4 ms·

I wonder if you could use some sort of clustering algorithm and create something like 4 unique laptops.

noir_lord 10y ago
That might be an interesting approach, I was thinking more set 4 price points and let people then vote which trade-offs to make to meet those price points. At the moment I'm looking at a new developer laptop (though next year is more likely) and you can see that striation already. I want a QHD display, 16GB RAM (or better) and an SSD, I'm not really fussed about the processor anything i5 or graphics but most machines with my requirements have a monster i7.
- geon 10y ago
  The price could be one of the clustering axes.
  - Tantonos 10y ago
    Unless it's like these guys. They are doing one plus style direct sales. So they could effectively cut at least 30% off. The drawback is that you have to order online and wait.
- Taek 10y ago
  I would pay a pretty premium for a 4K display, no graphics card, big battery, ~15" diagonal. Companies seem to think that if you want a 4K you also want Performance. No, seriously I just want this as a glorified text editor. Give me screen resolution, and give me battery life. I'll pay more if you leave out the GPU because then it'll be lighter and draw less power.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    I think if you actually had one of those you'd be very disappointed. 4k is rather a lot of pixels. You need at least a reasonable 2D GPU if you want to be able to move windows around without ghosting everywhere. Blitting everything through the CPU would be far more power-hungry than delegating it to dedicated hardware. Not to mention that a lot of people would be upset at not being able to watch Youtube fullscreen in decent resolution, for which you would need hardware decoding.
    - pedrocr 10y ago
      OP probably means no discrete GPU, which these days means intel graphics. The latest ones should be able to drive 4K without issue.
      - noir_lord 10y ago
        They can comfortably and on linux really well, I like them for everything but gaming/heavy 3D they are great.
        pedrocr 10y ago
        Compared to nVidia and AMD, Intel used to be much better. These days the driver situation isn't as rosy. There's a spotily maintained X driver (no releases in 3 years, updated by git snapshots) that is even being replaced by the generic modesetting driver in some distributions to avoid bugs. If you want flicker-free GUIs, tear-free video and general lack of bugs it's a bit of a crap shoot right now. The kernel driver does seem to get steady progress though, which is why the generic modesetting X driver seems to be a way forward. Meanwhile both the AMD and nVidia situations have improved with more robust open source drivers appearing. I don't have experience with those to know if they've surpassed the Intel drivers in general quality though.

That might be an interesting approach, I was thinking more set 4 price points and let people then vote which trade-offs to make to meet those price points. At the moment I'm looking at a new developer laptop (though next year is more likely) and you can see that striation already. I want a QHD display, 16GB RAM (or better) and an SSD, I'm not really fussed about the processor anything i5 or graphics but most machines with my requirements have a monster i7.

geon 10y ago
The price could be one of the clustering axes.
- Tantonos 10y ago
  Unless it's like these guys. They are doing one plus style direct sales. So they could effectively cut at least 30% off. The drawback is that you have to order online and wait.
Taek 10y ago
I would pay a pretty premium for a 4K display, no graphics card, big battery, ~15" diagonal. Companies seem to think that if you want a 4K you also want Performance. No, seriously I just want this as a glorified text editor. Give me screen resolution, and give me battery life. I'll pay more if you leave out the GPU because then it'll be lighter and draw less power.
- pjc50 10y ago
  I think if you actually had one of those you'd be very disappointed. 4k is rather a lot of pixels. You need at least a reasonable 2D GPU if you want to be able to move windows around without ghosting everywhere. Blitting everything through the CPU would be far more power-hungry than delegating it to dedicated hardware. Not to mention that a lot of people would be upset at not being able to watch Youtube fullscreen in decent resolution, for which you would need hardware decoding.
  - pedrocr 10y ago
    OP probably means no discrete GPU, which these days means intel graphics. The latest ones should be able to drive 4K without issue.
    - noir_lord 10y ago
      They can comfortably and on linux really well, I like them for everything but gaming/heavy 3D they are great.
      - pedrocr 10y ago
        Compared to nVidia and AMD, Intel used to be much better. These days the driver situation isn't as rosy. There's a spotily maintained X driver (no releases in 3 years, updated by git snapshots) that is even being replaced by the generic modesetting driver in some distributions to avoid bugs. If you want flicker-free GUIs, tear-free video and general lack of bugs it's a bit of a crap shoot right now. The kernel driver does seem to get steady progress though, which is why the generic modesetting X driver seems to be a way forward. Meanwhile both the AMD and nVidia situations have improved with more robust open source drivers appearing. I don't have experience with those to know if they've surpassed the Intel drivers in general quality though.