How and why I stopped buying new laptops • Hacker News Board

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#281

Post by Const-me » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 11:11 PM UTC

tatami wrote: post #203

aidenn0 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

500W? That's an absurd amount of heat. I suppose they don't make 75W GPUs anymore (I'll replace my 1050Ti when they do), but still...

You can get the 1650 that runs with 75W. There's even a passive model out there, the Palit KalmX. I refuse to buy a GPU with extra power connectors.

> You can get the 1650 that runs with 75W

The difference between these two is rather small, despite 4 years difference. 1050Ti delivers about 2TFlops, 1650 about 2.6 TFlops. Other specs (VRAM bandwidth, fillrate) are pretty close as well.

Generally, I only upgrade components when I can get at least 2x improvement.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#282

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 11:23 PM UTC

edsonmedina wrote: post #277

dredmorbius wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pages are considerably optimised, including dithering images: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/about.html

You call 283kb optimized? In the late 90s (when websites looked exactly like that) 100kb would be considered excessive.

Relative to current standards, yes.

What is a typical page weight today, inclusive of all external references (images, JS, CSS)?

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#283

Post by bsanr2 » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 3:06 AM UTC

jhoechtl wrote: post #202

bsanr2 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Angst and zeitgeist don't decimate the American tongue. If you want us to adopt verschlimmbessern, drop one of the Ms and one of the Ses and get Muppets to sing a song about it.

You made me smile on a foggy cold and way to early morning before coffee. Take that upvote!

Happy to provide a vital service to society.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#284

Post by tatami » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

Const-me wrote: post #281

tatami wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get the 1650 that runs with 75W. There's even a passive model out there, the Palit KalmX. I refuse to buy a GPU with extra power connectors.

> You can get the 1650 that runs with 75W The difference between these two is rather small, despite 4 years difference. 1050Ti delivers about 2TFlops, 1650 about 2.6 TFlops. Other specs (VRAM bandwidth, fillrate) are pretty close as well. Generally, I only upgrade components when I can get at least 2x improvement.

Yes that's fair. I did the upgrade from the 750 Ti and skipped the 1050 Ti for the same reason.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#285

Post by akulbe » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 6:14 PM UTC

ianai wrote: post #191

pengaru wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thin, light, very portable, USB ports on each side, headphone jack and an external monitor port (in this case, thunderbolt). Welcome to ~2004 in IBM ThinkPad X-series land, IBM "solved the laptop form factor" ~4 years prior to Apple's Air. And even before that Sony's PCG-Z505 delivered most of this in a robust and lightweight magnesium package.

To some non-trivial amount, many laptops wind up being just a desktop with the lid closed 100% of the time in someone's office. It's the size of the commercial industry that makes manufacturers have little reason to actually make good laptops for laptop use.

Came here to say this. I've been working from home for ~6 years now. My work laptop sits vertical in a stand, and is wholly connected to external devices. I switched back to a desktop machine for my personal machine. It sits in a tray that's mounted on the underside of my desk.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#286

Post by Lio » Sat, Dec 26, 2020, 4:26 PM UTC

rsync wrote: post #9

The 11" Macbook Air solved the laptop form factor. Thin, light, very portable, USB ports on each side , headphone jack and an external monitor port (in this case, thunderbolt). Could there be some refinements to my 2015 MBA ? Certainly - the two type-A USB ports could remain type A but be upgraded to USB3 ... you could add a USB-C port on each side in place of the magsafe and lightning ports and gain the ability to c…

Dell's XPS 13 fills a similar role for me as a Linux user (also have a MacBook Pro but I'm using it less and less).

The XPS13 is the same size as the MBA11; I'm using an 11" MBA case for mine. It has a larger, 4K screen though and faster 4 core/8 thread CPU and better GPU.

USB-C on both sides and a MicroSD card.

The trackpad isn't as good as a Mac yet but it is acceptable to me and is improving all the time.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#287

Post by krageon » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 11:02 AM UTC

fastball wrote: post #267

krageon wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small screens have small letters, small icons, etc. My eyesight is very good, but working on such a screen is uncomfortable after an extended amount of time (unless you lower the resolution significantly).

Is your eyesight really that good? I've worked on a 13" screen all day long and have terrible eyesight and usually eye discomfort is that last thing I feel.

Yes, it's been measured.

Re: How and why I stopped buying new laptops

#288

Post by krageon » Mon, Jan 04, 2021, 11:03 AM UTC

flagrant wrote: post #251

krageon wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small screens have small letters, small icons, etc. My eyesight is very good, but working on such a screen is uncomfortable after an extended amount of time (unless you lower the resolution significantly).

You can have a small screen with large letters and a big screen with small letters. You're conflating screen size and feature size. If you have a 4K screen and the features are too small, increase the UI size , don't decrease the resolution. If you're running a 4K screen at 1080p all you've done is waste a lot of money.

Oh please, the experience in practice for this is terrible unless you're on Mac OS and even then it's not always good.