Ask HN: What does one look for in a laptop these days? • Hacker News Board

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

#491

Post by knaik94 » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

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…

How smooth is video playback of newer codecs or even higher resolution of any codecs at 4k? I thought about bringing back my w520 from the dead but the cost didn't seem worth it.

Coding videos below 1080p are harder to read and unless it's a school lecture, 720p is a minimum.

And is it you main, do you have a separate system for media consumption?

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

#492

Post by leetcrew » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

zrm wrote: post #416

bo1024 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you doing on your laptop where you can see such a big difference? My x86 laptop (Purism Librem 14) has an all-day battery and plenty more performance than I need. But I don't do things like compile code all day. If I were running a really big compute task I'd use a desktop or cluster.

This is what I don't get about high performance laptops. Low end Ryzen 3 laptops have four cores, single thread performance within a few percent of the fastest processors in existence and will do something like render a web page at a speed indistinguishable from instantaneous. The fastest laptops have twice that many cores. And if you actually try to use them, either half of them are low performance cores or they all…

I do agree ultrabook + powerful desktop is the best combo for most people who actually need a powerful computer. that's what I ran for many years. there are a few reasons why you might want a powerful laptop though, mostly coming down the limitations of remote access.

using a GUI over remote kinda sucks imo. even something like text editing is not as smooth as it would be locally. photo/video editing and especially anything 3D (CAD, gaming, etc.) is really painful.

there's also the security implications of enabling remote desktop. it's not a showstopper, but it's something I'd rather not worry about for my personal computer.

and finally, if you have the money for a powerful desktop and a powerful laptop, why not get both?

anyways, I just gave away my old xps 13 and replaced it with a zephyrus g15. it's not nearly as fast as my 9700k + 1080ti desktop, but it runs most games acceptably at 1440p. c++ compilation is very fast, though obviously not comparable to an overclocked 9700k. the portability and overall fit and finish aren't as nice as the xps 13, but now that I'm not taking the laptop everywhere as a student, I don't find it to be much of a compromise.

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

#493

Post by ksec » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

mdp2021 wrote: post #390

foobarbaz33 wrote: post #119

> if I'm missing on any new developments since 2015 Yes, you missed something huge. Apple Silicon M1 or nothing. It's just too good. Low power consumption allows the laptop to actually be used as a laptop. The power use-to-performance ratio is unmatched by anything on the market. Apple is breaking us free from decades of stagnation on the hardware front. Nothing else on the market comes close. I expect this to change…

The TDP of the M1 is between 15 and 20 Watts: I use one third of that with Intel... Crunching some numbers, some benchmarks seem to place the M1 as three times faster. Through raw numbers, the M1 seems not much more "performant per watt" than the Pentium Silver - only slightly better. And, for a laptop, the importance is (in general) more on energy efficiency than in speed. Edit: danieldk rightly noted below that TDP…

The M1 is an SoC with CPU + GPU + NPU + NAND Controller and many others, being used in a Fanless condition under 10W on MacBook Air.

>Official data for the "situational" consumptions are a bit harder to find.

A single HP Core uses ~4W at peak. It's performance per watt is quite far ahead than anything in x86 at the moment. Intel AlderLake might help a bit. But will still be behind in pref / watt.

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

#494

Post by SergeAx » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

I don't think I will buy another laptop any time soon. For work I prefer a desktop machine, and most of the tasks away from a desktop I can handle with my phone. I am thinking about travel pack of compact keyboard, mouse, HDMI cable and a USB-C hub to plug it all into and be plugged into the phone, but in current circumstances I don't see a situations where it would be really necessary.

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

#495

Post by erhk » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

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…

Yes you did describe explicitly a thinkpad. Why is trackpoint a preference?

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

#496

Post by selfup » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

browningstreet wrote: post #371

t_von_doom wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Mac user with the same gripe of the ctrl key placement: Remapping it to the caps lock works wonders :)

I use so many keyboards, not all of which are under my control.. I wish I could, but it would bring chaos to my typing world.

You can set this in the OS itself.

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

#497

Post by chias » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

smoldesu wrote: post #450

mustache_kimono wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you feel like you're missing in userspace?

- A good (not Homebrew and not quite Macports) package manager. - Ways to permanently disable Gatekeeper - Some kind of quick setup. On Linux I use a bootstrapping script, MacOS does not offer the same extensibility. - Real virtualization support like QEMU - Real container support (if I set up another local Docker host on a Mac I swear to god...) - Up-to-date coreutils - A way to install Git without dragging along a…

I feel you, but for me it's not a list of deficiencies in OSX. I came from Linux then used OSX almost exclusively (because work) for about 4 years and I still hate it. I agree the list of things above are real problems, but you could solve all of them and I'd still hate it.

For me it basically it comes down to this:

Macs are just similar enough to the Linux to fool me into thinking I know what I'm doing. But then things are just subtly different such that nothing quite works. It's like, if you were Satan and your Q4 objective was to design a computer that you could give to me -- a "computer expert" -- to make me feel like a moron every time I try to do literally anything at all on it... Apple computers pretty much hit it out of the park.

--

It's also a lot of little usability things. I thought Apple was supposed to be the usability king? Yet it patently cannot handle simple things like:

* I want "natural" scrolling on the touchpad, but "regular" scrolling when using a plugged-in mouse with a mousewheel. The options are in TWO DIFFERENT settings windows, but changing one changes the other. Why? Even Linux, not famed as the Usability King, had this figured out in 2012.

* I want one of my monitors to be vertical. When I plug them in, it's a coin-toss as to whether or not it will remember which one it is. 50% of the time I have to tilt my head 90 degrees and set the 270* monitor to 0* and the 0* monitor to 270*. In the end I wrote an apple-script to do this automatically and bound it to a keyboard key.

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

#498

Post by inetknght » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

1. Full size keyboard with a numpad. If I can't type on it then I won't buy it.

2. 1080p internal display. I won't buy it if the internal screen resolution isn't at least 1080p.

3. Works with Linux. That's a dealbreaker if I can't put Linux on it.

4. Discrete GPU that can be enabled/disabled without rebooting. Not for games, though that's a bonus. I write software that uses GPU acceleration and I need to test it in the field.

5. External display including connecting to a TV -- HDMI/HDCP, displayport, or USB-C passthrough. It doesn't need to use the GPU but that would be preferred.

6. Power management: when active, the battery should last a full work day unless I have the GPU/peripherals on; when I close my lid everything should suspend to NVMe and practically zero power use from then on.

7. User-upgradeable components: at a minimum, disks and RAM should be interchangeable.

8. Kill-switch for camera/mic which physically disconnects them.

9. Discrete audio / microphone 3.5mm jacks. The audio out jack may be a combined audio+mic jack, but I often have a headset which doesn't have an a combined audio+mic.

10. Discrete ethernet port. 1Gbit is outdated; give me 10Gbit! We've got 10Gbit USB and thunderbolt, there's no reason to not have 10Gbit ethernet.

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

#499

Post by lukaszkups » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

1. Overall aescetics - even though it's just a tool, I must feel great while having it on my lap and working with it. Don't like bulky, plastic, RGBalike workhorses. Once I was able to pay for what my eyes like, I've bought Zenbook UX32LN (which still has my wife, after 6 years of power use (great machine, still work flawlessly)). Now for 2 years I was using Surface Book 2 15" (which I bought solely because I fell in love with hinge design and screen quality). This year I was waiting for some update regarding the hinge though but Microsoft introduced Surface Studio, which I don't like because its overall design so I decided to keep SB2 for a bit more as I don't see any nice looking laptops currently on the market that would fit my taste.

2. Keyboard - it must be good quality with fine font (again, aescetics :)), must have highlight, chiclet type, would be great if had extra right key column with PGup/PGdown/home/end buttons (I'm really sad that so few models has it - I've found it really handy for heavy programming)

2.1. Touchpad - must be good quality, support gestures and have nice surface to interact with (preferably glass)

3. Battery life - no need for whole day, but at least for ~4 hours on normal performance is totally fine.

4. Since I use Surface Book 2, I'm really into 3:2 screen aspect ratio - it's really great for work.

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

#500

Post by bengale » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

Unpopular opinion here for sure, but my main thing is going to be the ability to run macOS so that keeps my options fairly limited! High hopes for Monday's announcement.