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Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop

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Re: Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop

#191

Post by hamdingers »

makeitdouble wrote: post #164
wiseowise wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because I want to know if Xbox ASS is better than Xbox PEE without having a manual on my hands? Or what Microsoft Surface pro ai copilot means?

When you go looking for a car will you buy the Peugeot 3008 because it has a higher number than the 208 ? Or will you do research, go to the company site and look at the product description, compare the specs and make your opinion about what best fits your needs ? Right now there's about 5 lines of Surface devices with each their very specific purpose and tradeoffs. I'd be shocked at someone buying one solely based o…

Cars are a poor analogy because model year works as a version number. I'd rather have a 2025 Peugeot whatever than a 2015.

Re: Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop

#192

Post by esrauch »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #187
jedbrooke wrote: post #43

> Consumer electronics naming is very simple. Make a good product with a simple name. “iPhone”, “comma”, “Z Fold”. Then every year or two, add one to the number of that product. If it’s a small refresh, you can add a letter after the number. “2 3 3X 4” “4 4s 5 5s 6 …” “2 3 4 5 6 7” Why is this so hard for companies like HP? Oh man I feel this every time there’s a games console launch. I still have no idea what the la…

> Oh man I feel this every time there’s a games console launch. I still have no idea what the latest Xbox is called but Sony gets it right with “Playstation ” Not so easy: even for old PlaysStations, there existed different versions: 1. PlayStation, PSOne, PlayStation Classic 2. PlayStation 2, PlayStation 2 Slim 3. PlayStation 3, PlayStation 3 Slim, PlayStation 3 Super-Slim 4. PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Slim, PlayS…

I think what you listed matches with what he suggested, they just have words instead of a letter for the variants. Which is actually better in this example because the "Slim", "Pro" and "Digital" mean what you would expect them to mean here, versus the "a" in "Pixel 9a" in somewhat obtuse.

Dell is messing this up badly even though they almost got the strategy, "Dell Pro 14 Premium" is a real product and "Dell Pro Max 14 Plus" is also a real product, there's no way anyone knows what that means.

Re: Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop

#193

Post by hamdingers »

wiseowise wrote: post #153
svrtknst wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not only does OP imagine a powerful customer base, theyre all aligned enough that one configuration fits all. im doubtful

It literally works this way already, it’s called MacBook.

The MacBook currently has two models, each available in two sizes, each size has three to six default configurations. There are dozens of MacBooks before you even get into the customization options.

Re: Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop

#194

Post by maccard »

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #144
maccard wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with him. My personal laptop is an m1 MacBook Pro, and 5 years on it’s still a better experience than my work laptop which is a high spec dell with an i9 and 32GB ram. I’m more likely to chuck the dell than upgrade it because whatever combination of stuff it’s doing just doesn’t work. Give me something solid that will last 5 -6 years with a serviceable (I don’t care if it’s glued or torx’ed or whatever in, ju…

The assumption here is that the MacBook is better because of soldering components rather than because Apple simply made a better chip and has a better OS than Windows. Is there a reason to believe that if Apple didn’t solder memory on, it would make the performance/battery worse, as opposed to making the device slightly heavier/bigger?

> The assumption here is that the MacBook is better because of soldering components rather than because Apple simply made a better chip and has a better OS than Windows.

That's your assumption - my point is that I don't care as long as it's actually good. The only part I really care about is the battery because it has a limited number of cycles that is shorter than the lifetime of the rest of the components.

Re: Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop

#195

Post by maccard »

Delk wrote: post #167
maccard wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with him. My personal laptop is an m1 MacBook Pro, and 5 years on it’s still a better experience than my work laptop which is a high spec dell with an i9 and 32GB ram. I’m more likely to chuck the dell than upgrade it because whatever combination of stuff it’s doing just doesn’t work. Give me something solid that will last 5 -6 years with a serviceable (I don’t care if it’s glued or torx’ed or whatever in, ju…

There are lots of ways of "just not working" but IME the problem with corporate Windows laptops is often the enterprise software crap on them rather than the hardware, necessarily. My work laptop with a high(ish)-end AMD laptop CPU and reasonable hardware quality drains the battery in a couple of hours. It also doesn't feel any faster than my personal three-year-old more lightweight (also AMD, same brand) laptop. In…

> IME the problem with corporate Windows laptops is often the enterprise software crap on them rather than the hardware, necessarily.

I work for a small org, the laptop was bought from Dell and shipped to me. It's running vanilla Windows 11 with OpenVPN and Windows Defender, with a decent sized dev drive. There are so many issues with it - keypresses being 10-20 seconds delayed, random window tearing/partial display updates, the machine deciding to ignore sleep and just dying while the lid is closed. These aren't things that will be solved by replacing the SSD, or the RAM, they're likely CPU (and as a result motherboard) replacements.

> Also, an 8 GB RAM upgrade makes little sense nowadays but a 16 -> 48 GB or 32 -> 64 GB or 32 -> 96 GB upgrade can actually make an otherwise reasonable device better if the amount of RAM becomes a bottleneck.

There's practically no devices (framework is the only one that comes to mind) that will ship with that little RAM and allow an upgrade by that much, even in the desktop space. My 2015 Macbook pro (the device before this) has 16GB RAM , giving it an extra 32GB isn't really going to help it much, the problem is that it's "i7" is an order of magnitude slower than a 3/4 year old replacement device (and ironically probably closer to the Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 258V which is in my work machine)

Re: Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop

#196

Post by maccard »

ffsm8 wrote: post #146
hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption here is that the MacBook is better because of soldering components rather than because Apple simply made a better chip and has a better OS than Windows. Is there a reason to believe that if Apple didn’t solder memory on, it would make the performance/battery worse, as opposed to making the device slightly heavier/bigger?

Apple Silicon is a slightly customized ARM processor soldered onto a main board. That's not the reason for it's better performance. Microsofts support for these is still kinda bad ime, which is easily the biggest impact on their battery longevity. Furthermore, Most super intrusive and performance hindering spyware aka antivirus is only deployed on windows, hence it gets double-punched by having subpar processor suppo…

> These are however all software, not hardware bound issues

Completely agree, which is why the only part that I really care about being replaceable is a battery - the hardware from 2017/2018 holds up to most use cases.

Re: Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop

#197

Post by chem83 »

doublextremevil wrote: post #6

the whole pc laptop industry really is an embarrassment right now. It has been 5 years since the M1 Macbook release, and there is no real equivalent. I'm on a thinkpad x9, which might be the closest I've seen, but the cpu performance just isn't as good.

The gaming laptops that have been made a bit less game-y without the RGBs and thick chassis turned out to be the sweet spot for me. Some compromises here and there, sure, but they mostly have the hardware I want. Asus has a good line up that works very well with Linux from 13 to 16 inches, all with dGPUs, AMD CPU (though Intel is also there), high-refresh rate OLEDs etc.

Re: Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop

#198

Post by listic »

I doubt there will ever be a market for a device with this specific (or many other kinds of other specific) set of requirements, especially if one insists on that 'last bit of polish'. Short of fully developed molecular nanotechnology or similar, allowing economic manufacturing of bespoke hardware in single copies, which is another world from the one we live in, I don't see such wishes come true, so the author (and others like him) will have to settle for something else.

Re: Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop

#199

Post by vladvasiliu »

JodieBenitez wrote: post #182
aorth wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Apple Magic TrackPad works well on Linux, both via Bluetooth and USB-C. I used one for a few years.

Interesting. Are multi-touch gestures supported ? (like these: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102482 )

I don't know about the magic trackpad specifically, but on my HP Elitebook I can use gestures. I'm running i3 and it doesn't support much out of the box, but I was able to configure stuff using libinput-gestures.

More info: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Libinput#Gestures

Re: Bikeshedding, or why I want to build a laptop

#200

Post by amne »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #187
jedbrooke wrote: post #43

> Consumer electronics naming is very simple. Make a good product with a simple name. “iPhone”, “comma”, “Z Fold”. Then every year or two, add one to the number of that product. If it’s a small refresh, you can add a letter after the number. “2 3 3X 4” “4 4s 5 5s 6 …” “2 3 4 5 6 7” Why is this so hard for companies like HP? Oh man I feel this every time there’s a games console launch. I still have no idea what the la…

> Oh man I feel this every time there’s a games console launch. I still have no idea what the latest Xbox is called but Sony gets it right with “Playstation ” Not so easy: even for old PlaysStations, there existed different versions: 1. PlayStation, PSOne, PlayStation Classic 2. PlayStation 2, PlayStation 2 Slim 3. PlayStation 3, PlayStation 3 Slim, PlayStation 3 Super-Slim 4. PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Slim, PlayS…

why are you so deliberately not getting the point?

if I ask you to choose between xbox 360, xbox one and xbox series s which one is the latest?

and then if I ask you to choose between ps2, 3, 4 and 5 which one is the latest?

what do you think are your chances to get it right for xbox?

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