• Darrell HanleyDarrell Hanley, 7 years ago

    I don't think that the Surface products are the right line to jump to, but I've personally gotten very tired of paying $3k every 3-4 years and never really being fully satisfied with the machine I buy. The cap at 16GB of RAM didn't help, and the 2TB SSD option are prohibitively expensive, and the configuration that would most match my current configuration is now $3.2k, up $200 for a touchscreen I don't really want and don't think will improve my experience. I don't actively look at my keyboard while I use my computer, and I dock my Macbook Pro at home, using an external display, and apple's wireless keyboard and trackpad instead.

    I also wanted official support for connecting to an external GPU. Intel supports this feature. The new Macbook Pro has Thunderbolt 3 by way of USB-C, so the parts are in place, but no support, presumably because no one would ever produce the drivers for it, nor would Apple allow them to.

    I don't think that Apple undisputedly makes the best optimized hardware anymore. I think OSX is better than Windows 10, mind you, but most out of personal preference rather than feature specific reasons why its better. I think Apple has also focused too heavily on lifestyle features (Apple Pay, Emoji keyboard, Siri) rather than aiding professionals, while simultaneously raising the price for those professionals.

    I upgraded last year to my current Macbook Pro, and won't be buying another computer for at least another 2 years, most likely 3 years. I'm reluctantly tied to OSX because I use tools that are, at present, OSX only like Sketch and Flinto. I think I will evaluate windows options for laptops when I'm due an upgrade, and perhaps step down to a base model iMac for access to Xcode and other OSX only software at home. I'm hopeful that Bohemian Coding and a few of the other developers reevaluate and go multi-platform over the course of the next few years, but in the meantime I'll be taking a second look at Figma and Adobe XD as possible replacements.

    1 point
    • Nathan HueningNathan Huening, 7 years ago

      I don't think that Apple undisputedly makes the best optimized hardware anymore. I think OSX is better than Windows 10

      This ^ and this ^

      0 points