I am a strong believer of mobile computing and to me a perfect setup is a small laptop that can be connected to a bigger screen via docking station or similar setup. My current setup consists of two year old Lenovo X220 and a high resolution Dell U2711. I’ve been quite happy with it. Laptop is easy to take out from the docking station, which by the way comes with the device, and it serves as a desktop replacement while at home. However two years is a long time in technology and I constantly find myself drooling after newer laptops.
I’ve been an full time linux (check out Arch linux, it’s awesome!) user for the past eight years, albeit I did own a first generation intel macbook for almost two years. However lately I’ve been less and less interested about tuning your computer and more interested getting things done. I’ve also learned to love my external monitor color capabilities and high resolution which makes sure that I will not buy another laptop with 1366x768 resolution. Unfortunately Apple is currently pretty much the only manufacturer with laptops with truly high resolutions. Yes I know laptops with fullhd resolution have multiplied over the past year but it’s simply not enough for me. We have mobile phones with similar resolution!
Since I have mostly good memories from my short period of being a part-time mac user I am seriously considering buying the next generation macbook pro. I feel OS X is a good middle ground between productivity and application support. I will have access to most developer tools I’m used to on linux but also services like Netflix will work just fine. Also Apples devices are well built and look gorgeous. That being said I still have my doubts too, mostly regarding restrictions set by Apple. However I am fairly convinced that I can successfully run linux on the device should OS X turn out to be too restrictive for me.
Anyway I was slightly disappointed because Apple didn’t update their MBP models to Haswell in the WWDC but I’m sure it will happen soonish. If nothing radical will happen between now and then I will likely be another linux user converting to mac. As far as I can see Lenovo’s catalog just isn’t enough.