12 ms·

Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era

69 points by prostoalex 6y ago

vlod 6y ago
https://archive.is/qhIjV https://archive.is/qhIjV
- llampx 6y ago
  Thanks for the archive link.
mvip 6y ago
> Let’s Redesign the Laptop for a Work-from-Home Era Isn't that just called a desktop? ;)
- thomascgalvin 6y ago
  I think there's an argument to be made for bulkier laptops now. The trend of the last two decades has been smaller form factors, which puts a hard limit on the battery, the hard drive, the number of ports you can support, and even how much thermal energy you can radiate. That was important largely because you were going to be lugging the thing around everywhere, and a pound or two could make a real difference. Now that I travel with my laptop once a month, not once a day, I think that equation changes. I still want portability - I still need portability - but using the machine on my desk is the more common, more important scenario.
  - sidpatil 6y ago
    These are known as mobile workstations. They can get quite bulky, quite heavy, and quite powerful.
    - dhosek 6y ago
      I worked for a while at ISI. They let people choose their hardware for a desktop and laptop with a generous budget. One of the guys on the team had some monster gaming laptop as his laptop—I think it was a 20" screen or something on that beast.
      - sidpatil 6y ago
        Wow! I didn't know they made laptops that big!
        dhosek 6y ago
        They haven't for a while. I did a google search to see if I was misremembering and found that 17" screens are the high end for most (if not all) contemporary manufacturers.
  - asdff 6y ago
    It's going to be tough to claw back to a decent thickness. Imagine the cooling you could run and the performance you could have today if laptops were still an inch thick in the market.
- rchaud 6y ago
  No, because your home is your home, and your desktop might be located somewhere where other people are around, e.g. spouse, roommates, parents or children. That's not really workable for video calls.
hc-taway 6y ago
1) physical kill switch for camera (as in, it breaks the power or data connection to it, physically) or at least a physical cover. 2) physical kill switch for the microphone These are very much not "nerd" concerns, either. I see a lot of non-techies with stickers over their laptop cameras. [EDIT] teachers in particular spread the "put a sticker over the camera" practice, in my experience, both before and during the pandemic. The last thing they need is to be responding to some student message late at night and accidentally snap a picture or start a video chat. That could easily be career-ending, and they wisely don't trust software safeguards to prevent that. Yet they do want the camera, sometimes. Not having a kill-switch or cover built in sucks.
- hadrien01 6y ago
  In addition to a kill switch, it would be great to have a switch that affects 1) the physical device 2) the OS switch and 3) the Teams/Zoom/Webex switch. Regularly we have people in meetings forgetting one of those switches (the physical switch being on the headphones) and trying to talk without being heard.
  - deadmutex 6y ago
    This is great -- most people skip over the last use case. But it seems like very useful to have. It seems that option #1 is mainly used because it is easy, and we might not fully trust #2 and #3? (Not because of evil doing, but because of bugs, and unlikely case of hacks).
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    OS just needs to know about that switch state and report it to apps if necessary.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  >> or at least a physical cover. I want a mechanical microphone switch too. Being seen can be embarrassing but being caught saying something can end your career instantly. See that school board that all had to resign after they were caught badmouthing parents.
roland35 6y ago
Most of the suggestions are taylored to video conferencing, such as a better camera and microphone. I have gotten around this personally by purchasing a separate external microphone and camera for a huge improvement. My main issue with my (intel 2019) MacBook Pro is the noise! Whenever I do heavy work it gets very hot and loud, and uses more power than my desktop PC. Driving a 4k monitor also contributes to the heat. It would be great to have a better cooling computer, but maybe that would just be a mac mini!
- Tagbert 6y ago
  The new M1 Macs are so much quieter than the Intel ones, you really have to ask “what is going on in there” to cause all that fan noise.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  That’s so bad, I just ordered an M1 MacBook Pro because in the reviews they said that it’s not noisy even with extreme use. I hope you are talking about an Intel based one.
- maxcan 6y ago
  Noise is solved by the M1s. I have a new 13" M1 MBP and I've never heard the fans turn on in spite of pretty heavy dev use
- swizzler 6y ago
  You might be interested in controlling Turbo Boost directly (e.g. google find this: http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/ http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/) Your computer will be slower. Depending on the task that may or may not be welcome. Some video conferencing can eat all available CPU/GPU cycles and generate fan noise; this is probably a good time to manually disable Turbo Boost. Unless you want more sword fighting time, disabling during compilation tasks is probably not a great time. Better battery life and less fan noise are benefits, though!
- ghaff 6y ago
  It's also easier to get a good mic and webcam if you're not constrained by the thickness of a laptop screen. A lot of people would benefit from better lighting as well although some of that can be a function of their physical environment which can be hard to do something about.
tpmx 6y ago
Having a built-in "ring"-light would be nice. Perhaps in the bezels? Or perhaps even done via detailed software-based control of the screen backlight via zones? Audio is already pretty great with a modern laptop, but it's tricky to arrange proper lighting for video conferencing.
- psidhu 6y ago
  Not necessarily good for people wearing glasses! I bought one and it glares off of mine a lot so I stopped using it. Other angles where the glare stops makes me look like a sociopath.
  - tpmx 6y ago
    (Edited.) Perhaps mounting a polarizing filter in front of the laptop camera to kill most of the glare would make it work with glasses. Otherwise: For those who can make it work, contact lenses and lasik are nice options. Increased FOV.
    - abduhl 6y ago
      This response sounds very much like “just stop holding the phone wrong” to me.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - Jtsummers 6y ago
      Not everyone who wears glasses qualifies for lasik or can wear contact lenses. I’m lucky that I can wear contact lenses and get pretty good correction, but LASIK and PRK are off the table for me (I’d still need glasses all the time).
      - tpmx 6y ago
        > I’d still need glasses all the time So trying out a polarizing filter is perhaps worth looking into? I'm curious to how well it would work.
viklove 6y ago
This article is hilarious because it shows how poorly the average tech consumer understands pricing and hardware. You want a better camera and a better mic? Buy them. They're not cheap. You can easily spend $3-400 on a teleconferencing setup (as I have for my desktop), and it pays off. But if you think my Blue Snowball mic and Logitech webcam will fit into your Macbook Air... On that note, all of these concerns could be solved by upgrading to a desktop. More and better screens? Let's ignore the fact that 4k laptop displays are fairly common these days, but please explain to me how you can fit 2+ displays on a laptop. Honestly, I'm not sure why this article is even on HN. It's complete drivel that adds nothing useful to any conversation at all. It's blogspam through and through. But who am I kidding really, HN is just Reddit with fancy words.
- brmgb 6y ago
  You are completely missing the point (it feels like I am now posting this everyday on HN). No one is asking for a Blue Snowball mic and Logitech webcam in their laptop. People are rightfully wondering why in world a ubiquous small competent cameras (see every iPhone from the past decades) and mic, the ones laptops are using are so poor. The answer is most likely because no one cared so I fully expect that to change but it makes sense to list as a complain with laptops. Talking about desktops is also entirely missing the point. People are issued work laptops. They don't choose their computers and most of them do want the portability anyway. It's extremely useful when you are doing a presentation of visiting customers.
  - viklove 6y ago
    The answer is very simple: the display of your laptop is much thinner than your phone. So if you want something better, you will need to use an external camera.
    - sonofhans 6y ago
      This is entirely correct. Even phones are these days too thin to fit good cameras, thus the bump.
podiki 6y ago
I don't really understand the point of this article as "redesigning the laptop." Nearly all of the things they mention is either software (e.g. better processing of mic input) or called a desktop (screens, noise, etc.). If people are working from home that negates a big reason for the laptop: portability. Sure it is nice to move to the couch or kitchen or whatever, but maybe that could be having a keyboard and using a tablet. Or if you are working from home nearly all the time, a desktop will be a better and more economical choice.
- akulbe 6y ago
  You beat me to it. I came here to say… this is a solved problem. It's called a "desktop machine". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - unethical_ban 6y ago
    What if, and hear me out on this, the person needs to take their workstation with them to multiple locations? Or, as can be the case with smaller quarters, simply wants to? Yes, desktops have this featureset. Why don't laptops, is the point of the article. (Answer: either laziness, arrogant design aesthetic, or NSA conspiracy)
    - freeone3000 6y ago
      Laptops, by necessity, have smaller fans, since they're smaller. Same amount of cooling with a smaller fan means the fans spin faster, and faster fans are louder. Laptops simply can't have acceptable performance with adequate cooling unless you're willing to compromise on either noise, or running x86.
      - unethical_ban 6y ago
        My macbook does just fine as a zoom terminal, VSCode runner and web browser. Battery can go almost the entire day if I'm not on calls. All code is developed locally and run through pipelines in the cloud. Many people don't need a workhorse machine, simply a portal for communication and reading.
kps 6y ago
Let's not. Laptops are an ergonomic and productivity nightmare.
- MarkLowenstein 6y ago
  Here are things that are not good with the standard laptop form. They may seem minor, but I believe these little physical discomforts manifest themselves in a reluctance to use the device. 1. It's oblong with few safe surfaces to touch. To carry it with one hand forces you to hold it from one edge at least for awhile each time you pick it up and put it down. That feels heavy because of the leverage it pulls against that little edge you get to hold. 2. By opening frontwards/away from you, opening feels bad. Compare with opening a tablet that folds horizontally like a book. 3. It's often hard to find a clear spot to fit your laptop footprint at home. Corollary: when most people are not using it, it takes up a lot of desk or counter space. Very few people store it vertically. I store mine vertically under my desk and it gets kicked a lot. 4. It's really hard to just keep it closed and use it as a desktop replacement. Most have power buttons on the inside only, so when you have to wake it up or reboot, you've got to open it a crack and wedge your finger in there. 5. You can't tell how much battery is left, or what time it is, or when your next appointment is, without opening up the lid. Often you have to do one of those things while walking. Opening the lid and checking something on the inside while walking feels terrible.
  - yoz-y 6y ago
    > You can't tell how much battery is left. One of the most delightful things on my old 2009 MBP is a little button you can press that will show the current battery levels by illuminating up to five otherwise invisible LEDs. These days laptops can hold ages on a battery charge, but back then it was awesome. I’d like them to bring this back.
Agingcoder 6y ago
I expected this to be about ergonomics, which laptops are anything but. I have seen too many people working on laptops ans getting hurt (hands, back, shoulders, etc). I'd start with a foldable keyboard which expands into something big and comfortable (I have RSI!), and a detachable screen which can be set higher on the desk.
- rollcat 6y ago
  My ideas exactly! I was just sitting in the bed today with a laptop (normally using a desktop) and thinking how nothing in this device really makes any sense wrt ergonomics, it's not really possible to use it for more like an hour or two without getting really uncomfortable. I've accidentally bumped into r/cyberdeck today (not ergonomic at all but provided some inspiration), and now this thread. How would you go about designing a portable computer that's also more ergonomic to use? How would you raise the screen? How would you split/tent the keyboard? What steps would you take to reduce wear / risk of damage on moving parts?
  - 6510 6y ago
    Its official! Ergonomics are not considered because the most basic demands (keyboard an monitor position) are nowhere near where they should be. Whatever one tries to design besides those is nonsense. The article is nonsense.
rasz 6y ago
Desktop. Laptop for working-from-home is called a DESKTOP.
- jswizzy 6y ago
  Now convince management that they should purchase a desktop for you. Probably not gonna happen I've tried for years to get a desktop.
  - betaby 6y ago
    I know some companies what purchased beefy NUCs for the employees.
  - 6510 6y ago
    Could show them studies and numbers on Musculoskeletal Disorders. Anything over 2 hours per day is surely going to cause fatigue first, then pain, then permanent damage. Loss of productivity starts on day one.
neonate 6y ago
https://archive.is/qhIjV https://archive.is/qhIjV
- ryankrage77 6y ago
  Thank you. Can't wait until paywalling what amounts to less than an A4 page of content finally dies.
jxramos 6y ago
Products to help the macbook out with work from home variation - a lapdesk, to rest the laptop directly or an external keyboard for stability - https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ2R2LL/A/magic-trackpad-2-silver https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ2R2LL/A/magic-trackpad-..., best when paired with an external keyboard to gain distance to the macbook. - https://www.raindesigninc.com/mstand.html https://www.raindesigninc.com/mstand.html, to elevate the laptop for more comfortable viewing - https://www.goalzero.com/shop/portable-power/goal-zero-yeti-500x-portable-power-station/ https://www.goalzero.com/shop/portable-power/goal-zero-yeti-..., to work on the road anywhere, 60W USB-C -> C cable can run a macbook all day and some. - https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/viewsonic-vg1655 https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/viewsonic-vg1655, get that portable second monitor experience.
- zozin 6y ago
  I agree with most of these, but the Rain Design laptop stand sucks. Why is it static when it can easily adjust based on various people's heights and use cases. This was a much better buy (I compared it to the Rain Design one side by side): https://www.amazon.com/Adjustable-EPN-Heat-Vent-Aluminum-Compatible/dp/B07VFFZCJZ/ https://www.amazon.com/Adjustable-EPN-Heat-Vent-Aluminum-Com... As far as a second monitor is concerned, in the Apple universe you're better off buying an iPad and using that as a second monitor.
  - jxramos 6y ago
    The mStand is definitely not adjustable, but it's also very robust/firm/rigid/solid. There's no question it will go the distance from a quality perspective, should last a lifetime. The rubber pads also seem like they'll go the distance too. I trust Rain Design because they don't skimp on the heft of the aluminum they use or the means they mount the rubber pads. I've bought some cheap competitor ones in the past, their lightweight bodies tend to tip over easily and their adhesive fails over time. Rain Design is what we used at Apple, and I use it at my current job too. It appears they do offer a more adjustable model too. https://www.raindesigninc.com/ilevel.html https://www.raindesigninc.com/ilevel.html That iPad tip is a great one, never knew about Sidecar before today https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210380 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210380. Excellent advise.
asdff 6y ago
If we are to redesign the laptop why can't we admit that it's current design and use cases are at odds? People are running zoom and docker and slack and a dozen other things at once. We waste more resources than ever doing the same chat/etc. stuff we've been doing for 25 years. Things aren't moving faster, fans are going full tilt and CPUs throttle down. What the people need more than anything is for manufacturers to take a step away from making a 2.5lb aluminum blade and instead offer a sufficient cooling solution.
- olyjohn 6y ago
  It's the same craze affecting smartphones. We get rid of useful features like headphone jacks just to save 0.25mm of thickness. Thickness that nobody would ever notice in a practical use case. We buy thin, fragile phones and then put them in big thick cases.
  - llampx 6y ago
    Tell Apple how they can sell $200 accessories by adding jacks and they will happily do it. iPhones have been getting thicker and heavier since the iPhone 6s and we've lost the jack.
  - mxz3000 6y ago
    I'm more than happy to lose the jack to get a bigger battery or thinner/lighter phone. I'm never going back to wired headphones anyways, wireless is the future. Far too used to not having my head tethered to my phone (or laptop for that matter).
    - fomine3 6y ago
      It's the future, but with latency.
- Koliakis 6y ago
  I loved my old Thinkpad. Thick, but it could run at full load without throttling for as long as I needed it to. But nowadays, even their T series keeps getting thinner and they've been soldering the RAM.
thrower123 6y ago
Once you go to an actual desktop, you can't ever go back to working on a laptop.
- Koliakis 6y ago
  Funny, I work from home and I'm on my laptop 99% of the time instead of my more powerful desktop. The flexibility of being able to choose where at home I can work is unbeatable and has made the pandemic slightly more bearable.
anotheryou 6y ago
Make usb-c docking work... I got an older dell xps that get's heart trouble on 3rd party usb-c chargers (short freezes under moderate load) and is throttled even through the expensive dell dock. I got a lenovo with linux (maybe linux is at fault) where hdmi through usb-c causes all sorts of issues. --- allow to limit charging to 80% (dell can do it, should double battery life. Too bad my xps batteries die a bloaty death every 2 years anyways... :)
- KptMarchewa 6y ago
  >I got a lenovo with linux (maybe linux is at fault) where hdmi through usb-c causes all sorts of issues. What issues? I'm literally writing this answer on LG CX connected through USB-C -> HDMI on TV. -> % swaymsg -t get_outputs Output DP-1 'Goldstar Company Ltd LG TV SSCR 0x00000101' (focused) Current mode: 3840x2160 @ 60.000000 Hz
  - anotheryou 6y ago
    I forgot the details. One of the issues was some audio via hdmi that went to sleep and caused a system crash. I think I even fixed that but still had the monitor go black sometimes and lost the will to try to fix it.
- yoz-y 6y ago
  I use the HP Z27 monitor with a single usb-c cable to my laptop and then hang all accessories off it. (Mouse, mic, speakers, keyboard, trackpad) works great. At the end of the day I can switch the work laptop for the home laptop by unplugging and plugging one cable.
  - anotheryou 6y ago
    It's a dream when it works :)
geocrasher 6y ago
Forget laptops. Bring back the portable computer.
- 1-6 6y ago
  I stare at my Echo Show (1st Gen) and it reminds me of my very first Mac Classic. Why can't Apple bring back that small computer form factor?
- dhosek 6y ago
  My first computer was a lunchbox portable. It had a monochrome plasma display and one or two open ISA slots inside (I remember I added a SCSI controller to it to drive an external CD-ROM drive). No battery power, but back in the 90s it wasn't that big of a deal to only use your computer somewhere you could plug it in.
throwaway74737 6y ago
Smartphones come with many physical sensors. Laptops are bigger and have more power, so they should have just as many. - Very good quality cameras front and back, including IR, dot projector and flash - Analog audio I/O - GPS receiver - 3D accelerometer and gyroscope - Magnetometer - Ambient light level and color temperature - Ambient temperature, air pressure, hygrometer - Radiation detector - Wasn't there some research into a user-facing radar that could detect gestures? - GPIO and SDR
- fwip 6y ago
  How do any of these, beyond the cameras, improve the work-from-home experience?
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  I am looking forward to that radiation detector, better watch out for gamma rays!
draklor40 6y ago
There exists a good solution. It is called a desktop. I turned my company provided laptop into an almost full desktop with external monitor, keyboard and mouse, speakers, a USB microphone, USB camera. At this point I am wondering why do I even have a wimpy ULV processor to write code 8 hrs a day. The sheer amount of time I could save by switching to even a basic 4 core 45-65w Desktop class CPU. Saving pennies on the dollar.
- gcatalfamo 6y ago
  Yes, in theory. But I end up not liking having to sit at the desk for "everything computer". Sometimes I just want to work while sitting comfortably on the couch.
  - plun9 6y ago
    You could get a wireless keyboard/trackpad combo and use a TV/projector as a display.
    - dhosek 6y ago
      That doesn't really work for me with my fading vision in my senescence. My monitor that I work on is a super-wide screen monitor about 2 feet away. The optimum TV-watching distance is much further for me.
  - dingaling 6y ago
    > Sometimes I just want to work while sitting comfortably on the couch. Grab some paper and a pencil and use it as non-screen time. Else you can find yourself spending too long on a poor posture on furniture that's designed for lean-back, not lean-in.
    - nwienert 6y ago
      I have a minor issue with my lower spine, not crazy but actually sit at desk 0% of the time as a result. Laptops on the couch are quite cozy and sustainable.
wombatmobile 6y ago
> In addition, research shows that the audio quality is just as important as video quality when judging the overall “quality” and “presence” of the conference experience Audio transmits 80% of the intellectual content. That's why when your TV news crosses to an outside broadcast unit, and there's no sound but the vision is perfect, they give up and go back to the studio until they get audio.
- prepend 6y ago
  What else would they do? Sign? I think it’s because news requires voice to convey info. They also give up when the video is off.
masswerk 6y ago
Some things I could think of, regarding the general form factor and basic ergonomics: * detachable keyboard (the Olivetti M15 managed this quite well in 1987, compare [1], [2] -- also mind the full-travel keys) * height adjustable screen (e.g., using an arresting sliding mechanism) With powerful while minimalistic hardware around, like the M1 chip, we may start to think about the convertible laptop the other way round again. (I.e. the folding workstation as opposed to tablet-like dual use. As the hardware becomes minimalistic, this also provides space for any mechanisms that may provide for basic ergonomic requirements.) Why are we still accepting cowering like this in front of what has become the dominant form factor for a computer as the general posture of work? [1] https://www.homecomputermuseum.de/sammlung/detailansicht/comp/Computer/show/m15/ https://www.homecomputermuseum.de/sammlung/detailansicht/com... [2] https://www.flickr.com/photos/simo_81/8151480380 https://www.flickr.com/photos/simo_81/8151480380 PS: Adjusting the viewing angle would also solve any webcam issues quite naturally.
- tmotwu 6y ago
  What's wrong with the Surface Book?
  - masswerk 6y ago
    I guess, the viewing angle? You couldn't have introduced this into a workplace in the last century, because of ergonomic workplace regulations. (Or, you would have been required to permit for at least half an our of pause in any working hour.)
castillar76 6y ago
I think it's time to bring back the lunchbox PC form factor. A lot of people need the ability to work from various places, but they're not constantly mobile. They don't need something they can pick up and toss in a briefcase on a moment's notice, they need something just portable enough that they can use it at the kitchen table and then pack it up for dinnertime, or take to a café and work for a few hours at a table. And most of the time, they're working from home at a desk, and then the compromises we make to create a mobile-form-factor laptop aren't buying them anything. Instead, let's bring back the lunchbox form factor. A mini motherboard with a real desktop processor, a little bit of expansion for a larger graphics card or extra storage, and a full-size keyboard. Since we don't need the front-facing floppy disk slots of the past, we can make the monitor the full width of the front, but have it backing on a more sizable chassis that contains most of the processing power. A really nice webcam, even room for a good condenser mic and better speakers, plus plenty of expansion ports instead of the typical "whatever fits on the knife edge of the razor profile" selection. Think iMac, but smaller and with a keyboard that just snaps or folds into the monitor like a laptop, and with a solid battery so you don't have to plug it in if you don't want to.
cblconfederate 6y ago
Why work on a laptop when you re at home?

69 points by prostoalex 6y ago

vlod 6y ago

https://archive.is/qhIjV https://archive.is/qhIjV

llampx 6y ago
Thanks for the archive link.

mvip 6y ago

> Let’s Redesign the Laptop for a Work-from-Home Era Isn't that just called a desktop? ;)

thomascgalvin 6y ago
I think there's an argument to be made for bulkier laptops now. The trend of the last two decades has been smaller form factors, which puts a hard limit on the battery, the hard drive, the number of ports you can support, and even how much thermal energy you can radiate. That was important largely because you were going to be lugging the thing around everywhere, and a pound or two could make a real difference. Now that I travel with my laptop once a month, not once a day, I think that equation changes. I still want portability - I still need portability - but using the machine on my desk is the more common, more important scenario.
- sidpatil 6y ago
  These are known as mobile workstations. They can get quite bulky, quite heavy, and quite powerful.
  - dhosek 6y ago
    I worked for a while at ISI. They let people choose their hardware for a desktop and laptop with a generous budget. One of the guys on the team had some monster gaming laptop as his laptop—I think it was a 20" screen or something on that beast.
    - sidpatil 6y ago
      Wow! I didn't know they made laptops that big!
      - dhosek 6y ago
        They haven't for a while. I did a google search to see if I was misremembering and found that 17" screens are the high end for most (if not all) contemporary manufacturers.
- asdff 6y ago
  It's going to be tough to claw back to a decent thickness. Imagine the cooling you could run and the performance you could have today if laptops were still an inch thick in the market.
rchaud 6y ago
No, because your home is your home, and your desktop might be located somewhere where other people are around, e.g. spouse, roommates, parents or children. That's not really workable for video calls.

hc-taway 6y ago

1) physical kill switch for camera (as in, it breaks the power or data connection to it, physically) or at least a physical cover. 2) physical kill switch for the microphone These are very much not "nerd" concerns, either. I see a lot of non-techies with stickers over their laptop cameras. [EDIT] teachers in particular spread the "put a sticker over the camera" practice, in my experience, both before and during the pandemic. The last thing they need is to be responding to some student message late at night and accidentally snap a picture or start a video chat. That could easily be career-ending, and they wisely don't trust software safeguards to prevent that. Yet they do want the camera, sometimes. Not having a kill-switch or cover built in sucks.

hadrien01 6y ago
In addition to a kill switch, it would be great to have a switch that affects 1) the physical device 2) the OS switch and 3) the Teams/Zoom/Webex switch. Regularly we have people in meetings forgetting one of those switches (the physical switch being on the headphones) and trying to talk without being heard.
- deadmutex 6y ago
  This is great -- most people skip over the last use case. But it seems like very useful to have. It seems that option #1 is mainly used because it is easy, and we might not fully trust #2 and #3? (Not because of evil doing, but because of bugs, and unlikely case of hacks).
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  OS just needs to know about that switch state and report it to apps if necessary.
sandworm101 6y ago
>> or at least a physical cover. I want a mechanical microphone switch too. Being seen can be embarrassing but being caught saying something can end your career instantly. See that school board that all had to resign after they were caught badmouthing parents.

roland35 6y ago

Most of the suggestions are taylored to video conferencing, such as a better camera and microphone. I have gotten around this personally by purchasing a separate external microphone and camera for a huge improvement. My main issue with my (intel 2019) MacBook Pro is the noise! Whenever I do heavy work it gets very hot and loud, and uses more power than my desktop PC. Driving a 4k monitor also contributes to the heat. It would be great to have a better cooling computer, but maybe that would just be a mac mini!

Tagbert 6y ago
The new M1 Macs are so much quieter than the Intel ones, you really have to ask “what is going on in there” to cause all that fan noise.
xiphias2 6y ago
That’s so bad, I just ordered an M1 MacBook Pro because in the reviews they said that it’s not noisy even with extreme use. I hope you are talking about an Intel based one.
maxcan 6y ago
Noise is solved by the M1s. I have a new 13" M1 MBP and I've never heard the fans turn on in spite of pretty heavy dev use
swizzler 6y ago
You might be interested in controlling Turbo Boost directly (e.g. google find this: http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/ http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/) Your computer will be slower. Depending on the task that may or may not be welcome. Some video conferencing can eat all available CPU/GPU cycles and generate fan noise; this is probably a good time to manually disable Turbo Boost. Unless you want more sword fighting time, disabling during compilation tasks is probably not a great time. Better battery life and less fan noise are benefits, though!
ghaff 6y ago
It's also easier to get a good mic and webcam if you're not constrained by the thickness of a laptop screen. A lot of people would benefit from better lighting as well although some of that can be a function of their physical environment which can be hard to do something about.

tpmx 6y ago

Having a built-in "ring"-light would be nice. Perhaps in the bezels? Or perhaps even done via detailed software-based control of the screen backlight via zones? Audio is already pretty great with a modern laptop, but it's tricky to arrange proper lighting for video conferencing.

psidhu 6y ago
Not necessarily good for people wearing glasses! I bought one and it glares off of mine a lot so I stopped using it. Other angles where the glare stops makes me look like a sociopath.
- tpmx 6y ago
  (Edited.) Perhaps mounting a polarizing filter in front of the laptop camera to kill most of the glare would make it work with glasses. Otherwise: For those who can make it work, contact lenses and lasik are nice options. Increased FOV.
  - abduhl 6y ago
    This response sounds very much like “just stop holding the phone wrong” to me.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    Not everyone who wears glasses qualifies for lasik or can wear contact lenses. I’m lucky that I can wear contact lenses and get pretty good correction, but LASIK and PRK are off the table for me (I’d still need glasses all the time).
    - tpmx 6y ago
      > I’d still need glasses all the time So trying out a polarizing filter is perhaps worth looking into? I'm curious to how well it would work.

viklove 6y ago

This article is hilarious because it shows how poorly the average tech consumer understands pricing and hardware. You want a better camera and a better mic? Buy them. They're not cheap. You can easily spend $3-400 on a teleconferencing setup (as I have for my desktop), and it pays off. But if you think my Blue Snowball mic and Logitech webcam will fit into your Macbook Air... On that note, all of these concerns could be solved by upgrading to a desktop. More and better screens? Let's ignore the fact that 4k laptop displays are fairly common these days, but please explain to me how you can fit 2+ displays on a laptop. Honestly, I'm not sure why this article is even on HN. It's complete drivel that adds nothing useful to any conversation at all. It's blogspam through and through. But who am I kidding really, HN is just Reddit with fancy words.

brmgb 6y ago
You are completely missing the point (it feels like I am now posting this everyday on HN). No one is asking for a Blue Snowball mic and Logitech webcam in their laptop. People are rightfully wondering why in world a ubiquous small competent cameras (see every iPhone from the past decades) and mic, the ones laptops are using are so poor. The answer is most likely because no one cared so I fully expect that to change but it makes sense to list as a complain with laptops. Talking about desktops is also entirely missing the point. People are issued work laptops. They don't choose their computers and most of them do want the portability anyway. It's extremely useful when you are doing a presentation of visiting customers.
- viklove 6y ago
  The answer is very simple: the display of your laptop is much thinner than your phone. So if you want something better, you will need to use an external camera.
  - sonofhans 6y ago
    This is entirely correct. Even phones are these days too thin to fit good cameras, thus the bump.

podiki 6y ago

I don't really understand the point of this article as "redesigning the laptop." Nearly all of the things they mention is either software (e.g. better processing of mic input) or called a desktop (screens, noise, etc.). If people are working from home that negates a big reason for the laptop: portability. Sure it is nice to move to the couch or kitchen or whatever, but maybe that could be having a keyboard and using a tablet. Or if you are working from home nearly all the time, a desktop will be a better and more economical choice.

akulbe 6y ago
You beat me to it. I came here to say… this is a solved problem. It's called a "desktop machine". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- unethical_ban 6y ago
  What if, and hear me out on this, the person needs to take their workstation with them to multiple locations? Or, as can be the case with smaller quarters, simply wants to? Yes, desktops have this featureset. Why don't laptops, is the point of the article. (Answer: either laziness, arrogant design aesthetic, or NSA conspiracy)
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    Laptops, by necessity, have smaller fans, since they're smaller. Same amount of cooling with a smaller fan means the fans spin faster, and faster fans are louder. Laptops simply can't have acceptable performance with adequate cooling unless you're willing to compromise on either noise, or running x86.
    - unethical_ban 6y ago
      My macbook does just fine as a zoom terminal, VSCode runner and web browser. Battery can go almost the entire day if I'm not on calls. All code is developed locally and run through pipelines in the cloud. Many people don't need a workhorse machine, simply a portal for communication and reading.

kps 6y ago

Let's not. Laptops are an ergonomic and productivity nightmare.

MarkLowenstein 6y ago
Here are things that are not good with the standard laptop form. They may seem minor, but I believe these little physical discomforts manifest themselves in a reluctance to use the device. 1. It's oblong with few safe surfaces to touch. To carry it with one hand forces you to hold it from one edge at least for awhile each time you pick it up and put it down. That feels heavy because of the leverage it pulls against that little edge you get to hold. 2. By opening frontwards/away from you, opening feels bad. Compare with opening a tablet that folds horizontally like a book. 3. It's often hard to find a clear spot to fit your laptop footprint at home. Corollary: when most people are not using it, it takes up a lot of desk or counter space. Very few people store it vertically. I store mine vertically under my desk and it gets kicked a lot. 4. It's really hard to just keep it closed and use it as a desktop replacement. Most have power buttons on the inside only, so when you have to wake it up or reboot, you've got to open it a crack and wedge your finger in there. 5. You can't tell how much battery is left, or what time it is, or when your next appointment is, without opening up the lid. Often you have to do one of those things while walking. Opening the lid and checking something on the inside while walking feels terrible.
- yoz-y 6y ago
  > You can't tell how much battery is left. One of the most delightful things on my old 2009 MBP is a little button you can press that will show the current battery levels by illuminating up to five otherwise invisible LEDs. These days laptops can hold ages on a battery charge, but back then it was awesome. I’d like them to bring this back.

Agingcoder 6y ago

I expected this to be about ergonomics, which laptops are anything but. I have seen too many people working on laptops ans getting hurt (hands, back, shoulders, etc). I'd start with a foldable keyboard which expands into something big and comfortable (I have RSI!), and a detachable screen which can be set higher on the desk.

rollcat 6y ago
My ideas exactly! I was just sitting in the bed today with a laptop (normally using a desktop) and thinking how nothing in this device really makes any sense wrt ergonomics, it's not really possible to use it for more like an hour or two without getting really uncomfortable. I've accidentally bumped into r/cyberdeck today (not ergonomic at all but provided some inspiration), and now this thread. How would you go about designing a portable computer that's also more ergonomic to use? How would you raise the screen? How would you split/tent the keyboard? What steps would you take to reduce wear / risk of damage on moving parts?
- 6510 6y ago
  Its official! Ergonomics are not considered because the most basic demands (keyboard an monitor position) are nowhere near where they should be. Whatever one tries to design besides those is nonsense. The article is nonsense.

rasz 6y ago

Desktop. Laptop for working-from-home is called a DESKTOP.

jswizzy 6y ago
Now convince management that they should purchase a desktop for you. Probably not gonna happen I've tried for years to get a desktop.
- betaby 6y ago
  I know some companies what purchased beefy NUCs for the employees.
- 6510 6y ago
  Could show them studies and numbers on Musculoskeletal Disorders. Anything over 2 hours per day is surely going to cause fatigue first, then pain, then permanent damage. Loss of productivity starts on day one.

neonate 6y ago

https://archive.is/qhIjV https://archive.is/qhIjV

ryankrage77 6y ago
Thank you. Can't wait until paywalling what amounts to less than an A4 page of content finally dies.

jxramos 6y ago

Products to help the macbook out with work from home variation - a lapdesk, to rest the laptop directly or an external keyboard for stability - https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ2R2LL/A/magic-trackpad-2-silver https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ2R2LL/A/magic-trackpad-..., best when paired with an external keyboard to gain distance to the macbook. - https://www.raindesigninc.com/mstand.html https://www.raindesigninc.com/mstand.html, to elevate the laptop for more comfortable viewing - https://www.goalzero.com/shop/portable-power/goal-zero-yeti-500x-portable-power-station/ https://www.goalzero.com/shop/portable-power/goal-zero-yeti-..., to work on the road anywhere, 60W USB-C -> C cable can run a macbook all day and some. - https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/viewsonic-vg1655 https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/viewsonic-vg1655, get that portable second monitor experience.

zozin 6y ago
I agree with most of these, but the Rain Design laptop stand sucks. Why is it static when it can easily adjust based on various people's heights and use cases. This was a much better buy (I compared it to the Rain Design one side by side): https://www.amazon.com/Adjustable-EPN-Heat-Vent-Aluminum-Compatible/dp/B07VFFZCJZ/ https://www.amazon.com/Adjustable-EPN-Heat-Vent-Aluminum-Com... As far as a second monitor is concerned, in the Apple universe you're better off buying an iPad and using that as a second monitor.
- jxramos 6y ago
  The mStand is definitely not adjustable, but it's also very robust/firm/rigid/solid. There's no question it will go the distance from a quality perspective, should last a lifetime. The rubber pads also seem like they'll go the distance too. I trust Rain Design because they don't skimp on the heft of the aluminum they use or the means they mount the rubber pads. I've bought some cheap competitor ones in the past, their lightweight bodies tend to tip over easily and their adhesive fails over time. Rain Design is what we used at Apple, and I use it at my current job too. It appears they do offer a more adjustable model too. https://www.raindesigninc.com/ilevel.html https://www.raindesigninc.com/ilevel.html That iPad tip is a great one, never knew about Sidecar before today https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210380 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210380. Excellent advise.

asdff 6y ago

If we are to redesign the laptop why can't we admit that it's current design and use cases are at odds? People are running zoom and docker and slack and a dozen other things at once. We waste more resources than ever doing the same chat/etc. stuff we've been doing for 25 years. Things aren't moving faster, fans are going full tilt and CPUs throttle down. What the people need more than anything is for manufacturers to take a step away from making a 2.5lb aluminum blade and instead offer a sufficient cooling solution.

olyjohn 6y ago
It's the same craze affecting smartphones. We get rid of useful features like headphone jacks just to save 0.25mm of thickness. Thickness that nobody would ever notice in a practical use case. We buy thin, fragile phones and then put them in big thick cases.
- llampx 6y ago
  Tell Apple how they can sell $200 accessories by adding jacks and they will happily do it. iPhones have been getting thicker and heavier since the iPhone 6s and we've lost the jack.
- mxz3000 6y ago
  I'm more than happy to lose the jack to get a bigger battery or thinner/lighter phone. I'm never going back to wired headphones anyways, wireless is the future. Far too used to not having my head tethered to my phone (or laptop for that matter).
  - fomine3 6y ago
    It's the future, but with latency.
Koliakis 6y ago
I loved my old Thinkpad. Thick, but it could run at full load without throttling for as long as I needed it to. But nowadays, even their T series keeps getting thinner and they've been soldering the RAM.

thrower123 6y ago

Once you go to an actual desktop, you can't ever go back to working on a laptop.

Koliakis 6y ago
Funny, I work from home and I'm on my laptop 99% of the time instead of my more powerful desktop. The flexibility of being able to choose where at home I can work is unbeatable and has made the pandemic slightly more bearable.

anotheryou 6y ago

Make usb-c docking work... I got an older dell xps that get's heart trouble on 3rd party usb-c chargers (short freezes under moderate load) and is throttled even through the expensive dell dock. I got a lenovo with linux (maybe linux is at fault) where hdmi through usb-c causes all sorts of issues. --- allow to limit charging to 80% (dell can do it, should double battery life. Too bad my xps batteries die a bloaty death every 2 years anyways... :)

KptMarchewa 6y ago
>I got a lenovo with linux (maybe linux is at fault) where hdmi through usb-c causes all sorts of issues. What issues? I'm literally writing this answer on LG CX connected through USB-C -> HDMI on TV. -> % swaymsg -t get_outputs Output DP-1 'Goldstar Company Ltd LG TV SSCR 0x00000101' (focused) Current mode: 3840x2160 @ 60.000000 Hz
- anotheryou 6y ago
  I forgot the details. One of the issues was some audio via hdmi that went to sleep and caused a system crash. I think I even fixed that but still had the monitor go black sometimes and lost the will to try to fix it.
yoz-y 6y ago
I use the HP Z27 monitor with a single usb-c cable to my laptop and then hang all accessories off it. (Mouse, mic, speakers, keyboard, trackpad) works great. At the end of the day I can switch the work laptop for the home laptop by unplugging and plugging one cable.
- anotheryou 6y ago
  It's a dream when it works :)

geocrasher 6y ago

Forget laptops. Bring back the portable computer.

1-6 6y ago
I stare at my Echo Show (1st Gen) and it reminds me of my very first Mac Classic. Why can't Apple bring back that small computer form factor?
dhosek 6y ago
My first computer was a lunchbox portable. It had a monochrome plasma display and one or two open ISA slots inside (I remember I added a SCSI controller to it to drive an external CD-ROM drive). No battery power, but back in the 90s it wasn't that big of a deal to only use your computer somewhere you could plug it in.

throwaway74737 6y ago

Smartphones come with many physical sensors. Laptops are bigger and have more power, so they should have just as many. - Very good quality cameras front and back, including IR, dot projector and flash - Analog audio I/O - GPS receiver - 3D accelerometer and gyroscope - Magnetometer - Ambient light level and color temperature - Ambient temperature, air pressure, hygrometer - Radiation detector - Wasn't there some research into a user-facing radar that could detect gestures? - GPIO and SDR

fwip 6y ago
How do any of these, beyond the cameras, improve the work-from-home experience?
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
I am looking forward to that radiation detector, better watch out for gamma rays!

draklor40 6y ago

There exists a good solution. It is called a desktop. I turned my company provided laptop into an almost full desktop with external monitor, keyboard and mouse, speakers, a USB microphone, USB camera. At this point I am wondering why do I even have a wimpy ULV processor to write code 8 hrs a day. The sheer amount of time I could save by switching to even a basic 4 core 45-65w Desktop class CPU. Saving pennies on the dollar.

gcatalfamo 6y ago
Yes, in theory. But I end up not liking having to sit at the desk for "everything computer". Sometimes I just want to work while sitting comfortably on the couch.
- plun9 6y ago
  You could get a wireless keyboard/trackpad combo and use a TV/projector as a display.
  - dhosek 6y ago
    That doesn't really work for me with my fading vision in my senescence. My monitor that I work on is a super-wide screen monitor about 2 feet away. The optimum TV-watching distance is much further for me.
- dingaling 6y ago
  > Sometimes I just want to work while sitting comfortably on the couch. Grab some paper and a pencil and use it as non-screen time. Else you can find yourself spending too long on a poor posture on furniture that's designed for lean-back, not lean-in.
  - nwienert 6y ago
    I have a minor issue with my lower spine, not crazy but actually sit at desk 0% of the time as a result. Laptops on the couch are quite cozy and sustainable.

wombatmobile 6y ago

> In addition, research shows that the audio quality is just as important as video quality when judging the overall “quality” and “presence” of the conference experience Audio transmits 80% of the intellectual content. That's why when your TV news crosses to an outside broadcast unit, and there's no sound but the vision is perfect, they give up and go back to the studio until they get audio.

prepend 6y ago
What else would they do? Sign? I think it’s because news requires voice to convey info. They also give up when the video is off.

masswerk 6y ago

Some things I could think of, regarding the general form factor and basic ergonomics: * detachable keyboard (the Olivetti M15 managed this quite well in 1987, compare [1], [2] -- also mind the full-travel keys) * height adjustable screen (e.g., using an arresting sliding mechanism) With powerful while minimalistic hardware around, like the M1 chip, we may start to think about the convertible laptop the other way round again. (I.e. the folding workstation as opposed to tablet-like dual use. As the hardware becomes minimalistic, this also provides space for any mechanisms that may provide for basic ergonomic requirements.) Why are we still accepting cowering like this in front of what has become the dominant form factor for a computer as the general posture of work? [1] https://www.homecomputermuseum.de/sammlung/detailansicht/comp/Computer/show/m15/ https://www.homecomputermuseum.de/sammlung/detailansicht/com... [2] https://www.flickr.com/photos/simo_81/8151480380 https://www.flickr.com/photos/simo_81/8151480380 PS: Adjusting the viewing angle would also solve any webcam issues quite naturally.

tmotwu 6y ago
What's wrong with the Surface Book?
- masswerk 6y ago
  I guess, the viewing angle? You couldn't have introduced this into a workplace in the last century, because of ergonomic workplace regulations. (Or, you would have been required to permit for at least half an our of pause in any working hour.)

castillar76 6y ago

I think it's time to bring back the lunchbox PC form factor. A lot of people need the ability to work from various places, but they're not constantly mobile. They don't need something they can pick up and toss in a briefcase on a moment's notice, they need something just portable enough that they can use it at the kitchen table and then pack it up for dinnertime, or take to a café and work for a few hours at a table. And most of the time, they're working from home at a desk, and then the compromises we make to create a mobile-form-factor laptop aren't buying them anything. Instead, let's bring back the lunchbox form factor. A mini motherboard with a real desktop processor, a little bit of expansion for a larger graphics card or extra storage, and a full-size keyboard. Since we don't need the front-facing floppy disk slots of the past, we can make the monitor the full width of the front, but have it backing on a more sizable chassis that contains most of the processing power. A really nice webcam, even room for a good condenser mic and better speakers, plus plenty of expansion ports instead of the typical "whatever fits on the knife edge of the razor profile" selection. Think iMac, but smaller and with a keyboard that just snaps or folds into the monitor like a laptop, and with a solid battery so you don't have to plug it in if you don't want to.

cblconfederate 6y ago

Why work on a laptop when you re at home?