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?

#511

Post by Oddskar » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:42 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 agree in principle.

The real answer for why most do not do this is that IT-organisations are already under-dimensioned and over-burdened and it’s cheaper to maintain a small set of laptop models (which most likely are bought with some sort of support contract) than it is to assemble and support desktop computers.

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

#512

Post by godDLL » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

headmelted wrote: post #127

If you’re in the Apple ecosystem an M1 Air. If you’re not, a framework laptop.

Thank you for those suggestions, I am aware of both.

But both are about 80% there for me.

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

#513

Post by bastijn » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

Interesting how none of the top comments have weight in their lists. Number one for me is probably weight as I carry the thing around all day. To meetings, to work/home, etc. This includes weight of the charger.

Next comes battery life.

Next the time it takes to be usable after opening the lid.

Trackpad quality next.

After the other regulars like screen, keyboard, etc.

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

#514

Post by charesjrdan » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

I caved earlier this year and got an M1 MacBook Air, $1000 (for the 16gb of ram model) and it’s significantly faster than my (2 year old but much more expensive) thinkpad, it doesn’t have a touchscreen but meets every other requirement you have, and you can now put Linux on it and it works pretty great, and will only improve as marcan and team keep up their great work

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

#515

Post by r00fus » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #488

grandpoobah wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My bet is that Microsoft and Windows laptop manufacturers aren’t embarrassed by this because approximately no one uses their laptop as a portable device. The laptops just sit on the desk charging 99.9% of the time. People use their smartphones the rest of the time.

Most companies issue laptops instead of desktops.

While commuting back and forth to work those are definitely asleep in a bag/briefcase.

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

#516

Post by godDLL » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:48 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #168

DiabloD3 wrote: post #167

Look for non-Intel solutions. There is absolutely zero reason to adopt Intel CPUs until Intel has proven that they can ship CPUs that do not contain expensive-to-fix security bugs year after year after year (you're on a laptop, every CPU cycle counts to keep heat down and battery life longer). Several companies make Zen 3 APU (Ryzen 5000 series models)-based laptops that have good keyboards, good screens, and the usu…

> There is absolutely zero reason to adopt Intel CPUs until Intel has proven that they can ship CPUs that do not contain expensive-to-fix security bugs year after year after year (you're on a laptop, every CPU cycle counts to keep heat down and battery life longer). this is simply not fair. other architectures and CPU manufacturers also suffered from security issues.

Everyone fucks up. But Intel fucks up big.

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

#517

Post by godDLL » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

xupybd wrote: post #144

I have a dirt cheap Chinese laptop. It's branded as an Infinity o5. It's a Ryzen with no flashy features, the simplest bios I've ever seen. I love it. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Yeah, I've been eyeing the Chinese no-names. They seem to be getting better. Thanks for the data point.

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

#518

Post by klodolph » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:49 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #488

grandpoobah wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My bet is that Microsoft and Windows laptop manufacturers aren’t embarrassed by this because approximately no one uses their laptop as a portable device. The laptops just sit on the desk charging 99.9% of the time. People use their smartphones the rest of the time.

Really? Maybe in 2020 or 2021, but not in 2019. My work laptop got dragged to meetings and gets taken on flights to remote offices. My personal laptop gets used in every room of the house.

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

#519

Post by pw6hv » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

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…

> As I was typing this, a great example of said broken crap, is Lenovo popping up a MessageBox asking me to reboot to update my firmware. Didn't software developers all agree well over a decade ago that windows stealing focus was not a good thing? So why then is a top of the line brand in the PC world writing shit like this?

Don't think that MacOS spares you about that either. Update notifications are equally distracting.

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

#520

Post by godDLL » Sat, Oct 16, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

delaaxe wrote: post #338

Unlocking laptop with my fingerprints was a game changer for me

My fingers don't always have prints.

Sometimes they are callous.