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Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

system76.com

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Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#251

Post by chrismorgan »

dsego wrote: post #230
dabernathy89 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it weird that non-Mac laptops either come with 1080 or 4k display options. Mac displays look incredible, and the 16" MBP resolution is 3072 × 1920 - basically 70% of the pixels on a 4k monitor.

I think it's to avoid fractional scaling.

And the crazy thing about that is that Windows handles fractional scaling perfectly, and I hear that Linux environments mostly do (but I have no experience), while macOS uses an absolutely stupidly bad technique that literally makes the higher resolution worse than having a lower resolution screen in most cases: rendering at the next integer, and scaling down. That way, it’s impossible to draw pixel-perfectly, and fine detail (like text) is always blurry. The mind boggles and I still have trouble believing that they actually did this, when their grip of their ecosystem made them the OS in the best position to do it right.

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#252

Post by jdmichal »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #215
Happpy wrote: post #27

I'd love to replace my thinkpad. But I need/want things that seem unavailable. * trackpoint + buttons (can be without touchpad, disabled anyway) * full keyboard * strong durable * removable battery * 4k screen * ecc 64-128gb * rj45 * lots of ports * hardware switches to disable: networking, camera, mic,.. Thinkpad's are move farther away each year. I hope some company will fill the gap.

It's worse than you think: They are somewhat hamstrung in their hardware decisions by the current offerings from those Apple/Ultrabook chasing OEMs, but in this case they jumped the shark entirely and removed the 2.5" drive caddy . The nearly identical Clevo NL51RU/NL50RU [1] has a 2.5" drive caddy but a 36 Wh battery. Take a look at the internal photo of the System76 unit at [2]. It's the same laptop. Heck, they did…

I agree with your general sentiment. (He says typing on his Dell XPS 13...) But it also seems to me that ditching a drive bay to get a bigger battery is the definition of a design decision and not in any way jumping the shark.

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#254

Post by echelon »

willis936 wrote: post #247
_x5tx wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always add a usb numpad, but you can never remove one that is already there.

True. Why do they sell laptops with screen built in?

Because all laptop users make use of the screen.

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#255

Post by coldtea »

echelon wrote: post #231
tastyfreeze wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why many workstation-class laptops DONT have a num pads. It is so annoying to have to type long sequences of digits without one.

Do numbers constitute even 5% of your keyboard usage time?

To some professions, they do.

This includes a surprising variety, from accountants and POS, to 3D modelling artists...

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#256

Post by deckard1 »

Macha wrote: post #196
indymike wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would buy in a heartbeat if it had a 4k display. Hard to go back to 1080p after six years of Retina and 4K displays.

Honestly find it hard to notice much difference in the display quality between my 1080p 2018 XPS laptop and my 1800p 2019 Mac laptop. Actually the XPS is slightly preferable to me because the matte vs glossy finish outweighs the extra resolution at that size for me. I guess that could just be my sight, but the reviews for the XPS laptop vs the 4k model of the same were pretty much unanimous on the 4k variant being a…

> the XPS is slightly preferable to me because the matte vs glossy finish outweighs the extra resolution at that size for me.

I have a ThinkPad, and this has been my experience. Sitting next to my Macbook Pro 13" retina, there is not much difference. 14" 16:9 1080p vs. 13" 16:10 1600p. The matte finish + slight diagonal increase closes the gap between the two. Unless you're in your 20s with perfect vision, I doubt the average person could tell a visual difference between the two.

I will also say that at 13", the difference between 16:9 and 16:10 is practically nonexistent. Especially 14" vs 13". I thought this would be a major issue for me. But it's not. On a 27" desktop monitor? Sure, that can make a difference.

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#257

Post by Dylan16807 »

fnord77 wrote: post #218

I don't understand why many of these workstation-class laptops have num. pads. It is so annoying to type with your hands off-center from the screen.

Lots of people don't care.

It can be important to keep the trackpad close to centered on the keyboard for easily use of both, but the screen not aligning by a couple inches is purely aesthetic.

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#258

Post by coldtea »

echelon wrote: post #254
willis936 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Why do they sell laptops with screen built in?

Because all laptop users make use of the screen.

A large number of laptop users just use them on the desktop, tethered to a big screen, in clamshell mode. This includes almost every vlogger setup one can find...

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#259

Post by officeplant »

macksd wrote: post #206
Fergusonb wrote: post #86

I can't speak to the 4700u or the pangolin specifically, but I can offer this perspective on PopOS/AMD: I've been using System76's PopOS with my Asus Zephyrus G14 (4800hs) as a daily driver and I really like it. (freelance/web) The battery life is comparable to Windows (on integrated graphics mode, it has graphics switching available)at 7-10 hours with 70% brightness and balanced power settings using VScode and firef…

Especially in a post-COVID world where home offices are more common and possibly with even less travel, I think battery life is quite overrated for many people. I have a Serval Workstation (i.e. high-power laptop) from System76 and absolutely love it. The battery doesn't last very long especially if I'm doing heavy-lifting on the GPU, but I very rarely go somewhere I can't plug in. I need to be able to fold up my "wo…

For me battery life means I can go outside somewhere to get some fresh air/inspiration (hobby computer music production). It doesn't frustrate me to have to take the power brick along, but it is nice when I can replace that weight in my bag with a small midi controller.

Re: Pangolin – Mobile AMD laptop with Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics

#260

Post by baybal2 »

mturilin wrote: post #220

I just can understand people creating non HiDPI displays in 2021. It’s just beyond me that someone is making laptops with display much worse than my 2012 MBP Retina.

> I just can understand people creating non HiDPI displays in 2021.

Because they still sell.

Back around 2 decades ago, we had a funny thing in Russia where people demanded 640x480 monitors back, and even bought, and sold them on premium because new 1024x768 monitors "make everything so tiny!"

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