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from the renewed-interest-in-Compaq-Portable-computers dept.
Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
The pursuit of thinner, lighter laptops, a trend driven by Apple, means we have screwed ourselves out of performance.
Over the last few days we’ve seen outcry about Apple’s new MacBook Pro, which offers an optional top-end i9 processor, and how its performance is throttled to the point of parody as the laptop heats up over time.
Sparked by a video from YouTuber Dave Lee, who demonstrates that the only way to get Apple’s quoted performance from the MacBook Pro is by keeping it in a refrigerator, the outcry has been brutal.
Thousands of comments on the video say things like “Wow if it cant even maintain stock speeds that's pretty sad” and “Apple should offer a fridge that goes with the Macbook i9,” but the sobering reality is that this practice is normal across laptops—we’re just starting to see it more often.
[...] If Pro users really were Apple’s target market, the company could redesign these laptops to use the older, thicker MacBook Pro form factor from 2015. With that available space, and improvements in processor design, it would be able to better cool the same hardware and squeeze out more performance—but it’ll never happen. Thicker laptops would mean admitting failure.
Thinner and lighter is great, and if we’re honest, we’re all sucked in by the allure. The unfortunate reality for those of us that need these machines for work is that it’s just not good enough, and we’d welcome thicker machines in exchange for hardware that isn’t constrained by heat. Apple insists these new MacBooks are for ‘pro users,’ and while it has some of the best-in-class hardware design out there today, it simply doesn’t hold up if you push them hard enough.
The MacBook Pro isn’t designed for pro users at all, it’s a slick marketing machine designed to sell to the wealthy ‘prosumer’ that wouldn’t notice anyway. That much has been clear since the introduction of the Touch Bar and death of the SD slot—and it’s making a ton of money anyway.
Source: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kmkve/thinner-and-lighter-laptops-have-screwed-us-all
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:24PM (19 children)
Apple finally got its founding wish: A walled garden.
And, Apple proved that it's very profitable. Almost every other software firm and hardware firm as followed suit, closing off access to internals such that the only way to play is to pay and then do it their way. That is what has ruined computing.
The advancement of FOSS halted in 2012, and no one really cares. There's too much money to be made selling junk to children.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:00PM (3 children)
I'm not sure it was a founding wish. Their first hit, the Apple II, had half a dozen expansion slots under the lid.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:21PM (2 children)
Steve Jobs wanted 2 things: Your money, and your submission to his way.
The Apple IIs were historical achievements, but that's not representative of Steve Jobs's Apple, but rather of Steve Wozniak's Apple. When people think of Apple, they think of the Macintosh and of iPods/iPhones/iPads, and Apple's heroic efforts to do its own, non-compatible thing.
Whereas the PC industry famously erupted from the off-the-shelf IBM PC free-market frankenstein, Apple famously crushed the Macintosh clones [wikipedia.org]. According to Apple, there can be Only One.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @07:21PM
The current Apple walled garden approach to computing is fully the fault of Job's desire to control every aspect of his users.
Now that Jobs is gone, the corporate types won't let it go because they've discovered how much money there is by jailing users into their walled garden.
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:34AM
Apple has never wanted a dominant position in the PC (or consumer gadget, now) market. They want to control a small part of the larger market, with higher value/cost products.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by theluggage on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:31PM (6 children)
Except - unlike iOS (and most Android devices unless you're tech-savvy enough to 'root' them or jump through complicated hoops to side-load apps) - the "walled garden" on Mac OS has a nice big gate that can be thrown open by unticking a checkbox, and its been that way for years now. Restricting it to only use the App Store is strictly optional (and useful if you're configuring a Mac for use by [insert ageist/sexist stereotype here].. By default, you have to jump through a minor hoop the first time you run an unsigned app. Install MacPorts or Brew and you've got all of the usual FOSS suspects available - or just spin up a VM and install what the hell OS you want in its own little sandbox.
Making the damned things too thing for proper cooling or even a decent keyboard is a totally different blight and I'm not going to defend them for that ... although the worst of the i9 throttling looks like it was partly a straight-up bug that has been quickly fixed with a firmware update (have Dell fixed their i9 throttling problem yet?).
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:38PM (1 child)
Mac OS X descends from the BSDs, and had to play very nicely at first because Apple was the underdog. I have watched the steady erosion of BSD/FOSS influence over Apple's software and community, and I've watched the rise of a complete lack of respect for the Unix philosophy.
This large gate of which you speak is an artifact of a past civilization that is being forgotten.
(Score: 4, Funny) by maxwell demon on Wednesday July 25 2018, @04:51PM
A star gate? :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:33PM (2 children)
you mean I can install any operating system I want into iphones because it's not boot locked?
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:42PM
I want to see you get GEOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(8-bit_operating_system) [wikipedia.org] running on your iPhone. An x86 emulator / MS-DOS box should do it.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Wednesday July 25 2018, @10:25PM
Clue: we're talking about Macs not iPhones. They're different - and not nearly as locked-down. Apple even include a click-n-drool helper tool for installing Windows. Not sure if Linux has drivers for recent Macs but, frankly, though, the only reason for paying the Apple tax these days is if you want to run MacOS (which will happily run Linux/BSD in a VM and the majority of the major FOSS packages natively) and, come the day when you no longer want MacOS, flog the Mac to someone who does (they'll pay an inflated price for MacOS) and get some cheap generic hardware.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday July 25 2018, @09:39PM
Side-loading Android apps consists of checking a box in settings. That's all.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @04:30PM (7 children)
Not true. Apple was founded on the Apple II, a computer that was all about openness. It came with useful technical documentation. It encouraged third-parties to develop expansion cards to allow the computer to do all kinds of things that weren't possible out of the box. That was Woz's contribution. Jobs put it in a pretty (enough for the time) box and marketed it.
You're thinking of the Macintosh. That was Jobs's baby. From day one, that thing was a closed box. Things relaxed a little when Jobs was ousted, but that quickly changed after his return. Once he died, marketing and design decided to screw us further, soldering in the RAM and storage and gluing things down, making it virtually impossible to even replace our own batteries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @04:35PM (2 children)
Already discussed above, nearly notion-for-notion. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:10PM (1 child)
He posted about the Apple II, as in "2", which means it's supposed to be mentioned twice. He's just doing his part ... why aren't you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @08:06PM
Are you Jay Wilson?
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Wednesday July 25 2018, @04:55PM
The battery was replaced by opening a door on the back, AA battery inside.
The floppy could be upgraded to double sided.
There were ways to upgrade the processor, we went from 68000 to 68030. And you could revert to using the 68000 by holding the interrupt key at boot. This upgrade also let us install more RAM.
We added a SCSI interface and booted from it.
We added a second (still B&W) full page screen.
Later on the battery was internalized.
Mac II series brought back regular expansion slots
iMac got the ball rolling on USB.
Mac Pro became a trash can
Yada yada, the Apple coaster is still a mess though.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by theluggage on Wednesday July 25 2018, @07:08PM (1 child)
Well, yes, not a bad idea considering the 20kV in the high tension circuits of the display, that hung around even when turned off and disconnected. Still, all you needed was a Torx bit welded to a long shaft... none of this modern heat pack, guitar pick, pizza-cutter and replacement set of double-sided sticky tape malarkey.
Since then, during Jobs' later tenure, Apple released both sealed-shut "appliances" and pro machines like the G4 tower and the G5/Intel "Cheesegrater" that went the extra mile to hinge apart at a flip of a catch and were the easiest machines ever to work on... Looks to me that, in those days, someone understood "horses for courses".
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:43AM
All you really needed to open a dinkyscreen Mac was a long handled flat blade screwdriver of the right blade width. You could wedge it into the Torx hole, and pull the Torx screws to discard. They were replaced with phillips head screws of the same size which are commonly available. I still have four dinkyscreen Macs, three SE/30's and a plain SE. I, of course, retain the original torx screws for collector's value, but I never screw them back into place.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday July 25 2018, @08:38PM
When my Mid 2012 MacBook Pro died, I managed to dig up a very small PCIe To USB3 enclosure so I could recover the data.
Other World Computing sells compatible storage cards so you can get even faster storage then that which comes with the box.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:27PM (2 children)
Here's the thing, honey. The laptop goes on your lap. Not up your pussy.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:39PM
Wheew... quite a stretched pussy your honey has.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:56PM
What about teledildonics?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:39PM (34 children)
The group you're pulling from self selects because they are getting what they want. Power users do not use Macs, period. They buy much better kit for much lower prices and install an OS not designed specifically with non-technical idiots as its target audience.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:48PM (5 children)
Windows is designed for idiots. Mac OS X is designed for idiots. Ubuntu is designed for idiots. Even Arch keeps things so "simple" that they've become "simplistic" to the point of idiocy.
You can't escape the idiots.
I think non-idiots just make do with whatever they've got. If they need to get real work done, then they don't use laptops anyway; they use beefy desktop machines or super computers.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:58PM (3 children)
Non idiots use Slackware.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:07PM
Non slackers use idiots.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:58PM
How can that be? I don't use Slackware.
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:57AM
Non idiots use Slackware.
NetBSD [netbsd.org]. The installer for NetBSD/amd64 is still only a 733MB iso image [planetunix.net]. You install the base system, which includes the X Window system and a complete toolchain, then you install pkgsrc [pkgsrc.org] and build or download binaries of everything you need as packages. Pkgsrc installs all dependencies, so if you want a fairly complete copy of LaTEX, you just tell pkgsrc to install or build the lyx word processor.
The tab window manager (twm) rocks, if you like something simple but usable. It's a built in part of X11. It's well documented in O'Reilly's X Window System Reference bookset, which is 8 thick volumes.
NetBSD has gotten easier all the time to install. These days you barely have to drop into vi to edit anything in /etc to get a fully configured, networked system.
Pkgsrc is also cross platform, so you can install a very stripped down copy of Slackware and use Pkgsrc over there if you like. But you can set up and maintain a BSD system by only knowing how to use unix. Any book on unix published in the last 30 years is relevant and useful.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:01PM
Let you beard grow. Seriously.
This way you can avoid looking into the mirror and see yet another one.
(Score: 5, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:50PM
So laterally true.
They stopped being Power users when they started to use Macs with Intel processors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:23PM (14 children)
An awful lot of people in the tech industry work from Macbook Pros. So you're calling some huge portion of professional software developers not power users.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's absurd to do software development work from anything less than a mobile workstation. I'm dealing with this now, I have a thin&light machine as my developer environment, and it's ridiculous. But if they want to pay me a stupid amount of money to use the wrong hardware, as long as the paychecks keep coming I'm not going back onto the job market.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:46PM
(Excuse the "now's"; I wanted "modern", but it wouldn't fit.)
I am indeed calling all those people "not power users". The stuff they work on is superficial self-caused problems, and often amounts to copying-and-pasting "solutions" from StackOverflow into IDEs they don't understand beyond "Press the Play Button".
Software has become this baroque playground for man babies who spend most of their paid time thinking about where they're going to go rock climbing next.
(Score: 1, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:54PM (10 children)
Yes, I am. It is not possible to be a power user on a Mac. It is possible to be a Mac power user on a Mac but relative to actual power users, you may as well be grandma on her iPad.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @04:44PM (1 child)
What about those of us for whom any machine Mac/Linux/Windows is little more than a terminal emulator to access a cluster/supercomputing system? I do little other than word processing on my actual Macbook Pro, virtually all the compute is done on a cluster down the hall. I was previously doing something similar on a linux laptop and very little has changed for me.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @04:56PM
The dinky laptop is useless. That's your point.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:17PM (7 children)
That is a really dumb statement born only from prejudice. As much as I love to hop on the Mac hate train you're just being an emotional child.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 25 2018, @06:19PM (6 children)
I'm really not. You simply don't know what a power user is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:54AM (3 children)
What you are TRYING to say is a user who requires massive computational resources. I would argue that all the CGI folks who require insane hardware specs are probably pretty far from power users, most of them are more artistic than technical. Then there are users who know a ton of technical info, are comfortable in multiple environments and code all the time. I would call those people power users, they know their way around many systems. They don't all necessarily require the most heavy duty machines.
Researchers use actual super computers and I would consider very few of them to be power users.
So the phrase even works for business software specialists, seems that as usual you THINK you know what you're talking about but in reality you're wrong as can be. Try again little cream puff.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:09AM (2 children)
Thanks for (incorrectly) telling me what I'm trying to say.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:43AM (1 child)
I get it, your brain can't distinguish when it is paying too much attention to the lower rear area of your body. This causes communication errors and being a narcissist you are unable to walk things backwards to clarify anything. I blame the Russians for trolling the net so hard it seems to have rubbed off on you in ways you're still trying to parse.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:50AM
If you had an ass as sweet as mine, you'd pay attention to it too.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:02AM (1 child)
so what is a power user?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:50AM
See below a ways.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @08:11PM
Today's professional software developers are hacks at a ratio of about 9 to 1 that graduated from creating websites in DreamWaver xor took a series of Java evening classes in community college.
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:01AM
You're defining 'the tech industry' as people who sling code or administer networks of computers.
That's one segment of the tech industry.
But power users who do things involving actual hardware technology need systems supported by CAD software, schematic capture, layout, FPGA development and simulation. I'm not just talking about introverted 'hardware technology' meaning PCs. All the tech out there being developed involves power users and software that had never, for the most part, been available on Apple computers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:03PM (1 child)
When did Unix become an OS designed specifically for non-technical idiots?
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 25 2018, @06:21PM
2006
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday July 25 2018, @08:41PM (3 children)
My other box is a Quad Core Xeon with Linux Mint.
I use it only rarely, for the most part to archive things like software installers that I never delete.
The single most important reason that I develop for Apple products - since 1986 - is that if I have to stare at a screen all day, I far prefer to spend my days staring at Mac screens.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:23AM (2 children)
Code monkey != power user necessarily. Power users want complete control over whatever hardwae/software environment they're working from. It's not about horsepower (which would disqualify all laptop users) but about the ability and desire to customize their environment to suit themselves rather than accepting what someone else dictates to them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:56AM
Oh man I just responded to you and down here you have the mostly correct definition. Yes people with Macs can be power users, the fact that you believe otherwise shows your ignorance. Probably because you disdain Apple so much that you really have zero clue what you're talking about.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:32AM
$ hostname
Michaels-Mac-mini.local
$ uname -a
Darwin Michaels-Mac-mini.local 16.6.0 Darwin Kernel Version 16.6.0: Fri Apr 14 16:21:16 PDT 2017; root:xnu-3789.60.24~6/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
$ man bash
BASH(1) BASH(1)
NAME
bash - GNU Bourne-Again SHell
SYNOPSIS
bash [options] [file]
COPYRIGHT
Bash is Copyright (C) 1989-2005 by the Free Software Foundation, Inc.
DESCRIPTION
Bash is an sh-compatible command language interpreter that executes commands read
from the standard input or from a file. Bash also incorporates useful features
from the Korn and C shells (ksh and csh).
Bash is intended to be a conformant implementation of the Shell and Utilities por-
tion of the IEEE POSIX specification (IEEE Standard 1003.1). Bash can be config-
ured to be POSIX-conformant by default.
...
The kernel and most of the device drivers are open source under the Apple Public Source License version 2.
Sometimes I build the kernel as well as those of Apple's drivers that interact with the driver I'm writing for a client.
I use vi quite a lot more than I use either Xcode or BBEdit.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:52AM (5 children)
Not quite right. I'm certainly a power user, and I do use a Mac. My 2015 MacBook Pro is great! For doing my day-to-day email, web browsing, calendaring, video conferences, and the occasional terminal session to ssh into somewhere better. ;)
For professional software development I'm on a custom-built 20-core/40-thread Linux workstation with three monitors (because I haven't yet weaseled my way to a fourth one like my colleague has). Or for my personal software development it's a dual-boot Linux / Windows (for gaming) desktop PC with dual monitors (lack of desk space precludes additions). I've downsized from having separate gaming & dev boxes, but now I'm considering going back to dual systems since I'm finding myself doing more dev.
As for the MacBook Pro, at this rate it will be my last Mac purchase. There are three key things I want from a laptop: MagSafe (because we all trip over that powercord), a good keyboard (not a &!@#!^ touchbar!), and something Time Machine-y (automated backups that actually work, ftw!). I'm just waiting for Apple to screw up Time Machine next...
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:05AM (1 child)
Power Users used to use Sparcstations. With licensed design software that cost five or low six-figure license fees per seat.
Now that's done on Windows machines mostly, but they don't look like the Windows machine your aunt has.
Power users for the most part see IT as a resource, to help them get their work done.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:44AM
Ah, I remember a long time ago in a country far far away, when I got to swap my NT4 workstation for a Sparcstation Ultra10. Whoa... the speed... and the Sun keyboard, so nice (type 6 iirc?).
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:16AM (2 children)
Okay, I can somewhat back compartmentalization at least and amend my position. I still maintain that Macs are for noobs who prefer pretty over control though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @04:50AM (1 child)
You can say that about every single consumer device. *golf clap*
It seems you're on a roll tonight. Right as I accuse you of being unable to walk anything back I scroll further down and you sorta did! *badminton cheer*
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:57AM
Untrue. Power users don't have to build their kit from basic electronic components. Amazon carries good stuff as well as retarded monkey toys.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:40PM (3 children)
Voltage and power consumption are supposed to decline while performance increases from node to node. But we are reaching the limits. Within 10-15 years, we'll need to transition to something new if we want any further performance increases. If we want vertically layered transistors with many cores operating at the same time, heat needs to come down a lot. Today's 35W+ desktop and 10W+ laptop CPU TDPs may end up as a complete anachronism.
Apple may have painted themselves in a corner for now but the users picked an ecosystem that doesn't pay attention to its options for power users and has been pursuing thinner and thinner designs for years. If the thermal throttling is really a problem for you, then you shouldn't be buying from Apple anymore.
Alongside the thermal issues, the thinner laptops also tend to have less ports (and no optical drive, haha) and be more expensive. You may be much better off finding a machine in the $400-750 range that has a decent CPU and a discrete GPU. If you need more performance, get a thick gaming laptop, or a desktop. There are other systems using the same high-end parts as Mac, such as Dell (mentioned in TFA). If you don't like lugging around a heavy system, plant one in your home or office, and/or do your work remotely.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:57PM
Or a computer in a much more expensive casing, something like steampunk-style brass enclosure with baroque style ornamentation.
True, it will be more in the transportable than in the portable class, but the geeks today can use some physical exercise and with a brass case the heat will cease to be a problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Wednesday July 25 2018, @04:33PM (1 child)
the users picked an ecosystem that doesn't pay attention to its options for power users and has been pursuing thinner and thinner designs for years. If the thermal throttling is really a problem for you, then you shouldn't be buying from Apple anymore.
This is the fundamental truth underlying everything here. The users aren't being screwed by Apple, they're screwing themselves due to their own stupidity. If you don't want all the performance problems that come from having an ultra-thin laptop, then don't buy one. It's really that simple. You can get non-thin high-performance laptops elsewhere, like Lenovo and Dell. "B...b...b...but I need the Apple ecosystem!!" Too f'in bad: if you're stupid enough to lock yourself into that, then you're getting exactly what you deserve.
Honestly, I'm really sick of all these articles the past couple years about how awful the new Mac laptops are for power users, and these people bemoaning how they're being "forced" to put up with these not-fit-for-purpose machines. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Apple is not a monopoly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @04:46PM
At my company, the choice a couple years ago was between decently specced Macbook Pros (16gb RAM, i7) and mediocre HP (8 gb RAM, i5). That wasn't a very hard choice for me, MacOS may not be great but it is a lot easier to pop open a terminal and get something mostly familiar (coming from Linux) than it is on Windows.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:53PM (3 children)
My experience is that thinner, when made of plastic, also equates to more fragile. Once a crack appears the thing will start to disintegrate over a few months. The thermal problems make the accumulation of dust all the more serious as well, given the cooling is marginal to begin with.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:19PM
At Apple, fashion is king.
All other considerations are secondary.
* performance
* efficiency
* usability
* cost
* fitness for
porpoisepurposeIt doesn't have to work good, it must look good. Behind glass. Under track lighting. Against a beautiful backdrop.
Apple once was a tech company. Jobs was stripped of his power when he wouldn't let the Mac have practical things like, a realistic amount of memory, color displays (yes, really), expandability, slots, scsi, etc. Apple was tech and usability focused, and everyone else was trying to keep up. (BYTE magazone: the history of the microcomputer industry has been an effort to keep up with Apple.) When Jobs came back to Apple, it became a different company, different products. I have fond memories of the old Apple, and what it might have been. But I hope for the new Apple to be put out of our misery.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 25 2018, @07:24PM (1 child)
We got a very nice Samsung notebook a couple of years ago - thin, light, powerful enough, doesn't overheat, but... that ultra-thin design comes with a very small power connector which breaks. a lot. The replacement power packs are only $20 each, but we're on number 4 in 2 years, 2 completely non functional and the 2 we have are touchy / have to hold it just right for it to make contact. We'd gladly spend $50 on a powerpack that doesn't fall apart in a year, but that doesn't seem to be an option.
I love to hate Dell, but at least they have sensibly sized power plugs.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Friday July 27 2018, @02:54AM
The problem with Samsung is that they really, really want to be Apple. They aren't as bad as Apple when it comes form over function, but there's still quite a bit of stuff that could have been done better, but wasn't because it wouldn't look as cool.
Also like Apple their stuff just isn't designed to last. Even things like monitors and TV's which should last a while, they still cheap out on things like the power supply.
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Wednesday July 25 2018, @02:59PM (10 children)
Fixed that for you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:17PM (9 children)
A lot of the other laptop vendors have followed suit. Microsoft Surface devices are thin and light. You can get thin and light from Dell, Lonovo, and Acer too.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:33PM (2 children)
Chromebooks too. I rdesktop from one into a virtual machine (several actually) in a very large private vmware facility and it gets warm over time and I can't get the "ten hours" battery life while smacking the network that hard.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:35PM (1 child)
Oh wow. I wouldn't have considered performance of machines that just run SSH or RDesktop and issue, but if even rdesktop causes problems then the problem is really bad.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:49PM
rdesktop is a real hardware workout, the CPU impact of a video game combined with the network impact of streaming video, but it sure is nice.
"Problems" as in my thighs get uncomfortably warm, at least in the summer, not problems as in it shuts down or burns out. The apple "problems" requiring a fridge are a whole level worse than using a chromebook to rdesktop.
The html5 browser in the chromebook works perfectly with Apache Guacamole so technically I guess I'm just streaming video that happens to be a screencast of a rdesktop or ssh session on the guac server. Guac is very interesting. It can be entirely configured in LDAP which is also cool.
The biggest operational problem I have is a chromebook is NOT a full set of keys on the keyboard leading to weirdness and the touchpad makes right mouse click annoying but possible.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @06:54PM (4 children)
Don't put up Dell together with Apple. Their top of the line ultrabook XPS 13 is very serviceable because it was designed to be that way. The only non-removable components are CPU and RAM. The SSD is standard M.2 (in contrast to super-proprietary Apple ones), the WiFi is standard M.2 and there is no white-listing in the BIOS so you can replace that easily (looking at you Lenovo...). The battery is also replaceable, not strictly user-replaceable, but still better than Apple land. The chassis is metal and the cooling solution appropriate - it's dead silent when idling. There is no Core i9 version, yet.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday July 25 2018, @08:47PM (3 children)
Good point. But I think the more general and valid complaint is that even if the laptop works well, the smaller size makes cooling dissipation harder and means your CPU is probably a lot slower than what you could get with a mobile workstation. I'm a software developer and my work laptop is thin and light with a 12 inch screen. A "compile and unit test the world" takes half an hour on my machine, my colleague that screamed until he got a desktop finishes the same task in just under 20 minutes. I don't have cause to compile and unit test everything that often, but over the course of a year the productivity difference between him and me will be notable for that alone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @09:16PM (2 children)
Of course that is the case. You're comparing a at most 35W TDP laptop part with a full blown 80/95/1XXW desktop part. I compile Unreal Engine 4 for a living and the difference between a laptop with a "U" series Intel processor and my work Ryzen 2700X is staggering. It is a nice middle point between a desktop and a full blown Xeon-based workstation with the latter being a few times more expensive.
Desktops also allow for way faster storage since top of the line M.2 NVMe SSDs take up to 10W while working and that heat has to go somewhere - mine stopped throttling after being equipped with a radiator. Most standard NVMe SSDs in ultrabooks run modified firmware limiting throughput just to stop insane battery drainage. The difference between SATA and NVMe for UE4 compilation is measurable and the entire OS feels just "snappier", but that might just be me. This is caused by supporting multiple hardware execution queues with reduced protocol overhead resulting in decreased latencies.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday July 25 2018, @09:45PM (1 child)
I used the wrong example there with a desktop. I suspect there is also a very large difference between something like a Microsoft Surface Pro and a mobile workstation, just because a wider and thicker laptop has more room for cooling. Obviously it won't be nearly as big as the difference between either laptop and a good desktop. But it will still be noticeable.
My previous work laptop had a Core i5-3230M and my new one has a Core i7-6600U. The latter is three years newer and somewhat higher ranking in the Intel CPU hierarchy, but it's got a 15 Watt TDP vs the 35 Watt TDP part it replaces. My sense is that my new laptop is only faster because it has a better SSD. Build times between the new and old machines are almost identical.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @11:38PM
The Skylake (6000-series) U model hierarchy is really bad. i3, i5 and i7 are all dual core parts. Only with Coffee Lake-U (8000-series) Intel is finally offering true quad cores at 28W TDP which is what some dual-cores from previous generations were at.
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Wednesday July 25 2018, @07:30PM
Yup, I'm on my ultrabook typing this. No hardware throttling, no overheating issues aside from when I first bought it and was trying to play a graphically intensive game on the shitty Win8 that came preinstalled while waiting a couple weeks for linux mint to support HiDPI screens. Haven't had an issue since nuking windows. Seems like it's just an apple issue right now.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ShadowSystems on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:11PM (23 children)
I don't want "Thin & Light", I want it thick, chunky, full of ports, have sufficient heat disapation capabilities not to throttle itself or torch my flesh, a battery that lasts days if not weeks, & not to be charged a "premium" for a T&L machine that is none of those aforementioned things.
In the name of making it T&L you cut out all the ports- headphone, RJ45, SD card slot, etc -and charge us MORE for the "improved" version. Then charge us AGAIN to replace all the bits you've removed in order to regain those functions.
You've just profited twice on the same device for the same things, and we're supposed to LIKE being fleeced?
Hell No.
I vote with my wallet. You go the T&L route, I take another route entirely. I'll go visit a system builder that doesn't think T&L is A-Ok & reward them with my money for offering a safe & sane product.
I want that headphone jack, that RJ45 ethernet port, that SD card slot, that removeable battery, the user replaceable/upgradeable bits, & all the other things a *Professional* requires in a *Professional* device.
I vote with my wallet & my wallet demands professional gear. Your stuff ain't it.
On a more humorous note...
*Deep breath & starts to sing*
I like big chass' and I can not lie! All you other bruthas can't deny, when an itty bitty thing gets up in yo face you get SPRUNG...
*AmusedCough*
=-)p
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:24PM (3 children)
I've been using an HP Zbook, but it's been over heating lately. Who do you buy from?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 5, Informative) by ShadowSystems on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:36PM (2 children)
I've purchased from Emporer, System76, & ThinkPenguin. All three offered customizeable machines with all the ports, flexability, & repairability I could ever hope for. Just don't pick a unit described as T&L, pick a (mobile) workstation or desktop replacement one instead. A "gaming" machine might not be _too_ bad, but I'm not willing to pay for the Alienware "gamer bling" mentality either. All those flashing lights, backlit keyboards, dedicated (function) keys, et alia make me shake my head & consider just how much more *computer* I could buy if I forego all the "gamer" bits.
I know Dell, HP, & others supposedly offer Linux friendly machines that come preinstalled with some form of Linux on them, but every time I try to find one their own site searches come up zilch for "Linux". Even searching Dell for their Project Sputnik "Developer Edition" (the XPS13 with Linux) comes up with machines with Win10 on them. I had to do a DuckDuckGo search to find the Sputnik unit on Dell, because I couldn't get Dell to tell me about it otherwise. Ditto for the others: I've got to use DDG just to find *any* systems they offer with Linux on them, and even then the site navigation is so bad that my screen reader has a cow trying to describe it; forget being able to configure/buy a Linux system from them.
Emporer, System76, & ThinkPenguin are my first choices, then I'd go with an older model ThinkPad that's been out long enough for the Linux community to have written drivers for the hardware. The newer models might work with generic drivers, but I'd do research on a specific model before buying it.
Hope that helps, & happy computing! =-)
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday July 26 2018, @01:42AM (1 child)
I second Emperor Linux. They do a good job with their machines. Great support, too.
I'm in your camp, philosophically, also. Go high-end, configure the machine as your needs evolve, but keep your basic system set up the way it makes you most productive. It's always been hard for me to wrap my head around the way most other users live, upgrading when somebody else decides they need to make more money, having to buy more machines because some remote marketroid decides the old designs just don't look sexy enough.
As an aside, is it me, or have laptops and desktops stalled out with their standard specs? I went into Micro Center a couple days ago to get some peripherals, walked past the computer section and out of curiosity browsed the specs; the laptop I bought from Emperor 5 years ago still has twice the specs that everything on offer there did. Their "gaming" laptop was significantly less than my old machine. They didn't seem any thinner or lighter or longer lasting on battery life either.
It made me a little concerned for the future of personal computing.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @08:50AM
802.11n max speed?
What year is this?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:40PM (14 children)
The thicker laptops with more ports are much cheaper, and even thicc "gaming laptops" are cheaper than Apple fare. Oh wait, a lot cheaper. These Core i9 Macbook Pros apparently cost around $2,800 to $4,700 [cnet.com]. I don't see many Core i9 laptops [newegg.com] yet, but there will probably be some under-$2k ones soon enough.
And of course, there are always desktops, which are very thicc and chunky.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday July 25 2018, @04:40PM (13 children)
I'll agree that thicker (non-Apple) laptops are indeed the way to go, but personally I've completely given up on desktops. Laptops (good ones: the business-grade ones) are just too convenient, and desktops really don't offer anything to justify not being able to easily carry it around. In fact, desktops haven't really changed in any significant way in probably 15 years. The ATX standard is positively ancient, going back to the mid-90s or so. They tried to come up with a successor with BTX, but that didn't go anywhere. MiniITX was better, but still not all that compact, I think frequently because they still use the same gargantuan power supplies as ATX, or some completely proprietary size. Various large vendors (Dell etc.) came up with various proprietary SFF formats, but of course there's little standardization there.
Desktops were great for a long time precisely because of standardization, but that's really all gone now because no one's come up with a new standard that's actually caught on; it's just like how bad floppy drives became, where no one could push anything to succeed the 3.5" 1.44MB standard as a true standard, and it decayed until it finally became completely obsoleted by CD-RWs and finally USB thumb drives, when it would have been really nice in the intervening years to have a universal standard for removable storage.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:14PM (1 child)
I don't want to carry my desktop around. That's what I have my laptop for.
Why do you care how old the standard is? The standard of my clock's display is centuries old, and still beats everything more modern on its purpose of telling time. The technology behind it is more modern, though, because I really value not having to rewind every few days, and not having to adjust the time showing every now and then. But I value it not for being more modern, I value it for being more convenient.
So what? When I buy a desktop, I don'twant compact I want lots of space to put stuff in.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 25 2018, @05:19PM
To follow up, desktops have gotten smaller with form factors such as Intel's NUC (see sidebar here [wikipedia.org] for others). But at a certain point you run into heat issues yet again.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Wednesday July 25 2018, @07:18PM
Some of us actually need the computing power and mass storage you can only get in a desktop.
They keyboards for desktops are also MUCH nicer.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @02:35AM (1 child)
Good luck carrying that second or third monitor in your laptop bag.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday July 26 2018, @03:19AM
Actually, isn't there a thin display you can roll up? thought I saw something about that a while back.
[looks] Cripes, that was 4years ago.
https://www.itworld.com/article/2832688/hardware/lg-introduced-oled-displays-you-can-roll-up-and-see-through.html [itworld.com]
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday July 26 2018, @12:12PM (3 children)
Why not have both? No-one carries desktops around so it does not matter how easy or not they are to carry.
They continue to be great because of that standardisation. I am using a desktop now with components from from up to 25 years ago, like the Model M keyboard. If a "new standard" has not caught on then that is what standards are about - if you keep having new "standards" they are not standards even if the inventor wants them to be. In fact there have been new standards for the desktop (remember they started with ISA slots and DIN keyboard connectors), but generally were only adopted when they offered real improvement, not just because of a marketing or lock-in opportunity.
As for size, I don't give a shit about how big or heavy my desktop unit is because I don't pick it up and it is on the floor in the angle of my corner desk. In fact it weighs about 15-20 kg and houses about 4 HDDs, a speaker unit, tape drive, two DVD drives (European and USA standards), floppy drive, a 4-way network hub (with its power supply) and a module with dials for temperature etc that I never look at.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday July 26 2018, @05:16PM (2 children)
Why not have both?
What's the benefit? I don't see any. It's a lot easier to just have one computer and not worry about syncing issues.
I am using a desktop now with components from from up to 25 years ago, like the Model M keyboard.
Irrelevant. I use a Model M on my laptop. This has absolutely nothing to do with desktops.
In fact it weighs about 15-20 kg and houses about 4 HDDs
With modern hard drives, there's little reason to have 4 HDDs in a computer any more. If you really need that much storage, you should be using a NAS so you're not tied to a single PC.
floppy drive
WTF? When does anyone use these any more?
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday July 26 2018, @10:43PM (1 child)
I was giving an example of the benefits of standardisation, which you seemed to be decrying; not saying you could not use a Model M with your laptop. Your laptop is following a standard to that extent too, which is good and supports my point.
Here is a reason : I once had a PC with one HDD. I bought a bigger HDD as space was getting short. I had to install the second while the first was still in situ in order to copy data across. Afterwards there would have been no reason to remove the first HDD, in fact there was no reason even to copy the old data across as it remained accessible as a data area. Rinse and repeat with further bigger HDDS.
Second reason for at least two drives : dual booting Windows and Linux. I prefer to keep Windows boxed in on its own disk. You don't need to, it is just safer.
I put it in to copy a lot of old data (and things like retro DOS games) from floppies, a project I finished some time ago. I have not bothered to remove it since and it is still possible for some old floppies to turn up that I am missing.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday July 27 2018, @06:55PM
Here is a reason : I once had a PC with one HDD. I bought a bigger HDD as space was getting short. I had to install the second while the first was still in situ in order to copy data across.
There's USB-to-SATA cables you can get for connected extra HDs temporarily to a laptop.
Second reason for at least two drives : dual booting Windows and Linux. I prefer to keep Windows boxed in on its own disk. You don't need to, it is just safer.
That's easy: put HD caddies (the thing that lets you slide an HD into your laptop) on both drives, and then swap the drives as necessary.
As for floppies, there's USB floppy drives too.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Friday July 27 2018, @03:19AM (3 children)
I like my desktop with tons of storage and its high end graphics card. I also like multiple, large monitors, a real keyboard, and a mouse. Lots of USB ports, E-sata, Firewire, multiple ethernet ports. I also like being max it out at 100% indefinitely without it throttling.
I realize that you can get high end laptops with gobs of power and storage, and buy a docking station for it so you can use your monitors, keyboards, mice, etc. like a desktop. But you'll pay for it, and pay even more in the long run since you'll have to buy new, expensive laptops more often since you can't just upgrade it piecemeal like the desktop. And I've been pretty impressed with what they charge for docking stations - probably because they assume that corporate customers will just pay it.
I do have a laptop but it's really only used for when I really need a laptop for something. It was a higher end machine back in the 2000's. It still does what I need and I don't use it much so I see little reason to replace it so long as it keeps working and the hinge doesn't finally break.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday July 27 2018, @06:52PM (2 children)
I also like multiple, large monitors, a real keyboard, and a mouse.
Yeah, me too. What exactly does this have to do with desktops vs. laptops? In case you haven't noticed, you can plug these things into laptops. My large monitors, Model M keyboard, and mouse are all plugged into a docking station for my laptop.
Lots of USB ports, E-sata, Firewire, multiple ethernet ports.
Any decent laptop has lots of USB ports and probably even e-SATA. No one uses Firewire any more, and you don't need multiple Ethernet ports unless you're doing something really unusual.
As for "tons of storage", that's what a NAS box is for. High-end graphics is useless to me: I don't play games.
But you'll pay for it, and pay even more in the long run since you'll have to buy new, expensive laptops more often since you can't just upgrade it piecemeal like the desktop.
You can get barely-used off-lease business laptops a few years old for cheap, plus the docking stations for them. Corporate equipment is cheap and plentiful since they never keep anything more than a few years.
And I've been pretty impressed with what they charge for docking stations
I think I got mine for $50; it's the very latest Dell one. They don't change them often.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday July 28 2018, @03:34AM (1 child)
With all that stuff plugged into it, it's not really a laptop anymore. And I don't see the point of spending the money on a high-end laptop if it's going to be in its docking station practically all the time.
Granted I don't use my Firewire ports either except for some old external drives from back when that was the in thing. And I don't know what you mean by lots of USB ports. Seeing a laptop with more than 4 is exceedingly rare. And even 4 ports isn't exactly common.
That's probably how I'll get my next laptop, since it's cheaper and I should be able to get a machine that will be good enough for what I want a laptop for. But if I want a high end machine I'm not going buying a used laptop from a few years ago. And if you're buying used you'll likely be replacing it more often as a portion of its useful life has already been used up.
A quick look at dell.com suggests the going price is more like $150-$160.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday July 28 2018, @08:14PM
With all that stuff plugged into it, it's not really a laptop anymore. And I don't see the point of spending the money on a high-end laptop if it's going to be in its docking station practically all the time.
Ok, this is just silly. Yes, it is a laptop: I can undock it any time and take it places (and yes, I do, a lot). Even at home, I use it a lot for watching movies in my bedroom, away from the docking station.
Have you never worked in a workplace with a laptop and a docking station? This is exactly the use case: being able to take your work computer places with you, such as conference rooms for meetings or to customer sites.
Honestly, I feel sometimes like this site is full of 60-year-old luddites.
As for "the money", my docking station and laptop together probably cost about $250. Used business-grade equipment is cheap.
And I don't know what you mean by lots of USB ports. Seeing a laptop with more than 4 is exceedingly rare. And even 4 ports isn't exactly common.
If you actually have more than 4 USB devices plugged in at one time, you're doing something weird.
Don't forget, for permanently-plugged in USB devices (like keyboards and mice), the docking station has its own USB ports.
That's probably how I'll get my next laptop, since it's cheaper and I should be able to get a machine that will be good enough for what I want a laptop for
This is exactly my mindset. I don't play high-end modern games or use Solidworks or do anything else that requires huge compute or GPU power, so a 2-5yo business laptop works just fine for me. If you need more GPU/CPU, you can always get a used Dell Precision.
And if you're buying used you'll likely be replacing it more often as a portion of its useful life has already been used up.
These business-grade laptops don't wear out nearly as quickly as the consumer-grade ones. And it's easy to get spare parts for them on Ebay too.
A quick look at dell.com suggests the going price is more like $150-$160.
You're looking in the wrong place; try Ebay.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 25 2018, @03:41PM
Apple markets to soy latte hipsters who want to be NOTICED when sitting at Starbux, but there's always system76 for a laptop like you describe.
I considered getting one of the $2800 models but that's the base price, if you want the GTX1080 and as much memory and storage as the vmware image I rdesktop into with RAID SSDs, its ends up being a hair over $7000 so yeah I'll just keep using rdesktop on my chromebook OK thanks see ya later.
Just pointing out that the product you seek is available.
I know a guy who bought one and is very happy, which is good to know if you're gonna buy a laptop that costs 1/3 of my cheap new commuter car.
(Score: 2, Troll) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 25 2018, @07:27PM (1 child)
Do you remember the Kaypros [google.com]? Something like that might fit your description.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 26 2018, @07:44AM
I used to use a kaypro. It had no battery iirc...but I suppose large enough to house enough batteries to last a week using modern hardware.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Friday July 27 2018, @03:12AM
I have a "thin and light" laptop from System76, a Galago Pro [system76.com]. From what I can see, it hasn't skimped on ports much. It has a Gigabit Ethernet RJ45, SD card slot, full size HDMI, mini DisplayPort, 3.5mm headphone/mic, two type A USB, and one type C USB. I've seen bigger and chunkier laptops with less ports. The only port I really miss is VGA, but not too much as HDMI is rapidly becoming ubiquitous. Further, despite being so thin and light it's somehow possible to even put a second hard drive or SSD into this thing (I didn't take this option, too expensive), add more memory, and replace things like the Wi-Fi module and such. So it doesn't seem that removing ports and the ability to upgrade is a necessary compromise for making a T&L laptop. Other system builders are just lazy. (I don't work for System76 btw, just a satisfied customer).
Admittedly, the Galago Pro is rather middling in performance, probably a compromise given how thin and light they made it. Putting a high-end GPU inside it would probably lead to terrible thermal issues. Battery doesn't last days or weeks between charges but I've never yet seen any real laptop for which this was true. Its battery life is squarely in the middle of the pack. However, it's still got more than enough juice to do just about everything I need to do, and I've not had overheating issues with it in the nearly one year I've had it. I take the compromise since I find myself travelling a lot, and I'd rather not break my back carrying it while commuting in the various cities around the world. I've tried big, powerful, heavy laptops before and they are very inconvenient in this regard. Try standing for half an hour in a crowded train in Tokyo and then walking another ten minutes from the train station to a client's office, while lugging around a 5 kg laptop.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.