talk about Thinkpads. Thry have been very
| good at Linux support for most of the thinkpad line up.
| kodah wrote:
| > Yes, people who tell you that you can blindly buy any
| Lenovo laptop for Linux are lying.
|
| I wouldn't say they're lying, per se, just that it's not 100%
| true. If you use PopOS with an X1 Extreme then almost all of
| those features work out of the box. On another OS they may
| not though. A good portion of what OP is describing require
| some applications present (and configured) in the userland,
| just having drivers isn't enough. The bit about grub I'm not
| sure about, but I believe it; that said grub is always a YMMV
| situation in my experience.
| ge96 wrote:
| Ubuntu for me just works. I use it on an X1 Gen 5. Also
| used on XPS13.
| 22SAS wrote:
| I agree. I got a Lenovo Thinkpad L13 and I got lucky that
| there were no major issues running Linux on it. Although,
| this will be my last Lenovo laptop and also running Linux on
| a laptop.
|
| I use Linux entirely for programming, and I already do that
| on VM's, on a server that I have. I basically just need to
| SSH and start Vim to do whatever I need to.
|
| I have decided to move to using a Macbook Air with OS X. I
| like iTerm2 more and can just SSH into my Linux VM's. I am
| waiting to see if the new Air's launched this year will have
| dual monitor support, otherwise will just get an Intel based
| Macbook Air from 2019 or 2020.
| gtk40 wrote:
| Last time I got a new laptop, I simply ordered a Lenovo
| Thinkpad (X1 Carbon, not Extreme) with Linux pre-installed. I
| am past where I want to tinker to get the hardware and software
| working together, but do prefer Linux as my daily driver. I
| haven't had any issues with it, but I also got a relatively
| simple setup. I've ordered a Linux pre-installed Dell in the
| past with similar fine results.
| petepete wrote:
| Same for me, both my X1 Carbon and Precision Pro (2013 with
| Ubuntu pre-installed) worked flawlessly.
|
| ThinkPad battery life could be a bit better, but that's my
| fault for choosing the 4k one.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Don't use Grub or any bootloader if you can avoid it. I haven't
| used Grub in 10 years. Load Linux directly as an EFI executable
| via the EFISTUB approach.
|
| You almost certainly only need to run two or three efibootmgr
| commands to accomplish this. For most people that means only
| the "Using UEFI directly" section is relevant.
|
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/EFISTUB
|
| S3 suspend was removed as a default option by many hardware
| manufacturers. You will likely need to enter the BIOS to change
| this.
|
| There is a bug in 5.17.x kernels where suspend doesn't work
| with bluetooth enabled. It will be fixed soon.
| xfs wrote:
| I have used EFISTUB for 10 years but I wouldn't recommend it
| for the next install. The bootloader is the one arcane place
| that you don't want to be clever with and get reminded of its
| presence daily, because once it fails for some reason, it
| wastes much more time to find and read docs and diagnose than
| the time saved in boot speedup, because the knowledge to
| debug it is not something you would remember everyday. And
| this setup is even rarer than Grub, so any failure cases will
| not have help from cached knowledge and thus require much
| more research from first principle. Some backup options here
| would help in case, even if they impose some tax in boot
| speed. (If Grub takes a tax of 3 seconds per boot, and if a
| failure in EFISTUB takes 1 hour to resolve, it takes 1200
| boots for EFISTUB to be worth the risk, which is 3 years if
| it's a laptop booting once per day, and much longer for a
| desktop.)
|
| Once my desktop using the EFISTUB setup had a kernel that
| failed to boot, stuck at some filesystem error. Then I had to
| come up with a rescue plan at the spot, because there was no
| other way to boot into the desktop and there was no tutorial
| to help with this at the time.
|
| The issues of EFISTUB:
|
| - It doesn't interact with kernel updates nicely. I used a
| script in /etc/kernel/postinst.d to copy /vmlinuz to
| \EFI\debian\vmlinuz.efi. There is no rollback, and no
| multiple kernels.
|
| - It doesn't work well with kernel parameters. The parameters
| are encoded in UEFI NVRAM. You have to create separate
| entries for different kernel parameters, or manipulate the
| NVRAM back and forth with efibootmgr, which is another gun
| that easily shoots the foot (you can easily mess up the
| bootorder variable).
|
| - It doesn't play nicely with Windows and Secure Boot.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > The parameters are encoded in UEFI NVRAM.
|
| You can embed the parameters in the EFISTUB, this is
| explained in the arch wiki.
|
| I use that to test different parameters with the same
| kernel packaged in different EFI payload, which I can
| select from the F12 boot menu if I don't want to use the
| commands to specify "use this payload only for the next
| boot"
| CaptainMarvel wrote:
| I use EFTSTUB with Arch Linux and I agree about it taking
| up more of your time. However, for me, this was all the
| very start to first set it up. Since then, it's been smooth
| sailing.
|
| I also use multiple kernels and I have had issues with
| kernel updates, and no issues with kernel parameters.
| However, there is friction with creating separate entries
| and so I created a very simple shell script to save my
| commands.
|
| I've had no issues dual booting with Windows using
| BitLocker. I do not use secure boot (yet).
|
| If you're willing to spend an hour to set it up, I'd go for
| it. However, that's an hour of your life you can save with
| Grub.
| xfs wrote:
| Sure, it's common to have it working for a long time,
| because breaking changes and interactions between
| different systems occur very infrequently at the level of
| bootloader and firmware, but when it happens it can
| easily get into very difficult support situation.
| Logistically speaking, firmware is not a nice place to
| play around. It's not well coded, not well tested, and
| rarely "used" by an end user.
|
| For one I wouldn't put great confidence in a script to
| manipulate UEFI boot entries, because it is not
| idempotent and there are precedents to brick the UEFI
| with unexpected sequence of interaction. Also Windows'
| reboot options and its annual upgrade tend to mess with
| the boot variables. I had to help repair colleagues'
| laptops that had Grub's boot entries erased by Windows
| upgrades.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > Also Windows' reboot options and its annual upgrade
| tend to mess with the boot variables. I had to help
| repair colleagues' laptops that had Grub's boot entries
| erased by Windows upgrades.
|
| I'm mostly a Windows user, and this has never happened in
| my experience: at worst Windows might reorder the UEFI
| boot options, or change the default boot option, but it
| has never overwritten or erased an entry.
|
| At worst they are still available in the F12 boot menu.
| orangepurple wrote:
| It's completely seamless after initial setup on Arch Linux.
| No scripts, copying, or anything. It just works for years.
| I almost forgot it exists.
| ptsneves wrote:
| By not using Grub you lose the ability to fallback on a safe
| kernel. That may be quite dangerous depending on how reliable
| kernel update is for you. I have been saved by kernel
| fallbacks before. Double that for laptops whose ACPI drivers
| randomly break from version to version, as evidenced by your
| note on 5.17.x kernels.
|
| Regardless I sympathize, as I recently had a good deal of
| trouble updating from BIOS to UEFI. The 4K issue seems to
| also affect Dell XPS15 and leads to a kernel panic on the
| latest Canonical Live CD [1]
|
| [1] https://cenains.blog/2022/05/01/converting-boot-mode-
| from-bi...
| orangepurple wrote:
| I keep a USB key around with the Arch Linux ISO to boot an
| OS, mount my filesystem, and fix whatever is busted. I
| never needed to do this yet.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > By not using Grub you lose the ability to fallback on a
| safe kernel
|
| That is factually wrong: if you create other EFI entries
| with different kernel payloads, then enroll them in your
| UEFI bios, you can select them at boot time in a menu.
|
| This is how I test cmdline options (same kernel packaged in
| different .EFI)
|
| If you forgot to do that before a problem, but still have
| the old payloads around, you can even use the UEFI to add
| EFI payloads by selecting their files from your EFI
| partition.
| ptsneves wrote:
| Hmm seems we disagree so it is not factually wrong, but a
| matter of where you draw the line at fallback.
|
| I am not an expert in uefi but my uefi system does not
| give me the ability to pass command line arguments to the
| kernel. I actually went to check and took a picture[1].
|
| According to your statement that means you need a working
| system to repack your kernel if you do not use grub. That
| kind of proves the opposite of what you write.
|
| With grub you can set kernel arguments in an ephemeral
| way by just interrupting the boot. In the past, when
| testing failing kernels it was mighty useful to add a
| magic argument to the kernel.
|
| [1] https://ibb.co/6vS1VX9
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| This got me looking around at how one would load a luks or
| dm-crypt encrypted drive from efi without grub. I didn't
| find anything solid but I've used initram shims for stuff
| like that before so that might be an approach but at that
| point you might as well use grub which has some nice
| features built-in.
|
| I guess I'm really curious what there is to gain by
| bypassing grub if anything?
| smoldesu wrote:
| I don't use GRUB on any of my systems anymore, here's a
| couple loose answers to your questions.
|
| > This got me looking around at how one would load a luks
| or dm-crypt encrypted drive from efi without grub.
|
| systemd-boot lets you define an encrypted drive at
| installation, which is what I do for my LUKS devices.
| Whole thing works pretty flawlessly, in my experience.
|
| > I guess I'm really curious what there is to gain by
| bypassing grub if anything?
|
| I mean, you're not "bypassing" anything; Linux has
| molecularity at it's core, it's perfectly normal to swap
| out it's surrounding components to personalize your
| system. Personally, I pass on GRUB because systemd-boot
| is _fast_. Booting with GRUB takes 10-45 seconds
| depending on your hardware and encryption setup: I 've
| never seen systemd-boot take longer than 15. If you're
| not dual-booting or doing any fancy baremetal stuff, I
| think most people would be perfectly happy with it. GRUB
| certainly still has it's place though, and I'm glad it
| exists.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I mean, that's not _entirely_ true. You can chroot into
| your box and change your kernel if something goes
| horrifically wrong, the situation isn 't as unsalvageable
| as you paint it out to be.
| Sakos wrote:
| It's possible but it's more inconvenient than it needs to
| be. I'd rather be able to select a previous kernel from a
| list instead of trying to remember how to change the
| kernel through chroot on a broken system.
| csdvrx wrote:
| You can totally select a different kernel if it's
| packaged in its own EFI payload.
|
| You can even enroll this EFI payloads from within the
| BIOS by just selecting the file from the EFI partition if
| you forgot to add them into your UEFI (ie if they don't
| show in your F12 boot options)
| vondur wrote:
| I see that you can use systemd as a boot loader (UEFI only).
| I've never tried it, but would like to set it up. The Arch
| wiki (of course) has info on it:
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/systemd-boot
| csdvrx wrote:
| I highly recommend that option, even if you use an Ubuntu
| based distribution: in 2022, there's no reason to still use
| grub on a UEFI system.
| LeonM wrote:
| > Don't use Grub or any bootloader if you can avoid it. I
| haven't used Grub in 10 years. Load Linux directly as an EFI
| executable via the EFISTUB approach.
|
| I run Windows dual boot, since I need (native) Windows for
| certain work related tasks.
|
| > S3 suspend was removed as a default option by many hardware
| manufacturers. You will likely need to enter the BIOS to
| change this.
|
| It's on, S3 is not the problem
|
| > There is a bug in 5.17.x kernels where suspend doesn't work
| with bluetooth enabled. It will be fixed soon.
|
| I'm not running 5.17.
|
| But frankly, I don't want to care about all this "oh, but you
| _just_ have to do [insanely_technical_thing] "
|
| Sure, if I invest $LOTS_OF_TIME in it, I might be able to fix
| most of the issues. But this is a $3000 professional laptop,
| which is supposed to have good Linux support. This machine is
| my work equipment and I chose this expensive machine so I
| _don 't_ have to tinker with this stuff. It should just work.
| weberer wrote:
| >But frankly, I don't want to care about all this "oh, but
| you just have to do [insanely_technical_thing]"
|
| >It should just work.
|
| Then you should buy a laptop that ships with Linux and has
| official support from the vendor. Like the Dell XPS
| Developer edition, or anything from System76.
| sigzero wrote:
| Yeah for the most part it's a "Linux on laptops works if
| you <list of steps to configure things>...". At least that
| has been my experience. Although I have not run Linux on a
| laptop in years so maybe it's time to revisit that.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| It's highly dependent on the specific hardware. On some
| everything works out of the box, others you're stuck with
| very little working (think Apple M1). Just like any OS
| you always need to ensure hardware compatibility before
| purchase.
| orangepurple wrote:
| There isn't much configuration to do if you have an X1
| carbon installed with EFISTUB booting if you have the
| full KDE suite installed. KDE makes your interaction with
| any peripherals utterly seamless. If you don't want to
| tweak your Linux machine much, you need to go all-in on
| KDE.
| zamalek wrote:
| > I run Windows dual boot, since I need (native) Windows
| for certain work related tasks.
|
| If your firmware has a "boot from" hotkey (usually F12),
| then you use that as your dual-boot menu.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| >But this is a $3000 professional laptop, which is supposed
| to have good Linux support. //
|
| That's a big fail by Lenovo then, so why didn't you return
| it? When the support guys logged in to your computer to fix
| it, what did they do -- just go "yeah, or product is crap"
| and usher you away?
| LeonM wrote:
| > so why didn't you return it?
|
| Mostly because I had more important things to do at the
| time. Though not perfect, the computer does work, it does
| get the job done.
|
| And also, I wouldn't know which other brand/model to get.
| I made my decision to buy the X1E based on the HN
| community recommending Lenovo as having one of the best
| support for Linux. So if I switch to a different brand, I
| might end up with an even worse Linux experience, so it
| wasn't worth the risk to me.
| orangepurple wrote:
| My X1 carbon works flawlessly aside from the fingerprint
| scanner (never tried it) and the builtin 4G modem which
| requires Windows drivers to initialize on Verizon with
| some shady proprietary blob that is downloaded over the
| air.
| nine_k wrote:
| It's not that everything branded Lenovo runs linux
| flawlessly.
|
| There are know models and model lines that do so (like
| the T line). Usually they were / are even offered in
| variants with Linux preinstalled from Lenovo web site.
|
| Other models may have and do have problems, unsupported
| hardware, etc.
| MikusR wrote:
| > I run Windows dual boot, since I need (native) Windows
| for certain work related tasks.
|
| Windows also supports EFI boot.
| e12e wrote:
| >> Don't use Grub or any bootloader if you can avoid it. I
| haven't used Grub in 10 years. Load Linux directly as an
| EFI executable via the EFISTUB approach.
|
| > I run Windows dual boot, since I need (native) Windows
| for certain work related tasks.
|
| The windows/efi boot menu can handle dual boot.
|
| But, assuming you want/need secure boot and bitlocker - I'm
| not sure if there is an easy way to avoid having to type in
| recovery key on kernel updates :/
|
| Perhaps efi > direct windows and efi > grub > Linux might
| work? Probably still needs recovery key for bitlocker after
| grub update? Maybe this is solved now - I don't dual boot
| any machines w bitlocker right now.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| Have you used it without the dock? Because my experience with
| daily driving Linux at work for 10+ years with Thinkpads has
| been the complete opposite, with the exception of NVidia's
| driver garbage (which is just a problem with NVidia generally).
|
| My current work system is a P53 that has an Nvidia GPU though
| and it's been working very very well for me through updates and
| the like via dkms.
|
| The only other problem on that list I've encountered was within
| the first month or so after buying my T14s suspend support was
| a problem.
|
| A bad dock can introduce a _lot_ of problems.
| LeonM wrote:
| > A bad dock can introduce a lot of problems.
|
| That's why I bought the $400 official Lenovo dock.
|
| Unfortunately, I can't do my daily work without the dock. (at
| least not without having to introduce numerous dongles and
| USB hubs, which may cause more issues)
| SailingCactus33 wrote:
| I was unable to make the official dock work with my Lenovo
| (Fedora), but a usb-c dongle has been working without
| issues.
| ledgerdev wrote:
| Same here, my $400 dock is completely non-functional with
| Fedora 35. I have read some reports it works with Arch,
| so maybe Fedora 36 will work.
| augusto-moura wrote:
| I think most of the praise on Thinkpads comes from older
| versions, from IBM and the first Lenovos. I have an X220, and
| even though it's quite outdated hardware for today's world, it
| is still a very capable machine.
|
| The most recent laptops are very good, but their support of
| linux is lacking compared with the older ones. As a rule of
| thumb, I try to find the model page in arch wiki before any
| purchase, it should list most of the common problems and how to
| fix them (if they are fixable at all, your X1-Extreme page for
| example[1]).
|
| [1]:
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X1_Extreme
| debacle wrote:
| The last ThinkPad I owned disintegrated in under a year. The
| chassis was so poorly made that it just crumbled with normal
| use.
|
| I have been buying Asus ever since. Not the prettiest
| machines but durable and reliable.
| bitL wrote:
| I have a Zephyrus G15 with 5800u/RTX3080/40GB/3TB and with
| the 5.15 kernel it works flawlessly on Linux Mint. I use it
| more often than MBP these days. The only drawback is no
| DisplayPort for VR.
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| I'll second you on the grub stuff, and the nvidia stuff.
|
| I wish I could switch to an intel gpu. I've considered buying a
| thunderbolt dock just so I can not use nvidia when at home.
| ReaLNero wrote:
| > Grub has an issue with the 4K display, causing it to render
| at about 1 FPS.
|
| Just lower the resolution in grub's config file.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > ACPI, power management, and UEFI are consistently causing
| problems.
|
| > Suspend on lid close is unpredictable.
|
| Yeah, same experience here. The worst part is I can't even
| figure out how to debug this stuff. No idea where things are
| going wrong. I've gotten as far as dumping ACPI tables and
| disassembling some of its code but I can't find anything
| relevant.
|
| What is Windows doing that Linux isn't? It can't be so insanely
| difficult, can it?
|
| > The dual-GPU (Intel and nVidia) situation is unworkable under
| Linux.
|
| Yup. Gotta choose one of them, can't use hybrid graphics.
|
| > The battery life under Linux is about half of what you can
| expect from Windows.
|
| I think it's due to power management issues, especially the
| dGPU which can't be turned off due to lack of hybrid graphics.
| On my laptop I got great battery life after disabling the GPU
| in the firmware settings.
|
| Also, pretty much everything is GPU accelerated nowadays. Even
| terminal emulators. Kitty for example will cause massive power
| usage spikes.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Thank you for sharing; these comments make me pause.
|
| At work, RHEL on Thinkpad is one of the standard offerings, and
| has continued to be across many generations. EVERYTHING works.
| I've had a work-provided RHEL Thinkpad (T450) which was smooth
| and seamless, as have my colleagues (most of them chose X1
| variations, some T480, some with the newer T14).
|
| I have a large number of Thinkpads at home and I want to
| install Linux on some of them, but comments like these make me
| wonder how much extra work and special juice our IT department
| had to commit in order to make it happen - and what my own
| experience would be in real world.
| rgrmrts wrote:
| Older (1/2 years) models will generally have good support. In
| my experience you start running into issues when you purchase
| the latest gen and kernel support hasn't yet caught up (e.g.
| 12th gen Intel processors)
| tempest_ wrote:
| The largest stumbling block is typically when the machine has
| 2 GPUs.
|
| If it is just a normal Intel with integrated graphics /
| ultra-book it will work out of the box with distros like
| Ubuntu.
| hef19898 wrote:
| I cannot confirm any of this, and I am a complete noob
| regarding Linux. I don't have a 4k screen, and the Intel GPU is
| deactivated since day one anyway, so I can't say anything about
| using both GPUs in parallel. Sleep and power saving works just
| fine, firmware updates work without interference from my side.
| I use Nvidia proprietary drivers. Thunderbolt and external
| screens work without trouble. And battery life is good, maybe a
| little worse then under Windows, but that rather feels like
| minutes and not hours. Max I get out is just a little over 4
| hours of Civ VI. Leaving it in sleep depletes the battery in
| the course of 3 days, more or less.
| [deleted]
| ledgerdev wrote:
| > Maybe I could solve some of this stuff if I'd spend some time
| on it, I don't know. I do know that as long as I run Linux as
| my daily driver, my next laptop won't be a Lenovo.
|
| Could not agree more. I was using mac's for a decade prior to
| buying thinkpad X1E a couple years ago. It's been an absolute
| disaster and I now loath them. Multiple years after purchase,
| the only distro I could find that even half works is Fedora.
|
| Docking is worse, even under windows. So the dock was working
| under linux for a while but as a last week it's completely non-
| functional, no usb, no display. Under windows, probably 25% of
| the time the USB devices don't function on startup, and have to
| be unplugged and plugged back in. I was trying to run a monitor
| with hdmi and it would half the time not wake up. Switched to
| display port and it's a little better but still problematic.
| And if your computer goes to sleep, it's 5-10 minutes of trying
| to wake and often requires hard power cycle to come back. I had
| to set the computer to sleep only after 2 hour or so. This is
| with all firmware and os updates applied.
|
| In the future, will be be selling these hot messes, and moving
| to a framework laptop. Doubtful I every buy another thinkpad, I
| have many fond memories of my first couple of IBM based
| thinkpads those were awesome machines.
| StillBored wrote:
| I think the summary of this laptop would have been entirely
| different had the author gotten one with the nvidia gpu. As a
| user of that machine, the inability to disable the nvidia gpu and
| drive external monitors is IMHO a deal breaker (the firmware only
| allows one to disable the iGPU too).
|
| That is because its only recently that nouveau has stabilized
| sufficiently that it tends to work in the common cases on that
| platform. If your not running a bleeding edge distro/kernel
| getting random monitors connected via the onboard HDMI or TB3/TB4
| docks are pretty much out of the question. Even then, its
| hit/miss with the latest 5.17+ kernels. The problem are so
| numerous that they aren't worth going over, but the end result is
| that for most people the only way to get it working (say with a
| couple monitors plugged into the TB4 dock) is to use the
| proprietary nvidia drivers. Which wouldn't be so bad, but that
| also means not having secure boot, and hibernate/standby/etc will
| also have issues.
|
| Bottom line, for linux unless you _REALLY_ need the nvidia get it
| without.
| gabereiser wrote:
| I find it rather peculiar that tech folks think a plastic laptop
| is good build quality considering what we have from Apple and
| others.
|
| I wish more linux laptops had the build quality and support of
| macbooks. This isn't a rant from an Apple fan, this is a rant
| from a laptop fan. ThinkPad's aren't good laptops despite what
| the guy with the pocket protector says. They are flimsy and feel
| cheap. They still have 20th century tech (eraser mouse, c'mon!).
| They are my grandfather's laptop.
| Markoff wrote:
| proper thinkpads have strenghtened construction with metal
| inside and plastic in general is better comfort wise regarding
| how hot it can get compared to better heat conducting metal
|
| They are in no way flimsy, you will much easier damage internal
| components of nany Mac over Thinkpad T series.
|
| but yes, they won't win any beauty contest - if you want
| reliable workhorse which is relatively ugly go for Thinkpad T
| series, if you want laptop for showing off go for Mac and other
| "brands"
| scrlk wrote:
| Re: "proper" ThinkPads - Lenovo has made a mess of the model
| line up and I don't think it's easy for the non-ThinkPad
| aficionado figure it out (e.g. T series being the entry point
| in to the classic magnesium alloy roll cage).
| Melatonic wrote:
| Yea this is true
|
| I still love the old style keyboards - have they ever made
| a modern one with it? Last one (which I own and use still)
| that I know of is the T420
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| > I wish more linux laptops had the build quality and support
| of macbooks.
|
| Have you considered Dell's XPS line[0] (or their business
| equivalent, the Precision 55XX/57XX line)?
|
| For a well-built notebook rivalling/exceeding the MacBook Pros,
| there's always the Precision 75XX/77XX line[1].
|
| The new Precisions announced just a week ago with Intel Alder
| Lake CPUs[2] now have 16:10 displays, OLED, but still retain
| 'modern' features (some I consider regressions, like moving
| from dedicated trackpad buttons to a 'clickpad'). These are the
| notebooks with the new 'CAMM' memory modules.
|
| Dell always has options for RHEL/Ubuntu from the factory, and
| these notebooks also run other distributions (I have a
| Precision 7560 running Windows 10/Arch) very well.
|
| [0]: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-
| notebo...
|
| [1]: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-laptops-and-
| notebo...
|
| [2]: https://www.windowscentral.com/dell-
| precision-7770-7670-anno...
| faeriechangling wrote:
| I make a distinction between "Plastic" and "Carbon Fibre
| Reinforced Polymer with a magnesium roll cage" that this laptop
| uses.
|
| We don't think an aluminium bike is better than a carbon fibre
| bike, so why is an aluminium laptop better than a carbon fibre
| laptop? I mean aluminium has some nice advantages like heat
| dissipation but CFRP allows for much lighter laptops. If
| anything I prefer CRFP because of the weight advantages and
| because it's more of a "sleeper" material when laptops are VERY
| tempting for thieves.
| 323 wrote:
| > _We don 't think an aluminium bike is better than a carbon
| fibre bike_
|
| Depends on how you define better. Carbon bikes are prone to
| catastrophic failure, and if you fall often are a bad idea.
| Of course, you might just say "just don't fall".
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Yes, honestly, a good aluminium frame is preferable to
| carbon for 90% of people. The small tradeoff in weight and
| vibration/stiffness characteristics is really not worth the
| loss in structural integrity, money, and peace of mind.
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| Modern carbon frames are designed with structural
| integrity in mind, the frame-building process allows more
| fine-tuning than aluminum. Aluminum's best quality is
| it's value, you can wreck one and buy another and still
| have spent less than a low-grade CF frame.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Not quite. Carbon fiber is a composite. Structural
| integrity is not one dimensional, and while carbon fiber
| frames are great in their intended loads, they are bad in
| puncture and abrasion, and that is inherent to carbon
| fiber.
|
| It is so much easier to wreck a carbon fiber frame than
| an alu frame. It just takes one pointy rock or one bad
| slide. Whereas an alu frame will only receive cosmetic
| damage
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| That's a nuanced point to draw, thank you; most of my
| wrecks have been head-on, or from the side.
|
| I can patch my fiber frame though, it's getting harder to
| "total" them nowadays imo. I've tried!
| [deleted]
| TAKEMYMONEY wrote:
| Aluminum bikes are just as prone to failure, and in fact
| are less likely to be left in a repairable state after an
| accident. A dent or a crack in the frame ofter renders it
| useless.
|
| True of carbon as well, but they can be repaired in some
| cases; aluminum frames almost always need to be scrapped.
| z2h-a6n wrote:
| Out of curiosity, do you have any sources with actual
| evidence that carbon fiber is prone to catastrophic failure
| in bike frames/components, particularly compared to
| aluminum? From my (rather limited) research, there seems to
| be plenty of speculation and anecdotes online about the
| fragility of CF, but not much actual evidence of rates of
| catastrophic failure. My impression (not based on expertise
| or much evidence) is that _properly designed_ CF is much
| stronger for a given weight than most metals, but can fail
| at relatively low loads if stressed in a way it wasn 't
| designed for. As it applies to biking, I guess this would
| tend to mean that CF bikes are more likely to be
| structurally damaged because of a crash/fall, but not
| necessarily more likely to fail and cause a crash/fall.
| This of course supports your point that CF is not a good
| choice for someone who falls often.
| 323 wrote:
| > _Now that use of the material, once reserved for high-
| end bikes, has become widespread in the bike industry,
| reports of accidents and mysterious failures are on the
| rise._
|
| > _Reed and other experts in carbon fiber agree that any
| material can fail. Wrecks happen from faulty aluminum,
| steel, and even rock-hard titanium. The difference with
| carbon fiber is that it can be difficult to detect signs
| of damage that might signal imminent failure. Cracks and
| dents in other materials are typically easy to see, but
| fissures in carbon fiber often hide beneath the paint.
| What's worse is that when carbon fiber fails, it fails
| spectacularly. While other materials might simply buckle
| or bend, carbon fiber can shatter into pieces, sending
| riders flying into the road or trail. And this kind of
| catastrophic destruction can happen to any part of a bike
| made with the material._
|
| > _"It's completely reasonable for someone who wants a
| lightweight bike to look at carbon fiber, but they need
| to understand the risks," Elrath says. "Absolutely this
| is getting ignored."_
|
| https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-gear/bikes-and-
| biking/...
|
| There are plenty of videos from competitions where the
| carbon suddenly fails. I've never seen that with aluminum
| bikes. Last three accidents from 4:15:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpeTiF_Tm04
|
| But going back, if one is not racing, is it really worth
| the extra risk for minor performance improvements? Some
| say that after any serious fall/crash a carbon
| frame/component should be replaced because it's difficult
| to assess if it was damaged or not. How many can afford
| that?
| golergka wrote:
| > why is an aluminium laptop better than a carbon fibre
| laptop?
|
| It looks nice.
|
| Which is completely subjective, of course, and purely about
| aesthetics. But for a personal item like a laptop, I think
| aesthetics are much more important than HN comments would let
| you believe.
| Steltek wrote:
| Re: bikes, I've found most CF frames lack fender/rack mounts.
| If you want utility (commuting, shopping, travel), aluminum
| is going to win out. For example, I can't think of a single
| CF cargo bike.
| steelframe wrote:
| My username may give this away, but after tens of thousands
| of miles ridden on a variety of frames, I've settled on
| chromoly steel as the most versatile material. In fact I
| just picked up another steel frame bike this past weekend
| with a rack for panniers and a fork that can fit gravel
| tires.
|
| Regardless I find it very strange to compare a laptop with
| a bicycle. You would pick the materials when constructing
| either one for very different reasons.
| ainiriand wrote:
| Aluminum for me is a big no-no considering that I always get
| static discharge from them.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| I also distinctly remember the unnerving feeling of getting
| a tingling sensation on my wrists when having a macboook
| pro charging connecting to mains.
|
| I have only used them when clients specifically request it,
| but otherwise connect them to a workstation of my choice.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Yeah I had that with MacBooks which are brand new.
|
| Feels like a static electrical layer. But after some time
| it's gone
| JetSetWilly wrote:
| It is because it is not grounded. The leakage current
| then goes into the case.
|
| Unfortunately it seems to be quite difficult to buy
| grounded usb-c chargers. Most of them seem to come with
| C7 cables with no ground.
| 323 wrote:
| Grounding doesn't make much sense for devices which are
| completely plastic encased.
|
| I get your point about "pass-through grounding" to the
| laptop, but then again, a lot of time the laptop is not
| connecting to a charging wire anyway.
| JetSetWilly wrote:
| The problem is - laptops used to have their own dedicated
| chargers. And generally speaking, they were grounded. Now
| we're moving to usb-c though, it means we've lost it
| being grounded. And many laptops are made of conductive
| materials so therefore it is an extremely minor annoyance
| and downside of usb-c.
|
| Also, I'm in the UK with its crap ring circuits packed
| with 240v/13amps. I'd rather have a ground when I'm one
| fault away from 3000 watts momentarily being delivered to
| my lap. Especially with these exciting new GaN chargers
| and their open circuit failure modes..
| 323 wrote:
| My understanding is that all chargers, GaN or not, are
| required to use a transformer to electrically separate
| the primary (wall input) from the secondary (charger
| output). So a fault directly connecting you to the wall
| circuit should not be possible with an authentic charger.
| XorNot wrote:
| Oh, I'm glad I'm not the only person who noticed this -
| several job laptops (macbooks) have definitely done this
| to me as well. It's subtle, like your wrist is sticky or
| being tapped rapidly, but the moment you yank the mains
| power out from the machine it goes away. Very unsettling
| (and escalates to painful at times).
| lloeki wrote:
| I used to experience this as well, on multiple MacBooks
| across years. It seems to have disappeared when I moved
| to a non-MagSafe USB-C charging generation of MacBooks
| (can't say for the latest ones though).
| uxcolumbo wrote:
| I've been a Thinkpad user for the last 15 years.
|
| The body is extremely sturdy along with the hinges.
|
| It's not plastic - it's magnesium alloy. They are not flimsy or
| cheap.
|
| Have you ever used a trackpoint? It's extremely ergonomic and
| much better than a trackpad. It requires a bit of time to get
| used to it - but it's totally worth the time investment.
|
| And please don't make comments like 'Grandfather's laptop'.
| Just because something is old doesn't mean it's not good.
|
| Look up Richard Sapper - the person who designed the IBM
| Thinkpad - a lot of brilliant design thinking went into this.
|
| If something is highly functional, durable and can be easily
| repaired - that's beautiful. Aesthetically the Thinkpads are
| beautiful as well - an understated beauty vs the 'look at me,
| look at me - I'm shiny and thin'.
| gabereiser wrote:
| I've used a thinkpad. My opinion still stands. Probably one
| of the worst laptops for ergonomics I've ever used.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| TrackPoints are a fantastic feature and are one of the most
| important criteria keeping me on ThinkPads.
|
| The casual dismissal of TrackPoints in the grandparent
| comment shows that the author has never tried one.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _The casual dismissal of TrackPoints in the grandparent
| comment shows that the author has never tried one._
|
| They're a great and innovative "backup" pointing device
| when one doesn't have access to a mouse or touchpad. They
| really don't compare to either of those more expressive and
| efficient options, though.
| gabereiser wrote:
| I've used them quite a bit. They were standard issue at a
| certain place named after a hat. It is NOT a fantastic
| feature to have your mouse move when you type which I found
| happened constantly when using a ThinkPad. 1) the eraser
| mouse "track point" was novel in 1994, not anymore. It's in
| the way.
|
| Likewise with the physical mouse buttons on the trackpad.
| It's 2022. We have touch screens with gestures and stuff.
| Why do I still have to use a physical button? Tap to click
| you say? Turning that on means being even in near-field
| proximity to the trackpad means it's a click, whether you
| wanted it to or not.
| uxcolumbo wrote:
| How did you use the trackpoint?
|
| Your fingers are not on the trackpoint when you type. The
| mouse pointer doesn't move when you use the keyboard.
|
| Also, the three trackpoint buttons are right under your
| thumb - your hand literally doesn't have to move away
| from the keyboard. No touch screen necessary. That would
| be even worse having to move from keyboard to screen.
|
| It really sounds like you've not used the trackpoint
| correctly.
|
| But it's great that there are options and it seems you've
| found what works for you.
| redundantly wrote:
| > The casual dismissal of TrackPoints in the grandparent
| comment shows that the author has never tried one.
|
| I've tried to use track points. A dozen or so times.
| Recently I got a new thinkpad from work and gave it another
| go, same result. I just don't like it.
|
| Granted, the trackpad on my thinkpad is also garbage. I
| prefer my external trackball mouse.
|
| Trackpoint fanatics don't seem to understand what works for
| them doesn't necessarily work for everyone. I find myself
| rolling my eyes a lot in threads like this.
| uxcolumbo wrote:
| There is a learning curve - it takes some time to get
| used to it.
|
| I had the same experience initially - uh, this is awkward
| to use - but I stuck with it and now can't go back.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| I don't know - I have a long history of ThinkPads (and
| adjacent devices, including some oddities like the WorkPad
| z50) and I cannot imagine wanting to go back to a
| TrackPoint after experiencing a high-quality touchpad.
| csdvrx wrote:
| > The bare minimum I can work
|
| Why not use both?
|
| For precision movements, I use the trackpoint with my
| index.
|
| For large movements or scrolling, I use the touchpad with
| one or both or my thumbs.
| capableweb wrote:
| I exclusively used MacBooks from 2012 to 2018 or something like
| that, before switching to a Carbon X1, and could never switch
| back. None of the laptops from Apple I had could actually be
| used from my lap, which is where I want to use my laptop,
| because of the heat coming from the bottom of the MacBooks. So
| I'm quite happy with plastic/softer materials rather than
| whatever metal material Apple uses.
| Avamander wrote:
| You're talking about Intel, of course laptops with those are
| unpleasant.
|
| You should try and compare a M1 Mac with your Carbon X1. Most
| likely yours runs much hotter.
| capableweb wrote:
| > You should try and compare a M1 Mac with your Carbon X1.
| Most likely yours runs much hotter.
|
| Unless I'm mistaken, the material of the M1 Macs seems to
| be the same as before? If the machine runs at 100% resource
| usage, does the underside of the body no longer get so hot
| you can't have it in your lap?
| Avamander wrote:
| > If the machine runs at 100% resource usage, does the
| underside of the body no longer get so hot you can't have
| it in your lap?
|
| Nope, never. That's not to say that if you run a Wii
| emulator for hours it doesn't get very warm, it's simply
| not intolerably hot. That's without fans. I'd expect a
| fan-equipped model to at most remain warm.
| capableweb wrote:
| > That's not to say that if you run a Wii emulator for
| hours it doesn't get very warm, it's simply not
| intolerably hot
|
| I've never run any emulators, I'm guessing they are about
| as resource-hungry as compiling things? Since laptops
| usually compile much slower than desktop computers, lots
| of time is spent compiling something when I use my
| laptops.
|
| > it's simply not intolerably hot
|
| I guess everyone's tolerance is different, but would you,
| while you run your Wii emulator, be able to have the
| laptop in your lap with just a thin garment between the
| laptop and your skin?
| Avamander wrote:
| > I'm guessing they are about as resource-hungry as
| compiling things?
|
| Pretty much, plus the GPU is in use.
|
| > Would you be able to have the laptop in your lap with
| just a thin garment between the laptop and your skin?
|
| Yes, that's what I originally meant as well. I'd prefer
| an actively cooled machine in such cases, obviously, but
| yes.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| The 2018 x1c vs the 2018 MacBook Air was somewhat a blowout.
| We're talking 14" vs 13" screen, lower weight vs higher
| weight, 4 core vs 2 core, reliable machine vs butterfly
| keyboard, essentially even battery life, displays, and
| speakers for the most part.
|
| You had to be REALLY attached to MacOS or the Apple ecosystem
| to seriously consider a MBA. When Apple m1 was released, the
| battery life and performance situation VERY much changed
| making Apples product very very competitive as a standalone
| product. You absolutely made the right choice in 2018, but
| the game has changed and Apple is back.
| xeornet wrote:
| Time to try the M1 chips!
| capableweb wrote:
| If they weren't so damn expensive I would have already!
| Also waiting for Asahi Linux to mature before I'd even
| consider it, really hard to abandon Linux ecosystem once
| you've gotten used to it. I would never be able to
| replicate the productivity and the UX of my desktop setup
| with macOS, so Linux support is a must for me at this
| point.
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| Someone on HN will be sure to remind that you're using
| macOS wrong.
| dehugger wrote:
| I think you just look for different features in a laptop then
| the Thinkpad crowd does. I love the track point, you get a
| mouse you never have to take your fingers off the keyboard to
| use.
|
| I've used a plethora of modern latoptops, and to this day my
| favorite laptop is an ancient x200. It has not trackpad, only a
| track point. I upgraded it to heck, with a new ips screen, ram,
| new wireless card, storage, etc. The keyboard is wonderful, the
| screen looks great, The foot print of the laptop is quite
| small. I only wish I could have that laptop with a modern
| processor, as that's where it's fallen behind.
|
| I've never enjoyed MacBook as much as that thing. I'm
| definitely not a granpa either.
| inawarminister wrote:
| Have you heard about the X210 project? Some enthusiasist in
| China modded a motherboard to replace X200/X201 with modern
| chipset and ability to run 4K screen:
|
| https://liliputing.com/2018/03/x210-mod-turns-classic-
| lenovo...
|
| (It was updated to use 10th gen Intel in 2019, I don't know
| if it runs the newest ones now though. Would really love if
| someone make a Ryzen part for it)
|
| But it's, of course, a mod rather than a finished product,
| so...
| RNAlfons wrote:
| Are you even aware that most of the people on this planet
| either can't afford Apple or just don't want to throw away so
| much money for fancy design quirks?
| jgaa wrote:
| What we have from Apple laptops, when it comes to the ThinkPad
| keyboard, is like comparing stone tablets with a 1980 IBM
| electric type writer ;)
| jen20 wrote:
| It's pretty unclear to me which is supposed to be which in
| this comparison after the ThinkPad switch to mushy chiclets
| in the early 2010s (limited run anniversary edition
| excepted).
| jgaa wrote:
| They used to be better, that is true. But any of my
| thinkpads have way better keyboards than any of my
| macbooks. I keep a X1 just as a typewriter.
| ajford wrote:
| The Thinkpad chiclets suck compared to the scissor switches
| of the earlier models, but compared to the soft putty that
| is Mac keyboards, they're still a winner.
|
| When I had to use a Macbook for work a few years back, I
| was unable to use the keyboard for more than 15-20 minutes
| without it flaring my RSI. That's compared to about an hour
| or so I can get on my Thinkpad.
| wakeupcall wrote:
| CF reinforced fiber is not cheap plastic by any margin.
|
| I've owned alu-slab macbooks (personal) and company-owned
| thinkpads for a long time.
|
| If you bump the macbook, you get a permanent ding. Nothing
| happens on the fiber for comparable force (unless you literally
| crack it).
|
| If you flex the notebook, the alu can be permanently deformed.
| The "cheapo plastic" will easily take a ton of torsional
| deformation without complaining.
|
| It's a very functional chassis in my eyes.
|
| And I love the boring look honestly. I'm kind of disappointed
| that recent models switched to a more grey-bluish look.
| avl999 wrote:
| Thinkpads work. They don't make user hostile choices like zero-
| upgradability and zero-repairablity, the touchbar, replacing
| the esc key with the touch bar 'key' (only to roll it back)
| like the the macbooks. They also don't make confusing usability
| decisions like the giant ass trackpad that routinely registers
| false positives as you type.
|
| I recently got an old refurbished Thinkpad T430 for casual use
| when I am not near my desktop and installed Debian + LXDE on
| it. T430s are models from 10 years ago and is more enjoyable to
| work on than the 2019 MacBook Pro provided by my employer that
| I have to use for work. The only way I can make the MacBook
| tolerable is by using it in clamshell mode connected to
| monitors + physical keyboard/mouse so I don't have to interact
| with the actual hardware. It takes off like a rocket engine and
| warms my side desk pretty well (not to mention physically hot
| to touch, can't even imagine using it on my "lap"), docker is
| crap on it, not to mention the cmd-ctrl nonsense in addition to
| the things mentioned earlier. I have already dropped my
| Thinkpad a couple of times in pretty bad falls as it has
| survived whereas I don't have the same level of confidence in
| the MacBook.
| PetitPrince wrote:
| > They don't make user hostile choice like [...] the touch
| bar
|
| This is false.
|
| This monstrosity first appeared on the X1 Carbon 2nd gen
| (along with the loss of our beloved dedicated trackpoint
| buttons), and the backlash was so big that they reinstated
| all the buttons for the next generation.
| gabereiser wrote:
| Correct. I would lump 'erratic trackpad clicking' to its
| list of hostile user behaviors. The hardware inside the
| laptop on the board is nice. It's the peripherals and body
| that make me feel like I'm working for IBM in 1996. Small
| changes in the design won't make up for an outdated design.
|
| Also, outside of SDD or RAM, what else are you upgrading?
| Does it even need to have that capability considering how
| often you do? Would you rather have better parts that won't
| fail so easily in a slimmer, sleeker, design than one that
| sacrifices weight and size to allow you to maybe have the
| choice?
|
| I like right to repair. I like being able to upgrade
| something. The frequency of which I upgrade my ram and sdd
| is about as frequently as I'll need a new motherboard
| anyway as my board is outdated 4x cycles.
| scrlk wrote:
| I will never understand the fetishisation of metal as a
| "premium" feeling material - if anything, it's impractical for
| a laptop. (conducts heat so can be uncomfortable to use on your
| lap if the thermal solution is poorly designed; dents/bends
| when dropped; probably harder for RF/antenna design...)
|
| It's the same reason why phones turned in to "premium" glass
| and metal sandwiches that people immediately slap in to a cheap
| plastic case because the "premium" design is simply too thin
| and slippery to use.
|
| Samsung was rightly nailed in the 2010s for producing horrible
| plastic phones, but Nokia's use of quality polycarbonate in
| their Lumias were ignored.
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| > It's the same reason why phones turned in to "premium"
| glass and metal sandwiches that people immediately slap in to
| a cheap plastic case because the "premium" design is simply
| too thin and slippery to use.
|
| People slap phones in to cheap plastic case to prevent
| scratches, or to make phones balanced in case of a camera
| sticking out of the back.
| selimnairb wrote:
| Plastic is made from oil, and has limited recyclability (the
| polymers degrade so at best you only down cycle). Aluminum is
| one of the most abundant materials in the earth's crust, and
| once refined is basically infinitely recyclable (or so the
| story goes). Aluminum is also reasonable light and strong,
| with good thermal properties (if your laptop chassis gets too
| hot, it has other design issues at this point IMO).
| gtirloni wrote:
| Producing Aluminum requires huge amounts of energy, which
| might not come from renewable sources. Always look the at
| complete manufacturing chain.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| alluminium doesn't grow on trees either.
|
| plastic can be (almost) infinitely recycled for industrial
| use, it's food use that has limited recyclability.
|
| also: Macs are very hard to upgrade (sometimes it's
| impossible to) and become e-trash in a couple of years,
| while these "plastic" laptops can last a decade before
| being discarded as junk.
| Bud wrote:
| This is not even close to correct. The vast majority of
| plastics can't even be truly recycled once. Not back into
| their original form, anyway.
|
| Saying Macs become "e-trash in a couple years" is
| similarly way way off the mark. Expected life for many
| Macs is a decade or more. I have one that is from 1984
| that still works perfectly. After that, much of the
| machine is fully recyclable, and the case is 100%
| recyclable.
| redundantly wrote:
| Your comment is so incredibly divorced from reality.
|
| Plastic doesn't grow on trees either. Its production has
| huge impacts on the environment.
|
| Aluminum is highly and easily recyclable. In fact Apple
| makes their MacBook enclosures from 100% recycled
| aluminum. No other computer manufacturer can make the
| same claim regarding the production of their plastic body
| notebooks.
|
| The idea that plastic can be infinitely recycled is just
| that: an idea. The infrastructure for recycling plastic
| is far more complex than recycling aluminum, as well as
| essentially non-existent.
|
| Apple computers have a history of having high resell
| values and long lifespans. You can see the evidence of
| that just by looking at eBay. And when they do eventually
| get tossed out that aluminum body can actually be
| recycled, where the same claim for plastic bodied
| notebooks cannot be factually made.
| lloeki wrote:
| > become e-trash in a couple of years, while these
| "plastic" laptops can last a decade before being
| discarded as junk.
|
| My experiences different, I'd still be rocking a 2014 MBP
| had it not suffered massive liquid damage. All Macs and
| MacBooks I or relatives have crossed or are going to
| cross the decade threshold with aplomb.
| yencabulator wrote:
| > a 2014 MBP
|
| Great example. macOS Monterey minimum requirements:
| "MacBook Pro: Early 2015 and newer"
|
| So Apple forces that device to be e-trash, regardless of
| your desires.
| Ourgon wrote:
| While I agree to most of the glued/soldered/planned
| obsolescence criticisms related to applethings I do feel
| the need to point out those "obsolete" macthings tend to
| run Linux just fine. I should know, writing this on a
| 'late 2009 27" iMac' which I got for free due to its
| video card being broken (which it is no longer, 8 minutes
| in the oven at 195degC is all it takes) running Debian.
| While it is also possible to get more recent versions of
| macOS to run on these things this is not nearly as easy
| nor useful as running Linux which just supports the
| hardware without any qualms. Apple does not want you to
| use older hardware so they don't build macOS for machines
| which are perfectly capable of running it. Installing
| unsupported versions is made possible by monkey-patching
| the release in a rather hit-and-miss fashion, often
| leaving parts of the hardware (bluetooth, sound, wifi)
| without or with sub-standard support. All this while
| Linux runs flawlessly on the same hardware.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > All Macs and MacBooks I or relatives have crossed or
| are going to cross the decade threshold with aplomb.
|
| I too own a couple of 10+ years old Mac laptops.
|
| They are perfect as doorstop.
|
| Once the RAM is soldiered or one of the main components
| gets out of production it's all about luck
|
| while it is simply a matter of repairing it or upgrading
| it in the case of an actually repairable "plastic" one.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| I worked for Nokia. The Lumias had great hardware. And even
| Windows Phone wasn't that bad. If they'd bothered doubling
| down on Meego just when Google was still struggling with
| making Android usable, fast, and not an enormous mess, they
| would have had a chance. Instead they dumped it in favor of
| Symbian and later Windows Phone. MS bought the remains of
| Nokia, mismanaged it, and then cancelled the whole thing.
| doctor_lollipop wrote:
| I'm still using my N9, great little phone...
| ankurdhama wrote:
| Why do you need such a build quality? Do you toss around your
| laptops? Do you keep dropping your laptop? My question is what
| is the use of such a build quality (apart from the very
| subjective - "it feels good")
| jen20 wrote:
| > Do you toss around your laptops?
|
| Yes.
|
| > Do you keep dropping your laptop?
|
| Yes.
|
| > My question is what is the use of such a build quality
|
| Travel. As a former on-the-road consultant my laptops have
| taken all kinds of beatings - spills, inconsiderate
| recliners, drops etc. A (small) part of my preference for
| Apple machines is that they can be replaced with something
| basically identical almost anywhere in the world almost
| immediately by visiting either a first or third party store
| when something bad happens. Even commercial warranties with
| on-site support don't get that good.
| faeriechangling wrote:
| I absolutely do those things all the time as somebody who is
| naturally clumsy and a heavy mobility user. A laptop that can
| survive some light abuse, which both MacBooks and Thinkpad's
| can is an absolute requirement for me.
|
| I can't tell you how many times in my life I've seen a laptop
| come crashing to the ground. For somebody like me MagSafe is
| an actual competitive advantage because of the multiple
| laptop charging ports I've destroyed by tripping over the
| cord accidentally. I am not alone.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| I got a USB-C magnetic adapter/interposer from eBay for my
| laptop. It's pretty handy, and it means I can still unplug
| the USB-C supply from the adapter and charge my phone if I
| need to.
|
| And I also like the right angle nature of the thing because
| of my my desk works.
| Klonoar wrote:
| Why would you _not care_ about build quality? You only live
| once, there 's no sense in owning something subpar.
| shasts wrote:
| Live in a cold country. Hesitant to touch an aluminium laptop.
| Static electricity and cold metal.
| abledon wrote:
| prediction: 2025 will be the start of significant visible
| market adoption of "Asahi Linux" on Mac.
| jason0597 wrote:
| If you've ever taken apart a ThinkPad, you would notice that
| inside is a _metal_ frame to support the entire laptop body. It
| 's not plastic. Plus, this ThinkPad (and the newer ThinkPads in
| general) have a metal exterior
| gabereiser wrote:
| All plastic laptop bodies have a metal frame which tells you
| how much they have faith in their body construction.
| jason0597 wrote:
| By that logic, civil engineers show how little faith they
| have in their buildings by having a reinforced concrete
| support and glass/steel frames around them
| gabereiser wrote:
| Not the buildings, they have little faith in the
| structural strength of poured concrete which is why they
| use rebar. It increases the strength to tolerable levels
| so they can build what they want to build. So yeah. Civil
| engineers know the properties of the materials they work
| with. So should hardware engineers. I'm aware they all
| have metal frames. I'm also aware that some aluminum
| laptops incorporate the frame into the lattice structure
| the motherboard sits on. I like when engineers find ways
| of using the materials to their strengths (aluminum
| laptop) vs having to strengthen (plastic) or support
| (carbon fiber).
| pmontra wrote:
| I'm writing this on a plastic laptop that I've been using as my
| only machine since 2014. Anecdotally its build should be that
| bad if it's still good to let me pay my bills. Of course it's
| not in the $300-400 range and its upgradeability made the
| difference. I would have replaced it a couple of times if I
| couldn't have added extra RAM and swapped the HDD and DVD for 2
| SSDs or replaced the keyboard every time my fingers ended up
| wearing it. That would have been a waste of money and that's
| more build quality than plastic vs metal.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Same, I bought mine for 600 euros in 2014, still running fine
| with additional 4GB and a SSB but I had to drill the plastic
| chassis and put three small bolts to keep the hinge and the
| chassis together. Just like the previous one. I am planning
| keep it for another ten years but still if I ever buy another
| ruggedness of the chassis will be absolute priority.
| unmole wrote:
| What I find peculiar is the fetishization of metal for laptops
| and phones. I hate how a cold slab of metal feels in my hand. I
| hate how the aluminium framed laptops radiate heat and make it
| impossible to actually use them on my lap.
| bengale wrote:
| This isn't really an issue with M1 Macbooks now. But I did
| used to hate how hot my Intel Macbook got.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| Just for comparison consider fishing rods:
|
| - cheap: plastic
|
| - decent: aluminium
|
| - better: magnesium, carbon,...
|
| > they feel cheap
|
| You mean they don't feel heavy. Some people confuse that for
| cheap. Similarly macs look like good engineering, but ...
| oldgradstudent wrote:
| > You mean they don't feel heavy.
|
| No. The 2011 MacBook Air was light but rigid. It is still
| used by my parents 11 years later.
|
| The hinge is still perfect.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| > but rigid.
|
| Again _feels_ rigid, but .... You can actually step on a
| thinkpad, but just google "macbook air bend". The MacBook
| Air is still a great laptop, but if you think it is more
| rigid than the competition, no it just might _feel_ that
| way.
| everdrive wrote:
| Plastic is often a better material for laptops:
|
| - It's light
|
| - It's a bit more durable (or perhaps forgiving) when it comes
| to drops and dents
|
| - It's less expensive
|
| - If the laptop is built properly (not always a guarantee) it's
| just a sturdy
| gabereiser wrote:
| Your first argument maybe is true but in the overall
| comparisons these laptops are heavier.
|
| Forgiving for drops and dents? Yeah, I'll give you that.
| Carbon fiber is durable, not scratch proof though.
|
| Less expensive, yes, and you get those discounts bleeding
| into the components they use and the specs. Spec a high end
| Dev machine and compare with MacBook offering and it's not
| even close. System76 is getting there, but they still use
| plastics too.
|
| Build quality, I completely agree with this. The problem is
| production quality isn't guaranteed and I had more issues
| with PC laptops (Dell, HP, Lenovo) than I have with my
| MacBooks (2008, 2012, 2014, 2020 M1).
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| > Your first argument maybe is true but in the overall
| comparisons these laptops are heavier.
|
| No?
|
| X1 Nano: 907g
|
| Macbook Air 13: 1290g
|
| So just 70% percent of the weight.
|
| X1 Carbon: 1120g
|
| Macbook Pro 14: 1600g
|
| Again 70%.
|
| So they are _much_ lighter, not just a little.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| I've accidentally dropped both my Thinkpad and my MacBook Pro
| multiple times. Only my MacBook still boots
| howinteresting wrote:
| Aluminum sucks if you're on AC power that isn't properly
| grounded, as others have pointed out. I personally prefer
| laptops with carbon fiber for that reason.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Dropping a macbook on its stupid metal corner will total it. No
| thanks.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| "Eraser mouse" cmon? That's one of the reasons why I (and as
| I've seen many others) prefer thinkpads. Trackpoint, good
| keyboard, good linux compatibility, upgradeable.
|
| Despide some Lenovo BS plays on firmware etc a thinkpad is
| still, in the age of making everything fancy looks over
| functionality, a thinkpad. A reliable product.
|
| I've been trying to find a substitute for years. I can't find
| one. Macbooks are (generally) good products, but they don't
| have trackpoints, I don't like their keyboards, linux
| compatibility is not where I like it to be, and definitely not
| upgradeable.
| sascha_sl wrote:
| I switched from a Legion 5 (plastic housing) to a Legion 7
| (same design, but aluminum) and the only noticable difference
| is that the plastic is much better at keeping ambient
| temperature. When off, the 7 feels noticably colder and when
| on, it feels hotter.
| Ourgon wrote:
| > I wish more linux laptops had the build quality and support
| of macbooks
|
| I'm glad my "Linux laptops" are very much not like those
| macbooks with their glue and solder and "no user-serviceable
| parts inside (and we really mean it)"
|
| > This isn't a rant from an Apple fan, this is a rant from a
| laptop fan. ThinkPad's aren't good laptops despite what the guy
| with the pocket protector says. They are flimsy and feel cheap.
| They still have 20th century tech (eraser mouse, c'mon!). They
| are my grandfather's laptop.
|
| The good thing with those machines is that you'll be able to
| keep on using your grandfather's laptop while those whose
| grandfathers opted for macbooks are left wanting. I'm using a
| T42p from 2005, apart from putting in an SSD I have not changed
| the thing. It was, and still is, a perfectly useable tool.
| OJFord wrote:
| Funnily enough the Framework laptop is nothing like 'glue and
| solder' (it's designed for repair and upgrade, with extremely
| well thought out captive screws and magnets) but does have I
| would say 'the build quality and support of Apple laptops'.
|
| Support even better in a way, since they'll just ship you a
| replacement part rather than charge you through the nose for
| 'Framework Care' only to tell you it's old and needs
| replacing, can trade in if you want or send it off for weeks
| to have a 'refurbished' (not new) part fitted.
| tim-- wrote:
| I recently acquired a ThinkBook 16p Gen 2, and while a different
| machine entirely to the ThinkPad, I must say that this is an
| _absolute beast_ of a machine. It's a total joy to use.
|
| It's the most fun I have had using a laptop since my first
| MacBook. Moving from the MBP to the ThinkBook has made me realize
| how... boring MacBooks are - not saying that's a bad thing.
| MacBooks do 'just work'.
|
| But the ThinkBook? The machine is fantastic. Sure, it has some
| soldered on RAM, but half of it is upgrade-able. The disk is a
| standard M.2 drive - easily replaced. It blows the M1 MacBook I
| use for work out of the water in almost every single number,
| except battery life. It was $100 more than a MacBook.
|
| It's got double the RAM (16GB vs 8GB on the Mac), double the
| storage (1TB vs. 512GB), the NVidia 3060 seems to work a little
| better with OpenGL apps then the M1's GPU. More importantly, you
| can use two 4k monitors at the same time -which is impossible
| with the M1 MacBook Pro.
|
| The Windows install was vanilla - not really anything additional
| installed. Maybe a Lenovo support app? Easy to remove from the
| control panel. Pretty much everything with the Lenovo machine was
| supported without too much fiddling around after installing Arch
| Linux.
| Avamander wrote:
| You have no issues with thermal throttling or inane power
| limits on Linux?
|
| Which kernel version are you running?
| dotancohen wrote:
| From June last year until February this year, I was running
| the stock Kubuntu 20.04 kernel on a ThinkPad T14 with no
| thermal throttling or power limits. I would often have a few
| Docker containers running, a JetBrains editor (Java,
| shudder), Firefox with some addons and well over 100 open
| tabs, Chrome with the devtools open, MS Teams, Thunderbird,
| and some smaller apps such as Keepass, Telegram, Anki, a
| dozen terminals, and Emacs running. Never had a problem with
| memory (I think only 8 GiB, actually) or CPU (I don't even
| remember which Intel CPU it had). It was also connected to a
| docking station with two external monitors and an external
| keyboard.
|
| It was the smoothest Laptop I've ever used with Linux, which
| I've been doing since 2008. Everything worked out of the box,
| including external displays, wifi, printing. I'm sure that a
| major portion of that experience was using a Kubuntu LTS
| release.
| Avamander wrote:
| > RAM (I think only 8 GiB, actually) or CPU (I don't even
| remember which Intel CPU it had
|
| Sounds like you had one of the cheaper T14's, it's likely
| you didn't run into any power limits due to that. 1080p
| screen as well, I presume?
|
| Kubuntu 20.04 and its kernel version certainly throttle
| power on the higher-end T14's I've seen. If that's lifted
| then they throttle thermally, unless you manually force
| both cooling and power limits higher. Windows handles it
| all tad better, but the battery life is nothing to be
| amazed of.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I do believe that is was a 1080 screen. I almost never
| used it without an auxiliary monitor (mostly two aux
| monitors), I would have been just as happy with a
| desktop. Alas, the company only provided laptops.
| tim-- wrote:
| Not that I have noticed. Currently running 5.17.3-arch1-1.
|
| I don't usually push this machine too hard - maybe the most
| that I do is recompiling ffmpeg a few times a day, so it
| might just be a result of my usage patterns? I'll get back to
| you with more solid figures later tonight.
|
| EDIT: Just had a play around with sysbench running a few
| prime number tests while compiling a kernel or two. The
| k10temp-pci-00c3 (CPU temperature under lm_sensors) seems to
| stick around at a crispy +64.1degC for a good few minutes,
| before rising to +65.6degC. It seems to drop back down to
| +64.2degC. The fan is pretty noisy. The CPU drops down to
| +50.0degC within 60 seconds of the sysbench benchmark
| stopping, and the fan noise is completely gone after 90
| seconds. Temp is +36.9degC. Idle temp looks like it's around
| +34.4degC. Not sure how I can measure the db level of the
| fans? I do have a recorder, so I might be able to do it that
| way.
|
| Not sure what a good way to actually benchmark the machine
| would be - it hasn't really come up as a necessity. Maybe I
| can use the Phoronix Test Suite?
|
| EDIT 2: Doing some searching, maybe I got the machine just in
| time? 5.17 looks like it added some code specifically around
| P-states for Linux.
| https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_5.17#New_P-
| State_driver_for_... ... Someone else with my exact same
| kernel version reports AMD issues being fixed in Arch that
| they previously had. https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comme
| nts/u7kwza/recent_ar...
| Avamander wrote:
| > maybe the most that I do is recompiling ffmpeg a few
| times a day, so it might just be a result of my usage
| patterns?
|
| Maybe. If you compile in short bursts it's probably not
| going to affect you as much. With 4K screens and compiling
| a tiny bit of Rust, it starts being noticeable rather
| quick.
|
| I did notice that newer kernel versions do behave a bit
| better, but still require a bit of help to keep consistent
| performance plugged in.
| schroeding wrote:
| Regarding the edit, that would make sense. I have the same
| laptop and first tried to run Ubuntu LTS, had some problems
| with the thermals, even though it was definitely usable.
|
| Tried Arch (with the 5.17 kernel, from Ubuntu LTS's 5.4
| kernel) and the thermals were more or less identical to
| Windows, including the fan behavior.
|
| It's a really nice little machine! :D
| wlesieutre wrote:
| You could do 2x 4K displays with compression over a DisplayLink
| dock. Probably fine for UI stuff, maybe for video, not great
| for gaming.
|
| The newer 14" and 16" models would drive them natively (or 2x
| 6K + 1x 4K with the higher end SoC) but then it's not much of a
| fair comparison by price. The single external display limit is
| only on the basic "M1" processor and not any of the
| Pro/Max/Ultra followups.
|
| https://danielcompton.net/apple-m1-displaylink-multiple-disp...
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| The latency on DisplayLink drives me crazy. Completely
| unusable for me, unfortunately, it's become difficult to find
| docks which don't use DisplayLink :/
| acomjean wrote:
| Display link as far as I can tell is a weak video card on a
| usb connector. Does anyone else make something like that?
|
| I used one with a white plastic MacBook to get 2 displays.
| I have a new on for my Linux notebook. It works well, but
| there is a little latency. For writing code/ web browsing
| it's fine for me.
| shmoogy wrote:
| Have you tried it on m1? I'm running a 4k at 60hz and
| 3440x1440 at 75hz and they are fine - I don't think I
| notice any latency issues at all
| mciancia wrote:
| Displaylink and/or macOS does not support scaling on hidpi
| displays for some reason so it's not a good alternative :(
| stuff4ben wrote:
| Not surprised your ThinkBook is beating the M1 MacBook since
| you crippled the Mac with 8GB of RAM.
| dtjb wrote:
| A 'Pro' device shouldn't be sold with crippled specs.
| stuff4ben wrote:
| That's absolutely true. I'd say it's a marketing failure on
| Apple's part.
| anuragsoni wrote:
| Macbook Air has never been marketed/sold as a 'Pro' device.
| There is the Macbook Pro line for that.
| tim-- wrote:
| I am comparing this to a MacBook Pro. Edit: Admittedly
| the 8GB 2020 model, but still.
| skoskie wrote:
| I also thought you were talking about the Air and had
| made a mistake when you said "pro". I just totally forgot
| about that model until you doubled down.
| tim-- wrote:
| I don't want to sound too snarky, but I don't think you got
| the point of my post.
|
| I love the M1, it's a great work machine, I have very few
| complaints about it. I hardly ever hit 100% memory usage, and
| if I do - it's thanks to either
| Chrome/Spotify/Teams/Slack/Discord.
|
| I think - and this might be a bit controversial - the
| ThinkBook is better... because it is. The M1 is a great chip,
| awesome thermals (no fan!), but the laptop booted into
| Windows is faster.
|
| Hey, maybe it's the memory, who knows! It doesn't swap, so I
| don't think it is.
|
| You can read my parent post for my reasons. You can't quite
| run Windows or a stable Linux on a MacBook now, can you?
| Can't quite remove a 4GB stick and replace it with a 32GB
| stick, right?
| stuff4ben wrote:
| To each their own. I'd have spec'ed that MacBook Pro out to
| 16GB though. I don't do Windows and I have on-prem cloud
| VMs (config'd for 32GB) for Linux. I don't need a Linux
| desktop (shudder!) either. I'm sure your THinkBook is
| great, but I prefer the Apple ecosystem and the "shit just
| works" of my Mac (although I'm still on an i9).
| phyalow wrote:
| 100% my flow too after a lot of experimentation. I have
| had several clunker lenovo machines and have run linux as
| a daily driver on and off for several years (I always
| wanted it to work, it was just infuriating with random
| glitches and the verbosity required to get a sane setup
| stable).
|
| M1 MacBooks are legit, the Pro is the best machine I have
| ever owned by a long shot (several X1's, T Series etc)
| the screens are beautiful and I can get on and do
| whatever I need without worrying about glitches. I run
| commodity cloud linux VM's on things I need to
| deploy/monitor, its FAR easier (imo) to write the
| software on my Mac and then move it out.
| neither_color wrote:
| >you can use two 4k monitors at the same time -which is
| impossible with the M1 MacBook Pro
|
| I have two 4K monitors hooked up to a 14" macbook pro
| currently. I believe it's the air that only connects to one
| external display.
| vially wrote:
| According to the official documentation [1], the 13" M1
| MacBook Pro also has this limitation: > If
| you're using a Mac with the M1 chip: > > On
| iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Air, and 13-inch MacBook Pro, you can
| connect one external display using either of the Thunderbolt
| / USB 4 ports.
|
| [1] - https://support.apple.com/en-afri/HT202351
| panda88888 wrote:
| Well, the 13" M1 MacBook Pro is basically the Air with a
| fan and more ports?
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| To be fair, several of my work laptops had a similar
| sentence in their user handbook, but two monitors were
| possible if you connected the wires before booting the
| laptop.
|
| Really strange limitation, as it never scaled with
| bandwidth - so 4k 90+Hz was doable, but 2x 1080p60hz
| wasn't.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| ok so how is the battery life though?
| tim-- wrote:
| Not amazing, not bad. Probably around 5-6 hours using
| intellij and Chrome.
| [deleted]
| schipplock wrote:
| > Display: 15.6" FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS
|
| ugh :(
| ge96 wrote:
| Yeah I feel the same. I'd be okay with it on a 13" device
| sgt wrote:
| Agreed. This is a great computer, if the year was 2012.
|
| I guess us Apple folks just got spoiled down the line.
|
| But knowing that there is at least a somewhat of a good Linux
| laptop option out there is nice to know, I guess.
| shmde wrote:
| Whats wrong with 15.6" FHD IPS displays ? I thought the optimum
| display chart looked something like FHD 1080P till 24", 2k
| resolution from 27"-32", and 4K for anything bigger than 32". I
| have a 24" FHD monitor, unless I look too closely and focus on
| the screen during coding I don't usually see any pixels. Hating
| on a FHD 15.6" sounds like a first world problem to me :P
| zozbot234 wrote:
| FHD displays need pixel perfect rendering to look really good
| and sharp. People who buy 1440p or 4k displays are ultimately
| compensating for a poor quality rendering pipeline (a very
| real issue on MacOS) that just blurs everything to near-
| unreadability.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| In my opinion anything higher resolution on a screen that size
| is just wasted GPU power. The author mainly uses the laptop on
| a stand, attached to a monitor, from what I can tell from the
| pictures so they're likely even further away from the screen
| than normal laptop users.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I have approximately 0.75 / 0.50 diopter, which is fairly
| mild for age 40. I agree that I feel anything above 1080P
| resolution for laptop screen is wasted GPU _and_ wasted
| battery. It feels like a race between battery improvement and
| hungrier resolutions that 's not working out in my favour :-/
| szines wrote:
| Trackpad is one of the most important features of a notebook.
| There is only one brand provides great trackpad. You know the
| answer.
| dewey wrote:
| I agree but most developers I know use a laptop purely as a
| desktop machine with a mouse / external trackpad and keyboard
| attached to it. It might not be as big of a selling point as
| you make it to be for many people.
| spaniard89277 wrote:
| I prefer the trackpoint honestly. I get many people don't like
| it, but for me the trackpad is a nuisance and I have it
| disabled.
|
| The reason is that I almost never use my laptop on a table, and
| the trackpoint makes it more comfortable, as you don't have to
| move your hand between the keyboard and down so much.
|
| I guess is an adquired taste, but it's one of these things that
| keep me in thinkpads.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Agreed, the only good trackpad is the one by that company that
| can simulate different materials, touch depths and types of
| resistance through ultrasound. The trackpad themselves are tiny
| and super expensive, but it's the best trackpad you can
| possibly buy.
|
| Unless you mean Apple. I don't get the obsession with Apple's
| trackpads. My experience with them hasn't been great. They do
| integrate very nicely with the OS and they are pretty nice and
| big, but I don't really see or feel the difference between a
| Thinkpad or a Probook with Windows precision drivers and a
| Macbook.
| [deleted]
| boomskats wrote:
| Am I the only one who managed to get a P1 with a 4k OLED screen +
| an intel-only GPU?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-05-02 23:02 UTC)