I recently replaced my Macbook Pro with a Thinkpad x200 running Arch Linux and Windows Vista. After 5 years of using Apple products I decided to switch – to borrow one of their marketing terms – because frankly, I was sick of being abused as a customer and the lock-in was making me less and less comfortable. Here’s a list of the things that really did it for me:
- Pricing the Macbook Air so high with such low specs.
- Releasing an pitiful update to the air along with a nice $100 price increase.
- Doing away with the matte screen option.
- Pulling the remotes from being included with laptops (admittedly not a huge deal, but felt like salt on a wound).
Is it just me or is Apple becoming a little too arrogant? Anyway, I know Lenovo won’t be saints either, but at least in the non-Mac OS X world I can easily switch vendors down the road if I ever need to.
One Comment
You’ve hit the nail on the head. I’m kind looking at the same problem here.
- Apple is pricy,
- They innovate with display ports and all, but they come back for more money by not giving any connector / remote,
- They kind of lock you down with formats, I’m stressed that down the road, I won’t be able to open my old files.
But the thing is, there is no better constructed laptop, this is talking from the new unibody ones they’re making. They have a nice design, I’m a sucker for design. Linux is not efficient for desktop uses. It works great on a server, but you always need to fight to get it to work your way on a laptop. This can be debated because you don’t get to customize OSX. But at least, for me, it plain works.
As for the files format and all, I write my doc in .TXT format and I try to use as many open format or open sources programs I can. That way, if it does change, I can alway convert or compile an old program to view them.