> I do most of my work over SSH on big metal machines, maybe that's the disconnect?
Yeah, I believe that's where the disconnect is. I moved from a Thinkpad to the 16in Macbook Pro with the M3 Pro chip, and I am able to reliably build and write code that runs locally on 5 different Docker containers, for at least 10 hours. I once did a 48hr hackathon with this laptop and I only had to charge it I think 4 or 5 times. I need to be very mobile as I'm going to different locations to attend meetings or write code, and it's able to do everything reliably for a (very extended) workday.
I would have to move from wall socket to wall socket on my old Thinkpad, but something to note is that I was using Windows 10 at the time. The Macbook's best-in-class (in performance-per-watt and per-kg) hardware combined with the software was something that became unbeatable for my workflow.
That being said, my next laptop will be a reliable, non-Apple, but Apple-like performance, ARM64 laptop, and I'll be using some Linux distribution on it.
It's not that I actually write code over SSH (I usually work with wifi disabled), more that I just push things to big machines for building and testing them, rather than doing that locally. My pair of 32-thread Ryzen machines are worth their weight in gold for the amount they juice my productivity. No laptop can ever touch that, for obvious physics reasons.
I can do everything you're describing with my XPS13. I regularly go days without plugging it in.
Yeah, I believe that's where the disconnect is. I moved from a Thinkpad to the 16in Macbook Pro with the M3 Pro chip, and I am able to reliably build and write code that runs locally on 5 different Docker containers, for at least 10 hours. I once did a 48hr hackathon with this laptop and I only had to charge it I think 4 or 5 times. I need to be very mobile as I'm going to different locations to attend meetings or write code, and it's able to do everything reliably for a (very extended) workday.
I would have to move from wall socket to wall socket on my old Thinkpad, but something to note is that I was using Windows 10 at the time. The Macbook's best-in-class (in performance-per-watt and per-kg) hardware combined with the software was something that became unbeatable for my workflow.
That being said, my next laptop will be a reliable, non-Apple, but Apple-like performance, ARM64 laptop, and I'll be using some Linux distribution on it.