6 ms·

> Display 15.6″ 1920×1080 FHD, Matte Finish It's 2021 ffs... Can we get a high res display 9 years after apple's first retina macbook?

RandyRanderson 6y ago
Every 2 or 3 years I think to myself: maybe this year? I check System and other laptop vendors in their tier. Disappointment. I'm sure there are a lot of economic issues that I don't understand but here is my request: . all the ram possible . pretty good CPU w/ lots of cores . a good keyboard (no numpad) . a good 4k-ish screen . a big battery (if you make this laptop, ppl will optimize the software to make it last) . decent speakers . is it too much to ask for a decent GPU? Overall: please just make a premium laptop and charge a lot. There are more ppl on the Internet like me than you realize. Things no one cares about: . thin
- syntaxing 6y ago
  I haven’t owned one but wouldn’t the Dell XPS series fit your description?
  - zeryx 6y ago
    XPS are great but I would caution about poor thermal management, even after reseating the GPU and CPU cores it doesn't take much to hit the CPU temp limits with full fans.
    - djsumdog 6y ago
      Yea, I've always had trouble with XPS thermals. I've had two personal ones with thermal and battery issues and decided I wouldn't get another ... and then I got one for work and it has a lot of the same quirks. Not the best Linux machines honestly.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    We have XPS in our office and the 15 inch ones with 45W chips and nvidia graphics are a disaster. Over half of them have/had various issues: overheating, constant power/thermal throttling, sleep issues, trackpad issues, charging issues, HDMI issues, keyboard issues. One had its board replaced three times!!!. And we don't even stress them, just windows, IDEs and terminals, no rendering, no gaming. The warranty experience was great as a tech would always come to our office to perform replacements but I don't get how Dell makes any money on those with so much RMAs. If their QA is so bad on their most premium line, I shudder to think what the experience must be like with their cheaper devices.
    - randtrain34 6y ago
      what year/model are those XPS? They seem to have improved a lot in the past year or two.
    - syntaxing 6y ago
      Interesting, I was on the fence between my MBA and a XPS. I did not expect the XPS to have these issues. Would you happen to know if you use the proprietary or open source Nvidia drivers?
      - neodymiumphish 6y ago
        He's very likely talking about older generation devices, but I'm not sure.
    - boogies 6y ago
      What laptops don’t have issues? Many people seem to think MacBooks have exceptionally high build quality and they have m̶o̶s̶t̶ all of the types of issue you listed: • Overheating https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2020/06/24/apple-macbook-air-overheating-hot-design-fan-cooling-problems/?sh=61e53f8c777c https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2020/06/24/apple-mac... • thermal throttling • sleep issues (IIRC they’re hard to keep awake while trying to use them closed and docked to an external monitor in “clamshell mode”) • trackpad issues (subjective and they do seem to have the largest trackpad fanbase, but some have complained they’re too large and easy to brush while typing; perhaps the palm rejection isn’t good enough for everybody) • charging issues (they charge differently through ports on one side vs. the other and some have complained they build up charges that can be felt when picking them up) • HDMI issues • keyboard issues (butterfly keyboards destroyed by dust, Apple delayed addressing this for years IIRC). Plus staingate. Plus actively anti-repair design and a user hostile OS. Edits: bullets and paragraph separation, found the last type of issue (overheating)
- formerly_proven 6y ago
  You're looking for a mobile workstation / desktop replacement. Some of these care little enough about the "thin and light" to have built-in carrying handles :)
  - ketralnis 6y ago
    > built-in carrying handles Sign me up. I don't care if my computer fits in a manila envelope
- jakeva 6y ago
  Things no one cares about: . thin I won't try to speak for everyone like that, but I for one love having a thin laptop.
  - Technically 6y ago
    Lightweight is good, but how does thickness impact you? I haven't had an issue fitting a laptop into a bag in over 20 years.
    - spijdar 6y ago
      Sometimes there are other things to squeeze in a bag besides a laptop. I guess you adapt to whatever you've got, but at this point I'm spoilt by being able to easily slide my thin laptops in and out of my backpack. Makes going through airport security that much easier.
      - swirepe 6y ago
        Nothing commands respect in airport security like a Thinkpad T420.
    - jakeva 6y ago
      Aesthetic? That feeling that we're in the future and this isn't grandpa's laptop? Some other intangible quality from which I derive subjective satisfaction? That you can fit your laptop into a bag doesn't seem to me to be a reason to be happy with thick laptops.
    - julianlam 6y ago
      Because thinness tends to correlate with lightness in laptop designs.
- samstave 6y ago
  Ive had multi sys76 machines... They were best buy for the buck. Although, appl beat them out on chassis - alum frame is BEST - but the guts of S76 is top notch. The only thing I am pissed at S76 is, is that they changed their vid interface for screens on the same laptop - so I couldnt replace a dead machine with a good machine based on their screen redesign and they wanted $90 for a fn power receptacle.... Else, I support them they are like 60% apple evil
- bradwood 6y ago
  Dell Precision 5540 is that laptop
enriquto 6y ago
Display resolution is alright for a laptop. What some of us want is more battery life and humongous disk space and ram.
- sgt 6y ago
  Acceptable yes, but once you get used to "retina" it's hard to go back...
  - enriquto 6y ago
    I've seen the retina displays of my colleagues, and while there's nothing bad about them, I don't really see the point. But I have rather bad eyesight and use huge fonts. I care more about the physical height of the screen in centimeters. If anything, I would prefer to have more battery life and less memory usage than super-minuscule pixels.
    - lambda_obrien 6y ago
      I, for one, normally run my 15" laptop in 1600x900 mode when using on my lap (when using as a "desktop" I have two 32" screens at my desk), because of my old eyes, most of the Retina-lovers here must be the younger folks. I do like the feel/look of a Retina screen, but even when I borrowed a hi-res 4k laptop I had it set to something like 300% magnification.
      - sgt 6y ago
        Part of the point of using high dpi screens is that "native" resolution is not a necessity anymore to make it look sharp. I doubt it would be a good idea to run a 4k screen in true 4k if it meant everything became tiny and you needed a magnifying glass. I think there may be some PC manufacturers doing this completely wrong. I've seen some Dells that are downright ridiculous. A high dpi computer should display large and readable fonts by default without any magnification. Look at any MacBook as an example.
j1elo 6y ago
Wouldn't that cut the battery autonomy by 4? Is it really that different having 4K in just a measly 15" surface? (I get it on a 32" screen or a living room TV, but a 15" computer screen?) Also note the Apple Retina screens were great due to more features apart from just resolution.
- acdha 6y ago
  Yes. If you use a Retina display for a while, going back is noticeably worse. Battery life is slightly worse but it’s not linear: the GPU has more pixels to push but usually that’s in a highly optimized rendering path so things like text don’t take 4x as long to render - and on macOS the extra resolution meant it could drop the extra work of subpixel rendering entirely. In the decade since this became common, GPUs and CPUs have become more than enough faster to cancel out the difference.
- sim_card_map 6y ago
  I get ~10 hours on my retina macbook 16 hours on the new m1 macbook.
JeremyNT 6y ago
Just get a Dell. System 76 is more of a "lifestyle" brand that targets Linux users. They're one of many resellers that just rebadge Clevo laptops and market to different segments. Nothing against Clevo, mind you, but there's no reason you should limit your shopping to them versus the more established brands if they don't meet your requirements.
- kvark 6y ago
  Also, Dell XPS doesn't have AMD Ryzen, which is the main news here for System76 device.
- qchris 6y ago
  This seems a little disingenuous, especially considering that System76 manufactures their own desktops, rolls their own custom distro that is tested to play well with their machines' hardware, and (I've heard) actively engages with Clevo during the design process since they're both invested in having the end product be as good as possible. Just seems like they're doing more than slapping a distro on a third-party machine and profiting from the brand, especially considering issues most people seem to have with Linux computers in a practical sense.
- lambda_obrien 6y ago
  They do a lot more work to make the rebranded laptops work well with Linux than just putting a sticker on the case. The reason I purchased one wasn't for "lifestyle" but because even my Dell XPS or Toshiba X1 for work, which work about as good as you can expect of any laptop running Linux, are fucking annoying day to day because of tiny nits. With the System76 laptop, I literally never fuck around with stuff, it just works with everything I have on my desk. I do admit that in today's world a laptop is almost useless (I have nowhere to go!), and I plan to transition to a real desktop sometime soon, since it's just so much more powerful and useful overall.
kec 6y ago
Not until the market is willing to pay MacBook prices for white box hardware.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
If you're not doing design work (either targeted at print, or for users of high-res displays), I still think 1080p screens are the sweet-spot on laptops. This is different from desktops, where additional pixels can be used to add screen real-estate. All of those additional pixels require additional battery and CPU power to drive. By contrast, black-levels, backlight-uniformity, color accuracy, and pixel fill can be improved without trade-offs. Most laptops have a lot of room for improvement in these areas, and IMO they lead to a better picture overall versus increasing the resolution. As a bonus, you also get to side-step a ton of unfortunate software weirdness. And while adding HDR and increasing the refresh rate does come with battery/CPU/software trade-offs, I still think they're more worthwhile upgrades than merely jacking up the resolution on a small screen. I have no idea whether the Pangolin screens are terrible on these metrics too, I'd just like to see a lot less focus on resolution. It's actually really hard (impossible?) to find an HDR panel that isn't 4K, and IMO that's a shame. We live in a world where Samsung phones run below their native screen resolution by default in order to conserve battery[1], which makes no sense whatsoever. If the native resolution of the screen was lower to begin with, battery life would be even better, and visuals would be improved overall due to lack of scaling! 1: https://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-lowers-default-screen-resolution-smartphones-to-save-battery-life-2019-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-lowers-default-scree...
- samat 6y ago
  I care about text and fonts in retina are much smoother and closer to 'printed text' than in non-retina displays.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    I've found that just increasing pixel fill helps with that more than you'd think. I've also found that better contrast (so, black levels, and theoretically HDR) has a much larger affect on readability overall, although that may be partly a result of my personal migraine triggers.
- pornel 6y ago
  The point is 1600p or 1920p isn't a super-high resolution any more. Nowadays 1080p is low-end. I don't think anyone even produces 15" screens with a resolution lower than this. 200dpi DPI is fantastic for working with text. The clarity you get is more relevant for text than HDR, wide gamut, or even wide viewing angles. I would heartily recommend it even if you only stare at a terminal all day.
lliamander 6y ago
I think FHD is plenty fine for subnotebooks (<= 14"). WQHD is ideal for full sized laptops, but the problem is that most laptop vendors have to depend upon what display manufacturers are building. Most of the display manufacturers are building 4K for marketing reasons (few people outside of gamers really know about WQHD) but those displays consume too much power to replace FHD across the board. An intermediate resolution between FHD and 4K might be more expensive at this point. LG, which makes their own laptops and displays, did it right with their 2560 x 1600 laptop panels.
lscotte 6y ago
It's still 2020 and actually I find 1920x1080 to be plenty sufficient in a 15" laptop.
mackrevinack 6y ago
I went back to using a 1080p screen last year, mainly because a few old programs i use some work well on high res displays. this was on windows. I honestly didn't even think about it until now and even didn't notice when I got the laptop first. maybe if you sit really close to the screen you might notice something
asciimov 6y ago
Linux needs good HiDpi scaling support before I'd be willing to by a high res linux laptop.
- bradwood 6y ago
  It is a bit of a PITA to set up, but can be done without too much pain and, once sorted, it's generally good. My daily driver is a HiDPI laptop running Arch & i3 and it works nicely!
  - asciimov 6y ago
    I'm not saying it can't be done, it just needs to be better without all the chicanery. Mine are on Arch & dwm, one with a 4k scaled down 150% (or 133% depending on my mood), for me it mostly works. But it would be much nicer to just not worry about it.

RandyRanderson 6y ago

Every 2 or 3 years I think to myself: maybe this year? I check System and other laptop vendors in their tier. Disappointment. I'm sure there are a lot of economic issues that I don't understand but here is my request: . all the ram possible . pretty good CPU w/ lots of cores . a good keyboard (no numpad) . a good 4k-ish screen . a big battery (if you make this laptop, ppl will optimize the software to make it last) . decent speakers . is it too much to ask for a decent GPU? Overall: please just make a premium laptop and charge a lot. There are more ppl on the Internet like me than you realize. Things no one cares about: . thin

syntaxing 6y ago
I haven’t owned one but wouldn’t the Dell XPS series fit your description?
- zeryx 6y ago
  XPS are great but I would caution about poor thermal management, even after reseating the GPU and CPU cores it doesn't take much to hit the CPU temp limits with full fans.
  - djsumdog 6y ago
    Yea, I've always had trouble with XPS thermals. I've had two personal ones with thermal and battery issues and decided I wouldn't get another ... and then I got one for work and it has a lot of the same quirks. Not the best Linux machines honestly.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  We have XPS in our office and the 15 inch ones with 45W chips and nvidia graphics are a disaster. Over half of them have/had various issues: overheating, constant power/thermal throttling, sleep issues, trackpad issues, charging issues, HDMI issues, keyboard issues. One had its board replaced three times!!!. And we don't even stress them, just windows, IDEs and terminals, no rendering, no gaming. The warranty experience was great as a tech would always come to our office to perform replacements but I don't get how Dell makes any money on those with so much RMAs. If their QA is so bad on their most premium line, I shudder to think what the experience must be like with their cheaper devices.
  - randtrain34 6y ago
    what year/model are those XPS? They seem to have improved a lot in the past year or two.
  - syntaxing 6y ago
    Interesting, I was on the fence between my MBA and a XPS. I did not expect the XPS to have these issues. Would you happen to know if you use the proprietary or open source Nvidia drivers?
    - neodymiumphish 6y ago
      He's very likely talking about older generation devices, but I'm not sure.
  - boogies 6y ago
    What laptops don’t have issues? Many people seem to think MacBooks have exceptionally high build quality and they have m̶o̶s̶t̶ all of the types of issue you listed: • Overheating https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2020/06/24/apple-macbook-air-overheating-hot-design-fan-cooling-problems/?sh=61e53f8c777c https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2020/06/24/apple-mac... • thermal throttling • sleep issues (IIRC they’re hard to keep awake while trying to use them closed and docked to an external monitor in “clamshell mode”) • trackpad issues (subjective and they do seem to have the largest trackpad fanbase, but some have complained they’re too large and easy to brush while typing; perhaps the palm rejection isn’t good enough for everybody) • charging issues (they charge differently through ports on one side vs. the other and some have complained they build up charges that can be felt when picking them up) • HDMI issues • keyboard issues (butterfly keyboards destroyed by dust, Apple delayed addressing this for years IIRC). Plus staingate. Plus actively anti-repair design and a user hostile OS. Edits: bullets and paragraph separation, found the last type of issue (overheating)
formerly_proven 6y ago
You're looking for a mobile workstation / desktop replacement. Some of these care little enough about the "thin and light" to have built-in carrying handles :)
- ketralnis 6y ago
  > built-in carrying handles Sign me up. I don't care if my computer fits in a manila envelope
jakeva 6y ago
Things no one cares about: . thin I won't try to speak for everyone like that, but I for one love having a thin laptop.
- Technically 6y ago
  Lightweight is good, but how does thickness impact you? I haven't had an issue fitting a laptop into a bag in over 20 years.
  - spijdar 6y ago
    Sometimes there are other things to squeeze in a bag besides a laptop. I guess you adapt to whatever you've got, but at this point I'm spoilt by being able to easily slide my thin laptops in and out of my backpack. Makes going through airport security that much easier.
    - swirepe 6y ago
      Nothing commands respect in airport security like a Thinkpad T420.
  - jakeva 6y ago
    Aesthetic? That feeling that we're in the future and this isn't grandpa's laptop? Some other intangible quality from which I derive subjective satisfaction? That you can fit your laptop into a bag doesn't seem to me to be a reason to be happy with thick laptops.
  - julianlam 6y ago
    Because thinness tends to correlate with lightness in laptop designs.
samstave 6y ago
Ive had multi sys76 machines... They were best buy for the buck. Although, appl beat them out on chassis - alum frame is BEST - but the guts of S76 is top notch. The only thing I am pissed at S76 is, is that they changed their vid interface for screens on the same laptop - so I couldnt replace a dead machine with a good machine based on their screen redesign and they wanted $90 for a fn power receptacle.... Else, I support them they are like 60% apple evil
bradwood 6y ago
Dell Precision 5540 is that laptop

enriquto 6y ago

Display resolution is alright for a laptop. What some of us want is more battery life and humongous disk space and ram.

sgt 6y ago
Acceptable yes, but once you get used to "retina" it's hard to go back...
- enriquto 6y ago
  I've seen the retina displays of my colleagues, and while there's nothing bad about them, I don't really see the point. But I have rather bad eyesight and use huge fonts. I care more about the physical height of the screen in centimeters. If anything, I would prefer to have more battery life and less memory usage than super-minuscule pixels.
  - lambda_obrien 6y ago
    I, for one, normally run my 15" laptop in 1600x900 mode when using on my lap (when using as a "desktop" I have two 32" screens at my desk), because of my old eyes, most of the Retina-lovers here must be the younger folks. I do like the feel/look of a Retina screen, but even when I borrowed a hi-res 4k laptop I had it set to something like 300% magnification.
    - sgt 6y ago
      Part of the point of using high dpi screens is that "native" resolution is not a necessity anymore to make it look sharp. I doubt it would be a good idea to run a 4k screen in true 4k if it meant everything became tiny and you needed a magnifying glass. I think there may be some PC manufacturers doing this completely wrong. I've seen some Dells that are downright ridiculous. A high dpi computer should display large and readable fonts by default without any magnification. Look at any MacBook as an example.

j1elo 6y ago

Wouldn't that cut the battery autonomy by 4? Is it really that different having 4K in just a measly 15" surface? (I get it on a 32" screen or a living room TV, but a 15" computer screen?) Also note the Apple Retina screens were great due to more features apart from just resolution.

acdha 6y ago
Yes. If you use a Retina display for a while, going back is noticeably worse. Battery life is slightly worse but it’s not linear: the GPU has more pixels to push but usually that’s in a highly optimized rendering path so things like text don’t take 4x as long to render - and on macOS the extra resolution meant it could drop the extra work of subpixel rendering entirely. In the decade since this became common, GPUs and CPUs have become more than enough faster to cancel out the difference.
sim_card_map 6y ago
I get ~10 hours on my retina macbook 16 hours on the new m1 macbook.

JeremyNT 6y ago

Just get a Dell. System 76 is more of a "lifestyle" brand that targets Linux users. They're one of many resellers that just rebadge Clevo laptops and market to different segments. Nothing against Clevo, mind you, but there's no reason you should limit your shopping to them versus the more established brands if they don't meet your requirements.

kvark 6y ago
Also, Dell XPS doesn't have AMD Ryzen, which is the main news here for System76 device.
qchris 6y ago
This seems a little disingenuous, especially considering that System76 manufactures their own desktops, rolls their own custom distro that is tested to play well with their machines' hardware, and (I've heard) actively engages with Clevo during the design process since they're both invested in having the end product be as good as possible. Just seems like they're doing more than slapping a distro on a third-party machine and profiting from the brand, especially considering issues most people seem to have with Linux computers in a practical sense.
lambda_obrien 6y ago
They do a lot more work to make the rebranded laptops work well with Linux than just putting a sticker on the case. The reason I purchased one wasn't for "lifestyle" but because even my Dell XPS or Toshiba X1 for work, which work about as good as you can expect of any laptop running Linux, are fucking annoying day to day because of tiny nits. With the System76 laptop, I literally never fuck around with stuff, it just works with everything I have on my desk. I do admit that in today's world a laptop is almost useless (I have nowhere to go!), and I plan to transition to a real desktop sometime soon, since it's just so much more powerful and useful overall.

kec 6y ago

Not until the market is willing to pay MacBook prices for white box hardware.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

If you're not doing design work (either targeted at print, or for users of high-res displays), I still think 1080p screens are the sweet-spot on laptops. This is different from desktops, where additional pixels can be used to add screen real-estate. All of those additional pixels require additional battery and CPU power to drive. By contrast, black-levels, backlight-uniformity, color accuracy, and pixel fill can be improved without trade-offs. Most laptops have a lot of room for improvement in these areas, and IMO they lead to a better picture overall versus increasing the resolution. As a bonus, you also get to side-step a ton of unfortunate software weirdness. And while adding HDR and increasing the refresh rate does come with battery/CPU/software trade-offs, I still think they're more worthwhile upgrades than merely jacking up the resolution on a small screen. I have no idea whether the Pangolin screens are terrible on these metrics too, I'd just like to see a lot less focus on resolution. It's actually really hard (impossible?) to find an HDR panel that isn't 4K, and IMO that's a shame. We live in a world where Samsung phones run below their native screen resolution by default in order to conserve battery[1], which makes no sense whatsoever. If the native resolution of the screen was lower to begin with, battery life would be even better, and visuals would be improved overall due to lack of scaling! 1: https://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-lowers-default-screen-resolution-smartphones-to-save-battery-life-2019-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-lowers-default-scree...

samat 6y ago
I care about text and fonts in retina are much smoother and closer to 'printed text' than in non-retina displays.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  I've found that just increasing pixel fill helps with that more than you'd think. I've also found that better contrast (so, black levels, and theoretically HDR) has a much larger affect on readability overall, although that may be partly a result of my personal migraine triggers.
pornel 6y ago
The point is 1600p or 1920p isn't a super-high resolution any more. Nowadays 1080p is low-end. I don't think anyone even produces 15" screens with a resolution lower than this. 200dpi DPI is fantastic for working with text. The clarity you get is more relevant for text than HDR, wide gamut, or even wide viewing angles. I would heartily recommend it even if you only stare at a terminal all day.

lliamander 6y ago

I think FHD is plenty fine for subnotebooks (<= 14"). WQHD is ideal for full sized laptops, but the problem is that most laptop vendors have to depend upon what display manufacturers are building. Most of the display manufacturers are building 4K for marketing reasons (few people outside of gamers really know about WQHD) but those displays consume too much power to replace FHD across the board. An intermediate resolution between FHD and 4K might be more expensive at this point. LG, which makes their own laptops and displays, did it right with their 2560 x 1600 laptop panels.

lscotte 6y ago

It's still 2020 and actually I find 1920x1080 to be plenty sufficient in a 15" laptop.

mackrevinack 6y ago

I went back to using a 1080p screen last year, mainly because a few old programs i use some work well on high res displays. this was on windows. I honestly didn't even think about it until now and even didn't notice when I got the laptop first. maybe if you sit really close to the screen you might notice something

asciimov 6y ago

Linux needs good HiDpi scaling support before I'd be willing to by a high res linux laptop.

bradwood 6y ago
It is a bit of a PITA to set up, but can be done without too much pain and, once sorted, it's generally good. My daily driver is a HiDPI laptop running Arch & i3 and it works nicely!
- asciimov 6y ago
  I'm not saying it can't be done, it just needs to be better without all the chicanery. Mine are on Arch & dwm, one with a 4k scaled down 150% (or 133% depending on my mood), for me it mostly works. But it would be much nicer to just not worry about it.