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Xiaomi’s first laptop is a Macbook Air rival

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

#151

Post by jsjohnst »

vacri wrote: post #130
Fuxy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acer/Lenovo/Dell can't risk getting sued by Apple. Xiaomi is a Chinese company they don't care since if they ever do get sued the Chinese court will always side with the Chinese company. The again if the clone works just as well as the original I don't really care but this would have been a really good chance to copy and improve.

Well, if we're talking copies, then Airs are just a scaled-up version of the eeepc - same 'sharp wedge' shape (that is apparently why Lenovo X1s are being called clones of Airs). The eeepc was the thing that proved there was enough interest for a low-power-but-mobile computer, which ended up turning into the tablet market. Crappy build quality, but people went berserk for them.

> same 'sharp wedge' shape

Really? Here's one [0] from approximately when the Air came out and looks not even remotely similar to me in shape.

[0] https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ASUS_Eee_PC_PIC_09...

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

#152

Post by paines »

fapjacks wrote: post #120
kennell wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do see the Nvidia dual-graphics chip causing problems on Linux. They should have dropped the Nvidia chip all the way, it is a shitty compromise. Nobody is going to play games on this machine and the Intel IGP handles all other workloads just fine. Also, the 12.5 version coming with 4GB is a bit disappointing.

If you mean the kind of Optimus thing, it's actually handled okay out of the box with recent Nvidia drivers. I had problems with it about two years ago, but recently reinstalled with LM17.3 and the Nvidia drivers it automatically installed handle the dual graphics thing just fine.

Hey man, could you elaborate on that a bit or point to a tutorial? I am running Kubuntu 16 on a Skylake+950M laptop, and I can either use Intel or Nvidia but not both at the same time. There is Bumblebee, but my machine freezes on startup....

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

#153

Post by embik »

josteink wrote: post #131
scotu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot trust Lenovo being competent at what they do after superfish, I wonder how can any of the readers of hacker news still think of buying from them... (this doesn't mean that competitors are competent or anything, but being caught like they were undermines my basic trust threshold)

> I cannot trust Lenovo being competent at what they do after superfish, I wonder how can any of the readers of hacker news still think of buying from them. It was certainly a giant blunder, but like all of these issues they are Windows only, and usually only if you use the factory OS image. Like most(?) of the HN crowd not using Apple products, I run Linux, so that kind of stuff doesn't affect me at all. I assume th…

> It was certainly a giant blunder, but like all of these issues they are Windows only, and usually only if you use the factory OS image.

Don't forget that your hardware vendor is also responsible for firmware. Not saying that Lenovo is special in any way here, but delivering terrible software on the factory OS image might have implications for software quality in general.

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

#154

Post by kccqzy »

teekert wrote: post #133

To me, Xiaomi means quality, I have a Xiaomi battery pack, it's very solid and feels high quality. So does my OnePlus3, it seems like Chinese (designed) is no longer synonymous with cheap and low quality. They are ready to take over. They are removing the usp of western (designed) products. Admittedly they do it partly via copying. What is the next frontier for western companies? Responsible design? Environmentally f…

Interesting. I also had a Xiaomi battery pack but after a few months of (irregular) use the outer shell started discolouring and the adhesives gradually became weaker, so much so that you can peel off the plastic at the bottom and top.

Yes they are ready to take over large segments of the market but not yet the high end segment.

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

#155

Post by pmontra »

MichaelGG wrote: post #74
scotu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot trust Lenovo being competent at what they do after superfish, I wonder how can any of the readers of hacker news still think of buying from them... (this doesn't mean that competitors are competent or anything, but being caught like they were undermines my basic trust threshold)

Unfortunately, nothing comes close to ThinkPads. I dislike Lenovo a lot and would ditch them at first chance. No vendor wants to be that chance though. (Proper keyboard, 3-physical-button pad/point, not too hot, etc.) I'm not too concerned about Superfish - that was only the consumer junk, right? The BIOS-Windows-auto-install stuff was more concerning. But hey, little choices. Lenovo is certainly incompetent - look a…

> Proper keyboard, 3-physical-button pad/point, not too hot

HP's ZBooks? You can even replace almost any component inside. I got the first generation model (15") and it's very good. Sure, it's not light and slim.

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

#156

Post by lmns »

oblio wrote: post #96
xorcist wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That there even worse alternatives isn't helping. Avoid third party binary modules. Sure, they might work right now but you'll have no guarantees it'll work in the future. You also risk interactions with other subsystems (sleep etc.). It would be like Windows, where your printer might prevent you from upgrading your operating system. If you intend to run Linux on the thing, buy things that Linux supports out of the b…

While your theoretical point of view is solid, reality kind of disagrees with it. The binary blob provided by Nvidia have been quite reliable across the years (and I think they've been available for more than 10 years) while the open source ATI/AMD drivers have frequently failed to deliver.

Quite reliable with Optimus? I'd bet your experience is based on desktop GPUs, but Optimus is painful with Linux.

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

#157

Post by looki »

Nullabillity wrote: post #93
merb wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pretty naive. especially since it has a dual graphics with nvidia. which is really akward to "correctly" install on linux. and then there are drivers. pretty sure that there won't be many stuff that directly works on linux.

Install nvidia, install bumblebee, add yourself to the bumblebee group. Not really that hard...

Until you realize you want to connect a monitor or projector: https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/Multi-mo...

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

#159

Post by snsr »

teekert wrote: post #133

To me, Xiaomi means quality, I have a Xiaomi battery pack, it's very solid and feels high quality. So does my OnePlus3, it seems like Chinese (designed) is no longer synonymous with cheap and low quality. They are ready to take over. They are removing the usp of western (designed) products. Admittedly they do it partly via copying. What is the next frontier for western companies? Responsible design? Environmentally f…

http://www.apple.com/environment/

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

#160

Post by josteink »

smcl wrote: post #138
balladeer wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be missing its price - $1142.10[1]. [1] http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-ca...

They stated "Clearly it's not a cheap product"

The Carbon X1 is probably positioned as a competitor to some non-existent Macbook Air/Pro hybrid, and it does have a pricing thereafter. It will certainly have to be more expensive than a plain Air, with its weak CPU and otherwise lackluster specs.

That said, I still find complaints about the X1's price from an Apple-user funny. Whenever people in the past people was critical towards the pricing of Apple products, the response was always "Real quality costs money" and "It's worth it".

Is that no longer so? And is a quality higher than that provided by Apple unimaginable?

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