8 ms·
Why aren't there any bold laptop manufacturers? This is a 2021 laptop that uses USB-A primarily, a meh panel, and no particular standout design features. Why do
by sinistersnare 6y ago
Why aren't there any bold laptop manufacturers? This is a 2021 laptop that uses USB-A primarily, a meh panel, and no particular standout design features. Why do I have to get a mac if I want actually good design?
System76 should take a risk and truly make an interesting laptop. leaving the standard, boring design to the big name companies.
- s_dev 6y agoI would imagine part of the explanation is that Apple is a trillion dollar company and System76 is a million dollar company.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Wohlf 6y agoIf you want something like a Mac there are plenty of options. Off the top of my head there's Lenovo Yoga, Dell XPS, and Microsoft Surface.
- nobleach 6y agoI've grown to love my Dell XPS (with Linux). It definitely has some rough edges. Dell shipped what I consider a faulty machine. The trackpad is wobbly/bouncy. I had a tech come out to replace it, but he ended up having to send it to "the depot" due to a screw being sheared. I hadn't touched the screw. The depot returned it to me with a missing/broken case LED, unplugged speakers and one WiFi antenna that won't seat. Even still, the machine is beautiful. Even the fingerprint reader works in Linux. I use the heck out of it and battery life is quite good. Also, I upgraded my RAM to 32G and my SSD to 512G. This thing also has another M.2 slot just in case I want to put another SSD into it.
- zucker42 6y agoSystem76 doesn't design their own laptop hardware, as far as I know.
- modernerd 6y agoThey plan to one day: https://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/System76-To-Design-And-Build-Laptops-In-House https://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/System76-To-Desig...
- baybal2 6y agoAnd that's the reason. OEM are very risk averse. They only produce cookie cutter designs because most of their buyers themselves look for most casual buyers.
- birktj 6y agoMy xiaomi notebook looks a bit like a mac clone and as 2x USB-C ports and 2x USB-A ports. It is not without its problems, but if you want a reasonably priced laptop that looks like a mac I would say it is a pretty good choice.
- IntelMiner 6y agoI'd have to disagree. I bought the Mibook Pro a few years ago after it seemed to get quite good reviews, but it is an absolutely miserable machine to use The iGPU has a hard-locked 64MB of RAM allocated to it, which means the Nvidia graphics chip is ALWAYS on, causing it to get maybe 2~ hours of battery life at best The build quality is miserable, I ended up replacing all of the screws in the machine to make it more properly sturdy (which also fixed the case flex causing the fans to grind to a halt if you nudged the machine too harshly) Linux support still isn't 100%. The Nvidia blob doesn't support GPU switching for what ever reason and Nouveau just causes kernel oopses After suffering with it for so many years I finally bought an "MSI Modern 14" Ryzen laptop, which I'm moderately content with. I'll probably send the Mibook off to some people I know that work at Red Hat so they can at least improve its Linux support for those who still have it though
- KptMarchewa 6y agoBesides build quality, the problems you have are with Nvidia. What should Red Hat do? Forward your strongly worded email to Nvidia?
- IntelMiner 6y agoI'd be sending it to Nouveau project members. So they can work on ironing out support for its MX150 GPU
- llampx 6y agoWhat is so bold about the MacBook design in 2021?
- zamadatix 6y agoNot a "fan" of Macs but a fanless laptop without having to get 5 year old performance in return and the touch bar is still very rare outside Apple devices.
- somethingwitty1 6y agoAren't the current rumors/expectations that they are dropping the touch bar?
- geerlingguy 6y agoHopefully. The fact it's never migrated to any other project outside the 'Pro' laptops seems to point to an obvious conclusion.
- Closi 6y agoThat it’s exclusively a Pro feature?
- samatman 6y agoAgreed, although on that front it completely baffles me that they didn't release a Magic Keyboard Pro with TouchID and Touch Bar at most one release cycle after throwing the Touch Bar into laptops. I find them completely useless and am ready for them to be gone, but it's like they didn't even try.
- lupire 6y agoFanless performance is a microchip innovation not a bold laptop design.
- nrp 6y agoIt’s fairly expensive to develop and pay for tooling on an entirely new notebook. It’s relatively inexpensive to start with a whitelabel design from Clevo or Tongfang instead and leverage the existing tooling and validation work.
- simias 6y agoApple can design custom everything and has the economy of scale to justify it. The PC space is also more competitive, Apple managed to associate their brand with luxury and charge a huge premium for their hardware, a laptop with equivalent specs would struggle massively to sell at the same price when you could purchase similarly powerful laptops for half the cost that would run the same software. At this point Apple can design any gimmicky piece of hardware, stick their logo on it, sell it for three times the price of equivalent third party products and still run out of stock on launch. You can't beat that.
- jbverschoor 6y agoIt wasn't always the case. Also, Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc. have more than enough economy of scale. $1000 for the M1 air is not a huge premium. It's actually very cheap.
- mrweasel 6y ago> It's actually very cheap. Which is a huge problem for the competition. I know that I can get just get a cheap Mac and it will still be fast, it will still have a great screen and the build quality will be higher than the majority of PC laptops. I happen to like macOS, so it's not a huge issue, but if I want to get a laptop for Linux, then I need to go to a store to see the models. Otherwise I can't be sure if I'll like the screen, keyboard or overall look an feel. The minor price difference for an Apple product is acceptable, given that I know what I'll getting a usable laptop regardless of which model I pick.
- simias 6y agoIt's been the case for a while though, and I know for a fact that Dell offers form factors very similar to MacBooks. But even then, the market is a lot more fragmented when Apple offers a full ecosystem of devices.
- fwip 6y agoI don't think $1000 can be called "very cheap" when the median laptop price is around $650, and you can get basic Windows laptops for under $300.
- dgellow 6y agoMicrosoft experimented with bold ideas with their surface series. They have fantastic displays (3:2, 4K, multi touch), keyboards, and touchpads. But they have the same issues as Apple’s devices, you cannot open the machine and change components, and the I/O are a bit limited (USB 3, SD, USB-C, propriety port for charging).
- vinay427 6y agoSystem76 is probably one of the least bold laptop manufacturers because they can't afford to be. As other comments have noted, much of their hardware are largely rebadged devices from other manufacturers such as Clevo, because the main selling point of System76 appears to be the software experience and hardware integration. If you want great design that matches a Mac (overall, better in some areas, worse in others), look at the flagship ThinkPad models, Microsoft Surface devices, etc. There are many laptops that have "standout design features" such as convertible designs, novel display and input options including pen-and-touch, etc. If anything, I think Macs lag behind in these innovations, although they have other benefits.
- gnufied 6y agohmm - aren't there Eluktronics laptops (https://www.eluktronics.com/laptops/ https://www.eluktronics.com/laptops/) which also uses some rebraded chasis for newest Ryzen laptops? Even if you are forced to use rebranded chasis - i think there are better options out there. The pangolin model looks pretty meh tbh.
- hojjat12000 6y agoI couldn't find any laptops with the new Ryzen mobile on this website.
- kube-system 6y agoI bought an innovative new convertible tablet from HP in 2008. I now appreciate Apple's hesitancy to implement innovative designs before they're ready for prime-time. Sometimes, quality of execution is more innovative than the concept.
- jdmichal 6y agoI still have a vintage 2010 HP TouchSmart tm2 sitting around. It was certainly an early execution of the convertible idea, and I appreciate it for that. Doesn't stop me from also appreciating my modern Surface Book 2 and Dell XPS 13, though. Anyway, that's basically the creation myth of the iPhone, no? That it supposedly was basically iterated on for quite a few years before the technology got to the point where a high-quality execution was allowed. I also had Windows Mobile smartphones and remember the iPhone releasing. I didn't recognize or appreciate that difference then.
- minhazm 6y agoReminds me of this medium post [1]. Apple might make it look easy but all those little things they do are really difficult and require massive scale to get at a reasonable cost. [1] https://beneinstein.medium.com/no-you-cant-manufacture-that-like-apple-does-93bea02a3bbf https://beneinstein.medium.com/no-you-cant-manufacture-that-...
- cashewchoo 6y agoI think it's a combination of: * extremely, extremely thin margins * in general, users are pretty low-discretion, which makes it hard to meaningfully differentiate your product * deeply entrenched competition (what % of laptops are sold at best buy/etc?) * the users who are high-discretion are going to be extremely demanding users. They're going to nitpick over small details in both hardware and software. And they're probably going to be installing their own OS (or at least reinstalling the existing one) and will generally be more demanding of both product design and support. Also, they probably have the tech skills to correctly point the finger at you when it's your fault. Whereas less discerning users might just go "Ugh bill gates!" Doesn't help that the "linux laptop" niche was probably a big part of this "niche laptop" market segment and Dell and Lenovo are both kinda warming back up to that niche. e.g. the newest XPS's all work great on (latest kernel) linux.
- screye 6y agoI don't know what laptops you are looking at ? The XPS 13 competes directly with the mac in terms of (familiar but) industrial design, standout display and inner design (with the white carbon fiber) and USB-C ports for a lifetime. Stating it first, because its the most obvious competitor. The Razer, Asus, HP and Surface flagships have clear standout designs and similar features. The only 2 laptops that are purposely boring are the Thinkpad and System76, because they seem to cater to people who need them as work machines, first and foremost. (LG Gram is not a flagship)
- latch 6y agoI'm on my 2nd XPS 13. I switched to it and linux after being severely impacted by the butterfly keyboard (i.e. having to fly to a different country to get it repaired, only to have it break again a few months later). I don't _hate_ the XPS 13, but I wouldn't recommend it and I probably won't be getting a 3rd one (unless they change). The build quality just isn't there. First of all, the flexible chassis is annoying. If I pick it up on the side with one hand, it's likely to flex enough to trigger a trackpad click. Secondly, while it's pretty quiet, it does get rather hot. Third, the trackpad and mouse aren't Macbook-quality (butterfly keyboard aside). In my first one, the trackpad and battery had to be replaced. The keyboard on my current one (9300) has very mild issues (I think they reduced the travel distance and it, like butterfly, is somewhat susceptible to dust/dirt) Not sure what I'll replace it with. Will see how the reviews for the Framework laptop are.
- Ar-Curunir 6y agoThey got rid of the butterfly keyboard on the latest Macs, no?
- latch 6y agoYes, but I prefer Ubuntu and I'm under the impression that running Linux on Macbook's isn't great ??
- skrtskrt 6y agoThinkpad X and T series laptops are excellent machines. They’re all in the process of getting at least a 2k display, 11th gen intel chips (or amd in the case of T and X13), etc etc
- Nullabillity 6y ago> This is a 2021 laptop that uses USB-A primarily Seems like the reasonable choice, given that host-side USB-C is still dead in the water.
- monocasa 6y agoMy Huawei Matebook Pro is most of what I wanted in that space. 3000x2000 screen, USB-A on one side and C on the other, all day battery, nvme instead of soldered in SSD. Still has soldered in RAM, unfortunately.
- fomine3 6y agoAll day battery is partially thanks to LPDDR that need to be soldered.
- shirro 6y agoThey have to take whatever designs are coming out of China and can only make minor adjustments to the specs. Apple has huge volume, big margins a very tight supply chain and a mountain of cash in tax havens. They have a lot more options. If a seller like System 76 adds too much margin on their models people will buy a Clevo rebadged by some other seller which is a shame because System76 are adding value with their firmware and OS tweaks. I am looking forward to the day when a company like System76 can release their own designs but without being in Apples position of fleecing customers for music, video, apps, cloud, mobile, tablets etc in a closed ecosystem it might be a long time coming.
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- deleted 6y ago[deleted]