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

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

#721

Post by tentacleuno »

ziml77 wrote: post #634
tentacleuno wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could possibly be convinced otherwise if the trackpad is particularly good. Genuine question: what about Macbook trackpads? We have a MBP 2013, and it runs leaps and bounds over my Windows laptop which came out in the same year. I'm not sure if other laptops have caught up with Apple yet, but Macbook trackpads are commonly referred to as the best in the business.

Apple leapt ahead of other laptops again with their trackpad that uses haptics instead of an actually button. It takes consistent pressure across the whole trackpad instead of being more difficult to press as you get closer to the hinge. It feels ridiculously convincing that you're actually pushing a button and even has a cool feature where you have a second action by pushing harder. And it really does feel like you'…

Yeah, the haptic stuff is mad! I was amazed when I learned about it, I thought it was a real button with some sort of touch sensor.

You can literally change the feedback from the "click" (and the push-down strength) in Settings. Even in 2015 that felt decades ahead of its time.

If anything I still prefer that trackpad over a real button.

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

#722

Post by godDLL »

artificialLimbs wrote: post #696
godDLL wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you under the impression you're worth spying on? Why don't you just Ctrl-Shift-F12 or something to lock it when you actually want that? I had bad experience with fingers as ID. Any spill on the scanner surface will disable it for days. And sometimes my prints change enough by being callous, or not fat enough or whatever. Just change. And then – no dice.

I am worth 'spying on' in my organization by the tens of non-workforce 'clients' that come into our office every day, including when I'm away from my machine. I don't 'just' Ctrl+Shift+F12 because I don't know when I might be called from one end of the office to another building, and I won't necessarily remember to stop and go lock my machine. I don't drink by my laptop because that doesn't seem to be a worthwhile en…

Alright, you seem to have your reasons and your use case.

Glad I'm not in that situation.

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

#723

Post by godDLL »

tyteen4a03 wrote: post #253

A beautiful UI that comes out of the box that I don't have to spend hours tinkering to get it just right. A Unix-like kernel (WSL2 comes pretty close). Not too bulky. That realistically only leaves me with MacBook Pros.

Gnome 40 or Elementary OS might be your cup of tea then.

System76 makes them "out-the-box"-ier. You should check them out.

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

#724

Post by inetknght »

rzimmerman wrote: post #522
inetknght wrote: post #498

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 t…

I’d add that for most people, you should go higher than 1080p regardless of screen size. UHD/4k/Retina are all a huge improvement just when looking at text and it’s hard to go back.

> UHD/4k/Retina are all a huge improvement just when looking at text and it’s hard to go back.

I disagree. 4K is great on a big screen TV. But on a 15" (or smaller!) it just isn't worth it. I literally can't see a difference between 1080p and 4K on a 15 inch screen.

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

#725

Post by inetknght »

GordonS wrote: post #552
rzimmerman wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d add that for most people, you should go higher than 1080p regardless of screen size. UHD/4k/Retina are all a huge improvement just when looking at text and it’s hard to go back.

Doesn't higher resolution really hit battery life though?

It definitely hits compute time and that also hits battery life. More pixels = more compute required even outside of the GPU.

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

#726

Post by chx »

tlavoie wrote: post #667
chx wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can check which ThinkPad BIOS has the option at their BIOS emulation site: https://download.lenovo.com/bsco/index.html For mine it's under Config // Power // Sleep State. Windows 10 means useless Modern Standby, Linux means S3. https://i.imgur.com/Y5CchL9.png In this covid helped me because I learned about this before I cooked my expensive new laptop in its bag :(

What does it mean if there is no sleep setting here? I haven't actually rebooted my P50 yet, but the simulator doesn't have this option showing.

The P50 very well might predate this Modern stuff.

Type

powercfg -a

and see:

The following sleep states are available on this system:

Standby (S3)

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

#727

Post by tlavoie »

chx wrote: post #726
tlavoie wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it mean if there is no sleep setting here? I haven't actually rebooted my P50 yet, but the simulator doesn't have this option showing.

The P50 very well might predate this Modern stuff. Type powercfg -a and see: The following sleep states are available on this system: Standby (S3)

True enough, thanks for the info. I can't complain either way, whatever suspend mode I have works well and quickly. Hibernate does work (all under Linux here as a rule).

I'll have to try powercfg next time I boot into Windows.

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

#728

Post by ValentineC »

mindvirus wrote: post #692
ValentineC wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's bulky and the battery's not what it used to be, but it's fast and the keyboard is great but after 8 years of hard use, a couple keys are wonky. I think the 2013 model's entered Apple's vintage list [1], but if you can find an Apple Store willing to do battery service for it, the battery replacement comes with a full keyboard and trackpad replacement for $199 USD [2]. Hurry, though, because the 2013 model's lik…

Thanks, that's great to know about! Unfortunately it's also experiencing random kernel panics, so I suspect there's more at fault here.

Are you using Hands Off as a firewall?

I experienced plenty of random kernel panics on my 2013 MacBook Pro (still going strong after battery service, and still my primary computing device), which went away when I switched to Little Snitch.

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

#729

Post by conductr »

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…

Is this user specific though? I mainly still use a 2013 MacBook Air and I’ve never had power management issues. I can work 10-12 hours on a full charge. Recharge is pretty quick. 90% of my usage is browser, text editor, light terminal, and a pretty basic dev environment. The only times I’ve hit performance issues is working with video editing and graphics. I don’t game and don’t edit videos , so that was a minor pothole on this long journey.

If this is the main benefit of M1 I’m likely to be under welmed is what I’m thinking. I’ll upgrade to it next, but it’s not going to force me to upgrade. I expect at some point Apple will start making my device suck via MacOS updates like they’ve done with iOS and those devices.

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