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The MacBook Neo

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Re: The MacBook Neo

#391

Post by eldaisfish »

wtallis wrote: post #383
whalesalad wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets worse when you look at Intel/AMD's CPU naming schemes. Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, Intel Core Ultra 9 285H. Clown show all around.

The CPU model naming is silly, but definitely not as bad as laptop naming or monitor naming. Intel and AMD at least pick a structured naming scheme and stick with it for two or three years, and almost all of the OEMs tell you which processor you're getting so you can comparison shop between brands.

Not really. Both AMD and intel have several models where the names are similar but differ in an important way such as one being pervious generation.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#392

Post by znpy »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #134

"It's a real Mac" - I get that! I remember a whole slew of inexpensive netbooks and the like that were technically Windows XP or Windows 7 machines, but came with a dumbed-down "starter" OS, not enough RAM, only a 32-bit CPU in an era were 64 bits were already becoming standard - the sum of which amounted to a barely usable imitation of a real Windows machine and as a result most of these became garage sale fodder pr…

Oh i had one of those! The acer aspire one d250, with 1gb ram and 160gb of spinning rust.

Once i got Debian, fluxbox and emacs on it i was able to do java development (with ant and the j2me toolkit).

It was no big issue at all really, once you got linux on it.

I must say, however: the web was much lighter back in the day and electron was still to be conceived. That’s very relevant.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#393

Post by Giefo6ah »

mmcnl wrote: post #256
officeplant wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have no idea how Lenovo's ThinkPad T series differs from ... My personal rundown and how they get assigned: E - Educational / Lower office personnel spec L - Office personnel you hate spec, but don't offer the E because they might complain. T - Give this to all the technicians because they can't take care of anything and it will survive typically. P - Give this to the engineers who believe having an RTX gpu will…

This still doesn't tell me how they differ. What are the factual objective measurable differences between E/L/T/P?

I was assigned an E14 once. Compared to a T14:

The case is all thick ABS.

It weighs like 2.4 kg, and the weight is unbalanced.

The USB-C charge only works at 20V, nothing less.

While charging it overheats and spins up the fans.

It came with a TN screen with terrible viewing angles, that could not be used in a brightly lit room. I didn't use the laptop for two months while I waited for a replacement screen from aliexpress.

Keyboard is much thinner, the trackpoint drifts easily.

Camera quality is worse, somehow it cannot handle sun-lit scenes. Microphone and speakers are similar to the T14.

It stopped receiving firmware updates after two years.

It uses about 0.5 W while suspended, so its tiny 48 Wh battery typically doesn't last the weekend with the lid closed.

The motherboard has design issues, a missing protection diode in the headphone jack microphone input ended up frying the CPU due to a ground loop. Meanwhile the T14 has eaten the same ground loop and even a 48V passive PoE in an accident and dealt with it by rebooting. A T450 from 2015 is still running.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#394

Post by bigyabai »

mikestew wrote: post #249
bigyabai wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy a Magic Trackpad and pair it with your Thinkpad no problem. It's much more comfortable to use it side-by-side with your keyboard, most of the time I'm reaching for the Trackpoint if my hands are on home row.

You can buy a Magic Trackpad and pair it with your Thinkpad no problem. Yeah, that works great on the bus. It's one more thing to tote around to meetings, but hey, at least I didn't have to buy a MacBook! Or I could just buy a Mac and not have to resort to hacks to get a decent trackpad.

If I use one of my Macs then I have to resort to hacks to get a decent OS. A crappy trackpad is ~10-20x less annoying than a hostile OEM, at least for my non-bus-based work.

In any case, my response was to cromka's comment and our shared dissatisfaction with Asahi.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#395

Post by znpy »

Apocryphon wrote: post #378
eloisant wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already cannibalized a lot of Linux users, developers mainly when they released MacOS X around year 2000. Suddenly you could have a Unix, with pretty much the same CLI as Linux but without all the supported hardware/driver issues. Laptop sleep in particular was pretty finicky. If MacOS didn't pick a Unix/BSD base, I'm pretty sure all the tech companies running Mac would be on Linux.

BeOS, anyone?

Clearly not

Re: The MacBook Neo

#397

Post by _dain_ »

dangus wrote: post #330
nottorp wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ask me, all web devs should be forced to work on 4 Gb machines. This way you'll be able to run more than one "web app" at the same time on your devices.

That's dumb. You can hardly even buy a machine with 4GB of memory on sale, at any price. If you are making products that depend on people spending money on them, you generally don't have to care about broke people with 15 year old computers.

ebay

Re: The MacBook Neo

#398

Post by error503 »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #166
nicoburns wrote: post #150

> The Neo charges faster if you plug it into a more powerful power adapter, in either USB-C port. The fact that the "usb 2" port works for (fast) charging is a big win. That means you can charge and use the fast usb port at the same time.

I think that makes it a non-standard implementation though (I agree it's certainly more practical for the user), sounds like it's usb-c pd but with nerfed data, an odd choice that feels like it would actually have cost more to develop than just adding two identical usb-c 3.x ports...

Why would it be non-standard? USB-PD is almost completely decoupled from the rest of USB, and USB-C connector doesn't imply 'super speed' lanes are available. The only thing it really changes from an implementation perspective is that you don't have to route high speed lanes to the port, and don't need them to be available on your USB controller.

Doesn't seem to be very Apple-like to have two identical looking ports with different function, though.

Re: The MacBook Neo

#399

Post by jahnu »

NoPicklez wrote: post #23

As someone who buys Asus motherboards when he builds PC's, it hasn't been a shock for me as an owner of a Macbook for the last 18 years. I've been of the firm opinion for a very long time that Macbook's are the best productivity laptops and now even more so once Apple moved from Intel to their own M chips. Their entry level Macbook before the Neo you could buy and it would be a laptop that would see you for many many…

2016-2019 was an awful blip but otherwise I agree

Re: The MacBook Neo

#400

Post by wtallis »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #166
nicoburns wrote: post #150

> The Neo charges faster if you plug it into a more powerful power adapter, in either USB-C port. The fact that the "usb 2" port works for (fast) charging is a big win. That means you can charge and use the fast usb port at the same time.

I think that makes it a non-standard implementation though (I agree it's certainly more practical for the user), sounds like it's usb-c pd but with nerfed data, an odd choice that feels like it would actually have cost more to develop than just adding two identical usb-c 3.x ports...

I'm not sure exactly what the USB specs require, but there are a lot of phones out there that only support USB 2.0 data speed but do implement the current fast charging protocols. It's absolutely a mainstream thing.
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