ShovelKnight wrote on 2020-06-26, 22:30:

Just a couple of days ago I was perusing Lenovo's website to look at the current state of ThinkPad, and as it turns out, they have no current laptops under 15 inch that have upgradable CPU or RAM or anything else besides the SSD. Some of the last years's models under 15 inch have 1 free RAM slot.

My L390 Yoga from last year has two RAM slots and can be upgraded to 64GB. SSD can also be swapped with whatever you want (M.2 slot).

But I agree, this model is a big exception to the rule. Lenovo seems to have gone the Apple way and I think the L390 will be my last ThinkPad, sadly. 🙁

That said, if you want to have a model with an included Wacom panel (like me) pretty much every manufacturer prevents user upgrades. The Surface notebooks are even more locked down than ThinkPads. Which is really sad, because these panels are mainly used by designers and graphic artists and these would greatly benefit from having more RAM. Photoshop is a pain if you don't have memory.

So I don't even know which userbase Lenovo wants to target with their regular Yoga models. They're nice if you just want to draw some lines in OneNote. But for an artist they're terrible with mostly 8GB RAM soldered in. Their supplied pens are also very uncomfortable - they're way too thin to hold comfortably for longer periods of time.

No wonder a lot of artists just buy an iPad...

schmatzler wrote on 2020-06-26, 22:59:

My L390 Yoga from last year has two RAM slots and can be upgraded to 64GB. SSD can also be swapped with whatever you want (M.2 slot).

But I agree, this model is a big exception to the rule. Lenovo seems to have gone the Apple way and I think the L390 will be my last ThinkPad, sadly. 🙁

That said, if you want to have a model with an included Wacom panel (like me) pretty much every manufacturer prevents user upgrades. The Surface notebooks are even more locked down than ThinkPads. Which is really sad, because these panels are mainly used by designers and graphic artists and these would greatly benefit from having more RAM. Photoshop is a pain if you don't have memory.

I think you can't get a desirable (=thin, light and well made) portable laptop that is also upgradable from any manufacturer these days.

One thing that I find particularly irritating about Lenovo is that they limit many of their hi-end models to 16GB of RAM. At least Apple allows us to order a 32GB machine, even if we have to pay through the nose for this option.

ShovelKnight wrote on 2020-06-26, 23:08:

I think you can't get a desirable (=thin, light and well made) portable laptop that is also upgradable from any manufacturer these days.

Yes, regular laptops are not a problem.

But if you like having a TrackPoint or the ability to draw with a pen on the device, you're pretty much out of luck. The models that come with these features mostly have everything soldered in.

schmatzler wrote on 2020-06-26, 23:10:

ShovelKnight wrote on 2020-06-26, 23:08:

I think you can't get a desirable (=thin, light and well made) portable laptop that is also upgradable from any manufacturer these days.

Yes, regular laptops are not a problem.

But if you like having a TrackPoint or the ability to draw with a pen on the device, you're pretty much out of luck. The models that come with these features mostly have everything soldered in.

I used to be a ThinkPad guy before I became an Apple guy, I was contemplating getting a a ThinkPad again but I think it makes sense (for me personally) to just stick with Apple.

I've been a ThinkPad guy for many years. I started with the A22 series back when they were made by IBM and was always very satisfied.

I'm still satisfied with my L390 Yoga, too. But the fact that it seems to be the last model with user-upgradeable RAM (the successor L13 Yoga does not have that feature anymore) and that they made it so thin I need to undervolt the CPU to not have it throttle all the time made me realize that the machines are not getting better. Lenovo reached a point where their notebooks are just like any other ones, but with a TrackPoint (and they even start to get rid of those).

My next model will be something different, but still a Windows machine. MacOS is terrible, bugridden software and I like to have my SMB working without hiccups. 😀

Aaaaand the guinea pigs of Big sur Beta testers already hit one big bug: Refurbished newer MBP owners are facing an Activation Lock screen and thus locked out of their Macs until they call Apple Support and provide proof of purchase so their iCloud team can unlock it again for them. It may take 4 days or less to process the proof of purchase and unlock. Seems that theres a bug in T2 chip code - probably the Apple ID in these refurb macs were never cleared up...

If you are testing Big Sur Beta in refurbished Macs, be careful, have a backup first. Restoring the backup in first place when faced with the AL screen will not get you back to Catalina though; Your mac is still locked out.

Thanks God I jumped out of the beta testing bandwagon when I got pissed with one of the betas for iOS years ago and learned to be patient and wait for GM versions.

darry wrote on 2020-06-26, 20:28:

Dominus wrote on 2020-06-26, 20:17:

Actually a PPC built of Dosbox runs much faster in Rosetta in 10.5 VM than on a real PPC machine 😉

That's a lot of stacked emulation. Surprising it runs so well.

Emulation inside emulation..
This instanly reminds me of "The 13th Floor" or "Welt am Draht" (German; World on a Wire).
Both are excellent films about virtual reality within virtual reality (within virtual reality within virtual reality ..).
The original novel also was known as Simulacron-3..

Edit: Both share some basic elements of Matrix. But unlike Matrix, which is about action and special effects, they are about storyline and atmosphere.
If you like films like "The fog" or "Dark City", you might be considering watching these (or better, read the books). 😉

martinot wrote on 2020-06-26, 12:45:

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-06-26, 11:17:

i want to control my computer, not being controlled by it.

It's quite ironic how Apple more and more resembles the stuff they opposed in their infamous commercial.

Yes, I totally agree (even if a curated and top down controlled garden has it's advantages for many users and use cases)! 😀

I don't really understand this position. Macs are an open platform. If you disable SIP and Gatekeeper, you can do anything you like. Literally none of the games/application I run were downloaded from the App Store.

Bruninho wrote on 2020-06-27, 04:29:

Aaaaand the guinea pigs of Big sur Beta testers already hit one big bug:

I don’t think Apple forces anyone to run beta versions of their software. If you value your time and your data, stay away from beta releases, it’s that simple.

Please no dramatic mention of the beta bugs 😉 that's just insane and bound to produce some horrific bugs but that's what you get for installing betas. And you know this!

@Dominus: Oof! Yup, I know it well. I just happened to be doing some research on people testing the beta (I am not testing, I’ve learned my lesson years ago with an iOS Beta) and when I found this across several mac-related forums, I happened to mention here because maybe someone was also testing too. My lesson was learned years ago, and I started to wait for GM versions of any iOS/macOS.

@ShovelKnight: I never said that too. It was just a joke attempt with these great people who do the testing with these betas. They are heros, betas are just like a minesweeper game... but I agree with your last sentence: I stay away from betas for this very reason, when its macOS I strictly avoid them. For iOS I used to try them out anyway years ago, simply because since iOS 7 I do not make a backup simply because I do not really have any data to back up on my phone. I’d rather restart from zero than restore a backup if some iOS beta goes wrong, because at least I get a chance to do a much needed cleanup on my phone. Plus, all the data I would want to keep safe from this are in a cloud service like dropbox/onedrive, so get to have a device I can test: my iPhone.

schmatzler wrote on 2020-06-26, 22:59:

My L390 Yoga from last year has two RAM slots and can be upgraded to 64GB. SSD can also be swapped with whatever you want (M.2 slot).

But I agree, this model is a big exception to the rule. Lenovo seems to have gone the Apple way and I think the L390 will be my last ThinkPad, sadly. 🙁

That said, if you want to have a model with an included Wacom panel (like me) pretty much every manufacturer prevents user upgrades. The Surface notebooks are even more locked down than ThinkPads. Which is really sad, because these panels are mainly used by designers and graphic artists and these would greatly benefit from having more RAM. Photoshop is a pain if you don't have memory.

I have a couple of MBP 15", but recently got a Surface Book 3, with 32GB RAM, 512GB disk and Nvidia 1660Ti. Added Pen (got for free) and Surface Dial.

Really love this thing - great machine! 😀

Can highly recommend it.

schmatzler wrote on 2020-06-26, 22:59:

No wonder a lot of artists just buy an iPad...

iPad Pro is also a great alternative, and I will probably get one next time it's upgraded (have a pair of "normal" iPads - and love them).

That said; if you complain about lack of upgradability on computers (Mac, ThinkPad, Surface), and go to iPad, you will still not get it. They are also all non-upgradeable.

If you want upgradability I think you need to look at other manufactures models. iPad (both Pro and normal) is not.

I think its a love / hate relationship with the iMac and Mac Pro.
Users like the operating system and apps but don’t like that they use proprietary hardware and that it is hard to find and when you do find it it is expensive.

Things people don’t like about the Mac:
1) expensive
2) expensive to upgrade or repair.
3) boot manager.
4) Non-upgradable or hard to repair.
5) customer support
6) proprietary hardware
7) BIG.....its too BIG....

If people are going to spend $3000 to $6000 for a computer they would like to be able to upgrade or repair it.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-06-27, 14:31:

If people are going to spend $3000 to $6000 for a computer they would like to be able to upgrade or repair it.

Frankly, this is an assumption that I don't believe has any basis in reality. I don't think there is any correlation between how much people spend on their electronics or their expectations of upgrades/repairs down the road.

dr_st wrote on 2020-06-27, 15:22:

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-06-27, 14:31:

If people are going to spend $3000 to $6000 for a computer they would like to be able to upgrade or repair it.

Frankly, this is an assumption that I don't believe has any basis in reality. I don't think there is any correlation between how much people spend on their electronics or their expectations of upgrades/repairs down the road.

Not directly, no . However, if you spend a significant amount on something, there is an expectation that it will last a while . If it is not at least repairable if it breaks down (excluding mis-handling), the question of whether it was actually fit for purpose comes into play .

Where I live, there are laws that govern this practice . The, "sorry it's 1 day/month/year over warranty, that's 1000$ to repair (or even it is unrepairable)", is not acceptable .

EDIT: Upradability is a different matter. If that is a criterion, it should be addressed before purchase . For example, complaining about having no RAM slots (soldered RAM) in a desktop or laptop after buying the machine is nonsensical, IMHO .

Apple is going to become more of a closed system and fully proprietary.
An appliance. ( disposable and recyclable ).

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-06-27, 15:55:

Apple is going to become more of a closed system and fully proprietary.
An appliance. ( disposable and recyclable ).

I will leave the appliance market to those who like this sort of thing (sure there are many) and keep doing what I have been doing for years: not buying Apple products (retro excluded, for now).

Upradability is a different matter. If that is a criterion, it should be addressed before purchase . For example, complaining about having no RAM slots (soldered RAM) in a desktop or laptop after buying the machine is nonsensical, IMHO .

Exactly, Apple made the NEW Mac Pro repairable and upgradable ( SSD, CPU, RAM, Powersupply ).
but at a Cost of $6000 for the Base model Mac Pro.

$3000 Macbook Pro’s should at least be hardware repairable and upgradeable. ( ram, CPU, ssd, battery )
I think this feature would actually add value to the Macs and make them more desirable.

Apple wants to be ALL things in the computer world but they don’t want people messing with there Appliances.
Its more of just a device on there network.
Not really a computer for everyone.

Steve Jobs said “ proprietary has hurt Apple. Apple needs to be better and not so different”.
Apple - “think different”

I realyl think Apple is more and more moving away from pro customers. When Jobs took over, Apple really found a niche with pro-customers & artists, i.e. Sound, Video, FX etc.
Even a lot of programmers swiched, because you could finally get a Unix workstation without having all driver/compatiblity/software issues like on Linux.

Nowadays they are all for the mass-market... But thinking of how slow they moved with the pro-macs, how overpriced high-end workstations are... a lot of pro-users have already switched back to Windows or Linux, I feel. Now the move towards ARM... sure, consumers don't need that much horse-power, they maybe only need a fast browser. But pro-users?

spieler8 wrote on 2020-06-27, 20:37:

I realyl think Apple is more and more moving away from pro customers. When Jobs took over, Apple really found a niche with pro-customers & artists, i.e. Sound, Video, FX etc.
Even a lot of programmers swiched, because you could finally get a Unix workstation without having all driver/compatiblity/software issues like on Linux.

Nowadays they are all for the mass-market... But thinking of how slow they moved with the pro-macs, how overpriced high-end workstations are... a lot of pro-users have already switched back to Windows or Linux, I feel. Now the move towards ARM... sure, consumers don't need that much horse-power, they maybe only need a fast browser. But pro-users?

The pro market will either transition to ARM with them or will transition to another platform (Windows or Linux) . Either way, the transition will likely not be painless .