3 ms·

Not everyone needs 15+ hours of battery life. I'd argue that most people don't. Laptops were extremely popular when the battery life was two hours. Now even old

Not everyone needs 15+ hours of battery life. I'd argue that most people don't. Laptops were extremely popular when the battery life was two hours. Now even older laptops get 5h+.

bertan 5y ago
> The argument against good low wattage cpus is just an inane and boring one. > Not everyone needs 15+ hours of battery life. Low wattage is not only about battery life. It is mostly about requiring less power for the same work. However you look at it, it is good for everyone. Now that Apple has shown that this can be done, everyone else will do the same.
dijit 5y ago
So what is the trade off you think you’re making? This is weird. I feel like I’m talking to someone who has a fixed opinion against something. It’s good for _everyone_ that these chips are as fast as the best chips on the market, have crazy low power consumption and the cost for new is comparable. Intel have been overcharging for more than a decade when innovation stagnated. Honestly, I’m not so hot on Apple (FD I am sending this from an iPhone), I prefer to run Linux on my machines but I would not advocate everyone to do that. Just like I wouldn’t advise people to buy old shoes because it’s cheaper. These machines are compelling even for me, a person who relishes the flexibility of a more open platform — I can not imagine myself not recommending them to someone who just uses office suites or communication software. The M1 is basically the best thing you can buy right now for the consumer; and the cost is equivalent for other business machines such as HPs elitebooks or dells latitude or xps lineup. And for power users: the only good argument you can make is that your tools don’t work for it or you don’t like macos. If you’re arguing a system to be worse: you’ve lost.
- adrianN 5y ago
  The tradeoff I'm making is money vs capability. My argument is that most people don't need the capabilities offered by brand new, top of the line models. A used laptop that is a couple of years old is, I think, the best choice for most people.
  - dijit 5y ago
    A new M1 laptop is likely to last 4-5 years as a good specification of machine. A second hand laptop has much less advantage to doing that. I think this is a false economy. “The poor man pays twice” But regardless: the cost isn’t outrageous when compared to the Dell XPS/latitude or HP Elitebook lines (which are the only laptops I know of designed to last a 5y support cycle). If you’re buying a new laptop, I don’t think I could recommend anything other than an M1 unless you don’t like Apple or MacOS. Which is fair.
    - nasmorn 5y ago
      Also the M1 runs near silent or in case of the Air actually silent. I would pay an extra 1000 just for that alone. Turned out the Air was barely more than that in total. Which other laptop does that?
    - true_religion 5y ago
      The trade in value for my 6 year old MacBook Air is 150 dollars. Old computers depreciate so fast, that you can afford to buy ten of them for the price of one new computer.
      - dijit 5y ago
        Looks like they’re selling for more than twice that on ebay.co.uk though. And considering MacBook airs are $1000~ devices that’s really high. 6 years is also beyond the service life of a(ny) machine. If I look at 3 year old MacBook airs they’re selling for £600 on eBay, which is, what, half of the full cost. Not great for an already old machine with only a few good years left. I guess you might save a bit of money using extremely old hardware and keeping it for a while. But this is a really poor argument against an objectively good evolutionarily improved cpu in my opinion.
        sokoloff 5y ago
        > 6 years is also beyond the service life of a(ny) machine. That was the case for many decades. I think it’s no longer nearly the case. I’ve got a USB/DP KVM switch on my desk and regularly switch between my work laptop (2019 i9 MBPro) and my personal computer (2014 Dell i7-4790, added SSD and 32GB). Same 4K screens, peripherals, everything else. I find the Dell every bit as usable and expect to be using it 3 years from now. I wouldn’t be surprised if I retire the MacBook before the Dell. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i9-9980HK-vs-Intel-i7-4790/3451vs2226 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i9-9980HK-vs-Inte... shows the Mac to have only a slight edge and that’s a 2 year old literal top of line Mac laptop vs a mid-range commodity office desktop from 6 years ago bought with < $200 in added parts. (Much of what users do is waiting on the network or the human; when waiting on the CPU, you’re often waiting on something single-threaded. Mac is < 20% faster single-threaded.)
atirip 5y ago
> Not everyone needs mobile internet. I'd argue that most people don't. Mobile phones were extremely popular when they didn't have any internet connectivity. I am not mocking you, but here the case is that people do not know what true mobility for laptops is, that they literally can leave power brick behind, not to think about whether the battery lasts or not and use it freely during the day everywhere. This has been impossible until now, there has always been the constraint of do I really need to open my laptop, what if it dies, where is the power plug. As soon as masses realize that this is now no worry, everyone wants and needs 15+ hours battery life.
- adrianN 5y ago
  Unless those usecases are already covered by other devices that they have. A couple of years ago I might have wanted to use my laptop all day so that I can check the internet, listen to music etc. But today I can just use my phone for that.
refracture 5y ago
Here's a different take to that: If I refuse to use Windows as my OS on my Dell Inspiron 7559 I have to live with like 2 hours of battery life and a hot lap because power management doesn't work properly. So much as watching a YouTube video under Linux makes it loud and hot. Same laptop could do 9+ consistently for me in Windows and remained quiet unless I was actually putting load on it. The reading I've done on the Framework laptops makes it sound like this situation has not improved, or at least not anywhere near enough to compete with Windows.. this has effectively ruled them out of the running on a replacement laptop for me. An M1 based Macbook sure is looking appealing these days. I can live with macOS. Not everyone needs decent battery life, but some of us do.
- ungamed 5y ago
  > The reading I've done on the Framework laptops makes it sound like this situation has not improved. And yet I hear otherwise.. maybe your referencing the original review units that didnt run on 5.14.
  - refracture 5y ago
    It's possible, and when actively in the market I'll always revisit such things.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
for me it's the heat and lack of fan noise. I know that's not something that bothers some people but I thoroughly enjoy (the lack) of it.

Not everyone needs 15+ hours of battery life. I'd argue that most people don't. Laptops were extremely popular when the battery life was two hours. Now even older laptops get 5h+.

bertan 5y ago

> The argument against good low wattage cpus is just an inane and boring one. > Not everyone needs 15+ hours of battery life. Low wattage is not only about battery life. It is mostly about requiring less power for the same work. However you look at it, it is good for everyone. Now that Apple has shown that this can be done, everyone else will do the same.

dijit 5y ago

So what is the trade off you think you’re making? This is weird. I feel like I’m talking to someone who has a fixed opinion against something. It’s good for _everyone_ that these chips are as fast as the best chips on the market, have crazy low power consumption and the cost for new is comparable. Intel have been overcharging for more than a decade when innovation stagnated. Honestly, I’m not so hot on Apple (FD I am sending this from an iPhone), I prefer to run Linux on my machines but I would not advocate everyone to do that. Just like I wouldn’t advise people to buy old shoes because it’s cheaper. These machines are compelling even for me, a person who relishes the flexibility of a more open platform — I can not imagine myself not recommending them to someone who just uses office suites or communication software. The M1 is basically the best thing you can buy right now for the consumer; and the cost is equivalent for other business machines such as HPs elitebooks or dells latitude or xps lineup. And for power users: the only good argument you can make is that your tools don’t work for it or you don’t like macos. If you’re arguing a system to be worse: you’ve lost.

adrianN 5y ago
The tradeoff I'm making is money vs capability. My argument is that most people don't need the capabilities offered by brand new, top of the line models. A used laptop that is a couple of years old is, I think, the best choice for most people.
- dijit 5y ago
  A new M1 laptop is likely to last 4-5 years as a good specification of machine. A second hand laptop has much less advantage to doing that. I think this is a false economy. “The poor man pays twice” But regardless: the cost isn’t outrageous when compared to the Dell XPS/latitude or HP Elitebook lines (which are the only laptops I know of designed to last a 5y support cycle). If you’re buying a new laptop, I don’t think I could recommend anything other than an M1 unless you don’t like Apple or MacOS. Which is fair.
  - nasmorn 5y ago
    Also the M1 runs near silent or in case of the Air actually silent. I would pay an extra 1000 just for that alone. Turned out the Air was barely more than that in total. Which other laptop does that?
  - true_religion 5y ago
    The trade in value for my 6 year old MacBook Air is 150 dollars. Old computers depreciate so fast, that you can afford to buy ten of them for the price of one new computer.
    - dijit 5y ago
      Looks like they’re selling for more than twice that on ebay.co.uk though. And considering MacBook airs are $1000~ devices that’s really high. 6 years is also beyond the service life of a(ny) machine. If I look at 3 year old MacBook airs they’re selling for £600 on eBay, which is, what, half of the full cost. Not great for an already old machine with only a few good years left. I guess you might save a bit of money using extremely old hardware and keeping it for a while. But this is a really poor argument against an objectively good evolutionarily improved cpu in my opinion.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        > 6 years is also beyond the service life of a(ny) machine. That was the case for many decades. I think it’s no longer nearly the case. I’ve got a USB/DP KVM switch on my desk and regularly switch between my work laptop (2019 i9 MBPro) and my personal computer (2014 Dell i7-4790, added SSD and 32GB). Same 4K screens, peripherals, everything else. I find the Dell every bit as usable and expect to be using it 3 years from now. I wouldn’t be surprised if I retire the MacBook before the Dell. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i9-9980HK-vs-Intel-i7-4790/3451vs2226 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i9-9980HK-vs-Inte... shows the Mac to have only a slight edge and that’s a 2 year old literal top of line Mac laptop vs a mid-range commodity office desktop from 6 years ago bought with < $200 in added parts. (Much of what users do is waiting on the network or the human; when waiting on the CPU, you’re often waiting on something single-threaded. Mac is < 20% faster single-threaded.)

atirip 5y ago

> Not everyone needs mobile internet. I'd argue that most people don't. Mobile phones were extremely popular when they didn't have any internet connectivity. I am not mocking you, but here the case is that people do not know what true mobility for laptops is, that they literally can leave power brick behind, not to think about whether the battery lasts or not and use it freely during the day everywhere. This has been impossible until now, there has always been the constraint of do I really need to open my laptop, what if it dies, where is the power plug. As soon as masses realize that this is now no worry, everyone wants and needs 15+ hours battery life.

adrianN 5y ago
Unless those usecases are already covered by other devices that they have. A couple of years ago I might have wanted to use my laptop all day so that I can check the internet, listen to music etc. But today I can just use my phone for that.

refracture 5y ago

Here's a different take to that: If I refuse to use Windows as my OS on my Dell Inspiron 7559 I have to live with like 2 hours of battery life and a hot lap because power management doesn't work properly. So much as watching a YouTube video under Linux makes it loud and hot. Same laptop could do 9+ consistently for me in Windows and remained quiet unless I was actually putting load on it. The reading I've done on the Framework laptops makes it sound like this situation has not improved, or at least not anywhere near enough to compete with Windows.. this has effectively ruled them out of the running on a replacement laptop for me. An M1 based Macbook sure is looking appealing these days. I can live with macOS. Not everyone needs decent battery life, but some of us do.

ungamed 5y ago
> The reading I've done on the Framework laptops makes it sound like this situation has not improved. And yet I hear otherwise.. maybe your referencing the original review units that didnt run on 5.14.
- refracture 5y ago
  It's possible, and when actively in the market I'll always revisit such things.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

for me it's the heat and lack of fan noise. I know that's not something that bothers some people but I thoroughly enjoy (the lack) of it.