14 ms·

Nor do laptops anymore.

dragontamer 13y ago
A $300 Dell Venue 8 Pro Intel Atom tablet is faster than a Macbook Pro of 4 years ago. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7263/intel-teases-baytrail-performance-with-atom-z3770-cinebench-score http://www.anandtech.com/show/7263/intel-teases-baytrail-per...
- spicyj 13y ago
  Computers are getting cheaper, but the high end isn't improving much over time.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    DDR4 is around the corner, PCIe SSDs are as well. But the real improvement is battery life. Intel Haswell machines are lasting 10 to 16 hours now, and this number will only improve as Intel moves to 14nm and 10nm designs. EDIT: Woops, I mean 22-hours. http://blog.gsmarena.com/toshiba-squeezes-22-hour-battery-life-out-of-haswell-powered-kirabook/ http://blog.gsmarena.com/toshiba-squeezes-22-hour-battery-li... Computers aren't getting faster because no one cares about that. The majority of the design effort is now into battery life. A Dell Venue 8 Pro lasts 8+ hours on a single charge, on a tiny 20Whr battery (while being faster than the 4-year-old Macbook Pro). The 4-year-old Core2Duo Macbook Pros lasted only a couple of hours on behemoth 60Whr batteries. Battery efficiency will matter when it comes down to lightness and style. Better battery efficiency will lead to thinner, sleeker, lighter designs. Generally speaking, the "progress" of modern computers is battery efficiency, leading to smaller batteries, leading to lighter and smaller computers.
- sscalia 13y ago
  Doesn't matter. Does Photoshop feel measurably faster on a 4 year old Macbook Pro vs. a new one? Does email? Does web browsing? Minus some spergy cases (PC gaming, 3d rendering, virtualization, etc) most computers are just fine for everyday tasks for a long while.
  - sscalia 13y ago
    Someone didn't like "spergy" Heh.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    Then get the $300 Asus Vivotab Note, instead of spending $60/month on a lease on a new laptop. Within 6 months, you'll have made your money back and then some (Especially since the $300 tablet can do everything a 4-year-old computer can do, while having superior battery life, significantly less weight, support of a Wacom Active Stylus and a touchscreen) Yes, I have run Photoshop and Gimp on a $300 Baytrail Tablet. Yes, they work. I can personally verify that fact. On the other hand, I do notice significant performance increases when comparing these cheap, tiny computers against my beefy Desktop. Regardless, I speak from experience. Benchmarks do not lie however, these $300 Baytrail tablets are faster than Macbook Pros from 4 years ago. Regardless of how you slice it, computers depreciate significantly faster than cars. For those where "just enough" performance is good enough, you might as well buy these modern $300 netbooks / tablets than lease a top-of-the-line laptop for $60/month... unless you really throw away your laptops after less than 5 months of usage. A brand new cheap computer is better than a top-of-the-line computer from 4 years ago. And for those who are chasing the top end, modern premium computers are released too often for this lease business model to make sense IMO.
    - auctiontheory 13y ago
      Regardless of how you slice it, computers depreciate significantly faster than cars. Actually an MBP [1] holds its value better than many Detroit products[2]. [1] See eBay. [2] http://www.forbes.com/2010/10/27/cars-resale-value-lifestyle-vehicles-depreciation-residual-used.html http://www.forbes.com/2010/10/27/cars-resale-value-lifestyle...
      - dragontamer 13y ago
        I'm thinking of the typical car vs the typical computer. >> New cars typically lose about 20% of their value the moment they’re driven off the lot, and about 65% after five years. MBPs are one of the few computers that hold their value the best. But after 5 years, you're looking at a depreciation rate of 75%+ (going from $2000+ in 2009 to only $500 in 2014). But we're looking at the _best_ computer that holds its value the best. No one gives a damn about a refurbished Dell Inspiron from 2010. www.sears.com/dell-refurbished-dell-latitude-e6400-14inch-notebook-intel/ You're looking at ~90% depreciation for the more typical laptop, and maybe 70% if you focus only on Macbooks. With Cars, you're looking at 65% typical depreciation, with only ~45% if you focus on Camrys or Corolas. A 2009 Camry will run you ~12k today, only 45% depreciation.
- Fomite 13y ago
  For the record, since I do computational research work on a machine with an SSD, almost everything I do feels faster on a more modern machine.
- bananas 13y ago
  Nope. That's a Core 2 at 1.86 GHz in a MacBook Air which is technically pants. My 2011 2.7GHz i7-2620M MBP would destroy that in a second. http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Z3770-vs-Intel-Core-i7-2620M http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Z3770-vs-Intel-Core-i7-2620M
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    And what a difference that 18-months makes in the line of computing, right? Lets take a look at the Macbook Pro of 2010. http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Z3770-vs-Intel-Core2-Duo-P8600 http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Z3770-vs-Intel-Core2-Duo-P8600 Either way, progress marches forward rather significantly.
- mschaecher 13y ago
  A brand new kia or scion is gonna be faster out the gate and cheaper than a 4 year old cadillac. But the cadillac wins on looks, power, durability, safety, fuel, utility, terrain/environmental performance, can hold more people and those new cars won't have interiors half as nice on their new models 4 years from now as today's 4 year old cadillac model does. Oh and if the race is longer than 30-40 yards that caddie will catch up and smoke those cars with it's V8. tl;dr apples to oranges and all that shit

A $300 Dell Venue 8 Pro Intel Atom tablet is faster than a Macbook Pro of 4 years ago. http://www.anandtech.com/show/7263/intel-teases-baytrail-performance-with-atom-z3770-cinebench-score http://www.anandtech.com/show/7263/intel-teases-baytrail-per...

spicyj 13y ago
Computers are getting cheaper, but the high end isn't improving much over time.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  DDR4 is around the corner, PCIe SSDs are as well. But the real improvement is battery life. Intel Haswell machines are lasting 10 to 16 hours now, and this number will only improve as Intel moves to 14nm and 10nm designs. EDIT: Woops, I mean 22-hours. http://blog.gsmarena.com/toshiba-squeezes-22-hour-battery-life-out-of-haswell-powered-kirabook/ http://blog.gsmarena.com/toshiba-squeezes-22-hour-battery-li... Computers aren't getting faster because no one cares about that. The majority of the design effort is now into battery life. A Dell Venue 8 Pro lasts 8+ hours on a single charge, on a tiny 20Whr battery (while being faster than the 4-year-old Macbook Pro). The 4-year-old Core2Duo Macbook Pros lasted only a couple of hours on behemoth 60Whr batteries. Battery efficiency will matter when it comes down to lightness and style. Better battery efficiency will lead to thinner, sleeker, lighter designs. Generally speaking, the "progress" of modern computers is battery efficiency, leading to smaller batteries, leading to lighter and smaller computers.
sscalia 13y ago
Doesn't matter. Does Photoshop feel measurably faster on a 4 year old Macbook Pro vs. a new one? Does email? Does web browsing? Minus some spergy cases (PC gaming, 3d rendering, virtualization, etc) most computers are just fine for everyday tasks for a long while.
- sscalia 13y ago
  Someone didn't like "spergy" Heh.
- dragontamer 13y ago
  Then get the $300 Asus Vivotab Note, instead of spending $60/month on a lease on a new laptop. Within 6 months, you'll have made your money back and then some (Especially since the $300 tablet can do everything a 4-year-old computer can do, while having superior battery life, significantly less weight, support of a Wacom Active Stylus and a touchscreen) Yes, I have run Photoshop and Gimp on a $300 Baytrail Tablet. Yes, they work. I can personally verify that fact. On the other hand, I do notice significant performance increases when comparing these cheap, tiny computers against my beefy Desktop. Regardless, I speak from experience. Benchmarks do not lie however, these $300 Baytrail tablets are faster than Macbook Pros from 4 years ago. Regardless of how you slice it, computers depreciate significantly faster than cars. For those where "just enough" performance is good enough, you might as well buy these modern $300 netbooks / tablets than lease a top-of-the-line laptop for $60/month... unless you really throw away your laptops after less than 5 months of usage. A brand new cheap computer is better than a top-of-the-line computer from 4 years ago. And for those who are chasing the top end, modern premium computers are released too often for this lease business model to make sense IMO.
  - auctiontheory 13y ago
    Regardless of how you slice it, computers depreciate significantly faster than cars. Actually an MBP [1] holds its value better than many Detroit products[2]. [1] See eBay. [2] http://www.forbes.com/2010/10/27/cars-resale-value-lifestyle-vehicles-depreciation-residual-used.html http://www.forbes.com/2010/10/27/cars-resale-value-lifestyle...
    - dragontamer 13y ago
      I'm thinking of the typical car vs the typical computer. >> New cars typically lose about 20% of their value the moment they’re driven off the lot, and about 65% after five years. MBPs are one of the few computers that hold their value the best. But after 5 years, you're looking at a depreciation rate of 75%+ (going from $2000+ in 2009 to only $500 in 2014). But we're looking at the _best_ computer that holds its value the best. No one gives a damn about a refurbished Dell Inspiron from 2010. www.sears.com/dell-refurbished-dell-latitude-e6400-14inch-notebook-intel/ You're looking at ~90% depreciation for the more typical laptop, and maybe 70% if you focus only on Macbooks. With Cars, you're looking at 65% typical depreciation, with only ~45% if you focus on Camrys or Corolas. A 2009 Camry will run you ~12k today, only 45% depreciation.
Fomite 13y ago
For the record, since I do computational research work on a machine with an SSD, almost everything I do feels faster on a more modern machine.
bananas 13y ago
Nope. That's a Core 2 at 1.86 GHz in a MacBook Air which is technically pants. My 2011 2.7GHz i7-2620M MBP would destroy that in a second. http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Z3770-vs-Intel-Core-i7-2620M http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Z3770-vs-Intel-Core-i7-2620M
- dragontamer 13y ago
  And what a difference that 18-months makes in the line of computing, right? Lets take a look at the Macbook Pro of 2010. http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Z3770-vs-Intel-Core2-Duo-P8600 http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Z3770-vs-Intel-Core2-Duo-P8600 Either way, progress marches forward rather significantly.
mschaecher 13y ago
A brand new kia or scion is gonna be faster out the gate and cheaper than a 4 year old cadillac. But the cadillac wins on looks, power, durability, safety, fuel, utility, terrain/environmental performance, can hold more people and those new cars won't have interiors half as nice on their new models 4 years from now as today's 4 year old cadillac model does. Oh and if the race is longer than 30-40 yards that caddie will catch up and smoke those cars with it's V8. tl;dr apples to oranges and all that shit