This field (XPS 13 and Neo) includes the Chromebook Plus Spin 514 with Mediatek Kompanio Ultra inside, which is superior to both in performance and hardware (and default OS, IMHO) and sells for $100 less.
Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?
61–70 of 205 posts
Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does anyone even do repairs anymore? Swap a motherboard and that's it.
So... swapping $100 component for a $0.3 break? Doesn't this make including the jack even less justifiable?
Or don't swap it and live without the jack. But I have never seen a broken 3.5mm port but I've seen many, many broken or flaky USB-C ports.
Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
3.5mm TRS jacks might cost 10 cents to include and then hundreds of dollars to service when they break. The issue is not the BOM cost.
> then hundreds of dollars to service when they break Can you explain what do you mean by that? It is quite rare to see broken trrs jack on a laptop, at least I have never experienced one, nor on walkman or anything getting heavy plug/unplug use. I thought it is an issue in reducing the cost to manufacture the case or something.
The jack actually broke on my old xps. Changing it with an aliexpress replacement took about 15 minutes and something like 3€
So yeah, they break, but they are (or used to be?) quite cheap to fix (and this was one of the super thin 13" xps)
Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?
#64> no headphone jack I am fully old man screaming at the clouds here, but what does this cost for Dell to include? I insist on a wired headset - telecommunications already barely works, I don't want to add wireless+battery problems into the mix.
repair costs, more substantial than bom.
> I insist on a wired headset
usb audio generally works great, and because it's powered, you often get better audio quality (with microphone arrays for anc)
and even neat features like system volume integration with buttons and ANC
i have a yealink uh48 but you can get almost-as-good functionality for a lot less (or pay more for even better!)
Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
3.5mm TRS jacks might cost 10 cents to include and then hundreds of dollars to service when they break. The issue is not the BOM cost.
> then hundreds of dollars to service when they break Can you explain what do you mean by that? It is quite rare to see broken trrs jack on a laptop, at least I have never experienced one, nor on walkman or anything getting heavy plug/unplug use. I thought it is an issue in reducing the cost to manufacture the case or something.
I’ve never had one break due to heavy use, but broke one on my work desktop due to forgetting I was wearing headphones and yanking on it when I got up.
Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?
#66> no headphone jack I am fully old man screaming at the clouds here, but what does this cost for Dell to include? I insist on a wired headset - telecommunications already barely works, I don't want to add wireless+battery problems into the mix.
no jack doesn't mean wireless only. Not having TRRS 3.5mm is a bit annoying but there are lots of usb-a or usb-c headset that have an embedded DAC + you can always use the DAC/USB soundcard of your choice. Also many laptops only had TRS which really killed the appeal of having analog wired equipment if you were forced to use the embedded laptop microphone.
Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?
#67> no headphone jack I am fully old man screaming at the clouds here, but what does this cost for Dell to include? I insist on a wired headset - telecommunications already barely works, I don't want to add wireless+battery problems into the mix.
There are USB headsets, that usually provides a few extra handy features, like volume/mute and call answer/hangup buttons.
Does it have to be wired via headphones jack?
Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?
#68> no headphone jack I am fully old man screaming at the clouds here, but what does this cost for Dell to include? I insist on a wired headset - telecommunications already barely works, I don't want to add wireless+battery problems into the mix.
no jack doesn't mean wireless only. Not having TRRS 3.5mm is a bit annoying but there are lots of usb-a or usb-c headset that have an embedded DAC + you can always use the DAC/USB soundcard of your choice. Also many laptops only had TRS which really killed the appeal of having analog wired equipment if you were forced to use the embedded laptop microphone.
With only two USB-C ports that means you get just headphones and power if you're not using a hub or USB dock.
Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple has been working ruthlessly on battery efficiency for a long time because of the phones and their tendency to minimize battery sizes on Macs for thinness. The exact design of the cores, how they’re scheduled, the way background stuff is handled on MacOS. All of it. The chips are made on a fantastic process too, but that alone isn’t it. For example they’ve been putting the ability to drop refresh rate really low…
I think the Top500 benchmark is biased here. It’s a supercomputing benchmark which means it’s going to heavily weight SIMD and float64 performance, which are things that rarely matter for everyday computing. SIMD has uses in the real world - image or video editing, data crunching, graphics. But consumers basically never use fp64 any more, and so many modern chips have next to zero performance on them. That could easi…
> consumers basically never use fp64 any more
They do in audio processing. ;)
Re: Can Intel finally beat ARM on performance per Watt?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
You might want to try getting the Nvidia GPU working. They're several times faster than intel integrated, and browsers are a GPU-heavy application. Intel keeps trying to say their integrated graphics are finally decently fast, but that's only a select few special models. Their high-volume chips continue to have integrated GPUs that are barely fast enough for web browsing.
How are laptop GPUs these days in terms of energy consumption? My last experience was a while ago, but the battery drained fast with them active.
They still eat battery, but at least the midrange ones, not nearly as much as they used to.