It's neat that you can program logic on most any computer that boots nowadays. Maybe not crazy UI libraries, but wrap properly factored middleware logic in a console interface or just write some unit tests and you can get a lot done without much compute at all.

What's important in a working laptop?

I used to look for stuff like replaceable batteries, but with USB-C power packs, that's not an issue if it has a USB-C port that allows power. Now my list is, give or take...

1. Power & input in, video out via one port
2. Expandable RAM
3. Replaceable M.2 SSD
4. Fingerprint reader (so I'm not typing PINs and passwords in public)
5. Fits in my laptop bag (a nebulous requirement for the reader, I realize)
6. A backlight for the keyboard (any color is fine)

Nice to haves:

• A good keyboard (usually I'm plugged to a dock, but sometimes laptops on the lap (or coffeeshop table) are nice)
• Better than 1920x1080 screen
• Enough nits to see the screen outside
• A TrackPoint nubbin'

My old ThinkPad P51, a serious monster that had a high-def screen and USB-C video output, finally gave up the Windows 11 ghost. The version I'd gotten (used) was, at one point, good enough to run Windows 11, but then was taken off the list! At some point, that was actually enforced and it stopped updating, no security updates, nothing.

I got a few more months out of Insider Preview, but then my keyboard and mouse died due to drivers, I spent hours debugging, and I finally gave up.

So back in the market. In the meanwhile, I've been using a gaming laptop from 2021 as my dedicated workstation in the home office (and at coworking a little), a super cheap ThinkPad E490s for mobile dev (coffeehouses, trips, and coworking), and my M1 MacBook Air when I need to macOS.

These museum pieces do well, and I've never regretted buying gaming laptops, as their CPUs alone give them years of headroom as development boxes.

But as it's time to replace both the high-end (gaming laptop is old) and the mobile workstation (P51 is dead), I am stressing too much about processors. I usually check out PassMark scores to get an idea of how fast they are. I don't know if it's accurate or useful at all, but it seems to give a pretty good relative number.

Unfortunately I keep forgetting what my current boxes' scores are for comparison. So hard right on this post's topic as we swerve into "note to self" land and record them. (I have a vague recollection I've done this before. Apologies.)

The last two are ones I'm looking at now. LOQ is for sale now for $850, and the E14 as I'd want it is $823.65.

Getting back on topic, the neat part is that the E590s I got off of eBay for under $100 a while back and inserted some extra RAM into has been my mobile box for a few months. It's occasionally a little slow, but for logic work it's... just fine.

If you've got $100, internet, and someplace to plug in with the ability and drive to learn to develop software, you've got a livelihood.

That's kind of amazing.

Labels: hardware, laptop, noteToSelf

Have a ThinkPad E490s. It's nice. Upgraded the RAM immediately. Upgraded the SSD this past weekend from 256 gigs to 1 TB.

Bad news after restoring my laptop's image: There was this weird recovery partition sitting between my old files and my free space and Disk Management wouldn't let me remove it. I was stuck, it appeared, with a D: drive, which, in my limited experience, is never a good thing to have on the same physical drive as C:. It sounds like it shouldn't be bad news, and might even be a good way to separate concerns, but I've never caught myself thinking, "Gosh, I'm glad I did that," and have, on several occasions, though, "WHY IS IT EASIER IF I KEEP EVERYTHING ON THE C:\ DRIVE? WHY DOES THAT STILL MATTER IN THE 21st CENTURY?!!?1!/!!!?"

Anyhow, cut to the chase: You can delete the Recovery drive from your disk, and do it without fear if you have an imaged backup and a USB recovery/startup drive already in your possession like I did before removing the old drive.

Here are some instructions.

TL;DR -- diskpart, list disk, select disk, list partition, select partition n, delete partition override.

You can now expand C: into that extra space.

Labels: hardware, lenovo, noteToSelf, ssd, upgrade, windows

A while back, I picked up a ThinkPad E490s. It's the cheap ThinkPad version, but, with three exceptions, I've been very happy with it. Those three exceptions are that the WiFi often takes a long time to connect coming out of sleep, the keyboard backlighting turns off when you shut the lid (and you have to manually turn it back on when you wake it), and there's no removable battery. I think the right response to the third is that you can get an external USB-C powerbank now instead. Fair.

Actually the USB-C connection is kinda flakey sometimes, flashing the screen if my power supply jostles at all.

Other than that, it's great. RAM was still upgradeable, so I did, and I upgraded the single hard drive slot, an m.2, to a larger drive. The best part is that it comes with a nice ThinkPad keyboard with TrackPoint versus the way I BYOK with the ThinkPad Bluetooth keyboard with other laptops. I'm afraid I'm addicted to the TrackPoint at this, um, juncture.

If you remember, the last time I thought about buying a new working laptop, I decide the best buy was a gaming laptop, a decision I didn't regret much. The battery was bad. The screen wasn't great. The keyboard was questionable. But I had a MacBook Pro processor in a portable device with more RAM and storage space for less than half the MacBook's price.

And if I hadn't already bought this ThinkPad, I'd be doing it again. This LaptopMag.com post of the current deal at Best Buy confirms what I thought I was learning while looking for the next great laptop deal: The Asus TUF A15 is insanely good at $799.

Just for fun, here's the CPU comparison graph for...

1. The Dell gaming desktop I was considering for about $755 (with an upgraded power supply -- the idea being I could update the CPU and GPU in a year or so) 
2. The Asus TUF A15, and 
3. My old Lenovo Y700

And then here's the GPU comparison chart of the same three.

Wow, that's a step up. It's such a step up I'm not sure that last one is right. I still get playable frame rates in WoW, for instance, not that it's a challenging game. But less than 10% of what you'd get from the GPU in an $800 laptop today? Wow.

I realize that's apples to oranges to pears, but you can get a feel for what I'm looking at, and why a new box would be attractive. The question and answer section of the Best Buy Asus A15 listing for $799 suggests/says that this version is a Best Buy special (even though it's the same model number used for laptops with different specs), here a very bad thing, with a smaller battery than any other Asus A15 and maybe less RAM (8 gigs either way). Plus the keyboard looks like crap, and I hate 10 key numpads on laptops. Either give the normal keys more space or make the laptop smaller. Don't need it.

But the RAM is upgradeable, and I've lived with a bad battery before. Man, that's a nice step up. Too bad I put $780 into this E490s a year ago, or I'd probably bite.

Lesson: Don't play games on your old gaming laptops or you'll want a new one.

Labels: asus, hardware, laptop, lenovo

You can thank me for the MacBook Pro update, since I bought an Air on June 14th. It was too difficult to keep waiting, and most of my “if only” excuses were essentially removed during the Air’s 2017 update. The entry level got a slightly faster processor and 8 gigs of RAM on the bottom end, just enough to get by. And look at all the ways it’s better than a MacBook Pro…

• USB-A ports.
• SDXC card for cameras
• Magsafe
• DisplayPort
• A reliable keyboard

The last sticking point for me was the price. At $1000, it’s too steep. But Best Buy had a sale June 14th for the bottom of the line Air for $700 plus tax. You can’t beat that. That’s competitive.

I’d been holding out for a new MacBook for literally years now, having gotten a Lenovo gaming laptop to use as my programming rig back in 2016 when I thought Apple had created a MacBook that wasn’t really for Pros with this new generation of MacBooks. Phil Schiller said as much, when he claimed the new 13“ Pro could replace the Air, and Walt Mossberg agreed, saying that ”if these new MacBooks simply didn’t carry the Pro label, we’d all have a lot less to complain about". Wow. This is a consumer laptop.

You might recall my comparison of bottom of the line MacBook processors. Even after last month’s update, nothing’s changed there, at the low end. The MacBook Pro “Escape” 13“ still has a crappy i5–7360U, with a top-end only about 80% higher than the Air. The 12” MacBook is only 6% faster. None of these are speed demons. You’ve got to pay $1799 to get to the new processors in the latest refresh.

Neither step up from the Air are worth the price. The calculus said that I’m much better off spending $770 after tax on an Air, and putting the difference between the Air and Pro (even when the Escape was on sale at B&H for $1200 (which was tempting)), towards a new desktop or a future MacBook. In a sense, I can get an Air to bide me over now, and bank over $400 of my budget to put towards my next MacBook.

Marco agrees

Heard a lot of my reasoning coming out of Marco Arment’s mouth on the most recent episode of The Talk Show. He basically said that laptops are optimized to run [predominantly] at a nice, low clock speed that sips power. You can get this low-power mode from an Air or the most powerful 15" Pro. Your compilations will suffer, but as I said when I talked about my $100 Lenovo S100, small computers with great battery life are a lot more useful than you’d think. Work on headless tasks in console apps (rather, make your tasks into many headless programming tasks), and you’ll be surprised how much you can get done.

Laptops – all laptops – are made for low power tasks. If you want as much power as you can carry, sure, max something out. But unless you’re okay with a “tall” gamer laptop (Marco actually talks about this) with the requisite fans and sorry battery life (hello, Lenovo Y700!), you’re not going to be able to cool your proc, no matter who you are.

You really want power? Stay at home and get a desktop.

At some point, I’d settle for a quality mini upgrade, which sounds like it could happen soon, but I’m hopeful the new Mac Pro will have an entry level that’s worth a look.

But you get the point. If I want portable macOS, the answer was and, I think, remains the Air on sale. It’s cheap, convenient, and reliable. Even after the update, it’s not worth paying $300 more for a 8250U i5 8210Y (4141 score) and a Retina screen. Instead, I’ll pocket that cash and hope for something that makes sense later.

To date, the only thing I really dislike is that HDMI out (via DisplayPort adapter) is limited to 1920x1080. You have to use DisplayPort input on your monitor if you want higher resolution. This has been a Mac hardware limitation for a while that I’ve never really understood.

Labels: apple, bargain, benchmarks, best buy, hardware, lenovo, mac pro, macbook, macbook pro, marco

The battery in my Lenovo Y700-14ISK is finally getting to the point that it's holding me back. I might get 60-70 minutes out of it just with casual programming. That's not crazy. It's a gaming laptop, and it's obviously meant to stay plugged in. It also has a pretty phat processor for a laptop (an i7-7700HQ) that made it an attractive programmer's box two years ago.

But two years later, the battery's ready to go.

I've been waiting for a MacBook that was worth buying, and that I dodged buying two years ago with this Lenovo, and I remain hopeful yet again that this will be the year to get back to portable macOSing.

I want portable Windows with battery life, but I don't want to break the bank to buy a ThinkPad, since I'm planning to grab a Mac this buying cycle as my "real" work box.

I've purchased stuff like the cheap IdeaPads before, and they're more computer than you've paid for. Great battery, decent keyboard, and almost able to keep up with server and javascript work. But, ultimately, not fast enough for real production.

Acer Inspire: Where has this been?

Then I ran into the Acer Inspire while looking at cheapy laptop comparisons on Amazon. Wow. Look at these two...

• Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM for $350!
  • 15.6-Inch
  • Intel Core i3-7100U 7th Generation
  • 4GB DDR4
  • 1TB 5400RPM HD
  • Intel HD Graphics 620
  • Windows 10 Home
  • Looks like a real 9-10 hours of battery !?!!

That's not bad, but the real kicker is that it seems like this laptop was made for people willing to upgrade. Look inside this thing:

One panel and you've got your SATA drive, RAM, and an m.2 slot accessible. It's like they expected you to swap and/or upgrade this box! Insane!

But once you start adding up RAM and an SSD, well, you're pushing up to around $550. Which almost exactly where the Inspire's next step up lives:

• Acer Aspire E 15 E5-576G-5762 for $600
  • 15.6" Full HD,
  • 8th Gen Intel Core i5-8250U
  • GeForce MX150
  • 8GB RAM Memory
  • 256GB SSD
  • Same 9-10 hours of battery life.

Well, hello. This is getting close to too much to pay for making Windows portable, but isn't the better processor worth an extra $100? Here are some ballparks from cpubenchmark.net -- this first is the i3 in the cheap Inspire, then the i5 in the $600 version, then the one I got in my Lenovo:

Now, for $250 over the cheap Inspire, we get an SSD (though not the one I'd've purchased, and we lose the TB of spinning platter space) and just enough RAM to squeeze by for a while -- and the chance to upgrade to 32! That's nice. Eat 32 gigs, MacBook Pro.

And the processor? Those numbers are close enough to my old i7, I could probably trade it in and not feel it too badly.

It's bigger than I'd like. I don't need the DVD drive. It's still got VGA, which even I finally removed from my desk setup recently. The Inspire is a dinosaur.

But it's an easily upgradeable dinosaur with a good drive & the latest processor for $600. That, my friends, is a proverbially impressive piece of kit.

Do I worry about the cheap keyboard? Yes. Yes and no.

Six hundred simoleons is a bit more than I wanted to spend for the equivalent of a new battery. I always think, "If you could have $X off of your next laptop by not buying now, what could you the afford to get?" And $600 would be nice to put towards a MacBook Pro with its own nice battery.

But any way you slice it, if you want a nice Windows box for some work, and don't mind not having Pro, the Acer Inspire looks like it should be your value baseline.

Labels: apple, bargain, hardware, laptop, lenovo, truck

It's silly, but after swapping out my Dell Precision 5520 for my Lenovo Y700 for a few days (I've been stuck on projects in bad states that'd take too long to set back up on another box), I'm finding I really appreciate the speakers in this "gaming" laptop. I'd been using an external speaker with the Dell's dock, but it's not great, and I can't force myself to spend more on something I don't "need". The Lenovo comes through "for free".

You know, this Y series IdeaPad line is a great deal. You sacrifice some admittedly very important stuff...

• Screen isn't great, or super bright
• Battery life is craptastic (2-3 hours)
• Trackpad isn't great (though it's improved on the Y520, apparently).

But look at what you get for $790 on the 520 (this was as cheap, iirc, as $700 on Black Friday)

• 7th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-7700HQ Processor (2.80GHz 6MB)
• 15.6" FHD IPS AntiGlare (1920x1080) with integrated camera
• 8.0GB DDR4 2400 MHz
• 1TB 5400RPM + 128GB PCIe SSD
• AMD Radeon RX 560 4GB

Find another package that has that processor and an SSD for under $800. It's tough.

It's not a great gaming rig -- though it's not bad for gaming -- and it's the perfect desktop replacement that's still portable, if you get my meaning. It's super fast, and if you've got it plugged in most of the time you use it, the battery doesn't matter. But you can still pack it into your 15" laptop bag without any issues.

And the speakers aren't bad either.

Labels: dell, hardware, lenovo

As a general rule, I try to stay away from Daniel Dilger's written pieces. They're usually entirely too long for the points they're making (sound familiar? ;^D), and each has about five syllogistic fallacies that drive me bonkers. Luckily, they also tend to have such obviously biased, clickbaity titles that they're easy to filter from your RSS feed.

Accidentally stepped into one this morning. Lots to disagree with that's not worth the time, but I did want to cover this one, which I've heard from less sensationalist, smug writers:

From Editorial: The future of Apple's Macintosh:

Mac Pro

The Late 2013 release of Mac Pro may have been a mistake. Its design wasn't readily upgradable, but Apple also lacked the sales volumes to warrant regular significant update cycles. If a cycle is too long, the benefits of product cycles described above begin to evaporate. It may have been better for Apple to have designed a system other vendors could upgrade, with room for standard PCIe graphics cards and perhaps even CPU packages. [emph mine]

Though not having a PCIe slot is a fairly consistent complaint that's recently gotten a lot of press, I don't think that's the problem. The problem is that the silicon inside the Mac Pro hasn't been updated since 2013.

The PCIe complaint is really just an extension of the argument that Apple's been slack with updates. Asking for PCIe is a little like saying, "If you're not going to stay current, let me do it myself!" (Of course, that's also, imo, why it's smart to add a PCIe slot. But that's another argument...)

Here's DED's logical faceplant: There's plenty of volume for Apple to update the innards.

The enthusiast's motherboard & GPU market

Every few years, I upgrade my whitebox tower; it's a computer I build myself. Every time I do, I wade through tons of motherboard options. Though the one I have in there now is still for sale on NewEgg, it's from some squirrelly third-party selling out of date hardware for over twice its original price, iirc.

Same thing with video cards. There are tons of companies rebadging Nvidia's and ATi's latest in different configurations, turning over almost completely each year. (And here, my crappy card is out of stock.)

Are you really going to tell me Apple can't afford to make just one new motherboard and video card each year?

My point is that these enthusiast computer components usually don't last long on the marketplace. You have a slew of options at any one point, but in 6-12 months, no matter how intelligently you shopped, what you bought is usually long in the tooth, replaced by one or more upgraded boards by each company in the direct-to-builder motherboard category.

Fewer Mac Pros than enthusiast Asus boards? Rly?

Does anyone really think Apple sells fewer Mac Pros than ASRock sold of their "H97M Anniversary LGA 1150"? I can't imagine that's the case for a second.

And that's where Apple's let you down. You can build an all-in-one pro model if you keep it relatively recent, and you keep it recent by upgrading the mother- and video card daughter -boards. If Apple's going to release a Mac like this, it has to commit to upgrading the motherboard, processor, and GPU options at least yearly. No redesign of the outside needed.

I understand there are issue with the trash can. Maybe there's not enough airflow for cooling a GTX 1080 with the trash can's single giant fan. Maybe it's not as forward-thinking as Apple wanted.

That doesn't mean you're stuck with 2013 silicon through 2017! And there's no reason whatsoever not to make a new motherboard that'll accept new Intel wafers each time they're refreshed. None.

If ASRock -- and Asus, and MSI, and Gigabyte -- can each release new mobos yearly for the enthusiast PC market, Apple can release one for Mac Pro users.

Apple only needed to be as committed as a reputable motherboard manufacturer -- no, less. They only needed to upgrade one mobo and GPU for one enclosure. They weren't and they didn't. It had nothing to do with sales volume. Really?

It's been three and a half years. Not enough sales volume? Three years' sales of Mac Pro are less than one year of Asus enthusiast boards?

Sales volume? That's a fail all around.

Labels: apple fail, dilger, hardware, mac pro

I've said before that I'd essentially given up on having a MacBook (Pro or otherwise) as my main development rig. I think that's smart. The Lenovo Y700 I bagged in April has the same processor as the entry-level 15" MacBook Pro, and that MacBook is both a little large and way too expensive -- $2400 minimum buy-in for the 15", where I spent $850 for the same processor, same SSD size, more RAM, and maybe even a better graphics card. I got worse size, battery, keyboard, and trackpad, but I also have $1550.

Yet my Lenovo 100S, a cheapo plastic ultrabook, still gets more use than I would've thought, usually as "the laptop I carry when I'm not carrying a laptop". I bought it sort of on a lark when it was on sale for $150. Horribly underpowered, only two gigs of RAM, 32 bit processor, horrible keyboard, 32 gig "hard drive".

But it does have two great things:

1. Great battery life -- 8 hours or more
2. It's extremely small

As I've said before, it's my knock-off MacBook Air -- or, more recently, 12" MacBook. It's great to have a light computer that doesn't feel like it needs a laptop bag to comfortable schleping around.

Now look, it's crazy to think about comparing the 100S to a computer nine times as expensive. I agree. Mostly. But check this out:

The MacBook is almost half an inch less "skinnier", has two-tenths-inch less depth, is .15" shorter at its tallest, and weighs around 80g less.

That is to say, the 12" MacBook is smaller, has a better battery, keyboard, trackpad, screen, and processor -- surprisingly, it has faster single core performance than my 2012 Mac mini does on Geekbench, iirc. Again, not sure that makes it worth 9x the other, but that's, as the English say, an impressive piece of kit.

If the MacBook gets a boost in March, give or take, and at least holds its price (Touch Bar or no), it's going to be harder to resist.

Labels: hardware, lenovo, macbook, macbook pro, truck, ultrabook

Recently I bristled at a fellow who implied that we needed to "touch" a MacBook Pro before critiquing it. Today I did. They're very nice. Very light, well made, great screen.

Here are some fimp-ish comments:

The Touch Bar is an extended replacement for right-click. I like it.

With the Touch Bar, most of what'd be in a context menu is already open, full color, waiting on you. On Windows, I hit shift-F10 to open a context menu. With Touch Bar, it's already open.

Like check this out... I downloaded MacVim, hoping I could try it out with the crazy escape key. When I clicked on the dmg file so that it was selected in the Finder, I got this:

That's pretty cool. I can get info, share, or tag it. When I selected "share", I got this share sheet:

Mail, Messages, Airdrop, Notes, and the ever-present "More". Neat!

I can dig it.

When I tried Mail, I caught this Touch Bar menu (which, again, I'm arguing is essentially a mouse-free, gesture-aware context menu):

Honestly, that's beautiful. SO much easier than making your user remember lots of keyboard shortcuts if they don't live in your app. And if they live in your app, you could potentially let them set up whatever items they want.

And of course this is better than a context-menu, because you can gesture with it as well.

Seems small, but Touch Bar isn't just a good idea waiting for programmers to do something with it, as I've heard it described. It's a good idea now, and well integreated into OS and first party apps.

Escape is odd. (I'm a VIm user.)

I wasn't able to get MacVim installed, as it was an app from the dreaded "unidentified developer" and I haven't been made privvy to the Apple Store admin login and password, but I could open vi in the Terminal and test drive a little.

Escape is odd.

If you don't know vi, it's a text editor that has two modes: Command Mode, where you give vi commands to perform on the text, and Insert Mode, where you're essentially just typing away like Notepad or TextEdit. And vi isn't the only editor that supports it. Sublime Text has a vi like mode built in, and WebStorm has a nice plugin, for instance.

How do you get from Insert to Command mode? Escape.

Escape is now on the Touch Bar, and is just a virtual, not a "real", key. That's not great, but it's not horrible.

Here's the weird part -- it's not where it's supposed to be. See that dead space to its left? If I could trade that for a real, dedicated ESC key, I would in a heartbeat. It's hard to "feel", and since it's to the right of where I expect it to be, it's not natural. For someone who hits ESC scores of times a day, well, that stinks.

Enough. Fringe case.

One interesting tidbit...

But one thing I learned while playing around in the Terminal... See that greyed out button to the right of the ESC and color wheel? It says man page. That's really pretty cool. I wouldn't use it much, but it's context sensitive, and lights up when you type in a *NIX command.

I manned grep. Here it is:

Again, not a big deal, but nice. Makes me optimistic that the Touch Bar will slowly become second nature. Apple seems to be fairly interested in integrating it.

The track pad drives me batty. I couldn't single-click to save my life.

I kept force-clicking or having nothing happen. After switching to tap-to-click, I was okay again. But somehow, I've unlearned clicking. And I didn't have this trouble on the MacBook or early MacBook Pros with Force Trackpads.

(I think I might have been accidentally alt-clicking sometimes; it's a case of having the whole trackpad clickable)

Click-drag drove me crazy too. Windows has a tap, tap-drag gesture I'm used to now, perhaps. But keeping my initial click down is more painful, again, possibily because I was right-clicking at times.

Btw, three-finger drag is really well hidden now. But once I found it, instant happiness.

The keyboard is louder than it used to be. Like most sensible folk, I couldn't care much less.

Aside from my esc issues, above, I've got to say that it's a nice keyboard. I could use it easily when I'm mobile/out of the office/away from my "real" keyboard.

USB-C ports are really small. I get it.

If this is the trade off to get a smaller laptop, I'm all in. USB-C never bothered me. You need replacement cables for some peripherals, but otherwise, you just need a dock.

The new ports (and removal of the old ones) never bothered me.

Buying?

There are two great times to buy Mac hardware to get your money's worth:

1. When it's initially released.
2. When it's sold refurb for the first time.

Both of those maximize your cash, I think. The refurb discount is pretty good.

I'd convinced myself to wait on the 2017 MacBook, and rather than buy a truck, I'd just buy a real computer for my mobile slot. Right now, I carry around a Lenovo 100S for those times that I "don't carry a computer". It's a crap computer for specs, but has great battery life.

The MacBook is nearly the same size, and would actually run rings around the 100S.

But now I wonder. That Touch Bar is a nice addition. If that's a $300 mark-up addition like it is on the MacBook Pro, I'll probably wait for a 2017 "F12" MacBook (one without a Touch Bar) to hit the refurb rack. But now, having "touched" one, I think a refurb 13" MacBook Pro with Touch Bar might be an option I'll consider too. It's not as fast as much Y700, but it's a great mobile laptop. Having touched one, I get what the MacBook Pro is trying to be a little better.

The new MacBook Pro is still not a truck. Walt Mossberg at The Verge nails this on the head...

Neither will unseat my "truck" on the laptop stand in the home office, but either Mac would mean the Y700 stays on the stand a lot more regularly when I leave the house.

I also spent a little time with the iPhone 7. Heeeeeello, nurse. Great feeling phone. You know, I like that home "button" better than the one on my SE. I played around with the settings, and "2" feels great.

Labels: hardware, iphone, lenovo, macbook pro, touch bar

I like John Gruber a lot, but his reactions to the new MacBook Pro have been wildly off the mark.

When Tim says "P-C" you say, "Now also inclu-udes MacBooks"!

From Daring Fireball: Translation From Apple Lingo to English of Tim Cook's Year-Ago 'Why Would You Buy a PC Anymore?' Comment:

People are pointing to this as proof that Tim Cook doesn’t care about the Mac, because he thinks everybody should just switch to an iPad Pro. But here’s the thing, in Apple lingo, the Mac is not a “PC”. A “PC” is a personal computer that runs Windows or Linux or whatever. I’m not splitting hairs here — this is how people inside Apple talk. It’s right there in the opening lines of the years-long “Get a Mac” ad campaign (66 ads!) — “I’m a Mac…”, “… and I’m a PC.”

No, Gruber's just plain wrong. I thought I remembered Cook using "PC" to mean Mac and WinPC, and, after a little Googling, found I was right:

@gruber Cook *has* said PC to mean Mac. https://t.co/bq0eG0eIjj pic.twitter.com/3vYWU6bx7f

— Ruffin (@r_ffin) November 1, 2016

Here it is in context (this is a transcript of Cook talking to Goldman Sachs):

If we had a meeting today in this hotel and we invited everybody that’s working on the coolest PC apps to come to the meeting–you might not find anybody in the meeting! But if you did that same thing for iOS or that other operating system, and said everybody that’s working on this come, you couldn’t get everybody in [this?] hotel. You’d have somebody covering every square inch here. That’s where the innovation [is;?] here. That doesn’t mean the PC is going to die; I love the Mac! And the Mac is still growing, and I think it can still grow.

Sorry, man. Tim Cook uses "PC" to mean "anyone's PC".

I know Jobs didn't. Cook always has. Used to sound incongruous when he did it, but now that Windows is sort of a lesser beast, it makes some sense to stop with the Mac/PC dichotomy. Macs sell like mad [in the limited market which is Cook's PC]. Macs & other PCs makers are equals at worst. Calling them all PC manufacturers allows Apple to be one of the best of the breed.

Slow your horses, DF

Anyhow, just plain wrong on this one. What worries me is that we're skirting fanboy territory in Daring Fireball recently. Gruber is usually pretty measured in his comments about Apple. Don't get me wrong; his aesthetic so closely parallels Apple's that you do have to wonder how much is "his" and how much has been internalized from watching Apple so closely all these years. But wherever the aesthetic comes from (and I think it's predominantly his own), I think John does a great job letting Apple know when they've missed their own mark, so to speak. That's what keeps you from becoming a fanboy.

But here, well, there's a segment of traditional Mac users that weren't served by the light at the end of the MacBook Pro upgrade tunnel. After waiting years to buy a new Mac, we get overpriced, underpowered, underspecced boxes. I tried to explain why we're disappointed, using expectations set by Steve Jobs. These aren't the trucks we were looking for.

And it's not because the only way to deliver was to make ugly boxes. That is, "nice" vs "well spec'd" isn't a zero sum game, which is nearly what Gruber argued yesterday when stumbling over a comparison of MBPs to System76 Linux laptops:

(I will add that the Oryx is ugly as sin, and doesn’t have a retina-resolution display. Here I am slamming it.)

But the price you pay for the MacBook Pro isn’t about the sum of the components. It’s about getting them into that sleek, lightweight form factor, too. In a word, Apple is optimizing the MacBook lineup for niceness. That’s frustrating — in some cases, downright angering — for people who want a notebook optimized for performance.

Perfect rebuttal? Look to this post, quoted on Michael Tsai's excellent roundup, New MacBook Pros and the State of the Mac:*

David Owens II:

To me, Thursday’s event signaled one thing for me, and maybe I’m completely wrong, but the Mac is officially over.

[…]

Apple, the MacBook Pro is not a pro-level computer. It’s simply not.

You want to see what a pro-level laptop looks like? Look at the Razer lineup. They are crushing it on terms of performance and style in hardware design.

You can shoot down System76 for making chunky Linux boxes. You can't say this about Razer. Small, "nice", fast, and fairly well priced. Maybe my Lenovo truck is ugly (it largely is), but the Razer isn't.

And, as David Owens rightly says, the MBP "is not a pro-level computer". The MBP isn't a "Pro" computer to the point that Schiller himself during the laptop roll-out suggested that the "professional" but entry level MBP was a replacement for the consumer MacBook Air. As I emailed Gruber this morning, "When you slot a MBP into the consumer half of the product grid, we've got a problem [with meeting past expectations, at least]." ^{(Note: I just added "meeting".)}

* Speaking of Tsai's roundup, it also included my earlier post -- wow. Lots of clicks from Tsai, but then another HUGE bump once Daring Fireball linked to him. So 4x Tsai clicks just from being grand-fireballed!

Labels: apple, cook, gruber, hardware, linux, macbook pro, windows

From macrumors.com:

macOS Sierra 10.12.1, released yesterday, includes hidden Apple Pay images that depict the brand new MacBook Pro with an OLED touch panel that's set to be announced by Apple on Thursday, October 27.

In addition to confirming that such a product is in the works, the images give us our first full look at the redesigned MacBook Pro ahead of its launch. An OLED touch panel is located on top of the keyboard, where the function keys would normally be placed, and it very clearly supports Touch ID, as it is seen used with Apple Pay.

When I've talked about Apple having poor QA before, this is the sort of thing I'm talking about.

Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say that there are thousands of images in the 10.12.1 update. There's still not so many you can't still divvy them up and have three sets of eyes look at each one. It took the Mac press all of 14 hours to come up with these images.

Could there be mitigating circumstances? Sure.

Maybe some of these are stored inline rather than as discrete files, unlike png/jpg files found within an app (or some other sort of) bundle. It could've been a nice inline image, perhaps.

<img src="data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAzQAAABjCAIAAADCc9LyAAAd0klEQVR4nO3df2wT5/0H8CdfIZAGBLGqRRgyX5sgplK16Yqi...

Maybe MacRumors didn't find them in just 14 hours. Maybe they found the images in a beta and stayed quiet until the embargo was off.

Maybe folks were told the OS would be released concurrent with the new hardware, and that proved untrue (highly unlikely, but as long as we're maybe-ing... Didn't iOS 10 predate the iPhone 7, for instance?).

But even in one of these most favorable contexts for Apple, not to have every image pass in front of enough eyes to catch something the press does this quickly is insane.

Let's be clear: This isn't the Alcatraz level snuck into N64's San Francisco Rush or Warren Robinette's name in the Adventure for the Atari 2600. These images were meant to be consumed by users. Every user-facing image should have been QA'd. Unlike those games' Easter Eggs, this content wasn't hidden, and that QA should've been planned.

Actually, there is one "maybe" that could excuse Apple: Maybe this was a planned leak to stoke some excitement in diehard fans.

You know, I might've been tempted to believe that if...

1. Internal leaks about hardware were common at Apple
   • I'm still flabbergasted by the ATi backlash over 16 years ago, though that's not so germane now.
   • Still, you get my point. How about the Mac Pro's trashcan? Complete surprise, iirc.
2. Apple hadn't become so bad at QA recently (see above).

Oh well. I'll admittedly be watching Thursday. As bad as it is, I still want to [finally] add a new horse to my Mac stable. My current Macs (ones that are powered on) are an old mini and a, I kid you not, 2009 MacBook upgraded to an SSD.

I waffled thinking they'd release something new this March, but finally decided not to get the updated 12" MacBook or wait for a MacBook Pro. Instead, I bagged a $700 14" Lenovo Y700. I thought that I'd regret that purchase quickly when new Macs came out in a month or so afterwards. That didn't happen, natch.

Looks like a portable workstation with a i7-6700HQ for $700 ($850 with SSD & 24 gigs of RAM) was a pretty good deal after all. Wonder what I'd get for it with those upgrades on eBay now, and what percentage of a 13" MacBook Pro it'd cover... ;^)

Labels: apple, apple fail, hardware, macbook, qa

Labels: design, hardware, iphone, music

From MacRumors:

Lightning-equipped EarPods and wireless EarPods are two rumors that have been bandied about, but a new report from Japanese site Mac Otakara suggests Apple may ship the iPhone 7 with standard 3.5mm headphones and a 3.5mm jack to Lightning adapter to allow them to connect to the new devices.

If that's the case, I think we've really walked back the boldness of removing the 3.5mm jack.

If third parties "should" (in AppleThink) make Lightning headphones, so should Apple, right? And if Apple thinks an adapter is a quality solution, even the implicit preferred solution, well, they've got a design problem. Adapters are not cool.

So we're back to a design issue?

When's the last time you thought Apple had a design problem? Complain all you want about thinness, at least it's an ethos, dude.

That is, when's the last time you heard Apple say, "Don't do as I do. Do as I say do" when it came to hardware?

Labels: apple, hardware, iphone, music

I've been meaning to create a video comparing the pros and cons of using a Lenovo Y700-14 as a business laptop, having had mine for about a month, but I keep not getting a Round Tuit.

Here's a review, in brief:

This Lenovo Y700-14 is a great budget business laptop, though flawed in several predictable ways. First, a warning: It grossly underperforms without an SSD, but that's any laptop at this point. You have to add an SSD to call this a usable laptop. Otherwise, you might as well throw its i7-6700HQ in the trash.

Pros:

• Insanely cheap.
  • $700 for the laptop
  • $150 to DIY-add both 16 gigs of RAM (24 total!) and a 128 gig SSD
• Exceptionally powerful.
  • i7-6700HQ puts in squarely in 15" MacBook performance range.
• Has an m.2 slot to add your SSD.
  • Keep your 1 TB spinning platter for backup
  • Forces you to reinstall Win10, removing all that Lenovo cruft.
• Good screen resolution -- 1920x1080
• Excellent cooling.
  • Designed to cool the quad-core, versus T460p's kludge
• Red keyboard backlight is less distracting than white light (imo).
• Nice 14" size. Larger than my T430 with extended battery, but not exceptionally so.
• The speakers are great.
  • Bigger deal than I'd think.
  • Used to bring external speakers for T430. No longer an issue.

Cons:

I'm mostly comparing this to three years' use of my T430, but I bet most of this applies to the T460p I was considering as well.

• Battery is a joke. 2-3 hours max with VMware running.
• Keyboard is not good at all.
• Trackpad is another joke. Mushy, hard to click, non-dedicated buttons.
  • :^P <#####
  • I have found some workarounds, but it's still subpar.
• Not dockable. I've done a 180 here. Plugable's USB 3 Universal Laptop Docking Station is great, especially after the Win10 Anniversary update.
  • Really could've used a USB-C port here.
• No TrackPoint.
• Only three USB ports.
• No always-on USB port for charging Turns out the ports do stay on (only when plugged in?)
• No fingerprint sensor (these are useful if signing in in public)
• Build quality is okay, but it's quickly obvious this isn't as rigid as a ThinkPad.
  • The grill in the back where hot air comes out is exceptionally plastic-y, for instance.
• Screen is not particularly bright.
• Only one video out port (I have a USB-to-HDMI, but that's a pain. See "not dockable", above)
• Does get hot on your lap.
• Not made with upgrading in mind -- back is not as easy to open as it could be.

There you go. Exceptionally fast for a hundreds less than other laptops, but serious convenience drawbacks. No good battery, keyboard, or trackpad. Good, but not great, screen. No dockability, which one USB-C port would've fixed in a flash.

One quick add: There's no screw to hold in your SSD in the m.2 slot, which seemed cheap to me. But then I thought, "Well, if the screws that hold the case on have the same threads and will work here, I'll let it go." It worked. I'm down one screw on the case/bottom, and the screw head doesn't seem quite wide enough to hold the SSD in there (YMMV, I don't encourage doing this, and do so at your own risk!), but it's worked for weeks months so far.

Gaming:

Okay, so if that's how the gaming laptop stacks up as a business laptop, how does it do gaming? I've run 3DMark, and need to add it here, but it wasn't great. Seems it was in the bottom 25% for gaming laptops or something similar.

The quick answer is that the Y700 is not a gaming laptop. If you're worried about comparing benchmarks with your buds to see who wins, this ain't the one. If you want to play the latest games in decent detail and framerate, this isn't your box. As most reviews of the Y700-14" point out, the AMD Radeon R9 M375 Lenovo uses here is grossly underpowered, and really hamstrings an otherwise excellent portable gamer.

The Y700 is, however, a pretty good laptop for playing games. If you don't mind turning down resolutions, it's no slouch. That is, having a decent dedicated card means that games are playable. I have the quad-core tower in my office whose multi-core cpubenchmark score is 40%+ faster than the Y700 processor, and it only has integrated video. The Y700 runs rings around it, unsurprisingly. I've been playing a decent amount of Elite: Dangerous on mine, and it handles it all very well. I won't swear the Y700's AMD Radeon R9 M375 2GB is better than the T460p's NVIDIA GeForce 940MX 2GB, but I remember being underwhelmed with the T430's discrete card (which I added to have easy dual video out).

Bottom line:

You get much more than you pay for with the Y700, but be warned before you sell out to make it your prime programming laptop.

Labels: hardware, lenovo, review

1. Open regedit

2. Goto - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Alps\Apoint\Gesture

3. Edit 2TapShow set value to 1

4. Edit 2TapSupport set value to 1

5. Edit 2TapSetting set value to decimal 13 (hexadecimal d)

6. Do the same for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Alps\Apoint\Gesture

7. Restart machine

EDIT 20160926: Looks like the Anniversary Update for Windows 10 broke that setting. When I opened RegEdit, all of the values above were zeroes again, so I'm hopeful, though still a little annoyed it broke on an update. ?? (Another update: No dice. These settings don't seem to work now. ARGH.)

EDIT 20170121: Sorry for all the spam on this post, but I went through the whole bit, both HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_LOCAL_USER, and it is working again. Oh, thank heavens. I had my ThinkPad Compact USB keyboard die this week, so I was back to using the stock "buttons" on the Y700, and they stink... so... badly... Being able to two-finger-tap to right-click makes the box usable again.

EDIT 20180612: This now seems to be done via the control panel for trackpads again. (I get there with "Control Panel" from Windows menu search, Mouse, Change mouse settings, Touch Pad tab, "Click to change the Touch Pad Settings" link, but there's got to be a more direct route.) Select "2-Finger tapping, turn on the "shortcut menu" option, and profit.

Labels: hardware, lenovo, noteToSelf

I think I have a winner for the April 2016 MyFreakinName Programmer Laptop. I was looking for something that was relatively small -- the 14" class, so to speak -- and that had a reasonably powerful processor, as you may have guessed from my Programmer Laptop Shootout: Processors post.

Also keep in mind that I've never spent a "lot"^ on a laptop. My ThinkPad T430 was about $1000-$1100, and I purchased it because it was sooooo much less expensive than a MacBook with similar specs. For the last three years, that's been a great choice.

Which is just to set up the decision criteria...

• Emphasis on maximizing a quad-core, fast processor.
• Ability to upgrade to more than 8 gigs of RAM.
• 1920x1080 or greater resolution
• Reasonably inexpensive -- all equal, cheaper > featureful

I'm afraid my desktop's i7-4790K (11206/2529) has made me greedy. Wow, it's fast.

Top Candidates

Old laptop (T430) CpuBenchmark: 3998 multi, 1626 single

1. Lenovo ThinkPad T460p: $1100 as spec'd (includes 3rd party RAM)
   • CpuBenchmark: 6443 multi, 1932* single
   • A 14" ThinkPad modified to hold a quad-core processor
2. MacBook Pro 13" $1100
   • CpuBenchmark: 4375 multi, 1716 single
   • Either a current gen at $1100 refurb, or
   • ... wait for new one in a month or two
   • But $1100 is only 8 gigs RAM; $1269 (!!) for 16.
   • Dual core only.
3. Alienware 15 R2 $1200
   • CpuBenchmark: 5734 multi, 1643 single
   • This category really means "any gaming laptop"
   • Eyed the Razer Stealth & Asus & MSI options

The ThinkPad was my first choice for a long time (see below for when that changed). The MacBook Pro was too expensive and didn't have two of my criteria -- more than 8 gigs of RAM & a quad-core processor. You could fix the first, but then you're at $1270+. The Alienware was simply too expensive. The Razer Stealth was affordable ($1k), but had the same issues as the MacBook Pro: anemic processor and soldered RAM. Other manufacturers generally had their most attractive hardware in a 15 or 17" case. 15" would be okay, but then you're paying at least $100 over the ThinkPad and losing the thumbprint sensor and TrackPoint. I'd rather save the money and keep the ThinkPad keyboard.

The Asus ROG GL552 (review here) is pretty tempting at about the same price. For $1000, it has USB-C, an i7 6700HQ, 16 gigs of RAM, GeForce GTX 960M, and even a num pad, maintenance hatch, & an optical drive. Reviews on Newegg aren't great, however. Doesn't seem to have the best build quality, but great specs for the price.

So I'm back to the ThinkPad. Yet the ThinkPad is hampered a little in that, first, the i7 model still isn't for sale in the US and threatens to be several hundred bucks more expensive if you convert the Australian version's processor markup to $US. Second, the T460p throttles its processor's power from 45W to 35W to, as far as most reviewers and forum posters can figure, help with cooling. NotebookCheck claims that doesn't affect performance, but I don't see how it couldn't at times. Otherwise, the processor would be 35W.

The bottom line is that the quad-core Skylake doesn't really like being pushed into a T460 chassis.

It's also disappointing overall how little single thread performance seems to have increased since 2013. These are less than 10% gains in the CPU benchmark I'm tracking. Can that be accurate? Seems insane. If I wasn't getting a better screen too, I'd consider not upgrading.

If money wasn't an object, I think a 15" MacBook Pro wins easily. Runs OS X and Windows, and has great processor options. The build quality is excellent, including the trackpad and keyboard, and I bet it gets a USB-C port in the next revision. I just can't justify $2000 on a laptop, I don't think. If it was going to last me six years, maybe, but that's a lot of coin. Still, I think it's the smart choice, even moreso after they're refreshed in a month or two, for, let's say, a company looking to treat their developers The Right Way.

Enter the Darkhorse: $700 IdeaPad Y700-14ISK

But then, clicking around the Lenovo site and NotebookCheck.net, I bumped into Lenovo's 14" "gaming" laptop, the IdeaPad Y700. Great processor, the same that's in the second tier, $1250 Alienware 15 R2, and it only runs $700.

I read through a few reviews of the Y700, but it was hard to find many for the 14" version. The most informative I could find was this one from laptopmag.com. There's also a pretty reasonable YouTube review here:

Best quote? "For fake carbon fiber, I think they did a good job."

There does appear to be a consensus on the laptop's cons.

• The Radeon R9 M375 GPU is underpowered for contemporary games
• The laptop is purposefully showy (fake vents, red accents, etc)
• The keyboard is okay, but a little flimsy and not snappy
• The trackpad stinks and it's difficult to make the hard clicks work
• Only one video-out option, a single HDMI port
• Smallish, unremovable battery, maybe 3 hours time.

Yet it has...

• An i7-6700HQ
  • CpuBenchmark: 8030 multi, 1791 single
• User upgradeable RAM and drives
  • Includes an m.2 slot for dual drives
  • +16 gigs from Crucial is $65
  • Max 32 gigs. Sorry, MacBook Pro.
• A 1920x1080 screen
• Even comes with eight gigs of RAM instead of the usual entry-level 4

Again, that processor is the same as the $1250 tier of the Alienware 15 R2!

Seems like a pretty good fit. I don't care about the graphics card; this is for work, and there even the M375 is much more than enough. Replace the hard drive and/or add an m.2 SSD, and you're off and running for around $800.

The low battery life worries me a little, I'm worried build quality will be significantly under the ThinkPad, I wish it had an option for a better screen (the ThinkPad I spec'd includes $70 to step up to 2560x1440 /swoon), I'm going to need to find my USB-to-HDMI adapter for another screen, and, even though I'm usually pretty comfortable with unconventional looks, I don't know that I'd bring it to an interview. Might keep the T430 around just for that... ;^)

Also wondering how bad the keyboard will be, as that's been one of the best parts of the ThinkPad. I actually got the ThinkPad USB keyboard in preparation for getting a MacBook so I could still have the TrackPoint handy, at least in the office. I wonder if the ThinkPad USB keyboard will fit over the Y700 keyboard with a right-angle micro type b cord, or if I'll end up trying the Bluetooth keyboard. This guy might be crazy, but I'm not convinced he's not crazy like a fox.

A final con: No Windows 10 Pro option. Right now, that'd run $140-$200 to "correct". Not cool. The only thing I really need pro for is Hyper-V, however, and I'm doing a lot less of that recently.

You know, I'm having my usual immediate buyer's remorse wondering if I shouldn't've shelled out another $200 for the USB-C on the Asus GL552, but I think I'm going to appreciate the Y700-14's portability. I mean, that's what you're really buying a laptop for anyhow, right?

Anyhow, that's too cheap to pass up. I'm biting. Far and away the cheapest phat Skylake quad-core I can find in a portable laptop. Man, I hope that keyboard doesn't bite me back.

^ A "lot" of money for a laptop is pretty subjective. I bagged a Lenovo IdeaPad Y100 (?) for $150 a few weeks back, and though it doesn't have enough hard drive space for Visual Studio and the Win10 SDK, it's plenty to do web programming or console/Powershell work. You could actually make a living with it, and I keep it in the car for "emergencies" when I'm caught laptopless. But $1200 seems to be my comfortable max for a "personal" business laptop.

* Again, as I said on my "Processor Shootout", that single-thread score for the i5-6440HQ doesn't jibe with expectations or its scores at Geekbench. I think it's wrong and/or not based on enough samples.

Labels: alienware, hardware, indie, lenovo, macbook, razer, thinkpad

I've had my ThinkPad T440 for over three years now, and though I've been exceptionally happy with it, I'm looking to upgrade. Biggest want? A fast processor. Everything else seems pretty fungible from one computer to the next, including screen resolution (the other place my T440 lacks), with the possible exception of ports. But as long as I have a USB in and video out, I'm fine, honestly. I like the "always on" charging port on my T440, which lets me charge my phone anywhere, but that's about the only "want".

Of course this means I'm wasting hours price comparing and processor spec studying. I'm also doing a really poor job putting all the info somewhere I can find it easily. So let's sum, just for me.

Pro tip: Don't get hung up on the huge red number. Also compare the "Single Thread Rating!

Processors (all scores from cpubenchmark.net)

Current Desktop (to make me feel badly):

Intel Core i7-4790K @ 4.00GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: LGA1150 Clockspeed: 4.0 GHz Turbo Speed: 4.4 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 88 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4790K CPU @ 4.00GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2014 CPUmark/$Price:  32.96     Overall Rank:  63 Last Price Change:  $339.99 USD (2014-07-09)	11206 Single Thread Rating: 2529 Samples: 9749

Current laptop (ThinkPad T440)

Intel Core i5-3320M @ 2.60GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: BGA1023 Clockspeed: 2.6 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.3 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 35 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3320M CPU @ 2.60GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2012 CPUmark/$Price:  16.66     Overall Rank:  558 Last Price Change:  $239.99 USD (2012-11-24)	3998 Single Thread Rating: 1626 Samples: 992

ThinkPad T460p (quad-core)

Entry price is $935. i7 not available yet.

Intel Core i5-6440HQ @ 2.60GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: LGA 1151 Clockspeed: 2.6 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.5 GHz No of Cores: 4 Max TDP: 45 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6440HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q1 2016 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  285 Last Price Change:  NA	6443 Single Thread Rating: 1932 [I'm not buying this. Geekbench puts it 11% lower than the i7, below. See that there's only 12 samples -mfn] Samples: 12

Intel Core i7-6820HQ @ 2.70GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: LGA 1151 Clockspeed: 2.7 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.6 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 45 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6820HQ CPU @ 2.70GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q4 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  163 Last Price Change:  NA	8640 Single Thread Rating: 1874 Samples: 127

ThinkPad T460 (dual cores, 3 options)

Entry prices by proc: $875, $922, and $1050.
P50s runs the same stuff, give or take. P50 speeds aren't significantly better.

Intel Core i5-6200U @ 2.30GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1356 Clockspeed: 2.3 GHz Turbo Speed: 2.8 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 15 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6200U CPU @ 2.30GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  575 Last Price Change:  NA	3902 Single Thread Rating: 1501 Samples: 388

Intel Core i5-6300U @ 2.40GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1356 Clockspeed: 2.4 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.0 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 15 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6300U CPU @ 2.40GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  508 Last Price Change:  NA	4296 Single Thread Rating: 1646 Samples: 227

Intel Core i7-6600U @ 2.60GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1356 Clockspeed: 2.6 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.4 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 15 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6600U CPU @ 2.60GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  434 Last Price Change:  NA	4777 Single Thread Rating: 1847 Samples: 161

Current MacBook Pro 13"

Entry prices by processor are $1300, $1400, and $1600.

Intel Core i5-5257U @ 2.70GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1168 Clockspeed: 2.7 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.1 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 23 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5257U CPU @ 2.70GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q1 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  491 Last Price Change:  NA	4375 Single Thread Rating: 1716 Samples: 56

Intel Core i5-5287U @ 2.90GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1168 Clockspeed: 2.9 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.3 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 28 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-5287U CPU @ 2.90GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  454 Last Price Change:  NA	4636 Single Thread Rating: 1873 Samples: 5

Intel Core i7-5557U @ 3.10GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1168 Clockspeed: 3.1 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.4 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 28 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5557U CPU @ 3.10GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q1 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  5.42     Overall Rank:  413 Last Price Change:  $915 USD (2016-02-04)	4959 Single Thread Rating: 1899 Samples: 133

Current MacBook Pro 15"

Worth remembering that these are, entry-price for each proc, $2000, $2100, and $2300

Intel Core i7-4770HQ @ 2.20GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1364 Clockspeed: 2.2 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.4 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 47 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770HQ CPU @ 2.20GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q4 2014 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  152 Last Price Change:  NA	8917 Single Thread Rating: 1888 Samples: 43

Intel Core i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1364 Clockspeed: 2.5 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.7 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 47 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4870HQ CPU @ 2.50GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2014 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  122 Last Price Change:  NA	9372 Single Thread Rating: 2058 Samples: 135

Intel Core i7-4980HQ @ 2.80GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1364 Clockspeed: 2.8 GHz Turbo Speed: 4.0 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 47 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4980HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2014 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  85 Last Price Change:  NA	10060 Single Thread Rating: 2234 Samples: 102

Alienware 15 r2

Though prices change on a dime, right now it's $1200, $1250, and $2550

Intel Core i5-6300HQ @ 2.30GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: LGA 1151 Clockspeed: 2.3 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.2 GHz No of Cores: 4 Max TDP: 45 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6300HQ CPU @ 2.30GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q4 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  335 Last Price Change:  NA	5734 Single Thread Rating: 1643 Samples: 123

Intel Core i7-6700HQ @ 2.60GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: LGA 1151 Clockspeed: 2.6 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.5 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 45 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  190 Last Price Change:  NA	8030 Single Thread Rating: 1791 Samples: 1259

Intel Core i7-6820HK @ 2.70GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: LGA 1151 Clockspeed: 2.7 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.6 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 45 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6820HK CPU @ 2.70GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q4 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  142 Last Price Change:  NA	9069 Single Thread Rating: 1904 Samples: 120

Razer Blade Stealth & QHD+

$1000, $1800 (Pro is the same proc as QHD+, so not including it in "entry price" list)

Intel Core i7-6500U @ 2.50GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1356 Clockspeed: 2.5 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.1 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 15 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6500U CPU @ 2.50GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q2 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  497 Last Price Change:  NA	4331 Single Thread Rating: 1647 Samples: 499

Intel Core i7-4720HQ @ 2.60GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: BGA1364 Clockspeed: 2.6 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.6 GHz No of Cores: 4 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 47 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4720HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q4 2014 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  187 Last Price Change:  NA	8100 Single Thread Rating: 1935 Samples: 1959

MacBook 2016

Intel Core m7-6Y75 @ 1.20GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: FCBGA1515 Clockspeed: 1.2 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.1 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 7 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) m7-6Y75 CPU @ 1.20GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q4 2015 CPUmark/$Price:  NA     Overall Rank:  622 Last Price Change:  NA	3704 Single Thread Rating: 1501 Samples: 27

My quick take home (again, for my specific use case; it is my blog, after all! ;^D) is that the MacBook Pros are impressively spec'd, and that the T460p, my initial choice b/c of price and quad-core proc, has an excellent single thread on the i5, tempered by there only being 12 samples taken.

I think the take-home is to wait on the new MacBook Pros this summer, to either get a deal on the old or to see if the new procs make sense. The real crux is whether I think I need mobile Mac hardware to write up some Xamarin apps for iOS. I have good but dated desktop Mac hardware, and can't figure out if $300-$500 is worth it to take a Mac on the road. I want to say yes, but with Xamarin Forms, it's not quite the deal breaker it used to be. And man, that T460p is cheap, relatively speaking.

EDIT: One more quick addition -- my Mac mini 2012, bottom of the line, as I try to convince myself to get a Windows laptop and use the mini as a Xamarin iOS build server...

Intel Core i5-3210M @ 2.50GHz  + Compare	Average CPU Mark
Description:  Socket: PGA988B Clockspeed: 2.5 GHz Turbo Speed: 3.1 GHz No of Cores: 2 (2 logical cores per physical) Max TDP: 35 W Other names:  Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3210M CPU @ 2.50GHz CPU First Seen on Charts:  Q1 2012 CPUmark/$Price:  17.18     Overall Rank:  606 Last Price Change:  $220.33 USD (2016-02-29)	3786 Single Thread Rating: 1518 Samples: 4334

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