I give more weight to reviewers that have used a product for an extended time but many sadly don’t.
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a stepping stone to full touch-screen models; no keys, no mechanisms, no nooks and crannies, just a solid screen that displays virtual buttons.
Can Apple be this dumb? Would they actually do this?
In fairness to the registry, while large parts of it are a huge pain in the ass because they were clearly never meant to be read by humans, architecturally it’s no more obnoxious than a bunch of binary plists scattered around(non-binary plists get slightly more credit because they can be inspected with text tools without conversion; let us not speak of netinfo databases).
In any system; unless the storage mechanism chosen is almost autoparodically braindead, where things get ugly isn’t the mechanism used to store a bunch of keys and values, typically in conceptually separated or program/component-specific groups; but in what gets stored there.
On the sane minimalist end you have systems built under the assumption that the administrator may actually read or change any relevant setting; and those tend toward correspondingly short and documented bodies of configuration data, however stored. On the other sides you have those who have started down the rabbit hole of tottering heaps of brittle automagic; and those tend to be crusted in heaps of configuration data that would be inscrutable in any format.
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Back in the early 2000s I worked for a Mac based software house and I got the impression the rabid mac users working there had a special kinda of corporate masochism. Everybody had to get the latest laptop but that model had some weird overheating problems and so many of them had bought fans to point at their latptops while touting their reliability.
I worked there for 4 years and still never got into the whole apple lifestyle.
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architecturally it’s no more obnoxious than a bunch of binary plists scattered around
It kinda is, though, because Registry cruft produces meaningful slowdowns for Windows, but scattered tiny files are basically inert aside from the minute disk cost.
I’m saying settings, menus or software features you’re looking for to accomplish something specific, or trouble shoot a particular issue. Aren’t there at all. Are buried. Require administrator access you thought you already had or set up before you started, that turns out to be complicated to actually give yourself. And on more than one occasion turn out to only be accessible to Apple’s own techs. The OS is opaque enough below the surface that you may not even be able to establish what’s actually wrong. I’ve had more than a few problems that were labeled “unfixable” even by Apple (they recommended replacing that editing station).
And I’m not talking extreme problems either. But routine things to fix. Like why do cuing controls for cameras and decks not work on this one station? Or why won’t this laptop connect to the internet?
Wait are you talking about a clean install of the OS? Not uninstalling and reinstalling software on the system, like drivers and programs?
Because for one I have had to do that on a Mac a few times. See also the editing station that wouldn’t properly cue decks and cameras among other (in the end it wasn’t “required” because the issue came back, and we gave up). And regardless of operating system routine maintenance blow outs every so often have been a regular thing for ever.
And for two. On no planet has that ever been the “usual” way to fix things on Windows. It was and is a last resort for borked systems (and again one I’ve had to resort to on Apple products).
Registry issues have largely been tamped down. I’m sure its still a mess in there, technically. But you don’t see the sort of boggy, conflicty registry shit shows you did back in the day. And its a lot less mind mending to fiddle with it now a days. I think I’ve messed with my registry maybe 2 or 3 times in the last 10-ish years. And not for serious conflicts, just because it was a smoother or more complete way to fix something. And I think once to cheat/hack a video game (single player of course) or something.
We’ll put it this way. The computer I am typing on has not seen a full wipe and clean. Since I built it in 2014. It started as a Windows 7 install, and has been running the same Windows 10 install since they released the free upgrades. The previous box saw one maintenance wipe after I upgraded it to Windows 7. And that was it. Its not “every six months to one year on Windows” any more. And it shouldn’t ever be the “default” solution to anything.
I will say that Re: Dad’s Dell laptop. An awful lot of Dell bugs do seem to result in that as the only solution. Or even the first recommended step in fixing something. We learned that the hard way. But the’re often really weird, and mostly Dell specific issues.
Its possible that what you’re dealing with isn’t a Dell issue. Outlook is kind of a piece of shit. But I’ve not heard this from anyone else I know who’s compelled to use it. Yes I hear it crashes a lot, but I haven’t heard that a clean OS install is the default response, or fixes it (and clearly its not fixing it). So baring current run Dells being what they are. There is likely some other fix you haven’t run into. Or it might be that the clean installs are doing anything at all, and Outlook is just a piece of shit.
I’d trade a mm or 2 of thickness for a longer battery life in an iPhone.
Er… Windows has had the option to do this type of “repair” install since XP, at least I don’t recall it in previous iterations, but I also never used any of the Server versions. In Win10, you can do a traditional “repair” install or a more-rigorous “refresh”/“reset” install, which keeps data but not installed programs. In other words, a reasonably good equivalent to reinstalling Windows without reformatting. It’s also useful that you can do the “refresh” install without any additional media, as long as your system still boots to the OS.
Normally, I’d recommend BOTH the MacOS and PC users wanting/needing a fresh install to do it completely from scratch, preferably on newly formatted mass media as well, but please don’t pretend this is some innovation by Apple ^^'.
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Depends what you’re used to, I find OSX a right pain to do anything in, because it doesn’t do anything in the way I expect a ‘normal’ OS to do so.
It isn’t that I only use Windows either, most linux distros are different, but still do things the ‘right way’ from my point of view.
Still, none of them are a patch on Workbench.
Well, from what I have seen, the keyboard issues are not more common that what they have been since my Commodore 64 days, really. It’s just that there are more of us out there with megaphones, and a willingness to grouse loudly. Grousing is fun, and makes you look cool.
I’m sticking to the Mac lifestyle, mainly because Apple has all of the yummy crunchy Unix goodness with Adobe brand mineral supplements. And as I have been using Macs since 1984, I find it ironic that it now does the command line stuff better than Microsoft’s OS does.
I live in a country away from the reaches of Apple. If I get a new Macbook Pro thanks to somebody who travels and brings it to me, how am I going to replace it, should my keyboard go awry?
This particular issue is holding me back on a new purchase. I don’t wanna leave OSX, but I can’t upgrade my hardware if it’s so unreliable.
I’m saying settings, menus or software features you’re looking for to accomplish something specific, or trouble shoot a particular issue. Aren’t there at all. Are buried.
Reading further, I think you may have found yourself in a place where you wanted more direct hardware control. I’ve literally never had this issue with the software side of things in MacOS, and I’ve been using it and writing for it since 2001.
If you find yourself with some chipset incompatibility with a peripheral, yeah, you might be better off in Windows where there’s more variety for that sort of thing. But that’s a corner case for sure.
Because for one I have had to do that on a Mac a few times.
If you’re sure that was the right and only path, obviously a stranger on the Internet isn’t going to convince you otherwise, but I have literally never encountered an OS X / MacOS problem that required the sort of wipe and reinstall that is so common in Windows.
OTOH, I’ve absolutely run into people who do this on the Mac because they always had to do it on Windows, and they figure that’s just how computers work. (I don’t think this is you, fwiw.)
And for two. On no planet has that ever been the “usual” way to fix things on Windows. It was and is a last resort for borked systems
Here you’re just wrong. This is absolutely the path forward for all manner of issues in every organization I’ve ever touched, and is in fact the path pushed by Dell and other major hardware vendors from their own high-dollar support organizations.
There are too many layers of accretion, too poorly understood, to actually fix shit. Plus, there are aspects to Windows that, still, under Win 10, lead it to eat itself over time, especially if the system gets frequent app install/uninstall/install events. C:\Windows grows inexorably, and the only way to fix that, per MSFT Premier Support, is a wipe and reinstall. Not an in-place reinstall; a WIPE and reinstall.
The computer I am typing on has not seen a full wipe and clean. Since I built it in 2014.
Four whole years!
Seriously, though, you’re fortunate and, obviously, more willing to fiddle than most. Your experience is atypical.
Its not “every six months to one year on Windows” any more.
To be fair, my Dell made it 4 months, so you’re technically correct here.
And it shouldn’t ever be the “default” solution to anything.
And yet: here we are.
I’ve been administering and developing on Windows since the mid 90s, and on OS X since it was introduced. I sell Windows software for a living, and as such work with a large number of very big corporate IT departments. What I’m describing is absolutely normal, which is why I’ve said for years that MSFT’s biggest crime has always been the degree to which they’ve lowered user expectations.
A huge chunk of this – the DLL cruft that leads to the always-crowing Windows folder, the Registry – are tied to design decisions that were made a really, really long time ago that, while defensible at the time, absolutely have NOT aged well. The other big contributor is that for whatever reason, MSFT has been unwilling or unable to do what Apple did at the turn of the century and make a clean break with the past. They may have missed their windows (no pun intended), but 10 or 15 years ago they had the market power to force the issue, and they didn’t do it.
Meanwhile, Apple moved off the OS 9 platform and onto a flavor of Unix, and has reaped tremendous benefits as a result.
I keep going back and forth between macbook pro and this (pro version) for our next one (our 2008 Macbook Pro is showing its age)… I have no problem switching back and forth, but I am worried about the family who has gotten used to Mac (although my daughter seems to be adjusting to her Chromebook just fine).
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Lenovo/IBM laptops have about the same n-rollover rate as many keyboards on the market and a higher rate than most Bluetooth non-gaming keyboards.
But if the beep annoys you, go in to BIOS and disable the keyboard beep or if that’s too much, open up your device manager, show hidden, Non-Plug and Play Drivers, Beep. Click the Driver tab, and press the Stop button to turn off. Finally click Disabled under startup type. No more beep so now you can choose a Lenovo product. BTW, it was possible to do this only because their documentation is so damned good.
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I bought into the Huawei Matebook X Pro craze a few months ago. I’m very happy with it. It’s thin and light with a gorgeous screen. The keyboard is comparable to the old Mac Pro. The camera is weirdly placed, but I’ve never used the webcam. Sadly, it was so popular that they’ve increased the price.
@beschizza Maybe you need one of these.
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Unfortunately I can’t do this. I’m locked out of the BIOS and I don’t have admin access to the base OS (I have to do compute work through a VM). This is a work issued laptop, not a personal machine. But given past and current experiences with ThinkPads I’d never own one as a personal machine. It’s ridiculous that I should even have to do this to work around their shitty design.
Yet it’s only ThinkPads that beep at me. I think they just have garbage keyboards.
Hmm, Sapper won a lot of design awards for the Thinkpad and Lenovo keeps winning design awards.
You might not like the beep but calling it shitty design seems a bit much. By all means, avoid the Thinkpad. It’s not the machine for you. It’s just that when a machine received awards based on the design, it kinda seems odd to call the design shitty.
My 2015 XPS 13 is the best laptop I’ve ever owned. I love it.
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I was referring specifically to the keyboard design, which is shit, and has been shit on every ThinkPad I’ve used over the past 15 or so years. Even on my brand new T480 it’s shit. All the design awards in the world don’t mitigate this.
Even without the n-key rollover problem (which I’ve not experienced on any other laptop brand), it’s just a crappy keyboard to type on with its squishy keys, barely responsive R-Shift, and frustrating Fn placement (but to its credit, the F-Lock actually works properly even though I hate that it is even a thing). But the n-key rollover issue is perhaps the most frustrating of all with my computer constantly beep beep beeping at me when I type too quickly.
It can win all the design awards in the world – and yes, it does have great industrial design. But as far as I’m concerned it’s a bad computer to use because the primary input device that I rely is garbage. I shouldn’t have to use an external keyboard on a laptop to have a decent typing experience.
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