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The Perfect Laptop

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Re: The Perfect Laptop

#271

Post by Greenpants »

matteoraso wrote: post #267
maximamas wrote: post #46

I'm no die hard apple fan, but you would think I was if you heard me talking about my 16" m1 pro. It's an absolute beast, battery for days, and I've never heard the fan spin up once. It would take a lot for me to even give another machine a chance.

The thing that's holding me back from getting one is the memory markups. The base configuration is too low and I can't just change the memory myself because everything is soldered.

I used to give Apple the ole' eye roll for that as well. Then I realised, as I got a MacBook myself and dove into running Machine Learning models on it, the RAM setup is pretty unique.

Essentially, the RAM is so close to the CPU and GPU that it can effectively be used as VRAM, at least for the M1 and up chipsets as far as I'm aware. That means a 32GB RAM MacBook would be able to run incredibly large (e.g. LLM) networks on-device. Nvidia GPUs with that much VRAM (although they are clearly better at GPU tasks) can cost as much as an expensive MacBook already.

Re: The Perfect Laptop

#272

Post by Night_Thastus »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #243
agloe_dreams wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, unless you are in the > $2,500 headphone space, DAC quality has a hard limit of actual hearable use. Under that point, most external DACs are pure snake oil. If A user has $200 to spend on a pair of over-ear headphones. they should spend $9 on the DAC and $191 on the headphones. Hell, the $9 headphone adaptor vastly outperformed a number of $100+ DACs. The primary limitation of headphone quality onboard…

The only important thing about a DAC is power isolation. You don't want to hear the coil whine of your CPU/GPU through your headphones. Thankfully most motherboard manufacturers have this figured out well enough that noisy audio jacks are a thing of the past.

I had a (in hindsight) hilarious issue with this at one point.

I have a big GPU. Big GPU makes noise. That noise goes through the PCIe connector and into the motherboard. It then made it to the ethernet port. It went through my ethernet port to my ethernet switch, which then made it to the Raspberry Pi I was using for streaming, which went into my DAC, AMP and finally speakers.

It was because I was using shielded twisted pair, which connects the ground plane.

Power isolation is an insidious problem!

Re: The Perfect Laptop

#274

Post by JamesLeonis »

RalfWausE wrote: post #87

Personally, i have found my perfect laptop: The Thinkpad R60, though ancient is - for the things I do - simply perfect. It runs really good with various BSD systems (and of course Linux), has an easily changeable battery, a - in my opinion - great keyboard, is repair- service and (modeartely) upgradeable. I have mine now for over a decade and will keep it running as long as spare parts are available. Will i ever buy…

FWIW, there's a move to transplant Framework brains into older Thinkpads [0]. The Framekenpad. I would love a Framework with a Thinkpad keyboard!

[0]: https://community.frame.work/t/thinkpad-701c-with-a-framewor...

Re: The Perfect Laptop

#275

Post by avidphantasm »

dhruvmittal wrote: post #113
pico303 wrote: post #84

> another Apple can’t put my finger on why this is so much better than everyone else things Once you’ve used a Mac touchpad, it’s impossible to go back to a Windows/Linux laptop. I’ve tried…

I've very happily left a Mac touchpad. Not once but twice. While the gesture support in the OS is nice, I don't like how big the touchpads are. I feel like it regularly gets in the way of typing. I'm okay with the size of the trackpad on the Framework laptop, but it could have been smaller. I really miss my old Thinkpad trackpad with the physical buttons between the trackpad and spacebar, which I felt was really usab…

I hated how big the trackpad on my 2019 16” MBP was. I now have a 2021 14” M1 Pro and the trackpad is the perfect size. I believe they also reduced the size of the 16” M* Pro/Max machines.

Re: The Perfect Laptop

#276

Post by andersrs »

Apple gets it. If I'm using a laptop I don't want to stick my fingers onto a touch screen blocking my view and leaving marks. Macbook does one thing extremely well. It is a laptop for serious people not a lap-tablet. The touch pad is BIG. I need it to be big because it needs to fit my body. Every other brand always seems like trying to sleep on a mattress or wear a glove that is too small. Even a slight difference in size can mean the difference between completing a gesture in one fluid motion or running out of room and having to do it in multiple motions. The scrolling resolution on Mac is much finer than windows which does one line at a time. It's frustrating trying to make adjustments like zoom in windows because the scrolling is so damn janky. I've had 3 different ThinkPads and 3 different Macbooks and I've always preferred the Macbooks for so many reasons like battery, thermals, display, non-plasticy materials.

Re: The Perfect Laptop

#277

Post by humblepie »

maximamas wrote: post #46

I'm no die hard apple fan, but you would think I was if you heard me talking about my 16" m1 pro. It's an absolute beast, battery for days, and I've never heard the fan spin up once. It would take a lot for me to even give another machine a chance.

Same experience here. However, I regret getting the 512GB drive option. I'm constantly monitoring my disk space as I do work and personal stuff on the same machine. Like I build Docker images as part of work and have to regularly purge out old images. Good thing macOS intelligently makes space (I have about 250GB in the Photos library) so I also get a random free 10GB from time to time.

Re: The Perfect Laptop

#278

Post by jimmyspice »

scrlk wrote: post #6

Unconventional choice: Panasonic Let's Note. Sadly JDM exclusive and has soldered RAM, but the latest models come with a 3:2 display, decent I/O (e.g. RJ45, full sized SD card reader, even VGA (!)), magnesium alloy chassis and a removable battery in a sub 1.1 kg package. Can't speak for the quality of the trackpad or keyboard though. https://panasonic.jp/cns/pc/

those look excellent, some even have a bluray drive still. would love this in europe

Re: The Perfect Laptop

#279

Post by prewett »

matteoraso wrote: post #267
maximamas wrote: post #46

I'm no die hard apple fan, but you would think I was if you heard me talking about my 16" m1 pro. It's an absolute beast, battery for days, and I've never heard the fan spin up once. It would take a lot for me to even give another machine a chance.

The thing that's holding me back from getting one is the memory markups. The base configuration is too low and I can't just change the memory myself because everything is soldered.

Yeah, the memory is overpriced. So are eyeglass frames (rimless are especially overpriced). But as long as you can afford it, a few hundred dollars isn't that much spread over a few years. Or, think about the other option. You can get a not-MBP and have a clunky experience [1] but save some money, or spend a the extra few hundred for a MBP with enough memory to be a great experience. (Assuming you like macOS, of course.) I interact with my MBP all-day, every day, and it's totally worth a few hundred dollars to get something I love using.

[1] In addition to the non-MBP hardware being clunky, your choice of OS is cutting your steak with a spoon (Windows), or a huge drawer full of tangs, handles, prongs, and spoon-bowl and you spend your time digging around to assemble a knife, fork, and spoon that are the same style and finally give up and settle for "well, it matches if you squint" (Linux). I love the idea of Linux, but I've never actually gotten my system to where I like it, just to where I can tolerate it.

Re: The Perfect Laptop

#280

Post by spartanatreyu »

pmontra wrote: post #230
bombela wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, I don't mind carrying a big machine. Problem is most have a numpad, which shifts the keyboard and touch pad to the left. Being right handed, I find this very annoying.

It seems that the 16" Framework will come with separate keyboard and numpad. The numpad can be placed on either side or taken away, and the keyboard centered. If only they had a touchpad with physical buttons...

I'm sure someone will make a split ortholinear keyboard with a numpad in the middle for the Framework. That'd be the dream.

I can't ever imagine using another trackpad with physical buttons though. Just extend the trackpad over the space that the button would have taken up. I should be able to left/middle/right click anywhere on the trackpad, not move my hand back to the button to click.

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