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My personal fight against the modern laptop [video]

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Re: My personal fight against the modern laptop [video]

#41

Post by elbrian »

jalfresi wrote: post #27
branchless wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll never understand this. If you want value for money why even look at apple? Never mind nuances like planned obsolescence.

I don't want to waste my time dicking around with drivers and other such noise - I want to get on with my tasks. An operating system linked to s fixed set of hardware provides me exactly this. My time is worth far more to me than the cost of a Macbook.

>I don't want to waste my time dicking around with drivers and other such noise

Are you implying that PC laptops require you to "dick around with drivers?"

If so, you are basing your logic on non-facts.

Driver updates have been integrated with Windows Update for at least 5 years, now.

Re: My personal fight against the modern laptop [video]

#42

Post by delroth »

psankar wrote: post #10

The new thinkpad keyboards are absolutely shitty. I am happy that more people are complaining about it. The classic thinkpad keyboard had nice ergonomic aspects. You can touch-type the function keys without looking down, because they are all grouped in four. The arrow keys are proper sized buttons (even the macbook has it wrong). There is a slight curvature on each key's surface that makes it easy for the finger to f…

My Thinkpad keyboard still has the function keys grouping (Esc-F1-F2-F3-F4 F5-F6-F7-F8 F9-F10-F11-F12 Home-End-Insert-Delete). I think it's only the first generation of chiclet keyboards (the one used in T430) that didn't have it, and they fixed it later.

Re: My personal fight against the modern laptop [video]

#43

Post by bluedino »

balls187 wrote: post #20
ClassyJacket wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snow Leopard was so stable. I went months at a time without restarting or having major bugs. I wish we could get that reliability back.

(12:46) ~/src/landedcost/main-site/app/utils [vikram7119-master] $ uptime 12:47 up 15 days, 17:26, 4 users, load averages: 2.09 2.15 1.95 Sierra has been an absolute rock for me. My last reboot was due to an OS update.

I'm not sure I'd brag about a 15 day uptime.

I found I had to reboot Snow Leopard every 30-40 days, but running 3 web browsers with a ton of tabs open will do that.

Re: My personal fight against the modern laptop [video]

#44

Post by inanutshellus »

justinsaccount wrote: post #35
psankar wrote: post #10

The new thinkpad keyboards are absolutely shitty. I am happy that more people are complaining about it. The classic thinkpad keyboard had nice ergonomic aspects. You can touch-type the function keys without looking down, because they are all grouped in four. The arrow keys are proper sized buttons (even the macbook has it wrong). There is a slight curvature on each key's surface that makes it easy for the finger to f…

> You can touch-type the function keys without looking down, because they are all grouped in four. This is true. The new Fkeys are not grouped. > The arrow keys are proper sized buttons (even the macbook has it wrong). This is false, look at the linked image[1] and tell me that the arrow keys are different on the new keyboard. > There is a slight curvature on each key's surface that makes it easy for the finger to fe…

Caveat: I'm entirely going off your image[1]. I have neither laptop.

>> The arrow keys are proper sized buttons (even the macbook has it wrong).

> This is false, look at the linked image[1] and tell me that the arrow keys are different on the new keyboard.

Looks like the old laptop has a different height for Left, Right, and Down compared to Up, PageUp, PageDown. Is that really the case? If so, that'd be a pretty noticeable difference for a user of the original design.

>> There is a slight curvature on each key's surface that makes it easy for the finger to feel the borders.

> This is also false. The chicklet keys are slightly concave and the island layout makes it extremely easy to feel the borders of each key.

Just going off the shadow from your image, there's a marked and well-defined difference between the concavity. If my fingers were used to that concavity, I'd be unhappy with the much, much flatter design.

Arguing that he's propagating falsehoods is overshooting. That said, I thought it was pretty bad-ass you had both laptops and took a photo for us.

[1] https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ksPFqBdMikM/maxresdefault.jpg

Re: My personal fight against the modern laptop [video]

#45

Post by TurboHaskal »

elbrian wrote: post #39
0xADADA wrote: post #23

This talk expresses many of my concerns with desktop & laptop hardware over the last few years. Recently however, Apple has changed their hardware design philosophy from a fairly open platform to a more proprietary and disposable one. They’ve eliminated the ability to change or upgrade components. The 3rd generation MacBooks have a battery that is glued in place, the memory is soldered directly to the logic board. La…

>Put simply; I don’t see any manufacturers building laptops at the same level of quality that Apple does, and yet, I can’t buy a product that is so tightly controlled, and designed to be obsolete in two years. Dell has been making laptops of equal or better quality for a couple years, now. The XPS line is absolutely stunning.

Not quite. I have a 2015 13" Macbook Pro and returned an XPS 13 to buy a Thinkpad x250. As much as I want to root for the underdogs I have to admit that Apple is on a league of its own.

Re: My personal fight against the modern laptop [video]

#46

Post by TurboHaskal »

kk_cz wrote: post #3

He's right about the new keyboards on ThinkPads - fortunately I use mine with dock and external keyboard most of the time, but every time I am forced to use it without dock it's infuriating how much worse the keyboard is compared to older models.

Some of us like the new Thinkpad keyboards.

Re: My personal fight against the modern laptop [video]

#47

Post by inanutshellus »

SomeHacker44 wrote: post #37
psankar wrote: post #10

The new thinkpad keyboards are absolutely shitty. I am happy that more people are complaining about it. The classic thinkpad keyboard had nice ergonomic aspects. You can touch-type the function keys without looking down, because they are all grouped in four. The arrow keys are proper sized buttons (even the macbook has it wrong). There is a slight curvature on each key's surface that makes it easy for the finger to f…

Maybe, but the new MacBook Pro keyboard is so loud I have been banned from the bedroom with my laptop. (TouchBar is also terrible.) What a disaster.

That's funny. I remember my audiophile pals back in the day ooo'ing and ahhh'ing over the old mbp's keyboard being satisfyingly quiet-but-not-silent.

Re: My personal fight against the modern laptop [video]

#48

Post by elbrian »

TurboHaskal wrote: post #45
elbrian wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Put simply; I don’t see any manufacturers building laptops at the same level of quality that Apple does, and yet, I can’t buy a product that is so tightly controlled, and designed to be obsolete in two years. Dell has been making laptops of equal or better quality for a couple years, now. The XPS line is absolutely stunning.

Not quite. I have a 2015 13" Macbook Pro and returned an XPS 13 to buy a Thinkpad x250. As much as I want to root for the underdogs I have to admit that Apple is on a league of its own.

Would you care to elaborate a bit?

In terms of build quality, the 2015+ XPS line is comparable (at least) to any Mac laptop offering.

Re: My personal fight against the modern laptop [video]

#49

Post by floatboth »

psankar wrote: post #10

The new thinkpad keyboards are absolutely shitty. I am happy that more people are complaining about it. The classic thinkpad keyboard had nice ergonomic aspects. You can touch-type the function keys without looking down, because they are all grouped in four. The arrow keys are proper sized buttons (even the macbook has it wrong). There is a slight curvature on each key's surface that makes it easy for the finger to f…

Have you actually tried the new keyboards?

The X240 chiclet keyboard is excellent, I enjoy every moment of typing on it. The only better keyboards are the mechanical ones, which are way too thick for a laptop.

(And function keys ARE grouped in four!!!)

Re: My personal fight against the modern laptop [video]

#50

Post by floatboth »

SomeHacker44 wrote: post #37
psankar wrote: post #10

The new thinkpad keyboards are absolutely shitty. I am happy that more people are complaining about it. The classic thinkpad keyboard had nice ergonomic aspects. You can touch-type the function keys without looking down, because they are all grouped in four. The arrow keys are proper sized buttons (even the macbook has it wrong). There is a slight curvature on each key's surface that makes it easy for the finger to f…

Maybe, but the new MacBook Pro keyboard is so loud I have been banned from the bedroom with my laptop. (TouchBar is also terrible.) What a disaster.

Really? I can understand someone complaining about a keyboard with Cherry MX Blue switches, but a laptop? :D
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