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Ask HN: What does one look for in a laptop these days?

• fsflover 5y ago
  1. Upgradable and repairable. 2. Linux and Qubes OS support. 3. 64+ GB RAM. 4. Coreboot and focused on verifiable security, neutralized Intel ME. 5. Hardware kill switch for camera, microphone. Actually, there is only one such laptop: https://puri.sm/products/librem-14 https://puri.sm/products/librem-14.
  • emptysongglass 5y ago
    I tried for years to get along with Purism but I've had three laptops with poor QC come from them. Broken hinges, unreliable touchpads, bad chargers. Never again.
    • fsflover 5y ago
      I'm quite happy with my Librem 15, no problems. AFAIK they fixed their hinge in the latest model. Which problems did you have with the chargers? Never heard about that on their forums.
      • emptysongglass 5y ago
        My charger just stopped working one day on the first 13 v2. The touchpad would also just not accept input sometimes. Also, and this one I had forgotten: sometimes it would just experience sudden power loss. Returning the damn thing for a warranty repair was a nightmare. Finally they just shipped me a new 13 v3 which had a broken hinge. You may just be lucky. The failure rates of Librems are well documented across their forums, subreddit and YouTube. I strongly urge anyone not to buy one, including the new 14, which has extensive reports of keyboard input failure, coil whine, terrible audio and generally poor fit and finish.
        • fsflover 5y ago
          Librems 13 were indeed known to have the hinge problem, not so much Librems 15. Another commenter says Librem 14 is great: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28887681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28887681
          • emptysongglass 5y ago
            Here's just one of the few reviews lambasting the new 14: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRBysG9ap3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRBysG9ap3E
• goatherders 5y ago
  While we are here, can anyone recommend a laptop with a crazy bright screen and a good battery? As in "I am sitting by the pool for a couple weeks and need to work, too." Will be Chrome and Office so most every other spec is secondary.
  • mike_pol 5y ago
    iPad Pro 13 with the keyboard accessory? A bit pricey for what it is but I run my whole workflow away from my workstation on one of these. Super bright high resolution screen with excellent colours and iSh can be used with tmux on a vps if you need some light code editing.
• literallyaduck 5y ago
  1. Open source compatibility 2. Battery replaceable 3. Screen replaceable 4. No soldered on RAM 5. Full shutdown, always on is a bug not a feature 6. Durability 7. Ports a plenty 8. I should be able to drop it from any angle from my couch and it should not break
• Dracophoenix 5y ago
  Good on-site warranty support and/or spare part availability whether it's from the OEM or Ebay.
• ytch 5y ago
  physical front camera cover
• 02020202 5y ago
  that is a loaded question because the way people use their computers varies too much. for example, i have abandoned desktop because of the noise and size. so notebook/laptop/.. sits on my desk, closed, hooked up to external monitor, keyboard and mouse. so it is like a compact desktop with a backup screen and keyboard. so for this use, i need dedicated graphics card(just for games), rj45 to hook up internet or lan, microphone and headphones jack, bt if i want to use wireless headphones, wifi if i don't have cable available. all NBs have replaceable hdd and ram so those will be immediately upgraded(ie. they should be ignored when buying). hence the graphics card, cpu and available ports is what matters the most because they are fixed. i have been taking my NB to work for 5+ years, every day, so the durability of connectors is important. you won't know until you keep using them(ie. plugging the hdmi cable twice a day, usb keyboard and mouse too). if you move the computer often, the charger is the biggest issue since it is large and heavy. having a small one should be priority, otherwise it does not matter(or buy a second one). overall weight and dimensions should be considered as well if travel will take place often(i would recommend dedicated travel NB in that case). also it is good to have two hdds, just in case. i have swapped my dvd-rom for hdd with a special tray. lastly, drivers. after so many years, i recommend you back up all drivers somewhere because if you reinstall the OS you might not find some important driver anymore or you will have some issues(in my case, the fan was not working properly so i had to find a special utility that i need to run after each start). some brands are better at long-term support than others, but again, you just won't know until you need it. i don't think brand matters. not today. i bought MSI, plastic case, but with good specs. most people would not even look at that brand when it comes to NBs but it has served me 8 years without missing a beat. lastly, in my case, i cannot hook up 4k monitor because of outdated graphics card. that should not be a problem but tech is something one might look at to future-proof the computer's long-term usability. also the limits of replaceable hw should be considered. you might be ok with 16gb ram or 32gb ram but one day you might NEED 64gb or more and you might not be able to hook it up. same goes for hdd and the supported speeds or interface. again, future-proofing is something to consider if you are not the type of person that buys new hw every other year.
• wink 5y ago
  1. wifi has to be perfect, don't care about BT at all 2. Linux support 3. keyboard needs to be usable. ThinkPad is good, Dell is meh, HP is horrible 4. Noise. And no coil whine. I never even thought about this before my Dell. 5. No headphone jack would be an instant no. I guess I could live with a dongle for USB. 6. battery should not be completely bad. But unless it would be something for travel, not so important 7. I hate all trackpads (incl. Mac), so I prefer ThinkPads anyway
  • robocat 5y ago
    > no coil whine. I never even thought about this before my Dell. Fuck Dell for not fixing this for a decade - it is a number 1 complaint on forums.
• michalf6 5y ago
  1) Maxed-out battery (90-100WH) 2) Low-TDP modern CPU, ideally Ryzen 3) Bright, hi-res screen There is nothing on the market that offers this. M1 mac is the closest option, but Apple shouldn't be given money. I'm currently on a Thinkpad T480.
  • deepdmistry 5y ago
    Why no money for apple ?
    • michalf6 5y ago
      Anti-consumer behaviour. Multiple hardware design faults in macbooks. Actively working against repair, against software freedom, against the user (see recent CSAM fiasco). Non-removable storage. Preference of thin&light vs upgradeability/cooling. I wouldn't mind that as I'm not their customer, but all the crap they introduce gets mindlessly copied by all their competition.
      • michalf6 5y ago
        Adding to that, I'm afraid of the world moving away from the PC as a standard. Through a lucky set of circumstances, we were able to enjoy a relatively open and universal compatibility standard of computers for the last several decades. I'm afraid of the computing world fragmenting again into several walled gardens in the likes of Amiga/Atari of old, nothing being compatible with each other, unable to run code not signed by the manufacturer. The danger should IMO be obvious, but I watch in terror as my friends happily buy into the M1.
        • sircastor 5y ago
          Seeing that, it seems like this is likely cyclical. We’ll have 20 years of siloed hardware, and then some competitors figure out a way to get a foot in the door, or signed-only systems will become distasteful to consumers and Companies will revert, interoperability will become the norm again. There are always barriers in computing and society will respond to it.
• t-writescode 5y ago
  A touchscreen with some sort of good pen support, ideally a tablet mode as well. I use a desktop for most things, so the tablet is for drawing, etc.
• emouryto 5y ago
  I'd say you are in a very tiny niche for the SIM and stylus alone. Which vendors/brands does this leave you with? Personally I previously searched for: 1. Super fast CPU (got the Ryzen) 2. With enough RAM (32GB, unofficially) 3. At a cheap non-Apple price ("gaming" laptop) 4. That looks somewhat professional (Lenovo won against the ASUS which screamed teenager) 5. That runs Linux well enough.
• Gepsens 5y ago
  Noise. I don't care if it slows down a bit, i don't want my computer to sound like a plane taking off when I'm compiling. Which is why I went from MBP to Air this year, and at home I use my huge radiator cooled desktop PC to work.
• wiso 5y ago
  Silence.
• tyteen4a03 5y ago
  A beautiful UI that comes out of the box that I don't have to spend hours tinkering to get it just right. A Unix-like kernel (WSL2 comes pretty close). Not too bulky. That realistically only leaves me with MacBook Pros.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    Gnome 40 or Elementary OS might be your cup of tea then. System76 makes them "out-the-box"-ier. You should check them out.
• delaaxe 5y ago
  Unlocking laptop with my fingerprints was a game changer for me
  • godDLL 5y ago
    My fingers don't always have prints. Sometimes they are callous.
• ahonhn 5y ago
  Good keyboard and a good touchpad with discrete buttons. No buttons, no buy. The other vital thing is a non-touch matte/anti-glare screen. I want to look at my code, not myself. Of course there's heaps more I'll be comparing when choosing a machine, but if the above aren't met I won't be looking at that machine.
  • pg5 5y ago
    It's super annoying when I accidentally move the cursor when clicking the touchpad buttons that are not physically separate. Why has this become the standard?
• matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Good thermal management. Ability to sustain loads without throttling. Hardware with Linux compatibility.
• mega-tux 5y ago
  I can't stand laptop with numerical keyboards. These keys are a waste of space and moves the rest of the keys & trackpad to the left making hands position not aligned with the center of the device.
• qwerty456127 5y ago
  > Bluetooth has to be good Does this even exist? Never met a reliable (even in context of using within a single meter of range) BlueTooth in my life. Only Apple seems to offer reasonably good. For this very reason (although my experience comes solely from earphones) I hesitate to buy a BlueTooth keyboard which I would normally prefer over occupying a USB port with a separate wireless KB dongle.
  • legacynl 5y ago
    > Does this even exist? What has your experience been with bt? I have the cheapest bt-dongle I could find (4 euros) and it never failed me and is super solid.
    • qwerty456127 5y ago
      Connection breaks regularly (less often with more expensive headphones). Even when using an expensive Creative Bluetooth audio dongle. Samsung Android phone built-in breaks less often but in many cases the whole BlueTooth stack crashes. Untolerable sound distortions start occuring every now and then. Even under Windows on a new EliteBook with reasonably expensive earphones. Often also with the smartphone when I jog in the woods (tried with different headphones and earphones). With a cheap full-featured dongle I use on the office PC the sound quality is often untolerable (I mean distortions, not the bitrate, some days it would work Ok whole day, some days it just doesn't). Built in BlueTooth in my old Dell Latitude only worked with Windows and occasionally with Ubuntu, other distros thought the device was a trackpad (could be fixed with some hacling but was not worth it because still worked unreliably so I used the Creative dongle instead). Even with Apple (but non-apple headphones of the middle price segment) the connection breaks occasionally although not very often.
      • kbob 5y ago
        Are you in a crowded office with lots of Bluetooth devices? At my house, Bluetooth is rock solid up to 10 meters. But there are only a handful of devices in the house, and the neighbors are far away.
• random_kris 5y ago
  M1 MacBook pro no competition
  • diffeomorphism 5y ago
    Considering OP lists touch or pen as a requirement (4.) the macbook is not an option. Not to mention that a macbook pro with 16GB ram and more than base storage starts at $1700. Sure, it might be good but at that prices it better be. Out of interest how bad is the compatibility of the M1 macbooks with other OSs? That might be a dealbreaker as well.
  • codegeek 5y ago
    Does M1 come with a 15 inch like the Macbook Pro Retina Mid 2014 ? I am interested in M1 but my current Macbook Pro runs like butter and really not interested in replacing it until something much better comes along.
    • crooked-v 5y ago
      The ones to really look at will the M1X models that will (probably) be announced on the 18th, which will bump up the screens to 14/16 inch in the same overall form factor (smaller bezels) and have even more absurd performance than the M1 laptops people keep raving about.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    I've looked at those. They are glossy. But that's not even the thing that turned me off. The keyboards did. One speck of dust and that thing gets stuck. The keys have no travel, that's no good. And having typed on it a bit, I can attest there is not much difference between those keyboards and typing on straight up glass, feeling-wise. I love what they are doing with the CPU, GPU, no significant interconnect overhead so that everything is way snappy – like the big 2TB RAM machines I used to maintain back when I coded for a living. But they aren't thinking of me and people like me when they create those past-2015 products, let me tell you. There is much to hate about the current crop of them.
    • 5y ago
• ajvs 5y ago
  Thunderbolt 4, especially since I use an eGPU to turn my laptop into a gaming machine.
  • tendencydriven 5y ago
    I often wonder about the experience of using an eGPU. What are the tradeoffs? I travel a bit for work now and I'd like to have a more mobile gaming setup.
    • ajvs 5y ago
      Tradeoff is that your performance will be bottlenecked by your CPU. I can't wait for AMD's Ryzen 6000 series since that's supposed to support USB4 (which includes TB3).
• undecisive 5y ago
  I think it would be useful to know what kind of profile you fit, because everyone's must-haves are slightly different. For example, I would add: - at least opens 180 degrees: I often find myself having to do the odd bit of work in the car - which is a nightmare generally, but having a laptop that can open flat is essential. - Fingerprint reader (that works well under Linux): this is one of the saddest things about my current computer. It's a nice to have, but a very nice to have - especially if I end up doing work in a coffee shop with a thousand CCTV cameras.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    We are in the process of finding out, I've listed above what I think, and am combing through the comments now. Thank you for the ideas presented, I appreciate the time taken.
• agd 5y ago
  I’m gonna add good webcam and sound to the mix. These are essential for remote work. If the rumours are true, the new M1X MacBook Pros being announced this Monday look perfect: - high performance + battery life - exceptional build quality - great screen, sound, and webcam - decent port selection
  • dredmorbius 5y ago
    Quality and flexibility increase tremendously with external devices --- camera, speakers, and/or microphone. Given the privacy advantages, I'd prefer systems without onbard video or audio capture. (I'm aware advanced methods can be used to capture some audio signal via, e.g., speakers or device vibrations. I'm looking at risk minimisation / mitigation, not elimination.)
  • thelittleone 5y ago
    I wouldn't get too excited. Have the last gen Intel MBP 16". There is a known issue where after waking the speakers pop loudly and regularly making it unusable for audio. Before that the MBP 15" which had so many parts replaced I thought it was just bad luck. Apples product quality is not what is used to be, far from it in my experience.
    • kinnth 5y ago
      I found the MBP 16 Intel version to be the worst macbook they have made. Great screen, but everything else wasn't worth the money. They also introduced a crazy bug which when you plug in a USBC charging cable you can twig the temperature sensor on the macbook sending the whole CPU to 100% and it was a software issue not a hardware issue. Still not fixed. I intend to get the nex M1X for the simple reason that it will be better integrated with the mac's and OS. I don't love Apple, but I consider them to make the best laptop so i'll be excited to see what they release on monday.
  • XiJinpinggg 5y ago
    Webcam is rumored to be 1080p. At the price point of a Macbook Pro it should be a 4K webcam. We'll see, maybe the rumors are wrong. We know how long it takes Apple to upgrade their webcams so we might be stuck with 1080p until 2030.
• olalonde 5y ago
  Why do you prefer SIM over WiFi? Almost everywhere I've been it's been slower and more expensive than WiFi.
  • teleforce 5y ago
    Not if you're in Taiwan, WiFi is considered inferior to 4G LTE due to the latter extensive coverage and reliable connectivity. You can even get more than 300 Mbps internet access with 4G on a moving train!
  • godDLL 5y ago
    I happen to live and hang out in an area where it is cheaper. I have two operational desktop computers at home, so the laptop is for when I'm not at home, hence SIM is preferable to have.
• grecy 5y ago
  I'd at least wait until the 18th to see what Apple is about to announce. Even if you don't get whatever they announce, it might be good to view your options in light of the new products.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    Agreed, but I don't have my hopes up. Their keyboards have been atrocious for the last few years. Everything in their current lineup has the stuck-by-dust-particle problem.
    • dhosek 5y ago
      Anecdata but: I bought the 16" MBP when it was first released and have never had a problem with it (or with any of the work-issued MBPs I've been issued in the interim as well). I had a butterfly-keyboard MBP from work for a couple years and while I didn't like the feel of the keyboard (I'm happy with the post-butterfly MBPs' keyboards), I never had the dust particle issue with it.
      • godDLL 5y ago
        When you leave home for a day, come back and slide a cup over your table – does it screech?
• laurensr 5y ago
  Comment not related to OP's wishes but I miss the 16:10 laptop screens of 2010 extremely hard. It's the one thing I miss about my HP 8740w.
  • bserge 5y ago
    The last great Elitebook. RIP
  • skunkworker 5y ago
    I miss not having desktop 16:10s. I would love to replace my Dell U2412m monitors with a 3840x2400 24” DCI p3 display. But those don’t exist in the consumer market.
  • yibers 5y ago
    The latest (gen 9) Thinkpad x1 carbon is 16:10
    • godDLL 5y ago
      I hear they have keyboard flex and aren't great with Linux.
      • Topolomancer 5y ago
        Bought an X1 recently and the Linux support is amazing: all components work more or less out of the box, and with `fwupd`, you even get firmware updates. This is my first Linux notebook after ~4 years and I am really blown away by how easy it was to set up! Not sure what you mean by keyboard flex, but so far, typing is really good...I am mostly using this for text work (research papers, proposals, presentations), so the keyboard sees a lot of use.
        • fao_ 5y ago
          Which X1 did you get?
          • 5y ago
• chaz6 5y ago
  High up my list is repairability, which is why I am a big fan of the Framework laptop.
  • qwerty456127 5y ago
    Number two in my list. Hard to open? Hard to reach some parts? memory/ssd soldered on the mainboard? Go away. Number one is immediate global availability so I won't have to deal with the customs or pre-order. Sadly the the Framework fails both. Excellent hardware compatibility (full Linux support) is "number zero". I can only possibly forgive the finerprint scanner for being unusable on Linux (because these are not really necessary and the reality is they mostly are so I accept this).
    • hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
      > Number two in my list. Hard to open? Hard to reach some parts? memory/ssd soldered on the mainboard? Go away. Number one is immediate global availability so I won't have to deal with the customs or pre-order. Sadly the the Framework fails both. I fail to follow your logic. Do you mean that Framework has memory/ssd soldered on the mainboard?
      • qwerty456127 5y ago
        No, it's awesome in this aspect. I want one. But it's both US-only (AFAIK, I may be wrong) and pre-order. So I would have to both deal with the customs (extra time, money and papers overhead) and wait long.
        • tendencydriven 5y ago
          It's US only currently, but they are looking at a global rollout (I'm patiently waiting in the UK).
          • godDLL 5y ago
            I'll take a look at it when they do, thanks.
• timpattinson 5y ago
  Good thermal management. Doesn't throttle down to unusable speeds under high CPU load or combined CPU/GPU load.
  • sva_ 5y ago
    Are there any Laptops with dedicated GPU that won't throttle down under use?
• dna_polymerase 5y ago
  AMD CPU & Repair-ability. Framework looks promising, but I'm not eager to buy an Intel processor.
  • schleck8 5y ago
    > I'm not eager to buy an Intel processor May I ask why?
    • dna_polymerase 5y ago
      As good as they started over the past decades they made many shady business moves which eventually put them in the place of being the (de-facto) only CPU option around. Then they blew it all with Spectre. It's not like I especially like AMD, but I'd love to support a little more competition in the x86 market. Eventually I'd love to see consumer grade ARM available for non-Apple devices. Their premiums and lockin just don't make it attractive to buy an M1 MBP to install Linux on it.
      • google234123 5y ago
        Spectre effects all cpus, though…
    • godDLL 5y ago
      Apple's are better. AMD's can be better. Why look to Intel at all, if not for availability?
    • ajvs 5y ago
      They removed S3 sleep and don't have the performance:battery usage as AMD.
  • bserge 5y ago
    Afaiu, they're planning on offering CPU upgrades/changes by having the whole system board replaced. I guess in this age of soldered CPUs (and other stuff), it's as good as it gets, but I wonder about the price.
• nojito 5y ago
  Thin, quiet, fast, and a good touchpad.
• johanneskanybal 5y ago
  - unix-based under the hood so normal dev work is easy peasy - low maintenance so I have more time and energy - popular so app ecosystem works - unbreakable For work I haven't seen a competitor to macbook pro's in a decade.
  • switch007 5y ago
    Your requirements seem to match a Thinkpad quite well (good Linux support)
    • johanneskanybal 5y ago
      Thanks for the suggestion but I'm not talking about good linux support from the hardware. Running linux is not low maintenance, app ecosystem and ux is not comparable to mac. Mac manages to be best in class for those while also being able to be linux-enough to easily develop for linux environments.
• qwerty456127 5y ago
  > two fast external storage ports At least 4 USB ports (2-3 USB-B, 1-2 USB-C). At least one of them full USB-4 Thunderbolt unless the computer is very cheap. 100% USB-C with no USB-B is a serious annoyance. Lack of a head-set jack is an extreme annoyance I would only excuse if the computer is really great otherwise. Built-in Ethernet port is very nice to have but not necessary. Built-in SD card reader is also very nice to have. I actually dream about every computer to have such so people would just use SD cards instead of USB-attached thumb-drives.
  • utucuro 5y ago
    Manufacturers probably prefer extra USB ports to a dedicated SD slot since it occupies less internal space than an SD slot and is not single purpose.
    • qwerty456127 5y ago
      Doesn't seem so to me. They just rarely put more than 3 USB ports and there doesn't seem to be any obvious correlation between the number and lack/presence of the SD port.
      • google234123 5y ago
        Are usb sticks typically faster and cheaper than SD cards or am I remembering this wrong?
        • Macha 5y ago
          You can get usb sticks that are faster than top end SD cards because you can just put an entire SSD, dram cache and controller included in a usb device, but the average usb stick and average SD card are equally poor
  • SuchAnonMuchWow 5y ago
    Don't you mean USB-A instead of USB-B ? I don't think I've ever seen a laptop with USB-B ports.
• CogitoCogito 5y ago
  A lot of ports. A few usb of a few flavors (add one more if one is needed for charging) plus hdmi plus whatever I'm forgetting. Personally I'd even prefer a built in rj45 port.
• qwerty456127 5y ago
  As for the laptops built-in screen 1920×1080 resolution is the only I want, also reasonable colors and preferably anti-glare screen. For external displays it must support 4K unless very cheap.
  • lostlogin 5y ago
    What is the reason you want resolution that low? I find high dpi and high refresh rates to be just so nice. I prefer smaller text and UI elements, but even when text is large it just looks so much better.
    • bigpeopleareold 5y ago
      For me, higher resolutions add little for what I do. If I needed to look at super tiny text for whatever reason, like in images, I can use them, but that rarely happens. My work computer has a 2K screen, BTW. I lower the resolution instead of scaling. I have a colleague that scaled his monitors up a lot to something that looks hard to use, but he works fine with it.
• academia_hack 5y ago
  For me it's always an optimization problem between weight, GPU, battery life, and cost. Generally, doing better in any one of those dimensions trades off with the other three.
• hiisukun 5y ago
  1. S3 Standby/suspend support. If your laptop supports that, you can close the lid and it will power ~everything except the RAM down (sometimes a USB port still charges). In 'new' laptops, including almost everything Tiger lake and Intel, S3 is being phased out for Microsoft's "Modern Standby", known as S0ix (or sometimes InstantGo). This is much more like a mobile phone, where it stays on but attempts to use as little battery as possible. So, peripherals might shut down, but you might still be able to get critical Windows Updates or receive an important notification -- all while your laptop is unplugged, lid closed, in your bag overnight. This is pretty bad for heat, battery, and often not what you might expect. My new laptop uses about 15% battery overnight, just doing nothing. In the future, perhaps this mode will work as well as S3 used to for battery life, but finding your laptop fans on while it's closed inside your bag and getting really hot is not fun. This applies to lots of laptops currently. 2. A good screen. Brightness that goes high enough to be seen outside (400, or more) - and it'll usually auto turn down the rest of the time to save battery. Hard to go wrong on a Mac, but really variable screen quality across other brands and models. You'll spend a lot of time looking at the screen.
  • zinekeller 5y ago
    > In the future, perhaps this mode will work as well as S3 used to for battery life, but finding your laptop fans on while it's closed inside your bag and getting really hot is not fun. This applies to lots of laptops currently. Modern standby was designed for ARM-based Windows 10 Mobile initially, but I do feel that Intel had plead to Microsoft to allow them to implement it too. Regardless, even the best Intel cores (except for their clean-room Atom designs, not all Atom-branded CPUs have these) runs hot that it's a disgrace that Microsoft haven't insisted on requiring S3 sleep.
  • grandpoobah 5y ago
    Was going to post the same thing (albeit far more poorly explained). Isn't Microsoft embarrassed about this? This has been an issue for my last two laptops over the last 5 years. How is it acceptable for this problem to still exist? My Lenovo supports S3 sleep, but I didn't discover it until probably a year into having bought it, so at that point my battery's ability to hold charge had already been sufficiently degraded, to the point where I'm having to charge this thing every day when I'm mostly only using it for basic web browsing. I will never buy another Windows laptop, and if Visual Studio ran on Mac I'd probably switch my PC out also. I'm not a mac guy, I find MacOS fairly unintuitive, and really hate the placement of the Ctrl key, but at this point it's clear that Apple's model better lends itself to quality, and I'm sick of all the broken crap that is deemed acceptable in the Windows world. As I was typing this, a great example of said broken crap, is Lenovo popping up a MessageBox asking me to reboot to update my firmware. Didn't software developers all agree well over a decade ago that windows stealing focus was not a good thing? So why then is a top of the line brand in the PC world writing shit like this?
• hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  Framework is almost perfect. The only problem I have with it is immediate global availability. Otherwise, I'm very pleasantly surprised. Also by the price - it's not very cheap, but also not overpriced like Apple's equivalents.
• diffeomorphism 5y ago
  What about the screen? High resolution, better aspect ratio than 16:9, oled, refresh rate,...etc. You interact with the screen, the keyboard and the pointing device all the time and they cannot be changed, so all these have to be good. Things like good wifi or bluetooth are nice, but there are dongles.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    I'd love a 5:4 or even just 4:3 screen, but those usually are reserved to tablets, shamefully. I don't realistically expect to find something like that, ever. High refresh rate is desirable, high resolution is nice-to-have, for me.
• TekMol 5y ago
  For me, it has to have a matte screen. So I can work outside. Even in an office setting, I find matte displays way more comfortable. You say: Stylus or touch-screen that doesn't glare I have yet to see a touchscreen with a matte display. Is it even possible?
  • godDLL 5y ago
    My mom's flip-tap Lenovo does have that matte touch display. But it's way underpowered with it's mobile Intel. And the keyboard is not what I'd consider a keyboard at all.
• yodelshady 5y ago
  XPS 13 currently, and probably next as well. I look for: - track record of linux compatibility. If it's Windows or out, I'm out. - good keyboard. - good screen, > 1920x1080 although 4K is overkill, preferably 16:10. Macbooks look tempting, but I just don't trust Apple to not break any workflow that isn't editing videos about how great Apple products are. The current keys are good but - sorry, the (pre-butterfly!) keyboard on my OH's MBP is awful, easily the worst keyboard I've ever used on a >$1000 laptop.
  • imron 5y ago
    > but I just don't trust Apple to not break any workflow that isn't editing videos They broke that a while back too.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    I hear you about Apple breaking things. But we disagree on the keyboard. I'd say that all their mobile keyboards past 2015 are utter crap, and I'd wager that this can technically be measured in breakage, dust sensitivity, typing comfort and typing performance.
    • microtonal 5y ago
      Since they switched back from the awful butterfly mechanism to scissors, their keyboards have been perfectly fine for me.
      • godDLL 5y ago
        Yes, they are better for going back. No, that's not going to do. I don't even live in a town. There are literally rafts (barns) all over where I live. I can not escape sand. And a single speck is all it takes. To poke a hole in the screen. To disable a key. That's not good design.
      • Oddskar 5y ago
        I still prefer my 2015 MBP keyboard to the 2021 one. It’s honestly crazy that they somehow regressed on this given so much time passed.
• BatteryMountain 5y ago
  2 or 3 Nvme slots 2 user-friendly ram slots minimum 4 usb ports, 6 would be better Sd card slot 2 hdmi ports or 2 mini display ports gigabit lan port minimum 1080p@120fps or 2k@60fps or 720p@240fps camera oled panel white keyboard backlight (like macbook airs) headphone jack 100% linux compatibility for all components out of the box.
• rootsudo 5y ago
  What apple has for sale, newest, more ram/ssd and that's it. It sounds obtuse, but, I enjoy selling my macbooks at 60-75% of purchase price 3-4 years later, and if needbe, applecare - which itself, is outrageous but it's nice. Alternative would be Surface, but for the money, eh. XPS 13 too, they're great but there have been some defects but for me they're perfect.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    Apple has a different kind of customer in mind the last few years, I don't find what the do to their products in any way interesting anymore. Now that they have changed to not having ridiculous amount of interconnect and so sped up things considerably I did walk in to take a look. But the finicky keyboards and glossy displays turned me off of them again. I've looked at the latest crop of Surface, they are very nice. But way underpowered for the price. XPS 14 would be interesting to me, provided it actually meets me where I want it, and not the usual "in the middle" as it goes with Dell products.
    • Lio 5y ago
      Only problem I've had with a Dell XPS13 9370 is with the Killer brand WiFi failing to wake up from sleep. Unfortunately its soldered in so can't be replaced. I only use Linux but I'm told it affects Windows users too.
• tpxl 5y ago
  1. Linux support 2. Upgradeable RAM/storage 3. Preferably AMD GPU and CPU In roughly that order. Sadly I couldn't really find that recently ): Searching for upgradeable RAM is a pain, and current GPU shortage prevents me from being picky about GPUs as well ):
  • godDLL 5y ago
    Wait, so your list is just 3 items, and they can't make a thing for you? That is so sad. I understand myself to be a seasoned sceptic, and hard to please after seeing my own list, having typed it out. But you... It is just weird you can't find something that will satisfy. Have you looked at the AliExpress crop of no-name lappies at all? They sometimes do on par with name-brands, I hear.
• dade_ 5y ago
  Also consider warranty, repair, and accidental damage protection: My Surface Pro 3 had extended warranty, and there used to be stores to drop into. I had many problems with the machine, but the horrible part was that they could only be swapped out, so I had to restore my data (easy) and setup windows all over again (kill me now). This has been addressed with their ‘for business’ series with removable SSD. My mother, never drops her laptop, works in dusty environments, uses the same computer for years. No ADP, no extended warranty, I just replaced her Asus laptop she has been using since 2013 without any hardware issues. Remarkable. My friend, who is careless, has endless problems with his HP, and requires ADP. His last machine lasted barely 3 years and has been into the depot at least twice. He wants on-site this time as he was without a machine for a week at a time. I had a Lenovo with full extended on-site warranty. Machine was a damned nightmare for problems, but I was never without a working machine. I am careful with it, it hasn’t been abused, and I believe it was a product design problem. Lenovo sent out many parts and technicians and finally contacted me to apologize and address the obvious satisfaction issue. They replaced it with a completely different model that I am happy with. My Gigabyte gaming laptop is an older beast. 4 years old, no extended warranty. From a computing perspective and hack ability, I generally love it, but there have been problems and not one of them is resolved. Their support is through a terrible web portal that takes days to respond, and after weeks of back and forth, they will offer to let you ship the device to them for a repair estimate.
  • analog31 5y ago
    I admit that I'm probably kind of a contrarian here. I tend to buy cheap refurbished laptops from NewEgg, something reasonably recent but not utterly leading-edge. I've told people: My warranty consists of being able to throw it away and buy another one with the money I've saved over the years from following this strategy. I'm also fortunate that for me, a lot of "development" time is spent sitting and scratching my head, so my laptop doesn't really need awesome computing power. My computer is more or less a half-smart terminal. That's just related to the kind of work I do of course. These days, same strategy for desktops and cellphones. An amusing story: I was checking out of Best Buy one time, and the cashier offered me an extended warranty. I told her: "I have a plan through my bank that covers everything I own." Of course she took the bait and asked me what the plan consisted of, and I told her: "The contents of my bank account." Fortunately she had a sense of humor about it.
• Const-me 5y ago
  Latest-generation AMD CPU No discrete GPU, I don't want to pay neither money, electricity or weight for a thing I don't need. Reparability. Removeable SSD is absolute requirement. With a soldered SSD, broken laptop = lost data. Upgradeable RAM is less important but still very welcome. If I needed a new one I'd look at HP Probook, check their support channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxMMjSF4QFw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxMMjSF4QFw
  • godDLL 5y ago
    Just from the picture, this will fail my keyboard requirement. That is not a keyboard I'd type on.
    • Const-me 5y ago
      Matter of taste, and use cases. In my desktop I have mechanical switches in the keyboard, and relatively high requirements. However, I only using laptop occasionally. This one so far https://i.alza.cz/ImgW.ashx?fd=FotoAddOrig&cd=NC106e7f5g-07&i=1.jpg https://i.alza.cz/ImgW.ashx?fd=FotoAddOrig&cd=NC106e7f5g-07&... the model with i3-6157U CPU. Funfact: after I bought that, required an e-mail conversation with Intel investor relations before the CPU appeared on https://ark.intel.com/ https://ark.intel.com/
  • Leherenn 5y ago
    The only issue is that no AMD laptop has Thunderbolt support. It's supposed to come next year but currently it's a deal breaker of you want to use a dock.
• yread 5y ago
  I just bought a laptop for the first time in 10 years or so and I've spent quite some time and effort looking for it (bought 4 laptops, sent them all back and bought a 5th one). My priorities were - best keyboard possible - good layout you can get used to (ANSI vs ISO, dedicated pgup, pgdn, home end keys not too far from each other and arrow keys), good tactile feedback - case stability - good touchpad. I prefer physical buttons instead of or at least next to clickpads which is getting increasingly difficult to find - decent cpu perf, measure what's important for you (turns out for my use case AMD 5800U's 8 cores didn't make a difference compared to Tiger lake for my work) - upgradeable RAM or at least 32GB soldered - OK screen (350+ nits, reasonably color accurate, preferably matte) - battery life 6h+ on wifi - thermals and noise - does the fan make high pitched noise, how often does it kick in, is the case/keyboard warm - no nose webcam - USB-A AND USB-C ports (+placement: both on both sides), ideally also HDMI, headphone jack, thunderbolt - fingerprint reader/Hello, hardware TPM2.0 - 3 year warranty, on site service - after all this also portability I tried HP Zbook power, HP Firefly 14, HP Elitebook 840, Thinkpad X1 Carbon, Thinkpad P14s and Schenker Vision 14 and settled for the 840. The Carbon is also a nice machine, the P14s is massive while not bringing any major benefits, the Schenker had some built quality issues but otherwise looks great. I've found HP's keyboard just so much nicer to write on - there is such a crystal clear pressure point: it's either pressed or not pressed, on a TP you can get into an in between state. Plus the layout on 840 and Firefly 14 (column on the right with home, pgup, pgdn and end) is the best IMHO. In the end you will have to settle with what's in stock anyway as lots of configurations have insane delivery times 3+ months. EDIT: here are my notes, perhaps someone will find them useful zephyrus m16 - keyboard without pgup, creaking, hot air on display? battery life ~4h ideapad 5 pro - overheating? keyboard without pgup, shitty touchpad legion 5 - terrible design, bad touchpad, amd version has shitty realtek wifi thinkbook p16- no hdmi, bad battery life? inspiron 16 plus - crap touchpad, throttling aero 17 - nose cam zbook - touchpad? runs hot thinkpad p1/extreme - weird cpu heatsink issue, creaking dells - power button in corner, xps-no usba, envy and spectre - fingerprint reader instead of ctrl, gloss ThinkPad X1 Carbon G9 - ok, 16:10, throttling, typing/touchpad lag?, shitty support?, non-touch has 4-5 weeks lead time
  • tendencydriven 5y ago
    What do you mean by nose cam? I initially thought you meant "no noise" but you mention nose twice so I'm curious.
• Fred27 5y ago
  Also, consider if you really need a laptop. A lot of people seem to use one by default even if they don't need it on the go.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    I have four desktops at my house, two of them operational, one in constant use. But good point, yes. Some people might be better served by a tablet or whatever.
• jhanschoo 5y ago
  Once 7. (specifically a discrete GPU) is a requirement, your choices become very limited. Either a gaming laptop or a workstation.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    No, no, I didn't mean it like that. Rizen and Apple's current crop will suffice. Just not some mobile Nvidia or Intell bullshit, that won't do.
• chenxiaolong 5y ago
  1. 120Hz screen with a HIDPI resolution. 60Hz feels very stuttery after using 120Hz on my phone/tablet/desktop. 2. S3 suspend or at least a good S0ix implementation. 3. Good support for replacing UEFI Secure Boot keys. 4. No numpad so that the keyboard is centered. 5. Absolutely no coil whine. My Dell XPS 9560 had this since day 1, while my work MacBook Pro and Lenovo P1 developed it over time. 6. Biggest battery possible. I don't care about charging time or weight. 7. Good Linux support (including firmware updates via LVFS).
  • godDLL 5y ago
    > 4. No numpad so that the keyboard is centered. I've had that preference (strong preference) for as long as I can remember. It has recently changed, as I've discovered the convenience of scripting the UI and tiling my windows. Now I'm using the NumLock as a "dead key", that triggers a script or a layout change if followed by one of the num-pad numbers. It is a life-changing hack, I have to tell you.
  • lostlogin 5y ago
    > 5. Absolutely no coil whine. My Dell XPS 9560 had this since day 1, while my work MacBook Pro and Lenovo P1 developed it over time. In a similar vein - I don’t know what you call it, but the sensation you get when you run your finger over the case of a charging MacBook is just so gross.
• teleforce 5y ago
  For me the laptop must have at least these minimum features if money is no objection: 1) Weight about 1 kg. I do carry another e-ink reader in my bag thus a lighter laptop is a big plus. 2) Minimum 2K resolution. Once you have used 2K screen the Full HD just don't cut it anymore. 3) Military grade certification for drop. I once dropped my laptop bag from shoulder height containing less than a month laptop but because it has military grade for drop it did survived (albeit some scratches) until more than 2 years later, today. 4) At least 128 GB RAM (preferably ECC) if I am buying a new laptop because you can never has enough RAM :-)
  • gnabgib 5y ago
    "2K resolution is a generic term for display devices or content having horizontal resolution of approximately 2,000 pixels." (...) 1920 × 1080 is the most common 2K resolution"[0]. How are you distinguishing between 2K and 1080p?.. are you thinking of 1440p (2.5k wide), or of a non 16:9 aspect ratio? Have you ever found a laptop like this? 1kg is sacrifice a lot of corners in the name of weight (battery, screen, glass, ram, cooling, drives, processing and GPU), while workstations are are the likely place to find 128GB ECC.. they focus on performance over weight (they're getting better at style). Sounds like you want a workstation laptop in a ultrabook's body (and who doesn't.. I think there's a guy at NASA that would like you to bring it in for study) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K_resolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2K_resolution
    • teleforce 5y ago
      Yes for me 2K is QHD or 1440p. It just easy for me to compare display resolutions for example 0.5K for 720p, 1K for 1080p, 2K 1440p, then 4K, 6K, 8K, 16K, etc [1]. Buying laptop with less than 1440p display today is just beyond me. They are many 1 kg laptops around at the moment by most of laptop manufacturers. For GPU personally I have an external GPU or eGPU via Thunderbolt interface. Currently they are many laptops 128 GB RAM around, they just need to put it in a lighter laptop based on i7 or i9 [2]. Heck even the cheaper Intel's 10th Gen Celeron CPU can support up to 128 GB RAM [3]. It is not a rocket science to put 128 GB RAM inside a lightweight laptop today. [1] 720p vs 1080p vs 1440p vs 4K vs 8K – Which Should I Choose? https://www.displayninja.com/720p-vs-1080p-vs-1440p-vs-4k-vs-8k/ https://www.displayninja.com/720p-vs-1080p-vs-1440p-vs-4k-vs... [2] Top 10 Laptops with 128GB RAM: https://www.reinisfischer.com/top-10-laptops-128gb-ram-mobile-workstations https://www.reinisfischer.com/top-10-laptops-128gb-ram-mobil... [3] Intel® Celeron® Processor G5900: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/199268/intel-celeron-processor-g5900-2m-cache-3-40-ghz.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/199268/...
• tmaly 5y ago
  A comfortable keyboard, battery life, good sleep mode, and great hardware software integration are what I look for.
• markus_zhang 5y ago
  1. Good and replaceable battery; 2. Multiple USB on BOTH sides plus headset jack; 3. 16GB+ RAM plus 512GB+ SSD; 4. Solid frame for frequent travelling; 5. No touchscreen; 6. Keyboard that feels like one; 7. 15'+ screen; 8. Touchpad that can be disabled easily
• senorsmile 5y ago
  Linux Support. Decent battery life (7+ hours).
• godDLL 5y ago
  OP here: so, from the amount of comments I surmise that my like-minded crowd is either not hanging around here no more, or aren't really numerous. Thanks everyone for participating in this discussion, I appreciate you all.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    UPDATE: this seems to have blown up a bit. Combing through once again, thanks everyone.
  • culebron21 5y ago
    What is that crowd that you mention? BTW, what do you use the laptop for?
    • godDLL 5y ago
      Not mention, describe. Therein your answer. I would use the laptop for rendering and modelling, animating and music production, video encoding and massive compiling. Maybe a few virtual machines. If it can handle it. EDIT: of course a lot of reading, coding and writing.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    UPDATE: in the two days this was up, having combed through the comments on three separate occasions – the following seems to be the general consensus, in rough order of relative importance: 1. S3 standby/sleep support required 2. low weight for luggability, 2.5lb maximum 3. survives table-to-floor falls 4. always-on-AC battery deaths unacceptible 5. survives being in a bag, accidental activation 6. Linux support for all hardware 7. trackpads on par with Apple, at least 8. keyboards with clear actuation, spill resistance and backlighting 9. kill switches or modular hardware for camera and mic 10. bright matte screens, with vertical space 11. memory and I/O performance approaching Apple's M1 SoC 12. HDMI, USB-A, 3.5mm, 10gbE, SD, USB-C periferals are what people own, support that 13. trackpoints are great for text-editing 14. quiet operation, no blinken-lights 15. prefer no webcam over shitty webcam, no BT/WiFi over shitty BT/WiFi After the Apple event streams I shall post a list of laptops people seem to have a history of enjoying. Cheers.
• marto1 5y ago
  I look for 3 things that vary greatly between brands/models: 1. Modular build. E.g. with new thinkpads you can’t even remove the battery. That sucks. 2. Good keyboard. 3. Linux support Everything else is usually pretty great by my standards.
• foobarbaz33 5y ago
  > if I'm missing on any new developments since 2015 Yes, you missed something huge. Apple Silicon M1 or nothing. It's just too good. Low power consumption allows the laptop to actually be used as a laptop. The power use-to-performance ratio is unmatched by anything on the market. Apple is breaking us free from decades of stagnation on the hardware front. Nothing else on the market comes close. I expect this to change in the future. Will happily switch to a linux laptop once an energy efficient alternative to x86 becomes mainstream for linux. There's just no way I can go back to x86 after tasting the sweet nectar of M1.
  • Underphil 5y ago
    Like so many people, I love the hardware but hate the software. Hoping that once Linux is solid on there, I'll be able to get one.
    • tim333 5y ago
      From a practical point of view the software works pretty well (I've got M1 Air, Big Sur) but I can understand if people want independence from Apple. It seems that virtualized Ubuntu with UTM works ok: https://youtu.be/hnwK-nkXolc https://youtu.be/hnwK-nkXolc
    • BozeWolf 5y ago
      I was in the same boat around 2012. After 11 years of linux on the desktop and crappy student laptop, I needed a proper laptop for freelance jobs. Bought a macbook to put linux on. Ruined macos on day one. Reinstalled macos. Got used to it. Loved that all the hardware and software just works. Never installed ubuntu desktop again. Would like to use linux again on the desktop, but macos is so nicely integrated with everything. The desktop experience is so much better than the gnome or kde version of the day. I code embedded c and web (python). Also do the occasional cad drawing and 3d printing. All this software just works on mac. Even corporate slack works okay, ms teams as well. Word, even! It sucks to be a linux desktop user or fanboy in professional environments. Not a mac fanboy, would switch if there was something better. One drawback is that docker is just awfully slow compared to running it on native linux.
• nottaylorswift 5y ago
  If it has the Apple logo you'll be fine. Seriously though, the Intel 16 inch MBP or the M1X 16 inch due to be released in a few days are the best choice hands down, if you can afford it. Sounds like you could also benefit from an iPad Pro M1 plus pencil and LTE, which I can't recommend enough. I would say since 2015, the premium laptops have improved further still, the display and battery life specs are outstanding and unprecedented. But the cheap ass laptops like what Lenovo make after buying the Thinkpad name from IBM, are even more flimsy and a really bad deal all round. You want an M1X device, get that and load Linux if you need it. You can use a VM or native for some distros
  • andrei_says_ 5y ago
    For me what matters is that it runs macOS reliably. I’m spoiled by its ergonomics and I run Adobe and other graphics intensive software which doesn’t run on Linux. My 2015 MacBook pro still runs. I’m not looking forward to giving up the USB ports, the MagSafe, the hdmi and sdcard ports. That said, I'm excited about the new generation - if I can use one laptop for coding, image processing and video editing, that would be worth my money. Unfortunately the mass produced engineering disasters that Apple has become synonymous with (the keyboard fiasco, the short display cable, the insane repair prices) have diminished my trust with the company. Most likely I’ll still give them my money.
    • nottaylorswift 5y ago
      The keyboard issues are fixed. The 2019 16 inch MBP is the best laptop I ever used and I feel very privileged to have the opportunity. Apple is expensive there's no getting around that. They have the best product on the market, it can't have been easy to design and manufacture, and they want to paid what it's worth. On the other hand, it is in fact worth every penny. Enjoy your new machine. I recommend the larger display models.
    • crooked-v 5y ago
      > I’m not looking forward to giving up the USB ports, the MagSafe, the hdmi and sdcard ports. Rumors are that the ones being announced on the 18th will bring back most or all of those, along with getting rid of the Touch Bar.
• shpx 5y ago
  I just look for an Apple logo. The newer one that's not backlit.
• headmelted 5y ago
  If you’re in the Apple ecosystem an M1 Air. If you’re not, a framework laptop.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    Thank you for those suggestions, I am aware of both. But both are about 80% there for me.
• _0ffh 5y ago
  If you use your laptop near a power outlet a lot you might want to require it to have smart charging capability.
• jillesvangurp 5y ago
  - decent design; no gamer laptops, blinking led monstrosities, etc. for me. - decent performance; I'm an engineer. I actually lose time when things run slowly. Lots of time. Kills my flow and I bill a premium rate. - decent screen. I look at this thing for the better part of a day. Also, I dabble with photography once in a while and occasionally some frontend stuff. So, HDPI/250 dpi or better. - Decent ssd storage. I'm done with spinning disks. Not a thing in my life in the last decade. - A keyboard and trackpad that are genuinely good. I use laptops as laptops and I hate having to plug in external peripherals for input. - Linux compatible & hassle free.
  • robocat 5y ago
    > HDPI/250 dpi or better > Linux compatible I would not recommend getting a 4K. I have the 4K Dell XPS 15” and I wish I got the normal screen instead. Too much time wasted on resolution problems with some apps on Linux, and it only came with a touchscreen gloss finish - bad mistake.
    • GordonS 5y ago
      > and it only came with a touchscreen gloss finish Why do so many laptops only have a 3/4K option with a glossy finish? Personally, I can't stand glossy screens - sure, the colours look good in a showroom, but they're just too reflective in real-world use.
  • acomjean 5y ago
    Besides some of the led bling I find gaming laptops work pretty well as work machines (and some are toned down so much, they’re not embarrassing for adults). I also know a couple professionals that use them as their main machines (one does ed visualizations so the gpu..) They tend to have lots of ports including wired Ethernet. Have great performance. Decent video cards. Are somewhat fixable/ upgradable. Downside is power consumption. Sometimes the screens are just ok. I ended up going with a system76 machine which comes with Linux so I didn’t have to futz with it. This model is a rebranded “Clevo” gaming machine too, but you wouldn’t know by looking at it.
• Fnoord 5y ago
  Modular. Because it implies repairable. User replaceable battery. Does not have to be ultra thin or paperweight. Convergence. This extends modularity, increasing flexibility at the cost of size/weight. Enough USB-A/USB-C ports (Don't need a SIM, these work with MiFi or USB.) Magnetic charger. Though USB-C can be made like that the magnets are relatively weak. Trackpad (Apple Magic Trackpad 2 quality, good luck with that) or trackpoint. Ryzen with Radeon GPU, alternatively Intel GPU or something like M1. 120 Hz OLED, at least 1440p. That implies some decent specs, I need at least 16 GB RAM, and a SSD (both user replaceable). Maybe in 2027... I got my hope on next gen Framework.
• SGML_ROCKSTAR 5y ago
  Hardware kill switches for camera and microphones, as well as for wireless. I wonder if one for an internal NIC would be overkill.
• gundamdoubleO 5y ago
  A slim design, good screen and doesn't sound like a jet engine when under a heavy load are my main factors. Battery isn't as much of a concern to me, 99% of the time I work with my laptop at a desk connected to power and a monitor etc. Repairability and customisability are also usually on my mind so anything Apple is completely out of the question despite their machines ticking most of my boxes. Maybe that will change if right to repair laws in the EU improve but that's not a something I'm expecting to happen anytime soon.
• xupybd 5y ago
  I have a dirt cheap Chinese laptop. It's branded as an Infinity o5. It's a Ryzen with no flashy features, the simplest bios I've ever seen. I love it. I'd recommend it to anyone.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    Yeah, I've been eyeing the Chinese no-names. They seem to be getting better. Thanks for the data point.
• HanaShiratori 5y ago
  Just a portable (13—14 inch) device that has a powerful, but efficient CPU, supports Linux and has a dedicated GPU for occasional gaming / video editing. I bought the Asus G14 over a year ago and this model fits my needs most - at least back then, things have probably changed until now...
  • adamfaliq 5y ago
    When I read you first paragraph, I was like, "This guy's gonna love an Asus Zephyrus G14". Glad to read that you already have one. How has it been for you?
    • HanaShiratori 5y ago
      After a couple of months my motherboard got fried while using the power adapter and left power delivery slot simultaneously - which apparently was an issue other people experienced as well last year. But this got fixed pretty quickly by the official repair partner and I haven't experienced that since then (around a year of usage since the incident), even though I still use both ports at the same time. ASUS probably solved this problem with a BIOS update. Other than that I'm more than happy with this device and it works much better than expected - especially the Linux support. I'm running arch as my main distro and never had any issues. Power consumption runs at around 7-11 W in regular use using my energy efficient profile (dGPU off). CPU temp during normale use sits at around 35-40 degrees celsius but can bump up during heavy gaming. Looking back I'd definitely buy this laptop again.
• shocks 5y ago
  * AMD cpu that supports S3 sleep * At least 16GB of RAM * 1kg auw * 16:10 screen, that’s not 4k * 14” * Metal body * Repairable * NVMe ssd (not soldered) * USB-C charging (and video etc) * No gamer LEDs If someone has any suggestions I’d love to hear them!
  • hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    I just ordered yesterday a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 PRO AMD Ticks a lot of that, except Not sure about S3 and repairable Its 1.4kg not 1kg but tradeoff is high build quality and not flimsy and beautiful 14" high res not 4k oled 2880x 16:10, and with 90hz refresh rate. Wish it had a matt touch screen but thats the one thing missing for me. Processor Up to AMD Ryzen™ 9 5900HX Mobile Processor Operating system Windows 10 Home or Pro Display 14″ 2.8K (2880 x 1800) OLED display with glass,16:10, 90Hz refresh rate, 100% DCI-P3, 125% sRGB, 400 nits, VESA Certified DisplayHDR™ 500 True Black, Dolby Vision®, 243 PPI, 91% AAR Memory AMD Radeon™: Up to 16GB DDR4-3200; Dual Channel NVIDIA® GeForce MX450: Up to 16GB LPDDR4-4266; Dual Channel Battery 61Whr Lithium-ion Polymer Storage SSD PCIe M.2: Up to 1TB Graphics AMD Radeon™ graphics and/or NVIDIA® GeForce® MX450 Audio 2 x 2W s Dolby Atmos® certified speakers Camera IR Camera Dimensions (H x W x D) 312.4 x 221.4 x 14.9-17.9mm Hinge 175+/-5° Weight 1.39 kg
    • shocks 5y ago
      Awesome, thanks for the suggestion!
    • godDLL 5y ago
      This is about 80% there for me, thanks. I'll keep an eye out for when they get matte screens, or for after-market options.
• zfxfr 5y ago
  When I bought mine a couple of years ago I wanted a machine with enough computing power for my needs.. I did not care much about the hardware but I wanted a laptop sold without any OS. (no Windows) depending on where you live and if you want it in 48 hours it is apparently something not so easy to find.
• habibur 5y ago
  I check for the following three only. + 3.5GHz WiFi. + Backlit keyboard. + Nvidia graphics card for ML. The rest are mostly common in all laptops.
• rishav_sharan 5y ago
  here's mine, in the order of priority; 1. Keyboard - I love the old Thinkpad keyboard and hate the new chick-lets which seem to have become the norm. 2. Display - 13-15" , 4k and matte. I am currently using a surface book 2 and the screen while lovely is reflective enough to do my hair in between meetings. 3. Discrete GPU - I generally use a single laptop for both work and play and would prefer the laptop to have a good discrete GPU for casual games. 4. Linux as OS - I have recently become rather soured with windows and have switched over to linux. Things like weight, battery life, looks etc don't matter much to me
  • jonathanlydall 5y ago
    Interesting, makes sense. I still have a desktop for when I (rarely) play games and the lack of a discrete graphic card on my current laptop is one of the things I love most about it since it’s amazing for battery life and I don’t need any AMD or Nvidia software installed and needing updates.
• Smithalicious 5y ago
  0. Linux compatibility, I am not super picky about getting everything to work perfectly but I should be able to trust that the software I prefer to use will run and my laptop will connect to wifi and play audio properly and so on. 1. IPS screen (mostly a given nowadays, but this wasn't always so) 2. Trackpoint, I hate trackpads. Pretty rare option so I could possibly be convinced otherwise if the trackpad is particularly good. 3. Decent keyboard, any laptop will always be primarily a text processing machine for me. (tablet version) 4. User serviceability, with battery and RAM being highest priority but expandable storage is nice too, and all other replaceable parts are a nice bonus. 5. General ruggedness, the whole point of a laptop is being able to travel with it and it's the kind of tech I expect to last me for years. 6. Battery life, though I am not super picky about this. 7. Everything else including performance, higher resolutions than 768p, thinness, appearance, touchscreen (roughly listed in order of preference). Posted from my trusty Thinkpad X230t which is the only laptop I'm aware of that ticks nearly all my boxes. It's bulky and makes a vacuum cleaner noise when compiling and the battery only lasts 4-5 hours of normal use, though. Still, good enough for web browsing, various forms of text processing, watching videos, listening to music and the vast majority of what you might use a computer for. I did look into the Framework laptop recently but while it's probably the closet things in a long time the keyboard doesn't look good and there's no trackpoint (nor even physical mouse buttons)
  • tentacleuno 5y ago
    > I could possibly be convinced otherwise if the trackpad is particularly good. Genuine question: what about Macbook trackpads? We have a MBP 2013, and it runs leaps and bounds over my Windows laptop which came out in the same year. I'm not sure if other laptops have caught up with Apple yet, but Macbook trackpads are commonly referred to as the best in the business.
    • Smithalicious 5y ago
      I've heard they're good, but Macbooks tick almost none of the boxes in the list, so I am not very interested in them.
• DiabloD3 5y ago
  Look for non-Intel solutions. There is absolutely zero reason to adopt Intel CPUs until Intel has proven that they can ship CPUs that do not contain expensive-to-fix security bugs year after year after year (you're on a laptop, every CPU cycle counts to keep heat down and battery life longer). Several companies make Zen 3 APU (Ryzen 5000 series models)-based laptops that have good keyboards, good screens, and the usual other features. The only thing you'll have to give up is "head-set jack", which you really mean to be a 3.5mm TRRS jack. Just use a USB-C dongle here; the rest is fine: laptops have entirely USB-C ports nowadays, with USB-C used for Power Delivery to charge. Also, I'm not sure how you'll achieve a touchscreen that doesn't glare: due to the use case, they have to be Gorilla Glass to survive being touched by human hands. If you want a matte screen, you give up touching, and there are no good coatings to actually reduce glare on a shiny glass screen. As for Wifi and Bluetooth, no laptop really performs badly anymore, everybody buys the same 2 solutions, Broadcom or Qualcomm's. Intel still makes a Wifi chipset, and it used to be good, but it kind of sucks in the 802.11AC and AX eras, and you only see it used in Intel AMT corporate laptops (or a shared platform being sold also for consumers) that necessitate the use. The only laptop I'd absolutely say don't buy is anything with Apple's name on it. Basically, fails almost all of your requirements, while being one of the most expensive examples. Truly sad as well, I like the M1 CPU, and I wish Apple would antitrust'ed to spit PA Semi back, but the entire build around that M1 is pretty trash. Something like https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08YD1JLJF/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08YD1JLJF/ is probably the least expensive option that doesn't footgun you. $6xx, good 14" 1080p screen, 8GB of ram (16GB variants exist), enough SSD on a decent M.2 NVME, an 802.11AX+BT5 chip, good enough keyboard and trackpad, works in Linux, is only stingy on the ports by having 3 (so get a cheap hub if you want to plug in something more than USB PD brick to charge + 3.5mm TRRS dongle + external storage at the same time), supports Modern Standby (deep clock-halt S1, instead of needing to transit in and out of S3; works best on Zen 2/3, iffy on Intel series 9/10/11; Intel is planning on fixing for 12; but also can use S3 just in case you need a laptop to sleep for 24hr+ and retain significant charge), and doesn't have a dedicated GPU (which is a win, the APU's GPU is strong as hell, even can do mid-tier gaming without cooking the laptop).
  • lostlogin 5y ago
    > There is absolutely zero reason to adopt Intel CPUs I’d live to ditch Intel, but quicksync is just so good for video transcoding. 10 or 20 high bitrate video streams can be attacked without any noticeable load on the system. Its excessive from what I need, but it’s just so good. Maybe I’m too easily impressed.
• keskadale 5y ago
  thinkpad
• dabedee 5y ago
  1. AMD CPU 2. Modular design & replaceable parts (à la https://frame.work https://frame.work) 3. Physical kill switches for camera, audio, Wi-Fi (à la Purism/Librem)
• tomp 5y ago
  battery, trackpad, screen. MacBook Air M1, MacBook Pro, Microsoft Surface Go (if you want touchscreen) fit the bill. I'm optimistic about Framework laptop as well.
• alfiedotwtf 5y ago
  Linux support. If Linux doesn't support most/all of the hardware, skip.
• polskibus 5y ago
  Super high performance, comparable with high performance desktop. I mean nvme, cpu that does not throttle, etc. I need 2 hrs on battery maximum.
• f6v 5y ago
  On a somewhat unrelated note, I recently realized my MacBook has 16 Gb RAM in 2021. My 2012 MBP also had 16 Gb. I know it’s possible to get machines with 64, but 16 is still a standard developer machine in many organizations I worked at. I was even considering asking for a non-MacBook work laptop with 32 Gb(to get it cheaper).
• bregma 5y ago
  1. A good hinge. A really good hinge. Hinges are the Achilles heels of laptops. 2. Power connector in a sane place. Power connectors are the other Achilles heels of laptops, just like phones, and everything you can do to prevent mechanical failure of either the cable or the on-board socket is good.
• mindvirus 5y ago
  Always fun threads, thanks for posting! I've learned a bunch. Truth be had, I'm still loving my 2013 MacBook pro. It's bulky and the battery's not what it used to be, but it's fast and the keyboard is great but after 8 years of hard use, a couple keys are wonky. I'll probably pick up whatever Apple announces on Monday. I've really want to like the XPS series, but I've bought and returned 3 of them in the past several years due to bad quality control - two would crash when the lid closed, one had a really wobbly trackpad. The XPS 15 or 17 is ideal in terms of form factor though. A few others that I've had my eyes on: - The surface pro 8 seems really versatile and powerful. High refresh screen, good battery, nice keyboard. - I like some of the stuff Asus is doing with dual screens and propped up keyboards, so I'm definitely curious about those for a dev.
  • christophilus 5y ago
    It’s really frustrating that the only quality build is incompatible with Linux. The XPS is flimsy compared to the MacBook it replaced. That said, I’m never going back to Apple’s ecosystem, if I can help it. My next laptop will be the 15” Framework when it’s out.
  • ValentineC 5y ago
    > It's bulky and the battery's not what it used to be, but it's fast and the keyboard is great but after 8 years of hard use, a couple keys are wonky. I think the 2013 model's entered Apple's vintage list [1], but if you can find an Apple Store willing to do battery service for it, the battery replacement comes with a full keyboard and trackpad replacement for $199 USD [2]. Hurry, though, because the 2013 model's likely to enter the obsolete list next year. [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624 [2] https://support.apple.com/mac/repair/service https://support.apple.com/mac/repair/service
    • mindvirus 5y ago
      Thanks, that's great to know about! Unfortunately it's also experiencing random kernel panics, so I suspect there's more at fault here.
• siva7 5y ago
  That it doesn't get in the way of my work and life. Let me phrase it this way: A laptop is good when i don't have to think about it. Super quiet, exceptional battery performance, lightweight, sturdy, excellent design, super fast, doesn't crash, doesn't reboot when it wants, does what it should do when i close the lid and never lets me down. Basically the M1, the first laptop that does fit my requirements. I like Linux, but i have to be honest: Windows/Linux laptops can't compete in 2021 with the Apple M1. Maybe some day they will catch up.
  • Oddskar 5y ago
    I like Linux, but i have to be honest: Windows/Linux laptops can't compete in 2021 with the Apple M1. Maybe some day they will catch up. Mostly because all the flagship laptops are stubbornly (or rather being strong-armed into) sticking with Intel.
    • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      > Mostly because all the flagship laptops are stubbornly (or rather being strong-armed into) sticking with Intel. Intel sold StongARM (and XScale) along time ago. They might be in a much different place now if they didn’t.
      • Oddskar 5y ago
        Is this being sarcastic?
        • seanmcdirmid 5y ago
          I thought the parent comment was making an intentional pun given intel’s well known history with strongARM.
  • throwawaycuriou 5y ago
    What you describe reminds me of my time with the Pixelbook. Nothing since has come close to comfort and peace of mind that brought me.
• anothernewdude 5y ago
  3.5mm jack and at least one USB that isn't C
• ImranR98 5y ago
  The Framework laptop came out around the same time I spilled juice on my Lenovo and fried the keyboard. Now durability user repairability are my top priorities. Hopefully Framework sticks around and makes a Ryzen option soon.
• nicolimo86 5y ago
  Linux support.
• jeffrallen 5y ago
  One word: repairability.
• johncoltrane 5y ago
  1. Is it a MacBook Pro? And that's it.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    Current crop of MBPs is not like the 2015 MBPs. The 'Pro' has been beaten out of them. Otherwise, agree.
• otar 5y ago
  Decent RAM, it is never enough.
• dgellow 5y ago
  Display with 3:2 ratio, 2K or 4K resolution. Good keyboard (high end surface devices have the best keyboards IMHO).
  • godDLL 5y ago
    Wow, that sounds interesting, are there any 3:2 laptops that you like?
• toastal 5y ago
  I think the screen is what I look for the most. Its specs needed to be <15", >1080p resolution, >95% DCI-P3 color gamut, prefer OLED, prefer touch-enabled Also mattering was lightweight and easy to travel with (including power supply), respectable battery life, >=16GB RAM, processor preferring performance over price, Thunderbolt or USB4 In a different world, I would want something from an OEM with Linux focus, Coreboot, and repairable, but the screens on all of those machines are trash. Last year I picked up a ASUS Zenbook Flip and slapped NixOS on it. My only complaint is that the body isn’t very rigid and got crack in the glass (not over the display) when my bag fell from a shitty bathroom stall hook.
• tudorw 5y ago
  Can I drop it, that's number one for me over the years, imagine, your most important meeting, you need your laptop, you get there and it works, or it doesn't, the biggest factor out there in the 'real world' is can it handle real life, baggage gets thrown around without your choice, if it doesn't work when you need it then it doesn't matter how nice the keyboard is or the screen is :)
• mazone 5y ago
  1. 13" , 14" laptop 2. IPS matte good quality display with similar resolution to 2560x1440p, Superb colors and peak brightness. 3. At-least 32GB RAM but pref up-gradable RAM to 64GB 4. Linux full support, preferable AMD 5. Keyboard similar to old thinkpad 7 row style. General going back to retro style with proper keys, Topre switches or why not a mechanical keyboard if possible. 6. Trackpad of high quality. Atleast similar to Apple. Not seen any that have it yet on pc. If not possible, add a trackpoint and remove the trackpad. 7. Ports! Please have many ports. As many as possible. 8. Hardware quality. hinges, case and overall. Make it durable. 9. Battery time, make it last. 10. No spyware or bloatware. Published schematics of the laptop and help the open source community. 11. Good quality parts in chipset for wifi, bluetooth, sound. Latest AMD. Should not be a issue. 12. No intel inside stickers or other stickers on my laptop. If have to put a logo on it, make the logo very small and not in your face. Okey, so what can i be without to make the above possible and - No frills or extras. - No touch display. - Medium powered CPU. ( think road warrior not full fledged desktop replacement ) - No discrete GPU needed if it makes my laptop warmer, or make battery go down faster. Integrated GPU is "good enough" - No need for fingerprint sensor, even if convenient. - No magic bars or other innovation someone thought would be good. - Weight and thickness is less important then manufactures seem to think. To a degree. Slim laptops get warmer, rather have it a bit ticket with more room for battery etc. Do the basics correct. A modern take on the Thinkpad x220. Remove things that don't matter and make a classic awesome laptop for the ages.
  • Keyframe 5y ago
    Similar to what I was looking for after I ditched macs altogether. Closest were Razer Blade Stealth and X1 Carbon. I opted for stealth and linux just works on it (Pop).. and there's a discrete gfx when I need it. I opted for FHD instead 4k since I didn't see it as newded on 13".. colleague opted for 4k. I wish there was 32 gigs though. That's only thing I miss. Apparently there's an AMD 14" now available too.
    • mazone 5y ago
      The Razer Blade stealth looked okey, looked like good quality build? Still chiclet keyboard and unnecessary few ports.
• mavidser 5y ago
  It feels like I have no laptop to choose form right now in the market, but here's what I'd like: 1. WiFi+Bluetooth and graphic cards which don't suck on Linux. No Broadcom or Nvidea. 2. Good body without any deck flex, and no flex in the trackpad either. Love the taptic keypads on macbooks. 3. Good power management. Since I expect to lose some battery performance running Linux, I'd prefer to have the laptop be slightly thicker rather than have a tiny battery backup. Also, S3 suspend. 3. Both USB-C and USB-A ports. Preferabel HDMI, full-size SD card reader too. 4. Upgradable RAM and SSD. This is a major one, as I've often doubled the life of my devices by increasing the memory a couple of years into the machine. 5. No 16:9 displays. Nope. Too tiny. At least 16:10. Never used 3:2 but shouldn't be too bad. And they should be able to get bright enough.
  • bo1024 5y ago
    I respect #5 but what even exists at non-16:9 besides Framework and Apple?
    • perryizgr8 5y ago
      Surface devices, and LG gram come to mind.
    • jabroni_salad 5y ago
      the current batch of dell XPS has a pretty nice tall screen.
• willjp 5y ago
  1. Hardware driver support in Linux/bsd. I’ll never suffer another broadcom wireless nic. 2. Accessibility of hardware. Is it easy to open and swap parts? Or do you need to dismantle the whole thing? 3. Availability of replacement parts, and history of availability. Ram/HDDs/NICs are universal. Screens, keyboards trackpads are not. 4. Runs off battery? Or adapter when plugged in. In a few years when the battery is toast, will this be a brick? 5. Everything else.
• Sanguinaire 5y ago
  0. Linux support, specifically with the option to purchase without paying the Windows tax for an OS I'll never boot. This is a deal-breaker for me, meaning Dell are one of the few main-stream manufacturers I'd go with. 1. No touchscreen (I'd rather have a higher quality, low glare non-touch display). That's about it, actually. Practically all modern laptops seem to meet my expectations on battery life and performance in a way which corresponds well with their cost. Weight is mostly a non-issue since I'd only consider a 13" chassis anyway. Screen resolution can be traded for battery life without concerning me. An M1 Mac with a non-apple keyboard and full Linux support would probably be great, but I don't hold out any hope for another manufacturer matching the M1 without ruining it somehow (looking at you, Chromebooks).
  • roland35 5y ago
    Sounds like the framework laptop might be a good option for you! I am looking into it myself, plus I like the 3:2 screen ratio.
    • Sanguinaire 5y ago
      I was thinking the same, assuming it eventually goes on sale in the UK. Actually the 3:2 screen ratio is one of the new laptop developments I am less keen on; 16:9 or 16:10 feels a bit better for having 2 side-by-side terminals in i3.
• arcticbull 5y ago
  An Apple logo tbh.
• factorialboy 5y ago
  My criteria for a laptop: 1. Display 2. Price 3. Ports 4. Repair-ability / expand-ability 5. Thermals (especially if high-end GPU) 6. Keyboard + build quality
• bell321 5y ago
  I obtained an hp Chromebook free of charge recently. Honestly it's just so stress free to use. I don't need any special applications so it works just fine.
• donohoe 5y ago
  macOS I’ve tried going back to Windows and it’s just a terrible OS. macOS has its faults but nothing in that scale.
  • dividedbyzero 5y ago
    Seconded, its defaults match my preferences well enough that I don't have to customize it much. It's also great to not have to climb up a huge learning curve and invest a lot of time just to make and keep the OS usable, as I'd have to with Linux.
• Tepix 5y ago
  Thunderbolt Port(s)!
• rubyist5eva 5y ago
  I just buy a MacBook Pro that’s upgraded within my budget.
• jiggawatts 5y ago
  My #1 requirement is a 4K OLED HDR screen, ideally 16" or larger. The #2 requirement is a decent keyboard with full-sized arrow keys and dedicated PgUp/PgDn/Ins/Del and arrow keys. (Why $5000 laptops skimp on $0.01 keys just boggles the mind.) Everything else is a nicety, or can be compromised on. But I look at the screen and I touch the keyboard for 8 hours a day. If they're not good enough, I'm not buying, end of story.
• fortran77 5y ago
  Surface Studio Laptop. I have one and am 100% satisfied
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• lucb1e 5y ago
  1. [must] Runs Linux 2. [must] HDMI, RJ45, >=2x USB-A, >=1x USB-C (2x if it's also used for charging), headphone jack, card reader (preferably one where the sdcard clicks into, so I can leave the microsd adapter inside and always handy; currently my laptop has it half sticking out so it would break off). I can understand that a serial cable requires a dongle, but network cables I still use daily. Install one of those openable ports if you must, but I won't buy your laptop if it doesn't have a network interface built in. 3. [must] Changeable RAM so I don't have to buy an overpriced 32GB laptop, but can just buy a regular laptop costing half as much and spend 70 bucks on an upgrade. 4. [must] Changeable SSD. Same story: large SSD with no HDD (because with an additional HDD you again have all its downsides like noise and power draw) is overpriced, and I don't feel like reinstalling everything anyway, so I prefer to just transfer the SSD from my previous laptop and toss whatever they stuck in the new one. 5. [must] 1080p screen so no scaling bugs or larger-than-necessary power draw. I don't see more pixels anyway and 95% of the time I'll be looking at an external screen; if you work 8h/day on a laptop you should probably be looking to change that. 6. [should] Fast CPU cores. When I selected my most recent laptop in 2018, CPUs had actually nearly gotten slower than the previous one in 2012. But they draw less power! Whoop tee doo... good job intel on power saving by just doing less. I'm buying a daily computing driver, not a phone, and I am very rarely more than 1.5 hours removed from a power socket. Also, I still can rarely use more than one core per task (and am doing just one thing in the foreground; dual core would be fine), but I suppose it's the only way these days to get any sort of performance. Still, I'd rather have 4 cores with 100 benchmark points each than 32 cores with 75 benchmark points each. (And hyperthreading counting towards the number of cores is misleading, as it adds only a few percent performance.) 7. [wish] WiFi 6 8. [wish] Buttons above the touchpad are nice. Keyboard: the more buttons the better, basically. I actually use home/end/pgup/pgdn/scroll lock/printscreen/pause/menu/function keys/media keys/etc. unlike what laptop designers seem to think. There's so little choice in this that I guess I'll just live with whatever I can get at this point. Also, death to the combined up/down arrow key. 9. [mkay] GPU is cool but, often, time thermal restrictions make it only a little faster than the nowadays pretty performant and efficient integrated graphics. Useful for hashcat though. A. [wish] My current laptop has taught me that not all LCD displays are made alike. The vertical viewing angle on this one is so terrible that the colors are always distorted on at least one part of the screen no matter your viewing angle. I have no idea how to objectively look for this, but a nice screen is a bonus. Then again, as before: I won't spend 95% of my time looking at this screen anyhow.
• a3_nm 5y ago
  Probably not what OP had in mind, but under the assumption that you want to buy a new laptop, one thing I would look for is low carbon footprint (many manufacturers publish this information), and low social impact in terms of the conditions in which the laptop is produced (still more difficult to have this information).
  • godDLL 5y ago
    And how would you ascertain the veracity of said claim?
    • a3_nm 5y ago
      Like other claims that cannot be verified as a consumer, e.g., health safety claims: usually trust them and hope that companies have more to lose when making false claims than they have to win by lying. Something labeled as low-carbon-footprint, local, organic, fair trade, etc., may not be all that it says it is, but in all likelihood is probably better that something with no labels.
      • godDLL 5y ago
        Understood. Unless there is a law, a fine, and an enforcing agency in place none of this local, organic, low-carbon stuff will come back to them in any meaningful way. They are safe to lie. And you provide them with a business reason to do so. Your consumer decision impact might be the reverse of what you're hoping, is what I'm saying. Did you do your research?
• tehabe 5y ago
  Portability is important, a 17" notebook is not really a notebook for me.
  • tomrod 5y ago
    Agreed. I use a Dell XPS 15 and its just the right size for me (eyesight getting poorer over time).
• tdrdt 5y ago
  Good Linux support Numeric keyboard ISP screen As much CUDA cores as possible >= 32MB RAM
• saint_angels 5y ago
  1. 15inch screen 2. Runs Linux well 3. AMD GPU 4. Keyboard that isn't crap 5. Recent Ryzen CPU 6. Good build quality Couldn't find anything that matches
• bo1024 5y ago
  1. FOSS support and free + open + user-controlled, user-repairable, user-upgradable hardware. 2. Webcam and microphone with kill switches. 3. Battery life. 4. (added) Portable: about 13-14" screen, not too heavy. 5. Longevity, durability (sustainability). 6. Other factors: keyboard, touchpad, screen, wifi, quiet. I'm fortunate that I don't need a GPU or extreme power for my daily laptop driver (and if I do, I have a desktop). I'm also fortunate financially to be able to own both a Purism Librem 14 and a Framework DIY edition. It feels good to have my money support those causes, and the laptops are both perfect (except the Framework's battery life, so far). https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/ https://frame.work/ https://frame.work/
  • gravypod 5y ago
    Once there's a framework keyboard with a standardized arrow key layout I'd probably buy one. It's an amazing step forward and I want to support the company's effort.
    • noahtallen 5y ago
      One of the cool things is that you could even buy now, and then replace the keyboard when a version you want comes out. They already sell tons of replacement keyboard types on their marketplaces
• secondcoming 5y ago
  I got myself a Dell Precision 7750, but without the discrete GPU option as the price was getting ridiculous. My main requirements were similar to yours: - SIM card: Supports 4G but you have to disassemble the laptop to insert the SIM. A dongle may have been a better option, as I doubt the SIM module can be upgraded to a 5G one when they come available. - I quite like the keyboard - Screen is great - Fast charging with the Dell adapter only - Loads of GPU options - Standard components are user upgradable. I installed 128GB RAM (max) and another SSD myself. It supports a total of 4 SSDs - There was no AMD CPU option at the time I bought it, but those seemed rare/unavailable from other vendors too.
• iypx 5y ago
  1. Two sodimm slots 2. Close to 100% sRGB color gamut, min 1920x1080 14"-15" 3. Reasonably priced! 4. Bonus: good enough CPU That's it. I spent almost 9 months looking for a starter to mid range recent laptop (10th intel or 4000 amd) meeting at least 1. and 2. .. and I couldn't find anything in the 300-600 GBP which I thought would be reasonable for something like that. I went to a large showroom to compare different screens, modern laptops with IPS panels, claiming to be 45% NTSC, IPS 72% NTSC.. and even OLED screens on higher-end laptops (1200-2500GBP)... I opened the same picture of a girl on my phone which is supposed to be 400 nits 98% sRGB and on every target laptop.. Cheapest TN panels would show white or gray on the girls cheeks where it was supposed to be a light pink... The 45% NTSC IPS panels would show almost accurate colors, but never as clear/bright as on my phone, the 72% NTSC panels were pretty accurate as well, except for the sensible colors like said pink, it would display it a little darker. To my utmost surprise, the high end OLED screens, would show that problematic pink correctly, except it ended up pixelated!! The entire picture was as clear as it could be, except for the girls cheeks: pixelated... My 12 year old inspiron with a TN panel (if you decrease blue by 20% from the intel graphics driver) will display colors a little more accurately than most IPS panels they put in low-mid range laptops today. So I ended up buying a Latitude E5470 for 170GBP, best ever display panel for this price range. Thinking of buying a second one, to make sure I have enough spares if something happens to this one.. Or maybe a Precision from the same era.. but they seem to go ~500GBP, not comfortable spending that much on a refurbished laptop.
• igtztorrero 5y ago
  backlit keyboard *IMPORTANT*
• bigpeopleareold 5y ago
  I'm a not out on the road a lot, need mostly just good CPU performance to compile one or two big projects and some "normal" things. I don't play games usually. But: 1. IPS, 1080p at least (and I think I prefer 1080p or may be the 4:3/3:2 variants) 2. Good keyboard with trackpoint. If the keys must have low key travel, no mushy keys at all. Prefer the security of knowing liquids can drain out if something were to happen. 3. Touchpad just needs to work without odd skips or pauses, which I have seen on a couple. 3. Linux supported hardware. 4. Good case, not fond of aluminum, particularly after seeing the shape of one really good macbook pro from a former colleague. 5. Good hinges with good support. No screws in plastic at all. 6. Matte screen. No touchscreen. My laptop is not a phone. 7. Good range of ports to not have to worry about ports. 2 USB, 2 HDMI, at least one USB-C to get new things and dedicated power. 8. Just enough power to take it from my desks for a few hours. I am always near a plug though. 9. I can use it for the next 10 years or more after getting it (writing this on my x220, and despite the screen, everything else is OK to me for a 10 year old computer). That means it must be repairable and have part supply for a long time. 10. SSD (250 GB is more than enough), 16 GB RAM These things pretty much describe my t430s now (except a small points). I hope that framework can be that replacement.
• zadwang 5y ago
  Has anyone mentioned fanless? I want my machines, laptops included, to be quiet.
• andrepd 5y ago
  A good keyboard. This is surprisingly hard to find.
• chiefalchemist 5y ago
  Maybe it goes without saying but - fingerprint sign in - at least 16 gb ram, up to at least 32 - VG+ screen. It's the only thing you use 100% of the time. Even the KB and touchpad isn't as often. Don't skimp on the screen.
• jabroni_salad 5y ago
  1. 1920x1200 display at a minimum. 3:2 is even better as long as the width is still there. I don't care if there are black bars on my movies, I want a tall screen. There is no technical reason to require a squinty screen ratio in order to get 2 documents side by side. 2. The things I touch don't suck. decent construction, rubberized plastic or aluminimum, decent keyboard, decent trackpad. 3. Reliable components. No killer wifi. I will check the arch wiki to make sure linux won't be death by a thousand papercuts. I don't mind if there is some setup as long as I can put that entire setup into a single shell script. I don't need a discrete gpu. 4. memory and ssd cannot be soldered. 5. anything else.
• cainxinth 5y ago
  1. Excellent thermal management (i.e. temps under 90C at max load and fans that don’t sound like a turboprop) 2. Backlit keyboard with more than a bare minimum of key travel 3. IPS display with at least 300 nits of brightness and 100% (or close to it) sRGB coverage 4. Six core or better CPU 5. Dedicated GPU with at least 8GB of RAM 6. NVMe M.2 SSD (at least 512GB) 7. 32GB of 3200 MHz or faster RAM 8. From a major brand with decent reported reliability (e.g. Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo) Willing to spend ~$2k, but I am very patient and good at deal hunting so I expect to get it for a little less.
• tonymet 5y ago
  1440 or higher res
• azalemeth 5y ago
  Out of curiosity, has any HN customer bought a KDE Slimbook [1] or similar? I want to buy a linux-first laptop, and I like the fact that they have configurable keyboards (i.e. those in layouts other than en-us, unlike System76!) a lot of configuration options, and linux-first support. The "default" slimbook is aluminium, €899, comes with a Ryzen 4800 H, a 92 WH battery, actual physical ports, and relatively modest other specs. They offer much more "beefy" machines with linux as an OS option. I've never used them. It's getting to the point where I want to replace my rMBP-2018 "Heatmonster" laptop and after Apple's latest directions, it'll be KDE as a daily driver for me. [1] https://slimbook.es/en/store/slimbook-kde/kde-slimbook-15-comprar https://slimbook.es/en/store/slimbook-kde/kde-slimbook-15-co...
• nray 5y ago
  Quiet ... I'm typing this on a Lenovo P15s whose fan only stops when the laptop is off. Not sure if it would be so loud as a hackintosh but constant fan noise can really harsh your mellow
• rodolphoarruda 5y ago
  1. Open source hardware, preferably audited and not leaking data 2. Linux compatibility 3. Easy to remove/replace battery from the outside (like it was in the past) 4. A battery that lasts for a day with a quick recharge 5. Physical knobs to turn on/off the mic and camera
• pm2222 5y ago
  Fast cpu, quiet fan, and huge amount of ram. 512G SSD of any kind. Plus if there’s dual video output. Yes I would use it as a workstation always plugged in sitting on my desk.
• ghosty141 5y ago
  An exceptional trackpad. I heard windwos laptops are coming close to the Macbook trackpad, but I've gotta try it first.
• OneLeggedCat 5y ago
  One that DOES NOT have those ridiculously small up and down cursor keys. So many modern laptops are like that now.
• brandonmenc 5y ago
  1. 4 USB-C ports minimum 2. Thunderbolt on both sides 3. touchpad as good as Apple's 4. Built in cellular
• vbezhenar 5y ago
  1. No soldered ram or disk. 2. Bulky, heavy with 17" screen and good cooling. 3. CPU has to be XEON with ECC support. 4. Lots of USB-A ports and other ports (HDMI, etc).
  • GordonS 5y ago
    Wait, you want a bulky and heavy laptop?
• flowerlad 5y ago
  A high resolution screen. Meaning 200% scale — nothing else looks good. This is also a rarity these days, even though my 5-year-old Samsung ATIV Book 9 has it. In the Windows world, sadly, things are a mess. Most new laptops including Microsoft's newest Surface Studio have fractional scaling, i.e., scaling set to a number other than 100% or 200%. As Steve Jobs said when he originally introduced retina screens on the iPhone, the only scale that looks good after 100% is 200%. Any other scale will have display artifacts. If the scale is 150% or 175% then horizontal lines on a web page will appear to have different thicknesses even when they are all actually the same thickness. This is a deal breaker for web developers and graphic artists, and for folks who just want the best looking screens. I tried the screens of the newest laptops on display at BestBuy. Even 4k screens have this rendering artifact. Surprisingly, even when scaling is set to 300%. Microsoft's now-obsolete Surface 2 and Surface 3 screens are one of the best. They have 3000x2000 screens and the dpi is 267. Most importantly, the display scale is set to 200%. Everything looks perfect. Sadly, Surface Laptop 4 and Surface Studios no longer use this screen. Their scales are set to between 100% and 200%, which means they have the aforementioned display artifacts. That's sad because the Surface Laptop 4 is one of the best Windows laptops in terms of industrial design. Samsung Ativ Book 9 first released more than 6 years ago has 3200x1800 13 inch screens... one of the best in the industry. Sadly Samsung is no longer making Windows laptops with that DPI anymore.
  • greggman3 5y ago
    All Macs have fractional scaling and AFAICT most people seem to have it on. For example my Macbook Pro has a native resolution of 2880x1800. The default OS resolution is 1440x900 (so 2x) but I have it set to 1680x1050 or 1.714 It looks fine and I see none of the issues you mention. A big difference with Window though is that this scaling happens at a very low-level. The OS tells apps they are on a 2x display at 1680x1050, the OS then scales that 2x display (3368x2100) to 2880x1400. The DPI told to apps does't change on Mac. The DPI does on Windows and because of various other poor? choices has some of the issues you mention
    • Joeri 5y ago
      Actually, on windows apps that implement the DPI awareness API's aren't scaled by the OS at all, and if they implement them properly they even rescale when dragged between monitors of different DPI. So, that is arguably better than the way macOS does it, but only for apps that do the right thing, which isn't all of them. And when they don't implement it correctly, the outcome of OS-level scaling is often worse than on macOS.
• ilyas121 5y ago
  Before I had a desktop it was a balance of everything. Now it’s battery life for too priority. If I need more computation I’ll just ssh into my desktop.
• uxp100 5y ago
  I don’t see many mentions of weight, and that’s my number one. There are some incredibly light laptops available now, and that’s my number one criteria, how light can you get with a 13 inch screen. I’ve currently got a monster “workstation” laptop at work and having a haul a 6 lb laptop around is particularly irritating, but once I felt 2.5 lbs, any more than that was irritating. In practical fact I have a 12 year old laptop and a little netbook, and with sdd replacements for the spinning platter drives they continue to be just fine, so I’m not buying anything at the moment. But if I did, I’d choose by weight.
  • TacticalCoder 5y ago
    This. For when I'm on the go I've got a 17" LG Gram laptop with 24 GB of RAM. This thing is incredibly light. That's the most important thing to me in a laptop: ultra light. If you don't care about how light your laptop is, you may as well use a desktop (I'm ofc using a beefy desktop at home). Something else: I've got a M1 Mac too, for the living room basically. The physical edges are way, way, way too sharp and it's simply not a comfortable laptop to use when slouching in the couch. The edges are so sharp you feel like you may actually physically damage your wrists. It's a long time standing complains about Apple laptops: I simply cannot understand how they can still get that so wrong (I'm sure, at some point, they'll come up with smoother edges but it's 2021 and we're not there yet). Now the trackpad on the M1 is way better than the trackpad on the LG Gram: feels way more sturdy. I like the very long battery the M1 has too.
  • tootie 5y ago
    I had a very low spec and cheap 11" Chromebook and found it was quickly my favorite because it was very portable.
• sysadm1n 5y ago
  - Hardware kill switches, to disable mic & camera. - Hardware kill switches for both the bluetooth radio and the built-in wifi adapter. - Needs to look good at 1024x768 resolution (I only code at that resolution, because although large resolutions are great, I have to put in extra effort to see code at higher resolutions) - Built in camera cover that slides closed, which, alongside a kill switch gives me extra peace of mind (incase my OS gets compromised through silly mistakes like running malware laced office documents). Yes, some would call this paranoia, but paranoia does not work retroactively; you have to be proactive. - Don't care about the keyboard, since I have only ever used external USB office keyboards. - If the processor is an Intel, I want the Management Engine removed, preferably by someone else as I am at a loss as to how to disable that thing - I only ever use the mains power supply to power my laptop. Why let a battery degrade over time from being constantly at 100% charge? It would be cool if I could just take out the battery and have the laptop still work with a mains supply.
  • codetrotter 5y ago
    > I only code at that resolution, because although large resolutions are great, I have to put in extra effort to see code at higher resolutions You can increase font size on the system, without using a low resolution.
    • sysadm1n 5y ago
      I prefer a low resolution, because some windows don't honor my zoom state and I have to manually press CTRL & + With a low resolution, my productivity goes through the roof. Zoomed in text just doesn't cut it
• 65 5y ago
  The 16" Macbook Pro that's going to be announced on Monday. I've never anticipated a product announcement more than the new Macbooks.
• ryanmarsh 5y ago
  On the 18th I’ll be looking for a 16” screen and the next rev of Apple Silicon.
• greggman3 5y ago
  Define "Good GPU". What do you want to do with it?
  • godDLL 5y ago
    Depends on whether a GPU is present. But yes, all the things. Encoding video, modelling and rendering, compiling large code bases, sleeping for a week at least. Good. EDIT: Oh, your question was about the GPU, not the CPU, soz Well, I don't care if it's part of the CPU SoC, in fact I prefer it to be. That's faster for memory access. But it has to do all the things, as described above. If it is also not a nuisance, like downloading 120MB of driver-and-friends every time the wall clock bangs, then I'll be double happy with it. More than happy. Criminally and institutionally happy.
• greenail 5y ago
  There must be a better way to conduct this "survey"
  • godDLL 5y ago
    There is. But is it worth the effort of unfamiliar UX? No.
• miki123211 5y ago
  If my laptop must break, I want it to break in well-understood ways. I have a Dell Inspiron with some pretty decent specs but a lot of weird issues. The Wi-Fi card behaves strangely, the audio driver causes hard-to-debug unpaged memory leaks when used in certain ways, the emulated home/end keys (with fn+arrows) cause key down events but not key up events, and so on. I spend hours trying to make that Laptop do what I wanted it to, and I never managed to get Linux working right. I bought an M1 MacBook Air in may and I couldn't be any happier. It's not that it doesn't have issues, but if I ever encounter one, I know a few people in pretty much the same situation as me, so figuring out a fix / workaround is usually trivial. The same holds for the phone, iPhone-related bugs are usually well-understood and described somewhere. If one particular Android phone sounds terribly on Zoom, but correctly everywhere else, you don't even have an idea where to look.
• fouc 5y ago
  What I look for: 1. Unfortunately due to eye strain, my bare minimum requirement these days is high DPI displays (around or better than 200 pixels per inch) combined with pixel-perfect integer (2.0x) scaling with no blurring at the OS level. That means if I want a 13" laptop with a working resolution of 1440x900, the native display resolution needs to be 2880x1800. 2. Good build quality - excellent trackpad, decent keyboard. 3. Battery life - more than 12 hours would be swell! 4. Weight - a light laptop makes life so much better. 5. Performance
• lifeplusplus 5y ago
  Dpi Frame rate Battery life Weight Responsiveness
• chaosbutters314 5y ago
  at least 8 cores, Nvidia GPU, at least 1 tb of storage, the bigger the better as long as the power brick isn't too big. I don't care about battery life since I regularly max out cpu/GPU and will eat through any battery. I don't care about portability since I lift.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    > I don't care about portability since I lift. My man. I'd stop at 15in though.
• otrahuevada 5y ago
  I'm personally in the market for an as-close-to-infinitely upgradable laptop. Ideally, I'd like to be able to mod it as much as I can do with my desktop rig, in a format that I can carry around. - Need a bigger battery? Here's some OEM batteries for you. - Your chipset is getting old, here's motherboards you can buy - Need an OLED screen? Here's a couple - More memory? Sure, there's 4 easy to access slots in there Ideally in a format that fits in a backpack Been dreaming about something like this for SO long
  • Phenomenit 5y ago
    https://frame.work https://frame.work?
    • otrahuevada 5y ago
      Gave it some thought a while ago! I'm still struggling with the customs end of getting one though. Uruguay where I now live isn't exactly amazing at managing electronic imports, although if one ever showed up on Amazon I'd be jumping on that right away as there are companies that helps make this process easier over here.
      • Bluestein 5y ago
        Fellow "charrúa" here :) Greetings ...
    • rch 5y ago
      I have one of these on order, and it looks like the perfect personal laptop to bring along with the MBP I'm saddled with for work.
• lee 5y ago
  Since it doesn't seem to be listed often in this thread: noise and heat management I have a Dell Latitude 7300 and it gets incredibly hot. They tried to optimize for size, so it has tiny fans that are incredibly loud when it spins up and they designed the aluminum body to act as a heat sink. The problem is that when I close the laptop when it's docked, the screen traps the heat and the fans start to whine like a jet engine. Even when it's idling it's loud, so I have to leave the laptop open and on its side when docked to allow for proper heat dissipation.
• rch 5y ago
  It needs to boot NixOS without much hassle.
• chias 5y ago
  My process is I have a list of things I hate, and if you fail to do any of them, then I love you. But yeah, my preferences are: -- * Don't make the keyboard key placement stupid. Make the arrow-keys and pgup / pgdn a six-key rectangle that all feel the same and you're dead to me. * Backlit keyboard is a significant plus - yeah yeah you touch type but uncommonly-used shortcut keys in the dark sucks. * NVMe storage is table stakes at this point, much like wifi and bluetooth. Give me at least 250G, preferably 1T on that NVMe. * High DPI display, and ideally a 3:2 screen aspect ratio. I didn't know how much I hated 16:9 until I tried 3:2, it feels like a breath of fresh air. * Easy to open / replace components / etc. Glue anything and you're dead to me. I also hate clips with a passion. If I need to ship my laptop in because RAM is defective, no thanks. * It's gotta charge via USB-C. Battery life must be at least 5 hours, but more importantly, make it easily replaceable. A 10 hour batter is only a 10 hour battery for like 6 months. * Ports should include HDMI, USB-C, USB-A, an SD card reader, and a headphone jack. Ethernet is a plus. * Please put the webcam at the top (lookin at you, Dell XPS...) so people don't have to look at my dirty fingernails and up my nose. Built-in hardware disconnect / cover for the webcam a plus. -- Don't really care about a GPU, I have a desktop for that. Also don't care about fingerprint readers. Touchscreen is actually a minus for me.
  • Oddskar 5y ago
    My reaction to some of the posts in this thread just make me feel old. Backlit keyboard is a significant plus - yeah yeah you touch type but uncommonly-used shortcut keys in the dark sucks. Can’t you just .. turn on a lamp? Why would you do this to your eyes? Please put the webcam at the top (lookin at you, Dell XPS...) so people don't have to look at my dirty fingernails and up my nose. Having used this myself for a number of years; I honestly in hindsight cannot comprehend how Dell could let their flagship laptop launch with this. How on earth did they try this and go “this is acceptable”? Boggles my mind.
    • chias 5y ago
      Can’t you just .. turn on a lamp? Usually yes, but not when I'm in bed and my wife is trying to sleep next to me I can't.
• SergeAx 5y ago
  I don't think I will buy another laptop any time soon. For work I prefer a desktop machine, and most of the tasks away from a desktop I can handle with my phone. I am thinking about travel pack of compact keyboard, mouse, HDMI cable and a USB-C hub to plug it all into and be plugged into the phone, but in current circumstances I don't see a situations where it would be really necessary.
• inetknght 5y ago
  1. Full size keyboard with a numpad. If I can't type on it then I won't buy it. 2. 1080p internal display. I won't buy it if the internal screen resolution isn't at least 1080p. 3. Works with Linux. That's a dealbreaker if I can't put Linux on it. 4. Discrete GPU that can be enabled/disabled without rebooting. Not for games, though that's a bonus. I write software that uses GPU acceleration and I need to test it in the field. 5. External display including connecting to a TV -- HDMI/HDCP, displayport, or USB-C passthrough. It doesn't need to use the GPU but that would be preferred. 6. Power management: when active, the battery should last a full work day unless I have the GPU/peripherals on; when I close my lid everything should suspend to NVMe and practically zero power use from then on. 7. User-upgradeable components: at a minimum, disks and RAM should be interchangeable. 8. Kill-switch for camera/mic which physically disconnects them. 9. Discrete audio / microphone 3.5mm jacks. The audio out jack may be a combined audio+mic jack, but I often have a headset which doesn't have an a combined audio+mic. 10. Discrete ethernet port. 1Gbit is outdated; give me 10Gbit! We've got 10Gbit USB and thunderbolt, there's no reason to not have 10Gbit ethernet.
  • rzimmerman 5y ago
    I’d add that for most people, you should go higher than 1080p regardless of screen size. UHD/4k/Retina are all a huge improvement just when looking at text and it’s hard to go back.
    • GordonS 5y ago
      Doesn't higher resolution really hit battery life though?
      • inetknght 5y ago
        It definitely hits compute time and that also hits battery life. More pixels = more compute required even outside of the GPU.
    • inetknght 5y ago
      > UHD/4k/Retina are all a huge improvement just when looking at text and it’s hard to go back. I disagree. 4K is great on a big screen TV. But on a 15" (or smaller!) it just isn't worth it. I literally can't see a difference between 1080p and 4K on a 15 inch screen.
• lukaszkups 5y ago
  1. Overall aescetics - even though it's just a tool, I must feel great while having it on my lap and working with it. Don't like bulky, plastic, RGBalike workhorses. Once I was able to pay for what my eyes like, I've bought Zenbook UX32LN (which still has my wife, after 6 years of power use (great machine, still work flawlessly)). Now for 2 years I was using Surface Book 2 15" (which I bought solely because I fell in love with hinge design and screen quality). This year I was waiting for some update regarding the hinge though but Microsoft introduced Surface Studio, which I don't like because its overall design so I decided to keep SB2 for a bit more as I don't see any nice looking laptops currently on the market that would fit my taste. 2. Keyboard - it must be good quality with fine font (again, aescetics :)), must have highlight, chiclet type, would be great if had extra right key column with PGup/PGdown/home/end buttons (I'm really sad that so few models has it - I've found it really handy for heavy programming) 2.1. Touchpad - must be good quality, support gestures and have nice surface to interact with (preferably glass) 3. Battery life - no need for whole day, but at least for ~4 hours on normal performance is totally fine. 4. Since I use Surface Book 2, I'm really into 3:2 screen aspect ratio - it's really great for work.
• bengale 5y ago
  Unpopular opinion here for sure, but my main thing is going to be the ability to run macOS so that keeps my options fairly limited! High hopes for Monday's announcement.
• akmittal 5y ago
  1. 13-14" high resolution(2560x1440) display with good brightness 2. ARM processor with Apple silicon performance/efficiency 3. Fast SSD of atleast 256 GB capacity 4. Macbook like big and nice trackpad 5. Good linux support 6. Good webcam
• ufmace 5y ago
  Things I actually care about these days that aren't already basically universal: Good screen. Bright and High DPI, and an OS that takes good advantage of that. Good keyboard. I'm gonna type a lot at least sometimes and use Vim, I don't want some mushy accessory keyboard. Good trackpad. Reasonably big, but not so big your palms constantly make it do things despite software that tries to prevent that. Highly responsive and supports scrolling and dragging without trying to hold down a physical click mechanism. Can run both a real modern web browser, as in with rapid automatic updates, and as good of a Unix-y command line as possible. A good selection of ports is a nice plus. As is touchscreen and flexible orientation. Having regular security updates is good, though it should also not be too pushy about forcing restarts for them. Ideally, it would never lose state, short of me rebooting it by direct command or being unplugged and letting the battery run flat. It's also nice if I can leave it in "sleep" unattended and off the charger for a week+, open it up, and it's ready to use with the battery still pretty full. I like a Unix-y command line, but I'm pretty meh about trying to keep a bare-metal Linux install running and updated. What I actually got recently is a mid-high end Chromebook. I'm pretty happy with it - the current Linux it now supports turns it from a basically browser-centered thing to a very practical developer workstation, assuming you live in the terminal like I do.
• GordonS 5y ago
  AMD processor, support for 32GB of RAM, matte 16:10 FHD display with >300 nits (14" - 16"), less than 1.8kg, camera in the lid, at least 2 USB-C ports (with at least one supporting DisplayPort), not too loud under load, good battery life, thin bezels to reduce the footprint and improve aesthetics. Apparently this is a big ask though :(
  • godDLL 5y ago
    That isn't my use case, but yeah – it is a short list. I see no reason for that not to exist as an immediate option.
• bastijn 5y ago
  Interesting how none of the top comments have weight in their lists. Number one for me is probably weight as I carry the thing around all day. To meetings, to work/home, etc. This includes weight of the charger. Next comes battery life. Next the time it takes to be usable after opening the lid. Trackpad quality next. After the other regulars like screen, keyboard, etc.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    I think I've attracted more people that don't laptop at the office but in the field. My question framing might be to blame.
• charesjrdan 5y ago
  I caved earlier this year and got an M1 MacBook Air, $1000 (for the 16gb of ram model) and it’s significantly faster than my (2 year old but much more expensive) thinkpad, it doesn’t have a touchscreen but meets every other requirement you have, and you can now put Linux on it and it works pretty great, and will only improve as marcan and team keep up their great work
  • godDLL 5y ago
    I was very excited to try those at the store. Failed on glossy screen that gets punctured by a single grain of sand left on the keyboard. Speaking of which, the keyboard gets stuck by the same. So no.
• drumhead 5y ago
  Expandability, repairability, ports, toughness. I dont want to spend over $1500 on something only to find I cant expand the ram, change the battery or replace the ssd.
• _8j50 5y ago
  Sturdy and reliable. flimsy and poorly built laptops are horrible. I can tolerate a lot of features not being there if it's built as if vibranium was used at some point. Minimal plastic usage! Add hardware kill switches and you almost have perfection, at least to my preference.
• culebron21 5y ago
  1. weight <= 1.3 Kg 2. display >= 13.5" 3. 3 USB ports (nowadays they come as 2 + 1 USB-C, but that's ok) 4. HDMI port for projectors (2013 Toshiba z930 ultrabook used to have both HDMI and D-Sub ports!) 5. Keyboard with cursor keys not squeezed as on most modern laptops 6. Home/End/PgUp/PgDown proper keys, not through Fn combo (because then you can't do things like Shift+PgUp to select a lot of text) 7. If possible, without Windows Other parameters are negotiable and upgradable. Keyboard + USB requirements eliminate most laptops, including Frame, Mac and Think/IdeaPads (plus 13" ThinkPads weigh like a brick). My choice is formed by the way I use them: I plug it to a monitor and keyboard, but often carry it to a cafe, so I want to be able to type on the keyboard, navigate texts (with a full-size cursor keys) and edit a lot of texts without pain that many laptops create (Lenovo Idea pad has very inconvenient delete/home/end keys). I have a USB wireless mouse (touchpads are inconvenient), and often plug extra devices (external drive, SD adapter, etc.). With just 2 USB ports I would often run out of ports having to unplug. Weight is very important, since I walk and take transit with the laptop. Anything heavier than 1.3 Kg becomes noteable. 3 Kg is painful to carry even for 20 minutes, especially when you're tired after a working day. The best I've known are: * 2013 Toshiba z930. 1.05 kg, 3 ports, HDMI+VGA, SD card, 3G card! * 2005 Panasonic Toughbook, consumer edition. 1.3 kg, passive cooling! 2x USB, Floppy drive xD, CD-ROM. * 2019 MSI Modern 14. 1.3 kg, 2xUSB-A, 1xUSB-C, bright screen
• rajacombinator 5y ago
  One looks for a Mac, and buys it.
• justshowpost 5y ago
  1. It must be thin. Really thin. 2. Light. Thin and light. 3. Curved edges. Also curved edges. How could a laptop today not have curved edges? Yes, we said the same thing about the sharp edges of yesterday’s generation. But this time we really mean it. 4. Short battery life. Who wants to carry a huge battery with them? Easier to plug in everywhere you go anyways. Also goes directly against number 1 which is obviously more important. 5. Colors. Almost forgot it. Could you believe it? Specially crafted colors. Colors you’ve never seen before! I can not understand how some say it’s just rolling dice on the color spectrum. It’s totally new colors!
• wincy 5y ago
  I switched employers and am using a PC now instead of a Mac and man, I hate it. I’d get 4 or 5 hours of battery life on my 15” Intel MacBook Pro, and get maybe 45 minutes while doing identical tasks. Even the MacBook literally running Parallels and Visual Studio on the MacBook could last for a few hours. Its absolutely insufferable, the laptop is barely useable unless it’s plugged in, and it has a GPU (but I’m not playing games and a 1080p screen. Why the hell is it using so much power? Is this just what it’s like for Windows laptops, and why? And Don’t even get me started on how the Bluetooth audio stack constantly messes up and has problems, Slack will randomly tell me it can’t find my audio device. My Mac just never had these issues, aside from a few problems initially on running a dock that supported 3 4K monitors.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• jimnotgym 5y ago
  1) availability!
  • godDLL 5y ago
    Are you buying them in droves? Shiploads?
    • jimnotgym 5y ago
      I need a few laptops for work. We have lead times into next year or pay 20% premium
• Rapzid 5y ago
  Pretty much has to be a macbook so I can test developer experience on OSX and the product with Safari. Otherwise I develop on a 64GB 16/32 core workstation.
• gigatexal 5y ago
  Personally I just want a Macbook Pro style laptop that runs Linux really well. IMO the build quality of the Macbook Pro is second to none and I really enjoy the keyboard (now that it's fixed) and the beautiful and super useful trackpad. But ... I am getting tired of all the hoops I have to jump through to run Linux-y things and would like to just run Linux (even though I might go back the option is nice to have).
• arendtio 5y ago
  As long as it is a normal laptop and does not support some kind of special tablet mode, I would skip the touchscreen part. My last laptop had a touchscreen (because I thought I would use it), but I never used it in a meaningful way. Instead, it created problems because at some point KDE detected it as a mouse and disabled the touchpad during boot until I took the time to solve the problem... Price doesn't say much about build quality and I would search for a high quality laptop.
• 1270018080 5y ago
  1. MacOS 2. No touchbar 3. HDMI ports 4. 32GB ram, 512GB SSD Hopefully we'll get one of these in a few days.
• gwbrooks 5y ago
  For me, No. 1 with a bullet is a mechanical keyboard. I type endlessly and I type fast -- without mechanical keys, I'm replacing the keyboard (or even the whole laptop) every 18 months. This irritatingly leaves me stuck with gigantic gaming rigs; the first company to build a relatively lightweight laptop with mechanical keys has my business for life.
• alpaca128 5y ago
  Full Linux support. Battery, SSD, RAM swappable with no glue involved. Good cooling. I don't want to use 60% of a throttling CPU when I paid 100% of the price. Ethernet, HDMI or Displayport, and a headphone jack without dongles. Also USB-C charging just in case the manufacturer decides to use the flimsiest cable for the proprietary charger and stops selling it after a few years (hi, Microsoft). Would be cool to have hardware switches for camera and microphone. So in short, I hope the Framework laptop makes it to the european market at some point. I don't really need a new laptop, but this would be a reason for one.
• wly_cdgr 5y ago
  Combination Surface Book & Framework is what I want
  • godDLL 5y ago
    Hear hear. I'd add, "from Apple".
• fragmede 5y ago
  Fingerprint reader so I can log in frictionlessly. Laptop locks instantly, but I can swipe my finger to log back in, so the security requirement isn't onerous.
  • artificialLimbs 5y ago
    This saves so much time during my day, where I have to be called away regularly and my laptop auto-locks which I leave enabled for paranoia.
    • godDLL 5y ago
      Are you under the impression you're worth spying on? Why don't you just Ctrl-Shift-F12 or something to lock it when you actually want that? I had bad experience with fingers as ID. Any spill on the scanner surface will disable it for days. And sometimes my prints change enough by being callous, or not fat enough or whatever. Just change. And then – no dice.
      • artificialLimbs 5y ago
        I am worth 'spying on' in my organization by the tens of non-workforce 'clients' that come into our office every day, including when I'm away from my machine. I don't 'just' Ctrl+Shift+F12 because I don't know when I might be called from one end of the office to another building, and I won't necessarily remember to stop and go lock my machine. I don't drink by my laptop because that doesn't seem to be a worthwhile endeavor based on past experience. If my prints change then I can re-register them in about a minute or less. Enjoy your password/pin/whatever.
        • godDLL 5y ago
          Alright, you seem to have your reasons and your use case. Glad I'm not in that situation.
• chovybizzass 5y ago
  screen must work with my sunglasses on. mac does, lenovo doesn't
• SomeHacker44 5y ago
  For me: 1. Good keyboard with real F-keys and fn-arrows that do home/end/pgup/dn or real keys that do those near the arrows. No numpad so it is centered. (Never again for apple, been burned too much by their crappy keyboards.) 2. OLED screen 3. Thunderbolt or USB4 4. At least 3 or more USB/TB ports 5. 32G+ RAM 6. 2T SSD, preferably socketed, or two sockets 7. A disable-able discrete GPU is nice; but quiet in normal operation is good 8. Slim - do not care about battery, but my back is not what it used to be, including the power brick 9. Nice but secondary: HDMI/DP, Ethernet, SD, fingerprint or other biometric, good mic, good webcam, good speakers, WLAN, WiFi beyond ac
  • godDLL 5y ago
    On the one hand your list is not that bad. Could probably be satisfied. On the other hand it's 9 items. So comparable to mine. I don't think I'll be buying a laptop this year. Again. Nothing satisfies.
    • SomeHacker44 5y ago
      I am largely with you in this camp. Many laptops almost get there. Lenovo looks the most promising of the major brands, and there are more and more OLED laptops coming out which is really nice. Razer also seems plausible but I am concerned with heat issues. Dell unfortunately does not do fn-arrows for some incomprehensible reason. I worked around it with an AHK script for win-arrows but the fingering is worse.
• barbarbar 5y ago
  There are indeed many responses here. But how does one find any answers to the good questions?
  • godDLL 5y ago
    I might do a summary or a survey after Apple talks. That's after 18th.
• KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  1. Runs Linux. 2. External Display Support - USB-C 3. Fast storage. 4. 1080p screen. 5. Small. 4. Cheap. I really dislike using Laptops since they tend to be slower, have worse ergonomics, and are more expensive than a 'equivalent' desktop. I just don't 'like' working if I don't have at least 1 large 4K screen and I prefer 2 (and more probably wouldn't hurt). Since a laptop is necessary sometimes I just want to have a 13" standard Dell XPS that's small enough I'll actually take it places. If I start traveling more (I am already WFH) then I might start wanting something with a larger screen + a decent portable second screen option. Although at that point I'd probably just put the effort into using a VR type screen system.
• netjiro 5y ago
  These days I've become a bit picky, with a couple of absolute deal breakers: Today I run an older xps13 which is quite close. My next will probably be a framework (immediately) when they get a matte screen option. !: matte screen, >350nit, >150dpi, >12", <1.66 aspect (want vertical space). !: good keyboard. subjectively of course. !: >10h, full day's work on battery. !: good linux compatibility. I'll run my own and don't need the headache. !: dead silent and cool. I run underclocked mostly, with fans off. !: <1.4kg Things I don't need: -: very fast cpu. I mostly run seriously underclocked, have a small cluster to offload compiling and heavy work onto. -: design. Just plain, simple, no flashy-flashy nor logos nor stickers. -: touch screen. What I would like: :) >16h battery. :) <1kg, ca A4 format, great if I can detach the screen to put it in portrait in front of me. :) oled or similar, 300dpi. Best would of course be primarily reflective instead of transmittive. If we're already dreaming. :) mouse nubbin thingy, or eye tracking (!) :) good on board sound and a 3.5mm jack.
  • godDLL 5y ago
    The eye tracking thing I've tried doing at some point, a few years back. Unless you have hardware to support running neural networks it turns out to be way too power-consuming, even if it's push-to-point (you have to depress a key to move the pointer to where your eye is/was). A4 format would be great, yes.
• fvv 5y ago
  In order, Very good screen nits 400+minimum( I think its improving with mini led) , high ram 64gb+ better 128 ( would be good with dd5 I think), efficient sleep and working hibernation, replaceable battery , usb3/4 charging of the battery from a power bank and power supply
  • godDLL 5y ago
    That's a reasonable and short list. But you're in my camp, you want to use the machine, not admire it. Still, I bet you can find something to get excited about this year, while I may not be able to. Again.
• mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Tall screen, 16:9 is a scourge. 16:10 is merely acceptable, but I prefer even taller. Linux support required. Less important, but I wish they still had some ports on the back. Don't want the more permanent cables all over the desk.