Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival • Hacker News Board

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#291

Post by prewett » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 5:22 PM UTC

deno wrote: post #164

cocotino wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plasma is as brittle as always. Years in and still is half finished. Like the developer rushed to implement the mockup so it looks good in screenshots, but then polished absolutely nothing about it.

They’ve been through two technology changes, rebuilding basically from scratch every time. This (Plasma 5 and KDE Frameworks 5) feels like the final evolution stage. It’s gaining polish with every point release. Desktop search is finally quick. The UI stack (QML) is nimble and powerful. Breeze is the best looking flat design, both beautiful and clean. Even the default desktop wallpapers are gorgeous. The only thing r…

If two technology changes is an excuse for unimplemented features, that sounds like some pretty unusable software to me. "The rest is details" was exactly the problem the parent was referring to. "Desktop search is finally quick"--I think most users would want it to be quick first, and then the devs can do whatever "technology changes" they want.

I tried to like KDE, but every time I tried it, one of the first apps I tried would immediately crash. Plus it's default looked like a bad copy of Windows XP, which was a bad copy of the Mac, so it looked really bad. (That was a long time ago.) Unfortunately, GNOME looked nice, but had no features, so I just gave up and went to a bare window manager and realized I have no need for anything a DE offers. Then the problem became that sawfish became unsupported, and nothing else had the same customizability.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#292

Post by baldfat » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

baldfat wrote: post #220

eloycoto wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu and batteries are not good friends :-( I tried few times and still using apple

Well was that with Apple products?

The reason why I mentioned Apple Products is that Macs battery life on non OS X operating systems have poorer battery life.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-other-hidden-cost-of-runnin...

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#293

Post by xbeta » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

aembleton wrote: post #46

xbeta wrote: post #10

After using few Xiaomi products, no thanks. If I want a Linux dev box, there are other options too.

What's wrong with them? I'm very happy with my Xiaomi piston earbuds, good sound quality, survived 1 year of use so far and only ~£10. I've had one of their phones a few years ago and found it to work well. Just annoying that they'd skinned Android rather than providing stock.

I have the MiBand, and it drops hundreds of times. I had eventually lost it. Sure, it's only $10, but it doesn't make sense to buy anything just because it's cheap.

And I have the earbuds too. Sure another $10, but the sound is very mediocre compare to the stock headphones I got.

I also have one of their TVBox, bought it mainly for my Chinese parents. None of the channels work anymore oversea.

Sure, $10 who cares. But I would rather spend bit more on something that last longer than a manufacturer producing more electronic junk to this already-polluted planet.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#294

Post by cududa » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

acabal wrote: post #274

Keyframe wrote: post #229

I've been looking for a new laptop recently, but I can't seem to find a good. My primary concerns are: - not to have open it up and clean from dust. That's what all of my laptops, except Air, suffered from. They get dust inside and then get hot and loud. I move around a lot and it's inevitable. I don't want noise and I want as little heat as possible. - Multitouch Trackpad like on Macbook Air. It's wonderful! - Long…

I have a 2015 Razer Blade that I really like. I use it as a my daily Linux work computer and it runs Ubuntu great (with the caveat that I don't use sleep, hibernate, or the nvidia card; and the webcam doesn't work). Pros: - Almost unbeatable specs for the chassis size - 14" display, which seems to be getting rarer now, but I really appreciate the extra inch of screen space - High quality display, if you get a good IG…

Isn't a huge part of paying so much for the thing the video card?

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#295

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 5:26 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #282

brazzledazzle wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be more charitable to assume their intent wasn't to mischaracterize.

That's why I used the word mischaracterize. It doesn't really examine intent, it points at the result. For instance, you can mischaracterize something by not understanding it or by not being informed at all about it or by intentionally lying.

[deleted]

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#296

Post by sctb » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 5:29 PM UTC

mi_sucks wrote: post #90

I am pretty sure you are one of those online fanboys/shills who pop up everywhere to defend MI. Forget about security, HOW MANY PHONES OF MI can do ENCRYPTION, HOW MANY PHONES EVER DID ENCRYPTION. settings->security->encrypt == this option is absent from all phones. MI phones is not even run true android

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12171392 and banned the poster. You can't comment like this here.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#297

Post by wyldfire » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

dineshp2 wrote: post #283

I was hoping Xiaomi would also launch a version with Ubuntu as the default OS. An i5, 8GB DDR4 Ram, 256GB SSD, backlit keyboard and 10 hours battery backup at $750 sounds like a sweet deal. I know Ubuntu can still be installed on the Windows version, but I expect it to be a hacky path with installation issues, getting the hardware to play nice and the backlit keyboard to work, and finally maybe even battery life issu…

I think the appeal of this product might end up with user demand for this feature as well. That could result in Canonical and/or Xiaomi offering fixes to support Ubuntu on Mi Notebook Air.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#298

Post by razed_in_blecch » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

dhruvrrp wrote: post #269

razed_in_blecch wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrible suggestion. Razer's products do not remotely meet the fit and finish of Apple's products. I'm typing on a Razer Blade Stealth right now that I've had since February and it is already falling apart, with most of the screws on the bottom plate falling off and a trackpad that constantly sticks. The fans buzz and brush against their metal grills often enough that you have to gently slap the side of the laptop to…

If it suffers from the the problems you mentioned, then consider getting it replaced. I've had a razer blade for 3 years now and never had issues related to build quality. The only problems I faced was getting the drivers for certain Linux distros.

Have you ever spoken to Razer's 'support'? Good luck with that!

Not to mention, you don't have to look very far to see others with the same issues. Here's a sample from /r/razer.

USB-C issues: https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/4b6gj5/razer_blade_s...

Screws falling out: https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/3vq4pu/do_not_buy_a_...

Fans buzzing: https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/4eoh15/razer_blade_s...

Sticking trackpad: https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/4l1v00/razer_blade_s...

Various threads complaining about their support: https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/search?q=support&restrict_sr=...

Hope your Razer laptop never has a problem.

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#299

Post by jonathankoren » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

keithpeter wrote: post #195

jonathankoren wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it gets full Linux support... I ran linux as my primary os for 10 years. This was never true for me. Something was always broken, or wonky. 10 years of platitudes about how "it will get better", but it didn't. There is always new hardware to support to various degrees. I got a mac, because I wanted to be able to listen to music and print at the same time. Also, I was tired of all my photos coming out pink.

What was stopping you from listening to music and printing at the same time? Never seen that one (USB mono laser printer/bog standard mp3 tracks to play).

It had something to do with device drivers not loading. It was stupidity. It was also 2003.

The printer is a classic linux desktop experience. CUPS wouldn't recognize the printer, not even as generic postscript or something, or maybe it did, but wouldn't take advantage of its high resolution because binary blobs being evil or some other high horse. Either way, binary blobs figure into this. So I had to actually buy a driver and color profiles from some company in Germany that had paid a license to make a closed source driver. While I could now print at high resolution, all the photos had a pink cast, that no amount of correction could take away. Boot into Windows, thing prints fine. Ironically, the company touted its color profiles as being better Windows.

In 10 years, I never had a machine that had all of it's hardware working correctly. But hey, maybe 2016 is finally the Year of Linux Desktop!

Re: Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

#300

Post by xufi » Wed, Jul 27, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

cocotino wrote: post #76

hathym wrote: post #73

xiaomi will destroy apple in just few years.

By copying them? That's hardly a good long term strategy.

Exactly, this moment reminds me of the same time they did that with the first "Miphone" as they branded it. If I remember correctly, Didn't Apple try to sue them for that?