Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Review: Chuwi's $449 Unibook laptop is a funhouse-mirror MacBook Neo

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–47 of 47 posts

Re: Review: Chuwi's $449 Unibook laptop is a funhouse-mirror MacBook Neo

#41

Post by voakbasda »

greatgib wrote: post #26

It breaks my heart how Dell messed up totally with it's XPS 13 since the good time of the Ubuntu dev edition. It was the almost perfect laptop, high end, classy, and even more awesome with everything needed to have a smooth linux experience. And then, generation after generation they made the XPS worse and worse. Keeping the brand but destroying the value. And when I see now this new "cheap" 600$ XPS 13 with 8gb ram,…

Enshitification may not make sense to you, but it makes sense to their bottom line for a few quarters… right up until all of the good will has been extracted from the brand.

Short-sightedness makes logical sense as a tactic for giving the appearance of “stock goes up”, but it is dumb as dirt in the long run. I and many others will never buy Dell again, and that will eventually come back to bite them in their stock price.

Re: Review: Chuwi's $449 Unibook laptop is a funhouse-mirror MacBook Neo

#42

Post by dd8601fn »

bschwindHN wrote: post #27
televisionsaval wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the whole trackpad idea is stupid and unusable (like anything that needs software correction for physical layout idiocy) and I blame Apple for its prevalence. Apple could make an entirely worthless product and within 4 years everyone would have to copy it.

That's like, your opinion man. The trackpad is a fantastic input device. I use it exclusively when on a laptop, and on a desktop I'll use both a mouse and a trackpad.

Agreed… but really only for macs. That’s where it’s beautiful.

I even use their larger external trackpad with the mini. But on work supplied machines and such I use a conventional mouse.

It’s not even because everyone else's trackpads are fucking garbage (they are). It’s that systems that aren’t macs just weren’t built around using one.

Some of the slightly-less-trashy bits of 3rd party software try to bridge the gap, but it’s not the same.

Re: Review: Chuwi's $449 Unibook laptop is a funhouse-mirror MacBook Neo

#43

Post by euroderf »

freetonik wrote: post #3

>The Unibook’s keyboard is pretty good, and its trackpad is pretty bad. Just like 98% of non-Apple laptops. Amazing how after all these years nobody could replicate the feel of macbook's trackpads.

In my decades on teh interwebz I've never read a good in-depth look at the Mac trackpad. It intrigues me always, how it pops back at your finger on a click, until one of those rare times that the machine locks up completely and then... the trackpad is... dead as a doornail. Intriguing.

Re: Review: Chuwi's $449 Unibook laptop is a funhouse-mirror MacBook Neo

#44

Post by kid64 »

dd8601fn wrote: post #42
bschwindHN wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like, your opinion man. The trackpad is a fantastic input device. I use it exclusively when on a laptop, and on a desktop I'll use both a mouse and a trackpad.

Agreed… but really only for macs. That’s where it’s beautiful. I even use their larger external trackpad with the mini. But on work supplied machines and such I use a conventional mouse. It’s not even because everyone else's trackpads are fucking garbage (they are). It’s that systems that aren’t macs just weren’t built around using one. Some of the slightly-less-trashy bits of 3rd party software try to bridge the gap…

> It’s not even because everyone else's trackpads are fucking garbage (they are). It’s that systems that aren’t macs just weren’t built around using one.

Great news for users depending on accessibility

Re: Review: Chuwi's $449 Unibook laptop is a funhouse-mirror MacBook Neo

#45

Post by nsonha »

fogx wrote: post #32
nsonha wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to support the idea that good touchpad is apple’s monopoly, but I and most people I know stop having wrist pains by giving up the mouse. If we’re talking about a stupid idea that’s both inefficient and a health hazard, the mouse is it. All the other pointing devices (trackball, trackpoint, rolling mouse etc) make sense one way or another

Yea, moving the burden from your wrists to your finger joints is surely a genius idea and the epitome of health

It would be an adequate argument if such finger pain existed

Re: Review: Chuwi's $449 Unibook laptop is a funhouse-mirror MacBook Neo

#46

Post by televisionsaval »

nsonha wrote: post #45
fogx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, moving the burden from your wrists to your finger joints is surely a genius idea and the epitome of health

It would be an adequate argument if such finger pain existed

I'm not sure about the overall argument.. But I think arthritis of the fingers manifests eventually for most people who work with their hands and finger movement combined with any compression on tendons exacerbates carpal tunnel syndrome. Ergonomic I/O makers are essentially experimenting on the population, but less ethically as their bias is in using a bunch of nonsense to further a dialogue that supports whichever patents they obtained.

Personally I don't believe anything requiring 3 hands could be adequately tested given the freedom of movement given to the subject. I think only 2 hand home row keyboard use with specific additional positioning requirements has a flake of scientific rigour. (This is why I could only honestly support the track pointer in the home row as the least risky of the choices as it is the smallest deviation from something with a foundation.)

Re: Review: Chuwi's $449 Unibook laptop is a funhouse-mirror MacBook Neo

#47

Post by nsonha »

televisionsaval wrote: post #30
nsonha wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to support the idea that good touchpad is apple’s monopoly, but I and most people I know stop having wrist pains by giving up the mouse. If we’re talking about a stupid idea that’s both inefficient and a health hazard, the mouse is it. All the other pointing devices (trackball, trackpoint, rolling mouse etc) make sense one way or another

Needing a 3rd hand for a peripheral is naturally a flawed idea. The only reason I prefer the mouse over the palm trackpad is because it can't interfere while probably still having to use it occasionally. The track point and trackball were better interfaces than both but they weren't a great platform for making Apple look innovative.

the 3rd hand wasn't event what I meant by inefficient, it more that you need an extra surface to move some pointer and do the least possible amount of HCI data transfer. It's so... lame in this age of mobiliy
Post reply on HN