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The Last PC Laptop

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Re: The Last PC Laptop

#51

Post by slowpoke »

buro9 wrote: post #35
Zak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Train rides are kind of boring. Why wouldn't I get out my laptop on a train? I did, recently, to add depth-of-field compensation to a blurry image detector I'm writing for my own amusement. I don't think that would be nearly as fun on a stupidly-big phone.

> Train rides are kind of boring. Why wouldn't I get out my laptop on a train? To allow yourself a momentary disconnect. To watch the world out of the window, or the people around you. To take an interest in the weather and season. To give your mind a chance to digest what you mean to do or what you have done. I cherish my time travelling from one place to another, even if that is just a walk to the shops, a trip on…

>To allow yourself a momentary disconnect. To watch the world out of the window, or the people around you. To take an interest in the weather and season.

I'm sorry to sound misanthropic or otherwise cynic, but people on the train are, for the overwhelming majority, uninteresting or annoying. I don't take that much interest in the landscape or weather, either. I'd much rather disconnect from that and hack on my laptop instead, thank you.

Re: The Last PC Laptop

#52

Post by ruv »

Zak wrote: post #27
wildc4rd11 wrote: post #19

By emphasizing that this is his last "PC" laptop, I assume he might still buy a laptop in the future but not a PC one. However, all the points listed in the article are reasons for why tablets are more awesome.

The only thing I find appealing about tablets at the moment is the ARM CPU, which translates directly to low heat and long battery life. I don't want to run a tablet OS. I don't want to have to attach an external keyboard. I don't care about touch. I want more than a gig of RAM. I want a laptop-class SSD, not an SD card. I'm actually considering building my own ARM laptop because I haven't seen anything on the market…

My thoughts exactly. I cannot help but think there's a rather big opportunity for HW companies here...

Re: The Last PC Laptop

#53

Post by Zak »

ruv wrote: post #52
Zak wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing I find appealing about tablets at the moment is the ARM CPU, which translates directly to low heat and long battery life. I don't want to run a tablet OS. I don't want to have to attach an external keyboard. I don't care about touch. I want more than a gig of RAM. I want a laptop-class SSD, not an SD card. I'm actually considering building my own ARM laptop because I haven't seen anything on the market…

My thoughts exactly. I cannot help but think there's a rather big opportunity for HW companies here...

I'm actually inclined to think there isn't. The things I want from a computer and what finds success in the market don't necessarily line up that well.

I built the laptop I'm typing this on out of parts from three different Thinkpads because I wanted a 64-bit machine with a trackpoint and a high-quality 4:3 screen and nobody made one. About one in four of the programmer/IT types I talked to about it agreed that was a good use of my time and money.

Re: The Last PC Laptop

#54

Post by Roritharr »

Derbasti wrote: post #42
Roritharr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My tablet today is significantly more powerful than my laptop in 2006 but still not quite fast enough for compiling stuff etc. What kind of laptop did you own? If you've got an iPad 3, any Tegra 3 or Exynos 4412 powered Android Tablet known to my knowledge you have in no way the processing power of a 2006 Laptop. To remind you, a reasonable Laptop in 2006 had a Core (2) Duo CPU, discreet graphics aside. I've used s…

The laptop in question was a 1.6 Ghz Core Solo with 2 Gb of memory and integrated graphics. Even with x86 outperforming ARM at similar clockings etc., a current generation quad core 1.5 Ghz tablet will probably be in a similar performance range as that laptop. But you are right in that I am comparing a mid range laptop from 2006 with a top of the line tablet in 2012, which is unfair. However, it does not alter the ar…

Even a 1.6 Ghz Core Solo with 2Gb of memory will outperform a 1.5 ghz quad-core tegra 3 tablet with 1gb of memory(low power ddr3 memory is very expensive and unused ram still consumes power) for about any day-to-day task, software very specifically crafted for the tegra 3 soc aside.

The instruction sets and core design are just not as performance oriented on those ARM chips.

To put insult to injury, especially on mobile there are not many apps that use the multi-core capabilitys of those quad-core cpu's very well, even the Android OS is not very optimised in the sense that modern Desktop OSes are. That is one of the major reasons why a dual-core A15 SOC is faster than a Quad-Core A9... There is no true multi-threading available in browsers, thats why Intels Medfield chips win handsdown all browser benchmarks. Having a fast single-core with hyper threading is obviously going to kick a lot of ass in the browser department.

PS: If you want to see for yourself, install Ubuntu on those Tegra 3 tablets and compare it to ubuntu on your core solo: http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/ASUS_Eee_Pad_Transforme...

Re: The Last PC Laptop

#55

Post by malaporte »

zalew wrote: post #4

> And even programmers, the audience who would most need all the power and flexibility of laptops, are switching to tablets. programmerS? the link is the only guy I heard of so far, and I even know die-hard ipad fans who laugh at the idea of a tablet being a serious workstation.

Just looking at his setup gave me back pain. I mean, why settle for a small tablet screen with a separate keyboard when you can have several huge screens giving you so much more screen space? What is the point there?

Of course a portable device is great to use when I'm away from my desk, but that's the exception not the rule.

I quite agree with Derbasti; my dream device would be a tablet that I can dock at my desk and have it transformed into a full blown workstation. Even better, make it a phone with a large-ish screen.

Re: The Last PC Laptop

#56

Post by linker3000 »

Bakkot wrote: post #38
linker3000 wrote: post #23

"Want the smallest most portable device you can get away with? " "Want to be always connected to the Internet? Sure you do;" "Just try opening a laptop on a crowded subway train or bus." Someone needs to stop trying to arrange their life around their tech and try it the other way around. If you are so overloaded with work, or so keen at your work, or so behind in your work, that you need to open your laptop on the tr…

The basic premise of your post is that people only use technology to do work. To put it lightly, this has not been my experience.

The basic premise of my post was a response to Jeff's original one using the same, work-related context.

On a broader perspective, of course you are right.

Re: The Last PC Laptop

#57

Post by linker3000 »

Kudos wrote: post #49
Zak wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Train rides are kind of boring. Why wouldn't I get out my laptop on a train? I did, recently, to add depth-of-field compensation to a blurry image detector I'm writing for my own amusement. I don't think that would be nearly as fun on a stupidly-big phone.

Trains are my favourite place to get work done. I'm not sure what exactly it is about it but I can get 3 solid hours of focused work done, usually the work I've been avoiding for the previous fortnight.

Aha - it's the work/life balance thing then, mixed in with procrastination!

Re: The Last PC Laptop

#58

Post by zalew »

moconnor wrote: post #46
zalew wrote: post #4

> And even programmers, the audience who would most need all the power and flexibility of laptops, are switching to tablets. programmerS? the link is the only guy I heard of so far, and I even know die-hard ipad fans who laugh at the idea of a tablet being a serious workstation.

Several people have told me they do the same. It might not be thousands, but there are programmers out there working like this. It works for programmers because the iPad isn't your workstation, it's just your connection to a remote workstation. I'm not sure this is applicable to e.g. graphic design.

you know, working on a terminal (thin client) is nothing particularly new. and when you attach a keyboard and a mouse/touchpad to assemble a kind-of-laptop-but-not-laptop terminal it's by strict measures no longer 'working on a tablet', so what's the point of it exactly? carrying around a keyboard to say you don't use a netbook, it's a tablet? trying to prove something?

Re: The Last PC Laptop

#59

Post by john_flintstone »

slowpoke wrote: post #51
buro9 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Train rides are kind of boring. Why wouldn't I get out my laptop on a train? To allow yourself a momentary disconnect. To watch the world out of the window, or the people around you. To take an interest in the weather and season. To give your mind a chance to digest what you mean to do or what you have done. I cherish my time travelling from one place to another, even if that is just a walk to the shops, a trip on…

>To allow yourself a momentary disconnect. To watch the world out of the window, or the people around you. To take an interest in the weather and season. I'm sorry to sound misanthropic or otherwise cynic, but people on the train are, for the overwhelming majority, uninteresting or annoying. I don't take that much interest in the landscape or weather, either. I'd much rather disconnect from that and hack on my laptop…

>but people on the train are, for the overwhelming majority, uninteresting or annoying

And they're usually the same people every day, if you catch the same train.

Re: The Last PC Laptop

#60

Post by Tichy »

I don't see myself typing long texts on a tablet or phone in the foreseeable future. For consuming on the road, it turned out the 10.1" tablet is actually too big and the phone is sufficient.

What about the Asus tablet with the detachable keyboard? I saw it in a shop recently and it looked surprisingly solid.

Another, perhaps stupid thought: with screen resolutions blowing up, could it become possible to use glasses to see a phone display in a size equivalent to 27"?

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