Asahi is awesome!
But this is also proves that laptops outside the MacBook realm really need to improve so much. I wish there were a Linux machine with the hardware quality of a MacBook
* x86 chips can surpass the M series cpus in multithreaded performance, but are still lagging in singlethreaded performance and power efficiency
* Qualcomm kinda fumbled the Snapdragon X Elite launch with nonexistent Linux support and shoddy Windows stability, but here's to hoping that they "turn over a new leaf" with the X2.
Actually, some Snapdragon X Elite laptops do run Linux now, but performance is not great as there were some weird regressions and anyway newer chips have caught up [1].
On the build quality side, basically all the PCs are still lagging behind Apple, e.g. yesterday's rant post about the Framework laptop [2] touched on a lot of important points.
Of course, there are the Thinkpads, which are still built decently but are quite expensive. Some of the Chinese laptops like the Honor MagicBooks could be attractive and some reddit threads confirm getting Linux working on them, but they are hard to get in the US. That said, at least many non-Apple laptops have decent trackpads and really nice screens nowadays.
I have no faith in Qualcomm to even make me basic gestures towards the Linux community.
All I want is an easy way to install Linux on one of the numerous Snapdragon laptops. I think the Snapdragon Thinkpad might work, but none of the other really do.
A 400$ Arm laptop with good Linux support would be great, but it's never ever going to happen.
> x86 chips can surpass the M series cpus in multithreaded performance, but are still lagging in singlethreaded performance
Nodding along with the rest but isn't this backwards? Are M series actually outperforming an Intel i9 P-core or Ryzen 9X in raw single-threaded performance?
The closest laptop to MacBook quality is surprisingly the Microsoft Surface Laptop.
As to x86, Zen 6 will be AMD's first major architecture rework since Apple demonstrated what is possible with wide decode. ( Well more accurately it should be since the world take notice because it happened long before M1 ). It still likely wont be close to M5 or even M4 with Single Threaded Performance / Watt, but hopefully it will be close.
Honor strangely enough doesnt make any efforts to really support Linux
The machine quality is pretty damn good, but Huawei machines are still better. Apple level of quality. And Huawei releases their machines with Linux preinstalled
The company to watch is Wiko. Its their French spin off to sidestep their chip ban. They might put out some very nice laptops, but a bit tbd
Dealing with Honor support is a pain. They don't understand absolutely anything and is impossible to get them out of their script if you have a problem.
I have a Honor 200 pro, and the software is buggy and constantly replaces user configurations with their defaults every 3 or 4 days.
I would avoid anything Honor in the future at any cost.
> Actually, some Snapdragon X Elite laptops do run Linux now, but performance is not great as there were some weird regressions and anyway newer chips have caught up [1].
ohh thanks for that link; i was thinking about updating to the latest on my asusbook s15 but i think ill stick with the current ubuntu concept for now... saved me some trouble!
> On the build quality side, basically all the PCs are still lagging behind Apple,
This is an oft-repeated meme, but not really true. Thinkpads, high-end lightweight gaming laptops like the Asus G14... There are many x86 laptops with excellent build quality.
I've moved completely to EliteBooks and am very happy with my decision. The build quality is superb, they're upgradeable, everything is replaceable and there's an excellent market and after market for parts, and HP has codepaths in their firmware for Linux support, meaning even Modern Standby works well.
Price points for refurb and used hardware are great, too.
The key qualities of something like a macbook air are:
It has no fans.
It's temperature never changes unless you really push it. I've never used any other laptop where I could feel at least some warmth when it was turned on.
My m1 air still has enough battery to run for a full day of usage, here several years after I bought it. Basically never loses power while the lid is closed either, but that is less of an issue.
But they’re heavier, slower, have more impactful active cooling, have much worse battery life (mostly due to the processor), and have some lower quality user interface components. Don’t get me wrong they’re decent hardware! It’s just the macbook air benchmark is very high.
Looking at a Thinkpad 16" P1 Gen 8 with 2X 1TB SSD, 64GB RAM, QHD+ screen, centered keyboard like MBP (i.e. no numpad), integrated Intel GPU, lightweight (4 lbs) for a little under $2.5K USD.
Closest I've found to an MBP 16" replacement.
Have been running Dell Precision laptops for many years on Linux, not sure about Lenovo build quality and battery life, but hoping it will be decent enough.
Would run Asahi if it supported M4 but looks it's a long ways away...
Performance is still very high so if they don't need the current top tier AMD horsepower, Intel is the way to go. It's also quieter, cooler and doesn't throttle. Not to mention the ability to use SRIOV GPU for running Windows software in a VM.
Also, Lenovo tends to limit HiDPI displays to Intel CPUs, for some ekhm unknown reason.
I am giving my MacBook Air M2 15” to my wife and bought a Lenovo E16 with 120hz screen to run Kubuntu last night. She needed a new laptop and I am had enough of macOS and just need some stuff to work that will be easier on an intel and Linux. Also I do bookwork online so bigger screen and dedicated numpad will be nice.
It reviews well and seems like good value for money with current holiday sales but I don’t expect the same hardware quality or portability just a little more freedom. I hope I’m not too disappointed.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-E16-G3-Review-...
If you're running desktop Linux, you will have a better experience with a rolling release than being stuck with whatever state the software that was frozen in Debian/Ubuntu is in, especially when it comes to multimedia, graphics, screen sharing, etc.
Modern desktop Linux relies on software that's being fixed and improving at a high velocity, and ironically, can be more stable than relying on a distro's fixed release cycles.
KDE Plasma, Wayland support, Pipewire, etc all have had recent fixes and improvements that you will not get to enjoy for another X months/years until Canonical pulls in those changes and freezes them for release.
Similarly, newer kernels are a must when using relatively recent hardware. Fixes and support for new hardware lands in new kernels, LTS releases might not have the best support for your newer hardware.
I outfitted our 10 person team with the E16 g2 and it’s been great.
Two minor issues- it’s HEAVY compared to T models.
Because of the weight try not to walk around with the lid up and holding it from one of front corners. I’ve noticed one of them is kind of warped from walking around the office holding it that way.
> I wish there were a Linux machine with the hardware quality of a MacBook
It really depends what you mean by "quality". To me first and foremost quality I look for in a laptop is for it to not break. As I'm a heavy desktop user, my laptop is typically with me on the couch or on vacation. Enter my MacBook Air M1: after 13 months, and sadly no extended warranty, the screen broke for no reason overnight. I literally closed it before going to bed and when I opened the lid the next day: screen broken. Some refer to that phenomenon as the "bendgate".
And every time I see a Mac laptop I can't help but think "slick and good looking but brittle". There's a feeling of brittleness with Mac laptops that you don't have with, say, a Thinkpad.
My absolute best laptop is a MIL-SPEC (I know, I know, there are many different types of military specs) LG Gram. Lighter than a MacBook too. And every single time I demo it to people I take the screen, I bent it left and right. This thing is rock solid.
I happen to have this laptop (not my vid) and look at 34 seconds in the vid:
The guy literally throws my laptop (well, the same) down concrete stairs and the thing still just works fine.
The friend who sold it to me (I bought it used) one day stepped on it when he woke up. No problemo.
To me that is quality: something you can buy used and that is rock solid.
Where are the vids of someone throwing a MacBook Air down the stairs and the thing keeps working?
I'm trading a retina display any day for a display that doesn't break when it accidentally falls on the ground.
Now I love the look and the incredible speed of the MacBook Air laptops (I still have my M1 but has its screen broke, I turned it into a desktop) but I really wish they were not desk queens: we've got desktops for that.
I don't want a laptop that require exceptional care and mad packaging skills when putting it inside a backpack (and which then requires the backpack to be manipulated with extreme care).
So: bring me the raw power and why not the nice look of a MacBook Air, but make it sturdy (really the most important for me) and have it support Linux. That I'd buy.
Notice how much the screen wobbles after opening the laptop, around the one minute mark. That does not happen even with the cheapest Macbook Air, that’s the kind of design quality people refer to.
As for light and sturdy, the Netbook era had it all. A shame the world moved on from that.
Phones simply won't survive a week without an industrial case. Screen projectors last as short as a single day.
The only computers that survived her JerryRigEverything levels of abuse are MacBooks+ who routinely fall off tables, stairs, or simply hands.
One even fell off open 90 degrees and rotationally fell right on the far edge at what would be the maximum torque position; there was massive deformation of the lid aluminum but the lid was still flat, the glass
had no cracks, and the whole thing perfectly functional.
(note: these are the older designs from the first unibody to the last Intel laptop, not the newer Mx ones)
+ Well, except one, which had an entire pint toppled towards and sloshed right upon the screen which had the liquid slide straight into the exhaust vents. There was an audible poof as the screen went black)
I've owned two LG gram laptops. Neither were milspec, but both were really nice. Sure, the screen quality isn't going to win any awards, nor will the speakers, but the light weight, fantastic battery life and snappy performance always get a recommendation from me.
I adore my Linux setup and have switched back to it after using M1 Pro for 3 years.
But through all the Dells, Thinkpads and Asus laptops I've had (~10), none were remotely close to a full package that MBP M1 Pro was.
- Performance - outstanding
- Fan noise - non-existent 99% of the time, cannot compare to any other laptop I had
- Battery - not as amazing as people claim for my usage, but still at least 30% better
- Screen, touchpad, speakers, chassis - all highest tier; some PC laptops do screen (Asus OLED), keyboard and chassis (Thinkpad) better, but nothing groundbreaking...
It's the only laptop I've ever had that gave me a feeling that there is nothing that could come my way, and I wouldn't be able to do on it, without any drama whatsoever.
It's just too bad that I can't run multiple external displays on Asahi...
(For posterity, currently using Asus Zenbook S16, Ryzen HX370, 32GB RAM, OLED screen, was $1700 - looks and feels amazing, screen is great, performance is solid - but I'm driving it hard, so fan noise is constant, battery lasts shorter, and it's just a bit more "drama" than with MBP)
Excellent power efficiency in apple silicon - good battery life and good performance at the same time. The aluminum body is also very rigid and premium feeling, unlike so many creaky bendy pc laptops. Good screen, good speakers.
I’ve never heard someone describe the aluminum body as bad.. what do you not like about it?
The number one benefit is the Apple Silicon processors, which are incredibly efficient.
Then it’s the trackpad, keyboard and overall build quality for me. Windows laptops often just feel cheap by comparison.
Or they’ll have perplexing design problems, like whatever is going on with Dell laptops these days with the capacitive function row and borderless trackpad.
The keyboard and body are not bad at all - rather, they're best in class, and so is the rest of the hardware. It is a premium hardware experience, and has been since Jony Ive left, which is what makes the software so disappointing.
I believe there are a few all-metal laptops competing in the marketplace but was unaware they were actually better than the apple laptops ... what all aluminum laptops are better and how are they better ?
If the Macbook has a bad keyboard (ignoring the Butterfly switches, which aren't on any of the M series machines, which are the ones people actually recommend and praise), then the vast majority of Windows machine have truly atrocious keyboards. I prefer the keyboard on my 2012 Macbook to the newer ones, but it's still better than the Windows machines I can test in local stores.
I prefer the aluminium to the plastic found on most Windows machines. The Framework is made from some aluminium alloy from what I know, and I see that as a good thing.
The soldered RAM sucks, but it's a trade-off I'm willing to make for a touchpad that actually works, a pretty good screen, and battery life that doesn't suck.
> "I never understood why people claim the Macbook is so good."
Apple's good enough for the average consumer, just like a 16-bit home computer back in the day. Everyone who looks for something bespoke/specialized (e. g. certified dual- or multi-OS support, ECC-RAM, right-to-repair, top-class flicker-free displays, size, etc.) looks elsewhere, of course.
>I am very impressed with how smooth and problem-free Asahi Linux is. It is incredibly responsive and feels even smoother than my Arch Linux desktop with a 16 core AMD Ryzen 7945HX and 64GB of RAM.
Hmmm still have issue with the battery in sleep mode on the m1. It drains a lot battery when it is in sleep mode compare to mac sleep mode.
Seems like a crazy hobby to me though! Photography is inconvenient enough without having to make your own mounts and use an sdk to do it! History is filled with inconvenient hobbies though.
I would agree with the sentiment about the lack of good bright screens for lenovo's hacker laptops like the X1 carbon.
Why? Lots of people more or less use their computer as a glorified web browser, with some zoom calls and document editing thrown in for good measure. 256gb seems overkill. My girlfriend is somehow still rocking a 2011 MacBook Air. She mostly just uses it for internet banking and managing her finances. Why would she want more than 256gb?
1Tb m.2 SSD cost 70 USD in summer 2025, and probably much less when bought in bulk as a chip. It doesn't make sense to install anything less than 1Tb in an expensive premium laptop. Or it should be upgradeable.
Apple's pricing is one of the reasons I am not going to buy their laptops. Expensive, and with no upgradeable or replaceable parts. And closed-source OS with telemetry.
> Lots of people more or less use their computer as a glorified web browser
For this purpose they can buy $350 laptop with larger screen.
Because the price tag is quite high to get as much storage as you would 15 years ago for about the same money.
I agree that many people use them as glorified internet machines but even then when they occasionally decide to back up some photos or edit a few videos the 256GB non-upgradable storage quickly becomes a limitation.
Price matters. 256GB is fine on a $500 web browsing laptop, but on a $1000+ one it's just a bad deal in 2025, even ignoring the fact that you cannot upgrade it later (it's soldered in place).
Possibly, but I don't see why those people would buy a new MacBook rather than a used 100$ laptop (which would be both better for their finances but also for the planet...)
I think they mean that is 2025, 256GB is unreasonably small. Which is true, Apple wants to up-charge hundreds of dollars just to get to the otherwise standard 1TB drive.
I've been an Asahi user since the early stages of the project when it used Arch. Today, I run Fedora Asahi Remix on a Mac Studio M1 Ultra with the Sway desktop, and it truly has been the perfect Linux workstation in every way.
hey have you ever tried compiling the linux kernel on it? It's often difficult in my experience to find compile benchmarks for Apple Silicon that aren't Xcode
Each controller and subcomponent on the motherboard needs a driver that correctly puts it into low power and sleep states to get battery savings.
Most of those components are proprietary and don't use the standard drivers available in Linux kernel.
So someone needs to go and reverse engineer them, upstream the drivers and pray that Apple doesn't change them in next revision (which they did) or the whole process needs to start again.
In other words: get an actually Linux supported laptop for Linux.
Apple does tons of optimizations for every component to improve battery life.
Asahi Linux, which is reverse engineered, doesn't have the resources to figure out each of those tricks, especially for undocumented proprietary hardware, so it's a "death by a thousand cuts" as each of the various components is always drawing a couple of milliwatts more than on macOS.
Exactly. This myth keeps being perpetuated, for some reason.
I'm typing this from a ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 running Void Linux, and UPower is reporting 99% battery with ~15h left. I do have TLP installed and running, which is supposed to help. Realistically, I won't get around 15h with my usage patterns, but I do get around 10-12 hours. It's a new laptop with a fresh battery, so that plays a big role as well.
This might not be as good as the battery life on a Macbook, but it's pretty acceptable to me. The upcoming Intel chips also promise to be more power efficient, which should help even more.
Eh it's pretty awful. I get 8 hours, yes, but in Linux, those 8 hours are ticking whether my laptop is sleeping in my bag or on my desk with the lid closed or I'm actively using it. 8 hours of active use is pretty good, but 8 hours in sleep is absolutely dreadful.
For optimal battery life you need to tweak the whole OS stack for the hardware. You need to make sure all the peripherals are set up right to go into the right idle states without causing user-visible latency on wake-up. (Note that often just one peripheral being out of tune here can mess up the whole system's power performance. Also the correct settings here depend on your software stack). You need to make sure that cpufreq and cpuidle governors work nicely with the particular foibles of your platform's CPUs. Ditto for the task scheduler. Then, ditto for a bunch of random userspace code (audio + rendering pipeline for example). The list goes on and on. This work gets done in Android and ChromeOS.
This doesn't match my experience. My previous three laptops (two AMD Lenovo Thinkpads, one Intel Sony VAIO) had essentially the same battery life running Linux as running Windows.
Asahi is all reverse engineering. It’s nothing short of a miracle what has already accomplished, despite, not because of, Apple.
That said some of the prominent developers have left the project. As long as Apple keeps hoarding their designs it’s going to be a struggle, even more so now.
If you care about FOSS operating systems or freedom over your own hardware there isn’t a reason to choose Apple.
To be clear, the work the asahi folks are doing is incredible. I’m ashamed to say sometimes their documentation is better than the internal stuff.
I’ve heard it’s mostly because there wasn’t an m3 Mac mini which is a much easier target for CI since it isn’t a portable. Also, there have been a ton of hardware changes internally between M2 and M3. M4 is a similar leap. More coprocessors, more security features, etc.
For example, PPL was replaced by SPTM and all the exclave magic.
The new project leadership team has prioritized upstreaming the existing work over reverse engineering on newer systems.
> Our priority is kernel upstreaming. Our downstream Linux tree contains over 1000 patches required for Apple Silicon that are not yet in upstream Linux. The upstream kernel moves fast, requiring us to constantly rebase our changes on top of upstream while battling merge conflicts and regressions. Janne, Neal, and marcan have rebased our tree for years, but it is laborious with so many patches. Before adding more, we need to reduce our patch stack to remain sustainable long-term.
> Last time, we announced that the core SMC driver had finally been merged upstream after three long years. Following that success, we have started the process of merging the SMC’s subdevice drivers which integrate all of the SMC’s functionality into the various kernel subsystems. The hwmon driver has already been accepted for 6.19, meaning that the myriad voltage, current, temperature and power sensors controlled by the SMC will be readable using the standard hwmon interfaces. The SMC is also responsible for reading and setting the RTC, and the driver for this function has also been merged for 6.19! The only SMC subdevices left to merge is the driver for the power button and lid switch, which is still on the mailing list, and the battery/power supply management driver, which currently needs some tweaking to deal with changes in the SMC firmware in macOS 26.
Also finally making it upstream are the changes required to support USB3 via the USB-C ports. This too has been a long process, with our approach needing to change significantly from what we had originally developed downstream
Hard disagree : try the UTM app on the App Store (or build it from open source) and you get Apple Silicon native virtualization and super simple installation of Aarch64 linuxes from an iso.
i've been doing this for maybe a year, after frustration with power draw and sleep modes (and dual boot) with Asahi.
it's been great...and Apple silicon is still super efficient, which is why i said hard disagree.
Given the speed of the progress that Apple has made on their hardware (from M1 to M5), I think the project was already doomed since the very beginning. Reverse engineering per-se is a huge talent drain that wastes tremendous amount of man-hour on a closed problem. Also, the strong SW-HW integration of Mac is sophisticate and fragile, that is difficult to analyze and replicate. Nailing all those details is not only time consuming, but also limited in the scope, and never yield anything beyond status quo.
I’m quite glad that those talented guys finally escaped from the pit hole of reverse engineering. It maybe fun and interesting, but its future was already capped by Apple. I wish they find another fashion, hopefully something more original and progressive. Stop chasing and push forward.
Without official support, the Asahi team needs to RE a lot of stuffs. I’d expect it to lag behind a couple of generations at least.
I blame Apple on pushing out new models every year. I don’t get why it does that. A M1 is perfectly fine after a few years but Apple treats it like an iPhone. I think one new model every 2-3 years is good enough.
M1 is indeed quite adequate for most, but each generation has brought substantial boosts in performance in single-threaded, multi-threaded, and with the M5 generation in particular GPU-bound tasks. These advancements are required to keep pace with the industry and in a few aspects stay ahead of competitors, plus there exist high end users whose workloads greatly benefit from these performance improvements.
If you want the latest and greatest you can get it. If an M1 is fine you can get a great deal on one and they’re still great machines and supported by Apple.
A new Wayland protocol is in the works that should support screen cutout information out of the box: https://phosh.mobi/posts/xdg-cutouts/ Hopefully this will be extended to include color information whenever applicable, so that "hiding" the screen cutout (by coloring the surrounding area deep black) can also be a standard feature and maybe even be active by default.
You know what OS doesn’t handle the notch? OSX. It happily throws the system tray icons right back there, with an obscure work around to bring them back. Software quality at Apple these days…
Readit News
* x86 chips can surpass the M series cpus in multithreaded performance, but are still lagging in singlethreaded performance and power efficiency
* Qualcomm kinda fumbled the Snapdragon X Elite launch with nonexistent Linux support and shoddy Windows stability, but here's to hoping that they "turn over a new leaf" with the X2.
Actually, some Snapdragon X Elite laptops do run Linux now, but performance is not great as there were some weird regressions and anyway newer chips have caught up [1].
On the build quality side, basically all the PCs are still lagging behind Apple, e.g. yesterday's rant post about the Framework laptop [2] touched on a lot of important points. Of course, there are the Thinkpads, which are still built decently but are quite expensive. Some of the Chinese laptops like the Honor MagicBooks could be attractive and some reddit threads confirm getting Linux working on them, but they are hard to get in the US. That said, at least many non-Apple laptops have decent trackpads and really nice screens nowadays.
[1] https://www.phoronix.com/review/snapdragon-x-elite-linux-eoy...
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46375174
All I want is an easy way to install Linux on one of the numerous Snapdragon laptops. I think the Snapdragon Thinkpad might work, but none of the other really do.
A 400$ Arm laptop with good Linux support would be great, but it's never ever going to happen.
Installed arch, setup some commands to underclock the processor on login and easily boost it when I'm compiling.
Battery life is great but I'm not running a GUI either. Good machine for when I want to avoid distractions and just code.
Nodding along with the rest but isn't this backwards? Are M series actually outperforming an Intel i9 P-core or Ryzen 9X in raw single-threaded performance?
As to x86, Zen 6 will be AMD's first major architecture rework since Apple demonstrated what is possible with wide decode. ( Well more accurately it should be since the world take notice because it happened long before M1 ). It still likely wont be close to M5 or even M4 with Single Threaded Performance / Watt, but hopefully it will be close.
The machine quality is pretty damn good, but Huawei machines are still better. Apple level of quality. And Huawei releases their machines with Linux preinstalled
The company to watch is Wiko. Its their French spin off to sidestep their chip ban. They might put out some very nice laptops, but a bit tbd
I have a Honor 200 pro, and the software is buggy and constantly replaces user configurations with their defaults every 3 or 4 days.
I would avoid anything Honor in the future at any cost.
This is an oft-repeated meme, but not really true. Thinkpads, high-end lightweight gaming laptops like the Asus G14... There are many x86 laptops with excellent build quality.
I've moved completely to EliteBooks and am very happy with my decision. The build quality is superb, they're upgradeable, everything is replaceable and there's an excellent market and after market for parts, and HP has codepaths in their firmware for Linux support, meaning even Modern Standby works well.
Price points for refurb and used hardware are great, too.
[1] https://ubuntu.com/certified
It has no fans.
It's temperature never changes unless you really push it. I've never used any other laptop where I could feel at least some warmth when it was turned on.
My m1 air still has enough battery to run for a full day of usage, here several years after I bought it. Basically never loses power while the lid is closed either, but that is less of an issue.
Closest I've found to an MBP 16" replacement.
Have been running Dell Precision laptops for many years on Linux, not sure about Lenovo build quality and battery life, but hoping it will be decent enough.
Would run Asahi if it supported M4 but looks it's a long ways away...
Performance is still very high so if they don't need the current top tier AMD horsepower, Intel is the way to go. It's also quieter, cooler and doesn't throttle. Not to mention the ability to use SRIOV GPU for running Windows software in a VM.
Also, Lenovo tends to limit HiDPI displays to Intel CPUs, for some ekhm unknown reason.
Modern desktop Linux relies on software that's being fixed and improving at a high velocity, and ironically, can be more stable than relying on a distro's fixed release cycles.
KDE Plasma, Wayland support, Pipewire, etc all have had recent fixes and improvements that you will not get to enjoy for another X months/years until Canonical pulls in those changes and freezes them for release.
Similarly, newer kernels are a must when using relatively recent hardware. Fixes and support for new hardware lands in new kernels, LTS releases might not have the best support for your newer hardware.
Two minor issues- it’s HEAVY compared to T models.
Because of the weight try not to walk around with the lid up and holding it from one of front corners. I’ve noticed one of them is kind of warped from walking around the office holding it that way.
It really depends what you mean by "quality". To me first and foremost quality I look for in a laptop is for it to not break. As I'm a heavy desktop user, my laptop is typically with me on the couch or on vacation. Enter my MacBook Air M1: after 13 months, and sadly no extended warranty, the screen broke for no reason overnight. I literally closed it before going to bed and when I opened the lid the next day: screen broken. Some refer to that phenomenon as the "bendgate".
And every time I see a Mac laptop I can't help but think "slick and good looking but brittle". There's a feeling of brittleness with Mac laptops that you don't have with, say, a Thinkpad.
My absolute best laptop is a MIL-SPEC (I know, I know, there are many different types of military specs) LG Gram. Lighter than a MacBook too. And every single time I demo it to people I take the screen, I bent it left and right. This thing is rock solid.
I happen to have this laptop (not my vid) and look at 34 seconds in the vid:
https://youtu.be/herYV5TJ_m8
The guy literally throws my laptop (well, the same) down concrete stairs and the thing still just works fine.
The friend who sold it to me (I bought it used) one day stepped on it when he woke up. No problemo.
To me that is quality: something you can buy used and that is rock solid.
Where are the vids of someone throwing a MacBook Air down the stairs and the thing keeps working?
I'm trading a retina display any day for a display that doesn't break when it accidentally falls on the ground.
Now I love the look and the incredible speed of the MacBook Air laptops (I still have my M1 but has its screen broke, I turned it into a desktop) but I really wish they were not desk queens: we've got desktops for that.
I don't want a laptop that require exceptional care and mad packaging skills when putting it inside a backpack (and which then requires the backpack to be manipulated with extreme care).
So: bring me the raw power and why not the nice look of a MacBook Air, but make it sturdy (really the most important for me) and have it support Linux. That I'd buy.
As for light and sturdy, the Netbook era had it all. A shame the world moved on from that.
My wife is the bane of electronic devices.
Phones simply won't survive a week without an industrial case. Screen projectors last as short as a single day.
The only computers that survived her JerryRigEverything levels of abuse are MacBooks+ who routinely fall off tables, stairs, or simply hands.
One even fell off open 90 degrees and rotationally fell right on the far edge at what would be the maximum torque position; there was massive deformation of the lid aluminum but the lid was still flat, the glass had no cracks, and the whole thing perfectly functional.
(note: these are the older designs from the first unibody to the last Intel laptop, not the newer Mx ones)
+ Well, except one, which had an entire pint toppled towards and sloshed right upon the screen which had the liquid slide straight into the exhaust vents. There was an audible poof as the screen went black)
For some anecdata, I have:
Stood on mine Poured water on it. Been hit by a car while cycling and fallen on it. Dropped it.
It’s fine. Has a few scratches and a small dent. The predecessor is a 2013 Air which has had a hard life. It’s going great.
A colleague put a piece of a4 paper between keyboard and screen then closed it, squeezed it and cracked the screen. Don’t do that.
Bad keyboard, bad aluminium body, soldered ram...
Is it just the Apple Silicon that somehow makes it worth it? It's ARM, most software is still written and optimized for x86.
But through all the Dells, Thinkpads and Asus laptops I've had (~10), none were remotely close to a full package that MBP M1 Pro was.
- Performance - outstanding
- Fan noise - non-existent 99% of the time, cannot compare to any other laptop I had
- Battery - not as amazing as people claim for my usage, but still at least 30% better
- Screen, touchpad, speakers, chassis - all highest tier; some PC laptops do screen (Asus OLED), keyboard and chassis (Thinkpad) better, but nothing groundbreaking...
It's the only laptop I've ever had that gave me a feeling that there is nothing that could come my way, and I wouldn't be able to do on it, without any drama whatsoever.
It's just too bad that I can't run multiple external displays on Asahi...
(For posterity, currently using Asus Zenbook S16, Ryzen HX370, 32GB RAM, OLED screen, was $1700 - looks and feels amazing, screen is great, performance is solid - but I'm driving it hard, so fan noise is constant, battery lasts shorter, and it's just a bit more "drama" than with MBP)
I am very much a Linux person. But the battery life with macOS on the Apple Silicon is absolutely insane.
The number one benefit is the Apple Silicon processors, which are incredibly efficient.
Then it’s the trackpad, keyboard and overall build quality for me. Windows laptops often just feel cheap by comparison.
Or they’ll have perplexing design problems, like whatever is going on with Dell laptops these days with the capacitive function row and borderless trackpad.
Would you elaborate ?
I believe there are a few all-metal laptops competing in the marketplace but was unaware they were actually better than the apple laptops ... what all aluminum laptops are better and how are they better ?
I prefer the aluminium to the plastic found on most Windows machines. The Framework is made from some aluminium alloy from what I know, and I see that as a good thing.
The soldered RAM sucks, but it's a trade-off I'm willing to make for a touchpad that actually works, a pretty good screen, and battery life that doesn't suck.
Apple's good enough for the average consumer, just like a 16-bit home computer back in the day. Everyone who looks for something bespoke/specialized (e. g. certified dual- or multi-OS support, ECC-RAM, right-to-repair, top-class flicker-free displays, size, etc.) looks elsewhere, of course.
Hmmm still have issue with the battery in sleep mode on the m1. It drains a lot battery when it is in sleep mode compare to mac sleep mode.
> higher battery drainage during sleep, so I usually just shut it down entirely when not using it
> no hardware acceleration for video decoding
> some USB port quirks and external display quirks
I just don't understand why people go through all these lengths to be such sycophants for Apple.
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For those curious about the Alkeria line-scan camera, he wrote a blog about 3d printing a lens mount etc. https://daniel.lawrence.lu/blog/2024-08-31-customizing-my-li...
Seems like a crazy hobby to me though! Photography is inconvenient enough without having to make your own mounts and use an sdk to do it! History is filled with inconvenient hobbies though.
I would agree with the sentiment about the lack of good bright screens for lenovo's hacker laptops like the X1 carbon.
Apple's pricing is one of the reasons I am not going to buy their laptops. Expensive, and with no upgradeable or replaceable parts. And closed-source OS with telemetry.
> Lots of people more or less use their computer as a glorified web browser
For this purpose they can buy $350 laptop with larger screen.
I agree that many people use them as glorified internet machines but even then when they occasionally decide to back up some photos or edit a few videos the 256GB non-upgradable storage quickly becomes a limitation.
Price matters. 256GB is fine on a $500 web browsing laptop, but on a $1000+ one it's just a bad deal in 2025, even ignoring the fact that you cannot upgrade it later (it's soldered in place).
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Realistically, it is reasonable to expect 2TB drives, based on normal progression https://blocksandfiles.com/2024/05/13/coughlin-associates-hd...
https://github.com/jasoneckert/sway-dotfiles/blob/main/Asahi...
Most of those components are proprietary and don't use the standard drivers available in Linux kernel.
So someone needs to go and reverse engineer them, upstream the drivers and pray that Apple doesn't change them in next revision (which they did) or the whole process needs to start again.
In other words: get an actually Linux supported laptop for Linux.
40% battery for 4hrs of real work is better than pretty much any linux supported laptop I've ever used
For a lot of people the point is to extend the life of their already-purchased hardware.
I'm typing this from a ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 running Void Linux, and UPower is reporting 99% battery with ~15h left. I do have TLP installed and running, which is supposed to help. Realistically, I won't get around 15h with my usage patterns, but I do get around 10-12 hours. It's a new laptop with a fresh battery, so that plays a big role as well.
This might not be as good as the battery life on a Macbook, but it's pretty acceptable to me. The upcoming Intel chips also promise to be more power efficient, which should help even more.
That said some of the prominent developers have left the project. As long as Apple keeps hoarding their designs it’s going to be a struggle, even more so now.
If you care about FOSS operating systems or freedom over your own hardware there isn’t a reason to choose Apple.
I’ve heard it’s mostly because there wasn’t an m3 Mac mini which is a much easier target for CI since it isn’t a portable. Also, there have been a ton of hardware changes internally between M2 and M3. M4 is a similar leap. More coprocessors, more security features, etc.
For example, PPL was replaced by SPTM and all the exclave magic.
https://randomaugustine.medium.com/on-apple-exclaves-d683a2c...
As always, opinions are my own
https://lore.kernel.org/asahi/20251215-macsmc-subdevs-v6-4-0...
> Our priority is kernel upstreaming. Our downstream Linux tree contains over 1000 patches required for Apple Silicon that are not yet in upstream Linux. The upstream kernel moves fast, requiring us to constantly rebase our changes on top of upstream while battling merge conflicts and regressions. Janne, Neal, and marcan have rebased our tree for years, but it is laborious with so many patches. Before adding more, we need to reduce our patch stack to remain sustainable long-term.
https://asahilinux.org/2025/02/passing-the-torch/
For instance, in this month's progress report:
> Last time, we announced that the core SMC driver had finally been merged upstream after three long years. Following that success, we have started the process of merging the SMC’s subdevice drivers which integrate all of the SMC’s functionality into the various kernel subsystems. The hwmon driver has already been accepted for 6.19, meaning that the myriad voltage, current, temperature and power sensors controlled by the SMC will be readable using the standard hwmon interfaces. The SMC is also responsible for reading and setting the RTC, and the driver for this function has also been merged for 6.19! The only SMC subdevices left to merge is the driver for the power button and lid switch, which is still on the mailing list, and the battery/power supply management driver, which currently needs some tweaking to deal with changes in the SMC firmware in macOS 26.
Also finally making it upstream are the changes required to support USB3 via the USB-C ports. This too has been a long process, with our approach needing to change significantly from what we had originally developed downstream
https://asahilinux.org/2025/12/progress-report-6-18/
Stop buying Apple laptops to run Linux.
i've been doing this for maybe a year, after frustration with power draw and sleep modes (and dual boot) with Asahi.
it's been great...and Apple silicon is still super efficient, which is why i said hard disagree.
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I’m quite glad that those talented guys finally escaped from the pit hole of reverse engineering. It maybe fun and interesting, but its future was already capped by Apple. I wish they find another fashion, hopefully something more original and progressive. Stop chasing and push forward.
I blame Apple on pushing out new models every year. I don’t get why it does that. A M1 is perfectly fine after a few years but Apple treats it like an iPhone. I think one new model every 2-3 years is good enough.
I've got a few ideas