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Every time I read something like "completely redefines professional computing" I think that somebody in the marketing department didn't do a good enough job to

by pmontra 5mo ago

Every time I read something like "completely redefines professional computing" I think that somebody in the marketing department didn't do a good enough job to disguise a sponsored content, or at the very least didn't review what the independent author wrote. Anyway, what I like of this machine is the 15" screen with a keyboard without a numberpad: the center of the body of the user can be aligned with the center of the screen. The screen seems to be particularly bright, which is good. There are claims of good self repairability, we will see when it starts to sell. I'd wait a few years before buying one machine in this product line. I want to see how Windows on ARM will play out in terms of compatibility. My build targets are all Intel servers (Linux), so I don't want to have surprises. I would have to wait years anyway because I would run Linux and I think that it takes more effort to port Linux to new ARM hardware that to new Intel one (ACPI etc.) WSL is not an option because I still have Windows around it and it's even more unpleasant than having to deal a Mac GUI. Let's say that if this were an Intel laptop I'd be tempted to buy it, if the hands on reviews will be good.

fodkodrasz 5mo ago
I'm curious about the openness of the platform. As long as the openness and standardization of the PC platform is not present, this platform is not a contender of x86 in my eyes. We can see with the highly praised Apple M platform on the example of the Asahi Linux what the lack of openness brings: people are locked in to operating systems by the vendors, and planned obsolescence, even with long support periods. On the other hand the PCs abandoned by Windows 11 support (sometimes even 1 year old models!) had the freedom to choose from a variety of operating systems, all thanks to the openness of the PC platform. Repairability is important, but why repair something when you can only use terrible, soon out of support operating, which spy on you? (This means practically any OS vendored by large corporations) For ARM systems openness boils down to the custom boot process, and of course the driver support. Has ARM PC vendors standardized on a boot standard yet? I cal recall the horror on reading articles how Raspberry Pi boot was working, or how M1 Mac bootloader is locked down.
- thisislife2 5mo ago
  Yes, with 128GB RAM, I guess one could even ignore that it is soldered (and hence "unrepairable"), but if it can't run Linux or *BSD it is a definite no go. We definitely don't need two closed hardware platform duopoly (Apple and Microsoft), as together they will dominate and kill the "open" platforms. But I am pessimistic here as everything seems headed towards that eventuality. We should never have accepted smartphones as closed platforms.
  - fsflover 5mo ago
    > We should never have accepted smartphones as closed platforms. I didn't. Sent from my Librem 5.
  - rbanffy 5mo ago
    > But I am pessimistic here as everything seems headed towards that eventuality. Lots of companies buy average Dell and Lenovo laptops because they are repairable in-house.
    - thisislife2 5mo ago
      That's good to know - but many of their models also have soldered RAM, which is disappointing.
      - rbanffy 5mo ago
        Some of the chips they use are designed for soldered chips. I’m not sure whether that’s because of signal degradation over longer PCB traces and sockets.
  - jraph 5mo ago
    > Yes, with 128GB RAM, I guess one could even ignore that it is soldered Unless that RAM fails in some way or another, then you have to replace the whole motherboard because of this.
    - 5mo ago
camillomiller 5mo ago
>Anyway, what I like of this machine is the 15" screen with a keyboard without a numberpad: the center of the body of the user can be aligned with the center of the screen. The screen seems to be particularly bright, which is good. There are claims of good self repairability, we will see when it starts to sell. Oh you mean like the incredible MacBook Pros of the last two generations that have been selling like hotcakes and have a surprisingly similar design to this device? "Redmond, start your photocopiers" never gets old.
- DeathArrow 5mo ago
  Apple wouldn't ever do something like that. "Good artists copy, great artists steal"
  - kergonath 5mo ago
    This quote is terribly misunderstood. "Steal" here means "make it your own", as in, improve it, not "copy slavishly". What it means is that to be great you have to find good ideas and then execute.
    - dragonwriter 5mo ago
      Yeah, you are correct: in “good artists copy, great artists steal”, the “steal” doesn’t mean “copy”. But, OTOH, there’s another word in there that does...
  - camillomiller 5mo ago
    In fact no, not in this “let’s throw some more shit at the wall and see what sticks” way
- tiahura 5mo ago
  No. Surface has superior aspect ratio.
bandrami 5mo ago
I just got one of the lighter Snapdragon surface laptops and the software ecosystem is still hit and miss. LuaJIT in particular still has build problems on WoA and that's unfortunately upstream of a lot of stuff I use day-to-day. The NPU is apparently neat if you're into LLMs (it can allegedly run gemma) but that's not my thing.
kombine 5mo ago
> Anyway, what I like of this machine is the 15" screen with a keyboard without a numberpad: the center of the body of the user can be aligned with the center of the screen. ThinkPad P1 is the machine for you and you can run Linux on it.
- jampekka 5mo ago
  I have a ThinkPad P1 (Gen 2) and I run Linux, but I'd hesitate to recommend at least the Nvidia dGPU versions. The battery life is dismal, even with the dGPU disabled in software (can't be HW disabled). It also runs really hot and the suspend is still flakey.
827a 5mo ago
Though in fairness: Windows on ARM (even ignoring the earlier iteration of it from ~2016) has had a year or two to mature thanks to the Copilot+ PCs. And, this particular chip seems near-identical to the one Nvidia put in the DGX Spark (again, even ignoring earlier ARM CPUs from Nvidia like Tegra in the Nintendo Switch).

by pmontra 5mo ago

fodkodrasz 5mo ago

I'm curious about the openness of the platform. As long as the openness and standardization of the PC platform is not present, this platform is not a contender of x86 in my eyes. We can see with the highly praised Apple M platform on the example of the Asahi Linux what the lack of openness brings: people are locked in to operating systems by the vendors, and planned obsolescence, even with long support periods. On the other hand the PCs abandoned by Windows 11 support (sometimes even 1 year old models!) had the freedom to choose from a variety of operating systems, all thanks to the openness of the PC platform. Repairability is important, but why repair something when you can only use terrible, soon out of support operating, which spy on you? (This means practically any OS vendored by large corporations) For ARM systems openness boils down to the custom boot process, and of course the driver support. Has ARM PC vendors standardized on a boot standard yet? I cal recall the horror on reading articles how Raspberry Pi boot was working, or how M1 Mac bootloader is locked down.

thisislife2 5mo ago
Yes, with 128GB RAM, I guess one could even ignore that it is soldered (and hence "unrepairable"), but if it can't run Linux or *BSD it is a definite no go. We definitely don't need two closed hardware platform duopoly (Apple and Microsoft), as together they will dominate and kill the "open" platforms. But I am pessimistic here as everything seems headed towards that eventuality. We should never have accepted smartphones as closed platforms.
- fsflover 5mo ago
  > We should never have accepted smartphones as closed platforms. I didn't. Sent from my Librem 5.
- rbanffy 5mo ago
  > But I am pessimistic here as everything seems headed towards that eventuality. Lots of companies buy average Dell and Lenovo laptops because they are repairable in-house.
  - thisislife2 5mo ago
    That's good to know - but many of their models also have soldered RAM, which is disappointing.
    - rbanffy 5mo ago
      Some of the chips they use are designed for soldered chips. I’m not sure whether that’s because of signal degradation over longer PCB traces and sockets.
- jraph 5mo ago
  > Yes, with 128GB RAM, I guess one could even ignore that it is soldered Unless that RAM fails in some way or another, then you have to replace the whole motherboard because of this.
  - 5mo ago

camillomiller 5mo ago

>Anyway, what I like of this machine is the 15" screen with a keyboard without a numberpad: the center of the body of the user can be aligned with the center of the screen. The screen seems to be particularly bright, which is good. There are claims of good self repairability, we will see when it starts to sell. Oh you mean like the incredible MacBook Pros of the last two generations that have been selling like hotcakes and have a surprisingly similar design to this device? "Redmond, start your photocopiers" never gets old.

DeathArrow 5mo ago
Apple wouldn't ever do something like that. "Good artists copy, great artists steal"
- kergonath 5mo ago
  This quote is terribly misunderstood. "Steal" here means "make it your own", as in, improve it, not "copy slavishly". What it means is that to be great you have to find good ideas and then execute.
  - dragonwriter 5mo ago
    Yeah, you are correct: in “good artists copy, great artists steal”, the “steal” doesn’t mean “copy”. But, OTOH, there’s another word in there that does...
- camillomiller 5mo ago
  In fact no, not in this “let’s throw some more shit at the wall and see what sticks” way
tiahura 5mo ago
No. Surface has superior aspect ratio.

bandrami 5mo ago

I just got one of the lighter Snapdragon surface laptops and the software ecosystem is still hit and miss. LuaJIT in particular still has build problems on WoA and that's unfortunately upstream of a lot of stuff I use day-to-day. The NPU is apparently neat if you're into LLMs (it can allegedly run gemma) but that's not my thing.

kombine 5mo ago

> Anyway, what I like of this machine is the 15" screen with a keyboard without a numberpad: the center of the body of the user can be aligned with the center of the screen. ThinkPad P1 is the machine for you and you can run Linux on it.

jampekka 5mo ago
I have a ThinkPad P1 (Gen 2) and I run Linux, but I'd hesitate to recommend at least the Nvidia dGPU versions. The battery life is dismal, even with the dGPU disabled in software (can't be HW disabled). It also runs really hot and the suspend is still flakey.

827a 5mo ago

Though in fairness: Windows on ARM (even ignoring the earlier iteration of it from ~2016) has had a year or two to mature thanks to the Copilot+ PCs. And, this particular chip seems near-identical to the one Nvidia put in the DGX Spark (again, even ignoring earlier ARM CPUs from Nvidia like Tegra in the Nintendo Switch).