That depends on your taste. I bought my first retina macbook pro last year and I really don't like it compared to my Air. Actaully it's rotting in a cupboard now because of the ghastly battery life. I agree with the premise; computers are locked down and cheap build quality in general. But for me only battery life matters, so I bought a stack (from a broker; it was very cheap) of Lenovo X220s with a 9 cell batteries and i'm happy as a clam. It costs a fraction of the Macbook Pro (10% actually) and it actualy just chugs along with Ubuntu installed for 12 hours after which I just swap batteries for another 12 hours. I was never that bothered with the whole lock-in thing before but now that i'm back working in Linux (2009 was my first Mac, before that I went from DOS to Unix in the early 90s and after that straight to Linux until 2009) I really don't want to touch anything else. But YMMV.

>That depends on your taste. I bought my first retina macbook pro last year and I really don't like it compared to my Air

You might not like the form compared to the Air. Very few won't like the retina compared to the Air's monitor.

If the battery life is the only thing that matters then a USB-C charged laptop (Macbook one, pixel, some new stuff) + some heavy duty battery pack is probably a good option as well.

Yes, agreed. I had that for a while, but it was one of those cheap things from Asus. I did not know the Macbook can do that via USB... Maybe i'll sell my Pro and get me one of those... Thanks.

But it has a matte screen, which sounds glorious!

I am still using a seemingly ancient macbook pro 15" 2009 model, simply because it has a matte screen, yet still runs the latest OSX. The super glossy screens make my eyes hurt after a while. I have been hoping that some day the glossiness gets down to a level that I can tolerate enough to get a newer macbook. However, if my laptop ends up giving up the ghost along the way though... I may look at using something like the matte screen zenbook discussed by the parent, and running FreeBSD or OpenBSD on it.

I use a screen protector on my MBP: it removes the glare and covers up the horrible ugly streak marks (production fault which Apple only admitted after being sued).

Still, I've just bought an XPS15; it has a better screen than the MBP and incredible specs. The only real downsides are 16:9 and not using the new Samsung 950 Pro PCIE-SSD (which is 25% faster). Upgradability, a massive amount of RAM, fantastic screen and a tiny shell more than make up for that :)

Have you tried using an anti-glare (matte) screen protector? I haven't, but they're reasonably priced and it seems like an easy product to get right.

From my experience the matte films are pretty poor, they really do reduce the visual quality of the display to far worse than the actual Matte displays

Agreed. Most of them I have seen range from really terrible to only just crappy.

If you are spending more than 3-4 hours per day on your laptop, you should really be using a desktop, for the sake of your long term health....

I think a lot of people use a laptop throughout the day like in our office - plugged into a large monitor, mouse, keyboard and put up on a desktop stand.

You then have the flexibility to just get up and walk into a meeting with it or walk out at the end of the day with everything just as you left it and carry on working on the train should you need.

The Macbook isn't very usable in that space though, since they have no first-party docking station support.

Apple's official monitors double as docking stations, with USB/Firewire/Ethernet being carried over thunderbolt.

The most recent ones also half a decade old and still quite expensive, so I can't imagine buying one, but Apple would tell you that they do have a first-party docking station, complete with monitor built-in!

I use a MacBook Pro like this every work day. Plugging in four cables (power, 2x DisplayPort, USB) is not really that big of a deal.

But if details matter (they do for a lot of Mac users), nothing beats a drop in dock. There's also no wear to the plugs or ports with a drop-in dock.

When I was a die-hard Mac user, that was perhaps the only thing that I wish Macs had, minus the crashiness that docks caused on Windows.

You could simply add a Thunderbolt or USB 3 dock....

Using an external keyboard and mouse solves the ergonomic problems of using a laptop for long periods. (Sad to say, I see very few people actually doing this.)

Of course, you don't get the benefits of running a faster, hotter processor, expandability etc, though Apple no longer offers a reasonably priced tower system anyway....

I do it. I have four plugs to connect and disconnect once a day. (i.e. no dock) I don't really mind.

Oh my yes! For the reasons mentioned in the article (laptop manufacturer suckage), I went back to a PC at home last year. It's been great. Great hardware compatibility, even with OpenBSD. I spent practically nothing for a whole lot of horsepower too.

But moreover, a PC forces me to do my work in a place I have dedicated to work. People are now recognizing the importance of sanitary sleep habits. Well, my PC helps me maintain sanitary work habits. Well, it did when I was working from home a bunch.

I started a new job a couple months back, which has me working from their offices on a shiny new Mac Book Pro. I hate it. I've grown to love the efficiency and instantaneousness of everything on my utterly predictable libre *nix desktop. Plus, even if I don't plan to do work outside working hours, there's a strong corporate culture of taking your laptop home--I don't know, to maintain optics of always being working or something. Either way, my employer could have saved a few dollars and made me much happier by locking a workstation to my desk.

Just started a new job, since we're moving to a new building with an "open" concept and dual 24" monitors at each station, I didn't get a monitor since I'm in an older building.

In less than two weeks I already have neck and back problems from hunching over my laptop all day. Thank god I only have two more days of this insanity.

Quick short-term fix is to stand the laptop on a pile of books and plug in a cheap USB keyboard......

I've had retina for the last couple of years and while it's a nice bit of fluff I'd take software & service reliability over it any day

What does a 'true difference' mean? (retina screen) => (mediating factor) => ( more productivity / better eyes )?

For coding, I use a smaller font size now than I used before I had a retina display. It allows me to use a physically smaller laptop, which is a huge advantage when working on the train / on the bus etc.

For me Retina meant that I stopped printing papers, now I can read PDFs comfortably straight from the screen. Not sure it's better form my eyes, but it saves time a lot.