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Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop
- SilverElfin 10mo agoThe bit about HP’s naming scheme is painfully true, about many companies. Utterly dumb marketing strategies.
- krick 10mo agoI feel the same way, but I wouldn't be bold enough to call it dumb. I mean, I assume they know what they are doing. This is very inconvenient for me, as a buyer, but I suppose most companies just aren't Apple, so they throw at us a lot of various stuff hoping that something sticks. And, for that matter, Apple's product line gets more diversified each year too. now it's Air, and Pro, and Max, so I wouldn't bet it won't be G1 Ultra F12b in 10 more years too.
- fmajid 10mo agoZbook Ultra G1a 14 makes perfect sense: Z means workstation Book for notebook/laptop format, not desktop Ultra is the line, like Pro in MacBook Pro G1 is the first generation, that way you don't have to wonder a for AMD 14 is the screen diagonal
- mqus 10mo agoGreat, now I can compare it with other Zsomethings. But as the post shows, thats just one branch of many naming schemes HP employs. Also: This already is a workstation, how could it _not_ be "ultra"? Why the doubling? Or does "workstation" just mean "something I can work with", including office stuff? In that case, I am very interested what other letters they use and what they're for.
- fmajid 10mo agoFor the same reason there is the Z2, Z4, Z8. There are several tiers of workstations, the Zbook Ultra is the best PC laptop you can get in a non-boat-anchor format, bar none.
- smitty1e 10mo agoYour attention is drawn to https://system76.com/ https://system76.com/
- ntnsndr 10mo agoAmen. Not only do they make hardware in the US (though not laptops yet), they contribute great Linux software.
- bpye 10mo ago> Not only do they make hardware in the US Many outside of the US would consider that a con today.
- greenchair 10mo agoTDS
- pixelpoet 10mo agoPost history is exactly what one would expect...
- cesarvarela 10mo agoJust from the pictures you can tell it doesn't feel like a MacBook's unibody.
- shadowpho 10mo agotradeoffs :)
- hombre_fatal 10mo agoI'd love to hear people compare their system76 laptop to a Macbook, but it's really hard to find recommendations that don't just grade their non-Macbook on a curve just because it's not one. Edit: Way too many issues on r/system76.
- fruitworks 10mo agothe upgradability and interchangibility of parts in the framework ecosystem are needed to sustain a shelling point. As for the PC ecosystem, there are no good x86 cpus with good power effciciency. Maybe geohot would like https://metacomputing.io/products/metacomputing-arm-aipc https://metacomputing.io/products/metacomputing-arm-aipc ? Framework 13 does not have his specific touchpad complaint
- jph 10mo agoDo you know about Framework? https://frame.work/ https://frame.work/
- xrd 10mo agoRead the article.
- none2585 10mo agoI'm unsure if this is a joke or if you really didn't read the article
- forgetfulness 10mo agoThe author wants to buy a whole new computer every year or two max, instead of upgrading components That’s an impressive, so to speak, level of consumerism, reminds me of a self-professed minimalist that made the rounds here years ago, he practiced detachment from worldly possessions by throwing away his clothes after use and buying new ones, instead of washing them
- mappu 10mo agoI remember that story. I want to say it was the Soylent drink founder, but Google is steering me astray. Who was it?
- forgetfulness 10mo agoI can’t find it either. It may have been him, washing machines are the kind of alternating current appliances that he avoided in preparation for living in space HN was so enamored with him when his deal was about hacking eating into being more productive by not having to chew
- mappu 10mo agoFound it, I think - I remember the other part about his mini stove for making tea - https://web.archive.org/web/20150803225629/http://robrhinehart.com/?p=1331 https://web.archive.org/web/20150803225629/http://robrhineha... > I enjoy doing laundry about as much as doing dishes. I get my clothing custom made in China for prices you would not believe and have new ones regularly shipped to me. Shipping is a problem. I wish container ships had nuclear engines but it’s still much more efficient and convenient than retail. Thanks to synthetic fabrics it takes less water to make my clothes than it would to wash them, and I donate my used garments. I'm sure i remember a few more details, like his claim that black t-shirts worn only once are the most stylish possible garment, but i'm willing to put that part down to the Berenstein Bears effect.
- mithrilskeleton 10mo agothe whole pc laptop industry really is an embarrassment right now. It has been 5 years since the M1 Macbook release, and there is no real equivalent. I'm on a thinkpad x9, which might be the closest I've seen, but the cpu performance just isn't as good.
- no_wizard 10mo agoIt has always been an embarrassment. Vizio made a good laptop once and then they just existed the computer industry. They had a vision of high quality approachable laptops, desktops and pro platforms and their first gen was a good attempt, but they just didn’t follow on.
- s0rce 10mo agoI think it was fine 20 odd years ago. I had a Thinkpad T41p in 2004 and it was a great laptop. Even my Sony Vaio Z was nice in 2008 compared to the competition (although it had serious issues with the screen flexibility causing it to fail multiple times). Since 2012 I've had 3 Macs, a 2012 Air, a 2020 M1 (this was a massive upgrade and the nicest laptop I ever used, even compared to my relatively new work thinkpad). I just cracked the screen on my M1 so bought a discounted M4 air on black friday. I can't tell the difference other than I like having magsafe back and only miss the touch bar slightly.
- dafelst 10mo agoYes! I had a Vizio laptop (the thin one ala a macbook air) and it was absolutely fantastic, probably the best PC laptop I have ever had. It was lightweight, powerful, had a good screen (for the time) plus some things that few other laptops had at the time, like a TPM.
- spaniard89277 10mo agoStarlabs is pretty close IMO
- justinparus 10mo agoHave you bought one?
- doctorpangloss 10mo agoI don’t know. Just run Linux in a VM on macOS. What exactly is Apple not permitting you to do? Asahi would have 100x more adoption if it was about better virtualization of Linux on macOS. It would be a DIFFERENT product and I guess that’s the point, right?
- mschuster91 10mo ago> Just run Linux in a VM on macOS. What exactly is Apple not permitting you to do? High performance GPU for VMs, for starters. And the amount of crap that even a bare-bones macOS needs to load (and that consequently hog resources like RAM and CPU time) is a goddamn joke.
- adalacelove 10mo agoYou cannot uninstall Apple Music. That alone is alienating.
- philistine 10mo agoYou cannot uninstall Music.app indeed. There is one toggle that hides all of Apple Music. It completely hides it, to the point that a link online to the service will error out.
- RunSet 10mo agoThat setting was removed[0]. [0] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253315335?sortBy=rank https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253315335?sortBy=rank
- philistine 10mo agoI assure you that toggle is still present to remove Apple Music in the latest version of macOS. It's unchecked on my Mac as I type this.
- mrpippy 10mo ago
- jrflowers 10mo agoA good chunk of (but not all) his requirements would be fulfilled by an ASUS ROG Flow Z13
- flumpcakes 10mo agoHonestly this describes a product I would want. I want the hardware of a MacBook that runs Linux and not MacOS.
- krick 10mo agoI wonder why ThinkPads are not mentioned. It's not like I recommend them (I mean, I use one, but it's not like I've tried most laptops out there, so who I am to judge), but I was under the impression it's still a de-facto Linux laptop standard.
- johnhamlin 10mo agoHow’s the battery life?
- krick 10mo agoCannot properly evaluate now. I never really use it without a cable for too long, and by now the battery must have slightly degraded too. Anyway, it never was Macbook-level, I guess, and it's an oldish model, so you should check actual reviews for current models that you are interested in, there always was plenty of them for ThinkPads (at least, the last time when I looked for a new laptop).
- daemonologist 10mo agoThe old ones had hot-swappable batteries (a second internal battery - of decent size - kept the device going while you replaced the external one). I used to keep a couple of extra 50 Wh batteries in my backpack and therefore had excellent battery life. The power efficiency wasn't great though. I now have a Z13 Gen 1 (AMD 6850U) running Fedora and the battery life is passable. It draws 7-8W at idle from a 51 Wh battery.
- perching_aix 10mo agoThis is a refreshing take in some ways. I'm beyond tired of the usual rose-tinted attitudes towards customizability and after-engineered things. It was a bit disappointing to see the cold shower not reach the thermals situation however, despite the heavy emphasis on performant parts. Apple's offerings are phone-like, they let them saturate then throttle. The alternative is the ugly gamer laptops with their jet engines. Not sure I can wholeheartedly prefer either.
- MarsIronPI 10mo agoAll I want is a thinner Thinkpad X220 but with upped specs and newer ports. Framework-style upgradable motherboard would be nice but optional. The X220 already has a perfect keyboard, a mousing system that doesn't suck (sorry, I've never been happy with a trackpad: they feel too imprecise), a beautiful form factor for a laptop (if I want a laptop, I want it to be 12-14in for easiest portability), it's practically indestructible and has an array of ports that makes me wonder how people manage with just 3 USB-C ports. Maybe this is just me though.
- linguae 10mo agoIt's not just you; I would also love a modern ThinkPad x220. I have a Framework 13 and I enjoy it, though I wish it had better battery life. The perfect laptop for me would be my Framework 13 with a classic ThinkPad keyboard.
- tambourine_man 10mo ago> I've never been happy with a trackpad: they feel too imprecise Everything non-Apple is. Apple's trackpad are great and have been for decades. I’ve done professional image editing on the go even with the tiny by today’s standards PowerBook G4s trackpads. The real tragedy of our industry is that Apple got the basics right a few decades ago but seems determined to make their OS worse for pro user with every release. Yet no one else seems competent or willing to take on the challenge.
- sapphire_tomb 10mo agoI see this comment about how awesome Apple Trackpads are all the time here, and just assumed I was missing out because I'd never used a MacBook. But I got given a MacBook Pro recently for work, and I'm super underwhelmed. The trackpad on it is no better or worse than any other trackpad I've used.
- nehal3m 10mo agoPart of their magic is the integration with the operating system in the form of gestures. Their UI for discovering those used to be stellar; every gesture had a little video preview. Right now I'd describe it as just okay. Check the 'trackpad gestures' section in system settings, or this: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102482 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102482
- fizzynut 10mo agoHonestly if you actually need high end specs then you should just build a PC. "16 core Zen 5 CPU, 40 core RDNA 3.5 GPU. 64GB of LPDDR5X RAM @ 256 GB/s + stunning OLED" - Easily done as a pc build. In a world where you can get this laptop with Linux, there's a new set of trade-offs - - be prepared for a LOT of things not working because the size of the market for extremely expensive configurations with high end CPU + GPU + RAM + Monitor + Linux is practically zero. - when closing the lid and walking to the coffee shop will the battery be dead before you finish your coffee? probably - will a new GPU/GPU architecture be a headache for the first X years...yes, and if you want to replace every 2 years, I guess you will have a permanent headache. - will updating graphics drivers be a problem? yes - is the text in your "stunning oled" going to be rendered correctly in linux? probably not - will the wifi chip work in linux? maybe - will all the ports work/behave? probably not - will your machine perform worse than a high end PC that cost 1/2 as much from 3 years ago... yes.
- wmf 10mo agoI think the point of him making his own laptop is that he would fix all those software problems.
- energy123 10mo agoIs his build even possible today in a laptop? In a desktop, you would need a top of the line threadripper for that 256GB/s of memory bandwidth. Consumer grade Zen 5 desktops reach only about 80GB/s in real world testing, with a theoretical max of slightly over 100GB/s.
- dinosaurdynasty 10mo agoAMD Strix Halo (a consumer mobile processor) has theoretical support for 256GB/s of memory bandwidth (quad-channel, 8000 MT/s LPDDR5X, must be soldered, supports 128GB at most).
- fizzynut 10mo agoThe memory is shared for the GPU, so you should probably compare with desktop GPU, so 1-2TB/s.
- johnhamlin 10mo agoI’ve been feeling exact way for a while now. Tahoe brought it to a head. I just want a portable machine I truly own and control that doesn’t suck. Why is that so much to ask?
- tayo42 10mo agoI get the complaint about naming but hp is different then apple. They sell a variety of configurations and one isn't neccesarily better then any other.
- daemonologist 10mo agoI'm holding out a little bit of hope that Valve puts out a laptop - the Steam Deck has notably good power management for a linux device of its class (and I've even heard of people using them as laptop replacements), though the idle power is still higher than a Macbook. They're going to have made a desktop, gaming handheld, and VR device; why not one more?
- mcny 10mo agoMaybe they will spend more than five cents and get a decent hinge? I would love to support Valve if the build quality is good and the price is decent.
- viraptor 10mo agoWhat would be the reason for their laptop to exist? People on the move get the steamdeck. Others get the GabeCube. Based on the steam hardware stats / graphics cards, there's very little laptop usage. I'm not sure there's enough market to get them interested.
- gpm 10mo agoCollege students playing video games in class? Also in dorm rooms where they don't have space for a whole monitor/keyboard/mouse setup. But yeah seems like a game adjacent market... Which might be fine but isn't there MO.
- daemonologist 10mo agoThe reason would probably have to be because the employees themselves want such a device; maybe there could be some angle of having an ARM dev machine for the Steam Frame. I agree that it seems unlikely though.
- kevinherron 10mo agoOne model/configuration will never work because developers are awful, picky customers. You’ll lose 90,000 of your 100,000 with one or more little nitpicks. Probably 50% right off the bat because you chose a keyboard with or without a numpad. Another huge chunk because you chose the wrong screen (Retina resolution? Low resolution? Refresh rate?) Too bad, because I want this. Or at least the version of it I have in my head :)
- miningape 10mo agoApple / macbooks seem to be doing fine
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- chungy 10mo agoThe blog is premised on the idea that Apple and MacBook are not doing fine.
- rowanG077 10mo agoThe reason of course being the awful software, not the hardware options. He makes that abundantly clear in the text.
- miningape 10mo agoYou missed my point, the original comment is stating that the market for such a device doesn't exist because developers are too finicky and customisation focussed. As a counter example - look at macbooks which are about as un-customisable as they come, but a large portion of developers use them. Meaning the market exists even if it's currently dominated by Apple (which as you/the post points out is slipping)
- prmoustache 10mo agoNot everybody use/choose macbook though. Having said that I do believe that many brands have way too mamy SKU and I widh they would be more opinionated on what they believe is better for their customers while maintaining clear and strong ethics (reliability should be #priority)
- jockm 10mo agoI mostly think of when geohot wanted to make his own RISC-V core and cranked out some basic verilog. It was incomplete and barely commented, and never touched again. I suspect we are going to get a few blog posts of analysis and then he moves on to something else
- jedbrooke 10mo ago> Consumer electronics naming is very simple. Make a good product with a simple name. “iPhone”, “comma”, “Z Fold”. Then every year or two, add one to the number of that product. If it’s a small refresh, you can add a letter after the number. “2 3 3X 4” “4 4s 5 5s 6 …” “2 3 4 5 6 7” Why is this so hard for companies like HP? Oh man I feel this every time there’s a games console launch. I still have no idea what the latest Xbox is called but Sony gets it right with “Playstation <N>” Apple loses some points here since every macbook from like 2007 until 2020 was just called “Macbook pro” with no year officially in the name so you have to be really careful when eg looking at used listings for macbooks. But since the M1 it’s been good with M<1-5>
- mikestorrent 10mo agoWe could have had Xbox 720, 1080... but no. xbox 1 x one one x triple X amsterdam edition.
- morshu9001 10mo agoAnd there are two Xbox Ones
- systemtest 10mo agoXbox One Kinect, Xbox One non-Kinect, Xbox One S with disc drive, Xbox One S All-Digital Edition, Xbox One X And then you have the various drive options, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, game bundles, day one edition. We are talking about dozens of variants.
- rcbdev 10mo agoI suspect they were referring to the first Xbox. It used to be colloquially referred to as "Xbox One" before Microsoft decided on their piss-poor naming scheme after the 360.
- Narishma 10mo agoThose aren't really good names either, IMO. Even the 360 was just OK. They should just have gone with Xbox 2. Or Xbox 3 and skipped a number if they really were worried about lagging behind PlayStation as it's sometimes alleged.
- bloppe 10mo agoI agree about some criticisms of the framework. I think they could do away with the plug modules and just go all in on usb-c. I don't mind the occasional dongle for HDMI. I also would prefer a thinner screen bezel, even if that means it's not swappable either. But having easy access to internal hardware for upgrades is pretty huge. Rather than blowing 1-2k on a new machine every few years, it's just $200-500 for more RAM and a better CPU (assuming prices go back to normal in a reasonable amount of time)
- Octoth0rpe 10mo ago> I think they could do away with the plug modules and just go all in on usb-c. I don't mind the occasional dongle for HDMI. Strong agree. After all, their plug modules are really just dongles that are integrated into the body, which makes them worse IMO. More expensive, model-specific, etc.
- synalx 10mo agoAnd a major consumer of space, because they have to accommodate bigger ports even if they're only doing USB-C pass-through.
- TiredOfLife 10mo agoFrameworks (laptops) are all in on usb-c. That's the only port they come with. The modules are just type-c dongles. And they are too small - the official ethernet one hangs outside the body.
- mft_ 10mo agoAgree; the choosing ports thing is a gimmick. These days, one video/charging-capable USB-C on each side, plus a USB-A and maybe an SD slot somewhere are enough for most use cases.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- simmo9000 10mo agoHow much would you pay? Seriously. There is market demand, but at what price? Hardware is a thin margin product. Is it a few off the shelf parts placed in a custom CNCed block of aluminium or is it engineered, from the ground up, to suit purpose. Getting an idea of what would people pay for such a product is step one. 5k?
- barfoure 10mo agoGeorge is probably too young to remember when we thought OS X was hot shit because it was UNIX compliant. That meant a lot back then. However over the years they dropped the ball big time. Arch may be the new hotness but BSD was the once (and hopefully future) king.
- linguae 10mo agoHaving an iBook or a PowerBook with Mac OS X was a big deal at a time when driver support for Linux was less commonplace than it is today. Even today there are driver issues with Linux on some laptops. Part of the reason I bought a Core Duo MacBook the summer after my freshman year of college was because Apple was the only vendor I knew where I could purchase a fully-supported Unix laptop. It could also run Microsoft Office without having to dual-boot with Windows, though ironically I ended up just using NeoOffice (a Mac fork of OpenOffice), the Apple iWork suite, and LaTeX during my college years.
- Teknomadix 10mo agogeohot: "I want a laptop with a high-end AMD chip, great Linux power management, good docs, solid build, and a normal name" My brother in christ, the ThinkPad T14s Gen 5 AMD exists. Zen 5, aluminum chassis, legendary Linux support, actual power state documentation. They been doing this for 30 years. Dude, you're bikeshedding a product that's been sitting in the enterprise aisle this whole time ThinkPads have been the Linux laptop for decades precisely because of the things he's wishing for. Public ACPI/power management docs, upstream kernel support, and AMD options with sane power profiles. He even admits the ZBook touchpad is fine but fails to acknowledge ThinkPads have had excellent trackpoints + multi-touchpads since forever.
- hombre_fatal 10mo agoLink to the one that's so great, especially a Macbook contender? He has a $2000+ Thinkpad X1 and it was basically his least favorite one in his lineup from last week except for the Framework's bad display: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M96O0Sn1LXA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M96O0Sn1LXA The snark doesn't seem warranted. Edit: The laptop you're talking about is also 14" 1920x1200 or am I lost in Lenovo's awful website? A 14" Macbook is 3024x1964. The more I look, the worse it gets, especially after you hyped it like that.
- jclulow 10mo agoI recently replaced my aging X1C7 with a T14s AMD and it has been quite nice!
- Teknomadix 10mo agoThey really are nice machines. The p series are even better. I'm using a P14s Gen 6 AMD as my daily driver and it is just a fabulous little machine
- antonkochubey 10mo agoNot sure what laptop you confused it with, but T14s Gen 5 is sold with Intel CPUs only.
- encom 10mo ago>the trade-off I’d prefer is 0 upgradability or customizability in exchange for less weight and more polish This mentality is ruining everything. Not just computers, but everything including cars and appliances. It's disappointing - I thought geohot was more of a hacker. If he really wants a glued together, disposable piece of crap, you can't do better than Apple, and then just tolerate the OS and maybe VM Linux.
- ruuda 10mo agoDell XPS used to be like this, but unfortunately Dell discontinued them :'(
- procaryote 10mo agoThe framework model is the reasonable approach to people being finnicky about their laptop specs. You can't sustain "I want it just so" and "it needs to be a cnc-machined glued together brick, engineered to the last gramme" at the same time, without a step change in how we build hardware, but the framework comes pretty close If linux power management got a bit better, and there was a good arm chip, it would be a great machine. Now it's just pretty good
- maccard 10mo ago> If linux power management got a bit better Honestly this is the thing that holds me back from using not a mac. My MacBook is always at the same battery level when I open it as it was when I closed it. My windows laptop regularly decides to do _something_ overnight and is dead when I try to use it, about once a week.
- no-stegosaur 10mo agoMicrosoft had this shitty idea of "InstantGo" aka "InstantOn" aka "Modern Standby" aka "Connected Standby" (the namings alone give away whose idea it was). They think that people cannot wait the like 1 second when opening a laptop to return from suspend2ram / s3, and they think that laptops should be connected to networks all the time. What for I have no idea, they're not phones after all. So now laptops do not actually sleep anymore, at all. The merely run in a low power profile. The worst is that support for S3 got worse in many bios/uefi implementations, where either it doesn't work properly anymore or it is gone entirely :(
- viraptor 10mo agoMaybe soon; https://www.notebookcheck.net/Framework-Laptop-13-gets-ARM-processor-with-12-cores-via-upgrade-kit.1177930.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Framework-Laptop-13-gets-ARM-p...
- class3shock 10mo agoThe power management is one of my biggest issues with my Framework 16 but I am hoping it gets better over time with newer linux releases as it has for other laptops I've had.
- mghackerlady 10mo agoDifferent priorities I suppose but I'd absolutely hate using that laptop. I want something designed to last, not be thrown out in a few years. IDK when it became cool to just expect everyone to have the money or care to buy a new <thneed> every few years. I guess it makes more money but since that seems to be the only thing companies with a marketing budget do people have forgotten there's an actual market for well built electronics that will at least survive 5 years
- forty 10mo agoI think the kind of laptop this person wishes should simply be made illegal to make. We cannot sustain having all electric devices being thrown after a year or two, these things need to last, to be repairable and make it easy to grab pieces and materials when they die anyway
- Yokolos 10mo ago> I don’t care one bit about upgradability or customizability. After a year or two, I’m happy to throw it out and buy a new one. It’s not like upgradability is a bad thing, but it usually comes with tradeoffs to weight and power draw, and I’d rather it all be in one solid package glued together. And I don’t like customizability because I like when all the testing and polish work is put into one configuration. Jesus christ. What a wasteful and selfish way to look at things.
- wjnc 10mo agoTo defend OP somewhat: his throw out should be someone else’s pre-owned and then we are square. Not in defense: This is a customer who sees itself as an ultra pro user that only wants the best on all dimensions regardless of economics. Nice that there are about a few hundred of these customers in the world. This is a market that doesn’t exist and frankly, give this customer their wish and they only have other or more wishes.
- icemelt8 10mo ago> I’m typing this blog on a HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14. Question to HP, who names this crap? Why do these companies insist on having the most confusing product lineups and names. The reason is that they are not serious companies, this is why anything other than a real macbook and with a real macOS is not worth having spent time on.
- nkko 10mo agoThe naming fails at big cos is simply caused by having internal branding teams that need to justify their existence.
- barrkel 10mo agoNo, it's more like they sell to a bunch of verticals and they have checklist-orientated market segmentation where they can eke out a little extra profit selling a specific line to a specific industry because they need a specific doodad or certification.
- greenchair 10mo agoThis has got to be part of it at least for some industries. I never understood why marketing teams would keep things so convoluted on purpose. Seemed like the exact opposite of what they should be doing.
- barrkel 10mo agoOf course different strokes for different folks. My favorite laptop at this point is a terminal for my home workstation which is far more powerful than anything mobile. That means I prioritize decent graphical performance, OLED screen, long battery life, and I don't really mind too much using WSL in Windows. All my development doesn't really happen locally any more.
- kmac_ 10mo agoThere's plenty of good hardware outside the Apple world. Heck, whenever I get convinced to try Apple hardware or software, its quirks and obvious glitches put me off. Input lag is the topmost issue. It immediately washes off the "quality" impression. But I understand that Apple users are used to that and don't notice such issues.
- maccard 10mo agoWhat would you recommend? > input lag is the topmost issue IME this is a massive problem on windows and android and apple actually gets it right. They occasionally have stupid animations but those animations are responsive and trigger immediately. I don’t experience 3-5 second stalls (seriously the share dialog on android is a disgrace, and the windows start menu has become the least reliable part of the OS), and the input devices track to on screen movements - something I can’t say for win/android.
- lostdog 10mo agoYup, the "switch desktops/spaces" input lag is the absolute worst on Mac. It's remarkable that Apple has a reputation of being good at UX.
- vladvasiliu 10mo ago> Input lag is the topmost issue What do you mean? I haven't daily driven a Mac in almost five years now. I mainly run Linux and occasionally Windows on regular PCs. Whenever I open a MacBook, the first thing I notice is how reactive it feels. Sure, I could do without the animations, but I think that's a different issue. This impression is all the more pronounced if I'd been using Windows just before, but that's probably because Linux is a pretty bare i3 setup.
- kmac_ 10mo agoI mean mouse (Magic Mouse, precisely) and trackpad lag. The Magic Mouse also had random stuttering, a really horrible experience on brand new hardware. There were also other pain points. Returning to "standard" PC hardware and Linux was a real bliss.
- Lio 10mo agoI could agree that Apple’s software is a big trade off but the hardware seems fine. I don’t think much has changed since the 16” and 14” MacBook Pros came out and both had better hardware than was previously on offer. IMHO they got the formula right with the 14” and I’m glad they’ve stuck with it. All I could ask for is maybe faster GPU or TPU and more memory. Possibly the ability to use an eGPU again. Otherwise it’s fine. I worry much more about macOS and what they’ve done with the UI.
- layer8 10mo agoI just don’t use laptops. My employer never required me to use one, and with remote logins and WFH there is also little need for mobility. A desktop setup is necessary for good ergonomics anyway, and then you may as well use a desktop computer. In a pinch, I can use an iPad with remote desktop on the go, but the need rarely arises.
- npodbielski 10mo agoI agree but as the HN post few months ago about a guy who uses glasses to connect to his phone as an external screen, this would be great. Having ability to work outside and have a nice big screen... thought of working in the summer outside and have a daily dose of vitamin D... Working entire days in my office in my house is comfortable but kind of sad. When you are finally done it is late and sun is setting already.
- layer8 10mo agoI’m lucky to have flexible working hours, so I can take breaks during the day and go out for errands, for a walk or bike ride. Working outside in the sun sounds nice, but display/glasses technology isn’t quite there yet for that, and I’d still want an ergonomic chair and proper ergonomic keyboard on a stable surface (table), for any extended work.
- arresin 10mo agoThat was a very interesting post / comment (the XR glasses guy). I wonder if that setup is still holding up. Glasses guy, if you’re reading this, can you comment please?
- franga2000 10mo ago> After a year or two, I’m happy to throw it out and buy a new one. Sincerely, fuck you. Nobody with this mentality should be designing anything. I know many people at most hardware companies think like that and they can go fuck themselves too. But at least they have the excuse of getting fired if they make things too good. You don't.
- andriesm 10mo agoIf someone makes a linux laptop that is as good as the a bleeding edge apple macbook air, it is shut-up&take-my-money. But it is hard to imagine a company spending the time to smooth a linux config on their hardware config and make sure it reaches the "just works" that apple has! Boy would I love it! Please, someone do this! Getting tired of Apple's walled garden become ever more locked up and enshittification.
- listic 10mo agoI doubt there will ever be a market for a device with this specific (or many other kinds of other specific) set of requirements, especially if one insists on that 'last bit of polish'. Short of fully developed molecular nanotechnology or similar, allowing economic manufacturing of bespoke hardware in single copies, which is another world from the one we live in, I don't see such wishes come true, so the author (and others like him) will have to settle for something else.
- eertami 10mo agoSurely OLED is bad for a productivity device due to poor text rendering. For games or media, sure.
- throw12945 10mo agoOLED doesn't support subpixel rendering, but if the resolution is high enough, this doesn't matter (Apple doesn't use it either, and text looks great on their devices, but not if you use external low-dpi monitors).
- arresin 10mo agoIs burn in still a concern?
- throw12945 10mo agoAdd ECC memory to the list. For some reason, laptops with ECC memory support are incredibly difficult to find now, and so are the ECC DDR5 SODIMMs, even before the current price hike. I want to have a rock solid mobile workstation, that isn't necessarily more powerful than a midrange consumer gaming laptop, that would show warnings and errors before corrupting my data.
- thebigspacefuck 10mo ago> I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels Apple’s quality is degrading. Tbh I don’t really feel this way. We all agree hands down that Macbook has the best hardware. Apple Silicon has been a huge success for speed and power consumption. I haven’t used the newest macOS but like the butterfly keyboard and touch bar I assume they’ll work out (or fix by reverting) the issues. It’s probably not even that bad. Sonoma is still receiving security updates so I’m good for now. And most of the things that people want in a non-MacBook laptop are still a few years before falling off patent. I’m fine waiting and playing around with Framework or Steam machines until then if I need another hobby.
- phendrenad2 10mo agoThe problem is, laptop companies don't "make laptops". They are big machines that puts parts together in the right configuration and call them "laptops". No thought goes into it. They are indistinguishable from any other deep pipeline of manufacturing, such as one that makes bicycles or refrigerators. New year, generate a new product ID, upgrade the CPU and RAM using the reference schematic provided by AMD/Intel, throw it in the ERP, make a BOM, and start rolling them off the assembly line. What we see is a deep disconnect between visionaries and the companies that operate these deep pipelines. Apple has tried to maintain a connection between design and manufacturing by having great designers at the top (and other companies poach them). A few daywalkers like Bunnie Huang walk both sides of the world.
- superdisk 10mo agoIf he made this I would buy it in a second. Right now my non-work daily driver is a Thinkpad X1 Carbon because I fell for the Thinkpad meme, but it's honestly pretty terrible all things considered. Battery life sucks, touchpad sucks, the shell is plasticky and weird. Mac-tier hardware that runs Linux would be extremely welcome.
- barfoure 10mo ago> Wait wait wait OMEN MAX 16z-ak000 has a lot of capital letters, that one must be the best, right? But there’s also an HP EliteBook, Elite sounds like the best, do I still want a ZBook? To be fair the names chosen are usually cringe and towards a specific market. To posit: “Pro”, “Elite”, etc: professional audience. “Epic”, “Fury”, etc: teen gamers. “Yoga”, “Zen”, etc: you can guess. You get the idea. The garbled names with an a, z or i suffix for slightly different SKUs is obnoxious and as hotz mentions confusing. But more to the point their marketing departments suck and lose to the Apple gorilla. Reminds me how Porsche sells one car in a hundred configurations and they all cost a lot and yet they all suck.
- matheusmoreira 10mo agoIn case anyone wants to actually get into this, cyberdeck development communities are a good place to start. https://youtu.be/o00P7wHbd2c https://youtu.be/o00P7wHbd2c https://youtu.be/2VDRO9jjZzo https://youtu.be/2VDRO9jjZzo Really fun stuff if you have the necessary electronics knowledge!
- mortsnort 10mo agoYeah why isn't anyone else making hardware for niche operating systems that is on par with a $4T luxury, bespoke hardware company's products!
- findyoucef 10mo agoDoesn't the HP 14" ZBook Ultra G1a give him exactly the computer he's looking for aside from the naming convention?