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posted by on Friday December 02 2016, @08:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the price-is-no-object dept.

Ars Technica has an editorial on what they'd want in a laptop in 2017. Inspired by this, I figured to make my own list and ask SN for input. I'm not looking for a laptop, but it's fun to think about specs, right?

Anyway, I do think use case is important. My use case: working and travelling daily with laptop, sometimes to various institutes to give presentations. This already leads to some important requirements:

  • Lightweight (I frequently take the laptop somewhere)
  • Not needing a plethora of dongles. (I've forgotten the power supply more than once already, I'm sure forgetting a dongle or two will happen more frequently).

Thinking about it more, most of the things the Ars Editor loves are things I honestly don't use, or actively do not want (touch screen).

With that in mind, I'd arrive at:

  • No touchscreen - it adds weight while I don't use its features
  • 13 inch screen seems to balance portability and screen size well.
  • 1920x1080 resolution - higher will drain the battery faster, and is not needed on 13 inch
  • VGA port - almost all presentation places I come across need converters (dongles) for anything else.
  • USB 2 and 3 ports - again, for compatibility
  • 512 GB SDD
  • 10GB or more memory
  • Dual boot compatible with Ubuntu (I use Ubuntu, but for the occasional gadget that can get updates via your computer, you'll still need Windows or MacOS)
  • Preferably with regular ethernet port - there are still hotels where wired is free, but wifi is paid.

Other than that I'd go for modern iterations of specs for things like ethernet, wifi, CPU, etc. So Kaby Lake processor, things like that. GPU is not a big issue, so probably the integrated Intel thing on a modern Intel CPU will be sufficient.

Anything I missed? Anything you'd do radically different? If so: why?


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  • (Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Friday December 02 2016, @08:50PM

    by AndyTheAbsurd (3958) on Friday December 02 2016, @08:50PM (#436202) Journal

    You forgot to define what "working" is for you. That's completely different things for a developer, a financial analyst, or a project manager; which will in turn lead to different requirements.

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  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Friday December 02 2016, @10:04PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 02 2016, @10:04PM (#436252) Journal

    a financial analyst, or a project manager

    What kind of specialized hardware does lying require?

    • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday December 02 2016, @10:26PM

      by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 02 2016, @10:26PM (#436268) Journal

      What kind of specialized hardware does lying require?

      It's less CPU- and GPU-intensive than things like compiling, editing/encoding multimedia, or performing engineering calculations. Hence, affects the specs....

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @10:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 02 2016, @10:32PM (#436274)

      You need a Bernie Sanders, a Jill Stein, an FBI and a Department of Justice. Oh and being married to a former President of the United States helps.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Friday December 02 2016, @10:39PM

        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 02 2016, @10:39PM (#436279) Journal

        If you're gonna go for the shallow politics jab, shouldn't you have stayed topical and gone with "A private email server off premises"? Like... then there's an actual joke rather than a lazy conservative "Laugh because you also hate this person" style joke.

    • (Score: 2) by chromas on Saturday December 03 2016, @02:52AM

      by chromas (34) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 03 2016, @02:52AM (#436370) Journal

      A straight face.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @04:39AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 03 2016, @04:39AM (#436400)

      Anything made by Apple.