Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 731 posts

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

#331

Post by dorfsmay »

Smithalicious wrote: post #166

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 particul…

ApparentlyApparently 3rd party manufacturers are looking at building keyboards with trackpoint for the Framework laptops.

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

#332

Post by iypx »

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.

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

#333

Post by ajvs »

masklinn wrote: post #242
bestouff wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This ! Support forums from all brands (big ones like Dell or Lenovo, but also niche brands like Framework) are plagued with requests from unhappy users with their laptop dying in their bag. All because of the Modern Suspend feature. Let's hope AMD mobile processors will work better, and that we'll be able to find decent laptops using them.

> Let's hope AMD mobile processors will work better, and that we'll be able to find decent laptops using them. It doesn't have anything to do with the processor does it? Surely neither intel nor amd have removed S3 support? AFAIK it's integrators (motivated by Microsoft's push of "modern standby"?) which make it unavailable in their bioses: S3 needs bios integration, modern standby is just S0. Or do you mean "hopeful…

Intel 11th gen CPUs are 100% Modern Standby and DO NOT have S3 sleep. I don't know about AMDs support.

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

#334

Post by perryizgr8 »

bo1024 wrote: post #317
mavidser wrote: post #257

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 slight…

I respect #5 but what even exists at non-16:9 besides Framework and Apple?

Surface devices, and LG gram come to mind.

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

#336

Post by bigpeopleareold »

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.

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

#337

Post by bradleyjg »

siva7 wrote: post #226

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 Linu…

I never used a mac until my current job starting three years ago. I don’t think I could go back to random problems requiring me to reinstall driver or futz around with registry keys (never mind recompile the kernel). I have better things to do with my time at this point in my life.

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

#339

Post by LindyTalker »

grandpoobah wrote: post #46
hiisukun wrote: post #27

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 litt…

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 degra…

Visual studio running on Mac? I’ve been using visual studio code on it for years no problem. I’m now realizing there’s a difference between the two. Care to explain a little more why you use VS and not VSC?
Post reply on HN