Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era
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Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era
#2Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era
#31) physical kill switch for camera (as in, it breaks the power or data connection to it, physically) or at least a physical cover.
2) physical kill switch for the microphone
These are very much not "nerd" concerns, either. I see a lot of non-techies with stickers over their laptop cameras.
[EDIT] teachers in particular spread the "put a sticker over the camera" practice, in my experience, both before and during the pandemic. The last thing they need is to be responding to some student message late at night and accidentally snap a picture or start a video chat. That could easily be career-ending, and they wisely don't trust software safeguards to prevent that. Yet they do want the camera, sometimes. Not having a kill-switch or cover built in sucks.
Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era
#4Most of the suggestions are taylored to video conferencing, such as a better camera and microphone. I have gotten around this personally by purchasing a separate external microphone and camera for a huge improvement.
My main issue with my (intel 2019) MacBook Pro is the noise! Whenever I do heavy work it gets very hot and loud, and uses more power than my desktop PC. Driving a 4k monitor also contributes to the heat. It would be great to have a better cooling computer, but maybe that would just be a mac mini!
Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era
#5Having a built-in "ring"-light would be nice. Perhaps in the bezels? Or perhaps even done via detailed software-based control of the screen backlight via zones?
Audio is already pretty great with a modern laptop, but it's tricky to arrange proper lighting for video conferencing.
Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era
#6This article is hilarious because it shows how poorly the average tech consumer understands pricing and hardware.
You want a better camera and a better mic? Buy them. They're not cheap. You can easily spend $3-400 on a teleconferencing setup (as I have for my desktop), and it pays off. But if you think my Blue Snowball mic and Logitech webcam will fit into your Macbook Air...
On that note, all of these concerns could be solved by upgrading to a desktop. More and better screens? Let's ignore the fact that 4k laptop displays are fairly common these days, but please explain to me how you can fit 2+ displays on a laptop.
Honestly, I'm not sure why this article is even on HN. It's complete drivel that adds nothing useful to any conversation at all. It's blogspam through and through. But who am I kidding really, HN is just Reddit with fancy words.
Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era
#7I don't really understand the point of this article as "redesigning the laptop." Nearly all of the things they mention is either software (e.g. better processing of mic input) or called a desktop (screens, noise, etc.). If people are working from home that negates a big reason for the laptop: portability. Sure it is nice to move to the couch or kitchen or whatever, but maybe that could be having a keyboard and using a tablet. Or if you are working from home nearly all the time, a desktop will be a better and more economical choice.
Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era
#8Most of the suggestions are taylored to video conferencing, such as a better camera and microphone. I have gotten around this personally by purchasing a separate external microphone and camera for a huge improvement. My main issue with my (intel 2019) MacBook Pro is the noise! Whenever I do heavy work it gets very hot and loud, and uses more power than my desktop PC. Driving a 4k monitor also contributes to the heat.…
Noise is solved by the M1s. I have a new 13" M1 MBP and I've never heard the fans turn on in spite of pretty heavy dev use
Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era
#91) physical kill switch for camera (as in, it breaks the power or data connection to it, physically) or at least a physical cover. 2) physical kill switch for the microphone These are very much not "nerd" concerns, either. I see a lot of non-techies with stickers over their laptop cameras. [EDIT] teachers in particular spread the "put a sticker over the camera" practice, in my experience, both before and during the p…
In addition to a kill switch, it would be great to have a switch that affects 1) the physical device 2) the OS switch and 3) the Teams/Zoom/Webex switch.
Regularly we have people in meetings forgetting one of those switches (the physical switch being on the headphones) and trying to talk without being heard.
Re: Let’s redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era
#10Most of the suggestions are taylored to video conferencing, such as a better camera and microphone. I have gotten around this personally by purchasing a separate external microphone and camera for a huge improvement. My main issue with my (intel 2019) MacBook Pro is the noise! Whenever I do heavy work it gets very hot and loud, and uses more power than my desktop PC. Driving a 4k monitor also contributes to the heat.…
The new M1 Macs are so much quieter than the Intel ones, you really have to ask “what is going on in there” to cause all that fan noise.