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Fuelled by the pandemic, demand for notebooks continued to go through the roof in Q3 as the PC industry grew at its fastest pace in almost nine years - Dell was the only major top five player to report declines.
According to global stats collated by analyst Canalys, shipments to retailers and distributors rocketed 12.7 per cent year-on-year to 79.2 million units, with notebook and mobile workstations leaping 28.3 per cent to a little over 64 million. The rest of the sales came from desktops and desktop workstations, representing a fall for that segment of 26 per cent.
Overall, this was the highest growth rate since the holiday period in Q4 2011 and was caused by the work- and learn-from-hometrends seen across vast swathes of the world in response to coronavirus.
[...] "Vendors, the supply chain, and the channel have now had time to find their feet and allocate resources towards supplying notebooks, which continue to see massive demand from both businesses and consumers," said Ishan Dutt, analyst at Canalys.
"After prioritising high-value markets and large customers in Q2, vendors have now been able to turn their attention to supplying a wider range of countries as well as SMBs that faced difficulty securing devices earlier this year. Governments, which have realised the importance of PC access in maintaining economic activity during this time, have intervened with financial support or even full-scale device deployments," he added.
This was particularly noticeable in the education sector, for example, where the UK government allocated 100,0000 notebooks for students to facilitate the returns to classrooms, he said.
Sales were up for all major vendors, except for Dell which saw a slight decrease.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Subsentient on Tuesday October 13 2020, @12:35AM (5 children)
This is genuinely good news. I remember years ago when all the articles were mewling about how tablets were going to destroy PCs and nobody used a real computer anymore.
It was scary. The horror of such devices is the lock-in and lack of user control. With a real PC, you have real choice. You can run Linux, or FreeBSD, or OpenBSD, or Haiku.
So, to see this market thriving is excellent news to me. Long live the PC! May it reign for 10,000 years!
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 13 2020, @01:05AM
Tablets and PC's go well together: I've got Plex on a server and sync movies etc to my tablet. Works well, but can't deal with just a tablet alone : that would be sad.
PC's allow you to do, tablets allow you to relax and be informed.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Tuesday October 13 2020, @03:01AM (3 children)
I strongly suspect that the "death of the PC" prognosticating was largely based on a slow-down in PC sales that can be laid firmly at the feet of the effective end of Moore's Law for computer speeds in the noughties, just as mobile devices started catching on. I'm running a 10+ year old computer, and it's still competitive with a midrange modern computer. I didn't stop buying new computers because I stopped primarily using a computer, but rather because new computers stopped being notably better than old computers. Used to be 10 years meant a roughly hundred-fold increase in consumer computer speed - now it's mostly only specialized software that notices much improvement at all. And games I suppose, but that's mostly down to the video card.
Of course there are also a lot of people who do primarily use a mobile device - but I suspect most of those are people for whom a computer was/would have been primarily a glorified web browser and media player anyway.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Tuesday October 13 2020, @07:45AM
because new computers stopped being notably better than old computers.
Exactly so:
I am using an 11 year old laptop* and it comfortably outperforms the stuff in PC World,
as well as having useful features like a good keyboard and touch pad, a DVD drive,
and docking station option.
* This is actually written on a PC with a slightly newer motherboard and graphics card.
It also has a DAT drive and an LTO drive.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday October 13 2020, @03:17PM (1 child)
That plus a decision by all laptop makers to stop making entry-level compact laptops by the end of fourth quarter 2012 in favor of tablets, which at the time commanded a greater profit margin. See coverage of this decision on the green site [slashdot.org].
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday October 14 2020, @03:10AM
That's right, I had forgotten about that. Yeah, decline to make products people can afford, and what do you know, people don't buy them.
Funny thing about profit margins - they're one of those economic inefficiencies that free markets are supposed to eliminate, and price-conscious buyers do in fact tend to shy away from them when given the choice.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @12:46AM (55 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EvilSS on Tuesday October 13 2020, @12:51AM (43 children)
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @01:01AM (22 children)
"vast majority of users are using WiFi exclusively."
Yes, and they think wifi is magic, and they're idiots. What are you going to do when you have a network problem, can't connect up to the wifi, and need to troubleshoot? Plug in the cable. Oh, you got one of those stupid laptops with no NIC? Well, you're up the creek without a paddle, and you deserve it. Go buy a real computer.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Touché) by krishnoid on Tuesday October 13 2020, @01:07AM
Reboot your router, call your kid and use your phone in the meantime?
(Score: 2, Troll) by EvilSS on Tuesday October 13 2020, @01:09AM (3 children)
(Score: 0, Troll) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @04:16AM (2 children)
Did you have anyting /substantive/ to offer?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Touché) by EvilSS on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:17AM (1 child)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @09:37AM
As is his right.
Now get off my lawn!
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Tuesday October 13 2020, @01:16AM (13 children)
I'm a programmer who knows several languages. I've built my own desktop Linux distros from source tarballs and wrote my own init system in C.
I'm typing this on a T410 thinkpad connected to wifi (802.11/n), in bed on my stomach. It's not great network performance, but it's good enough. I even do a good amount of development work on this laptop. My laptop has a NIC, but I never use it. Why? Because if I wanted to be physically constrained to where I could run an ethernet cable, I'd use my desktop, which is using gigabit ethernet.
For most people, they're not going to care enough to bother with ethernet for a laptop, even among the devs.
I use my desktop when I need beef, and I still use it for compilation with distcc from this laptop.
It's good enough for browsing, netflix/music, but also for serious work.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @01:32AM (9 children)
The average consumer isn't like that. They buy one computer and expect it to have all the normal equipment.
If these were being marketed as niche PCs to use when laying on your bed, there would be no problem. But they aren't. They're being sold to hordes of people that don't know anything more than what the sales droid tells them and think they're getting a full featured PC. And since they're *buying* the bad product drives the good right off the market.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Informative) by krishnoid on Tuesday October 13 2020, @02:03AM
The average consumer does all their stuff on their phone. Especially the poorer ones.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Subsentient on Tuesday October 13 2020, @02:28AM (7 children)
Well I can definitely appreciate the utility of ethernet in a laptop and would definitely always prefer it myself, but I don't see it as a critical feature, just a "nice to have". A desktop, however, obviously I want ethernet. If consumer forget their wifi password, they can reset the modem with a paperclip and use the default password and network name to reset it.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @03:09AM (6 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Tuesday October 13 2020, @03:14AM (3 children)
Correct. I'm fully informed, I would choose a laptop with ethernet over one without. But, if someone offers me a laptop without ethernet, I'm going to accept it. It's not strictly necessary.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @03:33AM (2 children)
Well, sure, ok.
Here's an old joke for you. What's a Jewish dilemma? Free ham.
Here's an old meta-joke for you. That's no dilemma at all. Take the ham, donate it to charity, get a receipt, write it off your taxes. Schlubengoyim.
It's never for free. How much extra should you pay for it?
If it was standard equipment, and you checked a box to leave it out, they would give you no more than $5 credit.
If they decide to pretend it's not standard equipment, they suddenly want a lot more money to add it back. ~$30 open market, closer to $100 if you're an Apple luser and buy what they tell you to buy.
And as I posted earlier, if it was just paying extra to get it, ok.
But it's not. Even if you pay extra, you don't get an integrated port. You get a dongle. If you have to add a bulky case or bag to your slim sleek laptop, it's no longer less bulky and easy to carry. You wind up leaving the accessories at home (so you paid for the full deal but you still don't get it) or you lose or damage the dongle or best case you are carrying around something much bulkier than a proper laptop with integrated NIC would have been.
So even if you pay, the solution is inferior.
Stop the madness. Build a NIC into the damn PC.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:17AM (1 child)
You're really zealous about this, aren't you?
Just for that, I'm going to switch everything but my router to use Bluetooth 2.0 wireless connection sharing. :^P
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @06:18AM
Far more than I could possibly make you suffer. If I were to try to make you suffer.
Which I will not do.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @11:12AM
Don't forget, for a lot of casual computer users when wifi is busted they don't plug in to the network and troubleshoot, instead they call tech support. That could be their daughter or Best Buy. My parents fit the stereotype and couldn't address a problem like that on their own - but their apartment has ethernet jacks in every room so I bought them desktops.
Now, if I was seeking a thin and light laptop, I would get one that swapped out the builtin ethernet jack for an extra USB port, and then buy a USB-to-ethernet adapter. Then I can use wired networking on the ultra-rare occasion I need it, and the rest of the time I have more USB options.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Tuesday October 13 2020, @12:09PM
If it was an option I would've had it, but it's just one of many selection criteria. For me, it's not a critical one. I made sure I got an Ethernet dongle, so the rare times I do need wired access I can plug it in and do so. For day-to-day use WiFi is fine for me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @04:36AM (2 children)
> I'm typing this on a T410 thinkpad connected to wifi (802.11/n)
Good choice, I'm typing on a T510 (bigger screen version) over 802.11/n. I bought this one in 2014, and it came from IBM Used, so might be 7-8 years old now.
Great minds think alike?? I've got a second hard drive in the "ultrabay" that I plug in from time to time for a local back up.
When there are "wi-fi problems" the usual solution is to reboot the damn cable router (about 1/month). That didn't work a couple of days ago, so I called Spectrum cable--the automated message said they were doing scheduled maintenance and the network was down. Came back up in 10 minutes or so.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @04:56AM (1 child)
That's 'normal' for people with a clue.
I believe we've already established that people with a clue would prefer to just have the thing built in and typically only buy these things with the understanding that they're little more than toys.
People with a clue haven't been considered a major marketing category since about 1993. These things are built not just for the mass market, which consists of people who should never have a computer, plus people who are not ready to have a computer; but on top of that they're built for what the smarter 16-22 year olds in Guangzhou can make of your specs, lacking essential training to read them.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday October 14 2020, @03:26AM
>People with a clue haven't been considered a major marketing category since about 1993.
I'm not sure I agree. We're a larger marketing category than ever, we're just no longer the majority of the market, having been vastly outnumbered when the clueless started buying computers en masse. There's still plenty of companies targeting the cluefull, they're just mostly not the big mainstream names, and they don't benefit from the economies of scale from serving the masses, so you'd better plan on getting machine less for your money. But it'll be a machine designed for the cluefull - so it's really on you to vote with your wallet - do you pay a premium for a "proper computer", or save some money and vote vote for more "toys"?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday October 13 2020, @03:14AM (2 children)
But how often does your wifi adapter actually go bad? I don't think that's even in the top 10 computer problems.
And what good is a NIC without an ethernet cable? If you're the sort of person who keeps unused ethernet cables around, a USB-NIC dongle isn't much of a stretch.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @03:25AM
Router craps itself? That happens a lot more often. But we're still talking in terms of techie speak, the sort of thinking someone with a clue brings to the situation.
Think about it as a generic 'consumer unit' that just believed what he was told and thinks this all runs off magic owls or something. You try to get on the wifi, and it doesn't work. You call for help. What are they going to ask you to do? Plug in the dang cable for a minute, figure out if your modem is online and your router is the problem or if it's an ISP issue or what's going on. If the cable works, get into the router, if the router crapped itself, set it back up again.
You paid a bunch of money for a macbook pro and that piece of stinking garbage is the only PC in the house?
Sorry, we're not solving this on the phone, and no one is going into your home right now, so here's a nickel kid, go buy a real computer.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Tuesday October 13 2020, @07:49AM
But how often does your wifi adapter actually go bad?
If you use Windows, you should probably install the updates. If not, you are forgiven for not understanding the "wifi adaptor" issue.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 13 2020, @03:33AM (19 children)
Hang on... you're right!
Why don't they have CD and Floppy drives? (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @04:13AM (18 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 13 2020, @04:23AM (14 children)
The laptop I use (office issued) has only Wifi and no DVD reader. And exactly 2 USB ports.
And 32Gb RAM with i7-7700HQ CPU + 2x 1TB SSD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @04:28AM (8 children)
Marketing this to the average idiot as an actual PC?
Yeah, nah.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:15AM (7 children)
Heh, that won't happen to me, I'm only doing test automation (not even testing), I don't actually need them.
The guys in development have "proper" laptops - almost in the transportable category by weight - with DVD-RW and Ethernet. But still no floppy drive!!11one1! (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:26AM (6 children)
I have no problem with having no DVD-RW. Ethernet is far more fundamental.
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0"
A strayan g'inst shit science.
Not bad, but too tame, too reasonable.
I counter with https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xezd5EDZBhQ
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:47AM (3 children)
Meh, one can cheat rationality for entertainment only for some time [wikipedia.org]. Downunder punishes you quicker than other places, so the rest of us learned to be more cautious and appreciate Vegemite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:58AM (2 children)
In the given priority, and I'll admit. I appreciate y'all got the priority right.
Yeah but nah.
Vegemite is good, in small quantities. Beats the hell out of Marmalite, that's no lie.
But did you have a point? Separate AU foreign policy from that of the US and PRC.
Impossible.
A nation of traitors, my boy. Hate to break it to you. Facts are facts. You're either in the pay of the US, or of China, or you're getting screwed by both the bastards.
I've never been so happy as the moment I left AU airspace.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 13 2020, @06:11AM
None whatsoever.
It is what it is. Would been easier without the need, but we'll see how the things will fall.
Wouldn't be the first time either to get screwed by both sides.
And yet, the downunder and vegemite still exist, so the things aren't that critical as you would like us to believe.
Better take care of his orange clownness, much bigger existential risk for US than what Ozzies will do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 1) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @06:13AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday October 13 2020, @12:37PM (1 child)
Is there still software sold on DVD? Otherwise, the main use of DVD drives is watching video DVDs, which probably isn't top priority on business laptops :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @06:52PM
> Is there still software sold on DVD?
Not sure about "sold", but I bought a Brother multi-function printer last year and it came with an install DVD. Same is probably available as a download, but the disk worked fine.
Don't have any connection with Brother, but this one works great, even scans both sides of a sheet of paper in one pass (dual line scanners).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @04:41AM (4 children)
32 gigabits of RAM?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @04:45AM
Sane RAM in a laptop? Yeah, fuggedaboutit.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:03AM (2 children)
Yeap. It's a programming machine, after all - was even somehow decent 3 years ago.
I could do better with 64 of them *and* a proper NIC - I need to remote on my workstation at the office to anything serious (200GB+ of source code and dependencies updates slow as hell from SCM with a WiFi+VPN bottleneck at the end)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:13AM (1 child)
32 gigabits = 4 gigabytes
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:17AM
Ah, sorry. No, I meant 32GB.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Tuesday October 13 2020, @07:53AM (1 child)
Floppies haven't been in common use for decades.
Maybe you are too young to have any experiences. Some of us were not born yesterday.
Some people have "old stuff" from when they were a bit younger, and some of that is on floppies.
Occasionally, we want to check the early drafts of our published works - or love letters to/from lost friends.
With luck, one day you will be old too. With Trump, not so much.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @06:55PM
> Occasionally, we want to check the early drafts of our published works
Youngster spotted(grin).
The early drafts of our published works reside in an even more ancient storage device. Yes (gasp), we have filing cabinets...and they are full of paper!
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday October 14 2020, @03:35AM
I find it surprising how many firmware updating tools and such still come as floppy images, considering that I'm a computer guy and don't recall the last time I put a floppy drive in my computer. Of course, the fact that I run into those images is why I have both a flash drive that can multiboot from a folder full of floppy images, and a USB floppy drive (just in case I have to deal with a particularly ornery computer or image). Though come to think of it, I'm not sure I actually own any floppy disks anymore...
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday October 13 2020, @12:56AM (10 children)
Incidentally, Chromebooks work plug-and-play with (Linksys at least) USB-to-Ethernet dongles, WiFi turned off. More reliable network speeds and extends battery life a bit too.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @01:26AM (9 children)
And if that was all of it, meh, who cares, right? It's taking advantage of human psychology, but you just have to figure in an extra $30 on top of the price they quote, right?
Wrong. Because now instead of having the basic functionality built in where it should be, it's in this dang dongle, which means you can't just carry the device, you need a case to carry accessories with it or it's incomplete, so now your nice sleek portable laptop has suddenly gotten much bulkier, hasn't it?
So you'll probably leave your dongle home, or lose it, or break it, and *despite* having paid the extra $30 you still wind up in the field lacking fundamental capability.
It's just stupid. Build the damn thing in, it's like one square inch and $5, if that.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday October 13 2020, @01:59AM
I'd just buy another dongle (from Linksys or whoever) and leave it in my car or wherever the router is anyplace I'd go that provides wired access and either doesn't have WiFi, where I can't get tethering, or where I can't do whatever I need to do offline (since it's just a Chromebook), until I get back someplace with a real computer.
Sure, if I need a proper laptop, I'll get a proper laptop or whatever has the juice I need plus a proper docking setup [amazon.com]. If I just need power and Ethernet, it's not the end of the world.
But to your point, to be safe, I *will* bring my own wired Ethernet port -- USB or otherwise -- and my *own* patch cable, having run into problems with that as well, and a phone call ahead of time to make sure that I either get physical access to the wired ports on the router, or I'll be packing a lunch so I can sit around and wait (on the clock, one would hope) while they fix the flaky WiFi once I'm on-site.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday October 13 2020, @02:46AM (6 children)
The only reason that the Ethernet port has been removed is to reduce the thickness of the laptop.
You clearly don't put a high priority on laptop thickness and weight. That's OK - you don't have to. Other do though, and that's OK as well.
Or do you also insist that your computer has the ability to be manually bootstrapped?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @03:07AM (5 children)
I've heard this professed as the reason many times, but it makes no sense if you subject it to any level of scrutiny. Existing laptop NICs are thin enough to fit inside the slimmest laptops on the market.
"You clearly don't put a high priority on laptop thickness and weight."
It would be harder to miss by any larger margin than that. I still possess and use an original Eee701. It's no longer around now, but for many years I actually used a laptop with no HDD OR Flash Drive and it was one of my favorite machines ever. I've always been of the opinion that particularly on a laptop you want to leave off anything you can possibly leave off. Both for weight, and bulk, and also for battery and general sanity.
Leaving the NIC out does virtually nothing towards those goals; and it's compromising basic functionality any PC built in or even nearly in this century should include. It's purely about economics, squeezing a little more profit from each transaction, and marketing hype, convincing people that wireless is magic. It isn't.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Informative) by PiMuNu on Tuesday October 13 2020, @09:52AM (4 children)
> Existing laptop NICs are thin enough to fit inside the slimmest laptops on the market.
That's clearly not true. The ethernet socket is bigger than slim laptops.
Anyway, what the hell is the point of discussing ethernet. The biggest problem with (so-called) modern laptops is that damn graphics port. What was wrong with VGA?
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday October 13 2020, @03:28PM (2 children)
Early LCD HDTVs had VGA in. A lot have since dropped it. Every LCD HDTV will have HDMI in. An HDMI to HDMI cable is cheaper and easier for an end user to find in Walmart and Best Buy than a VGA to HDMI cable.
Laptops with physical space for one VGA or HDMI connector (not both) have only HDMI so that they aren't subject to Image Constraint Token restrictions. Movie studios have dictated that analog and cleartext digital outputs do not offer a "secure" enough digital restrictions management (DRM) environment and are thus eligible for resolutions no bigger than roughly 480p.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:17PM (1 child)
>Every LCD HDTV will have HDMI in
Or DVI A or DVI B, or displayport. VGA just worked!
Now don't get me started on 3.5 mm audio jacks
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday October 14 2020, @04:21AM
I have actually had to deal with modern LCD monitors without an HDMI port, just DisplayPort and I think VGA. Never a TV though - and that's why I cursed the makers of those DisplayPort monitors. DP's purported superiority aside, HDMI is the de-facto standard consumer video interface of our age - akin to RCA cables in ages past, or headphone jacks for portable audio. Practically everything "speaks" HDMI, nothing else is remotely as common*, and so anything that doesn't is choosing to make itself incompatible with almost all existing hardware.
*VGA is still hanging on for backwards compatibility but it was starting to show its age even before we backslid into the dark ages of 1080p, modern 4k is simply beyond it, and monitors are where 4k really shines.
And then there's DVI, the over-engineered, pseudo-compatible, ugly predecessor to HDMI. Either one or two HDMI links, plus an optional VGA link, all crammed into the same cable. Credit where it's due, the dual link has had its uses on the high end, but I was not at all sad to see that delicate pin-rich plug replaced with HDMI for most things. If you want VGA compatibility, just add a separate VGA plug instead of cramming it all into the same cable... though looking back I suppose the transition to digital could have been a lot more unpleasant without (almost) everything just working with nothing more than a super cheap cable adapter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 14 2020, @05:10PM
Not true. Stuff like this has been around for years:
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/12/8/16750574/pop-out-ethernet-jack [theverge.com]
The main thing is most people nowadays don't need or want wired network stuff. Only a few people need to copy gigabytes of stuff.
Also there's better WiFi equipment about nowadays (just don't buy overpriced Asus crap), getting that will make network stuff better for phones, tablets too, not just your laptop.
What's wrong with VGA? Too many wires, too low bandwidth. Is the connector even slim enough for slim laptops? Seems even harder to do those thickness workaround tricks that were done for RJ45.
(Score: 3, Informative) by krishnoid on Tuesday October 13 2020, @09:41PM
0-1 nights after I posted that response, I lost the dongle I use with the Chromebook in my bed. So 1 point for you, plus a bonus .5 for timing. Plus a nonrefundable, non-expiring credit of .25 points usable for a smug smile and a vocalized, "I told you so."
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 13 2020, @12:57AM (13 children)
I'm currently saving (almost there) for a desktop PC, with a couple hard drives and SSD for dual-triple-? booting.
Gonna be a decent machine, but not a laptop.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday October 13 2020, @01:12AM (4 children)
What CPU architecture? Why 2x internal HDDs?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 13 2020, @02:17AM (3 children)
Probably AMD.
2 HD: one for 'main' OS, one for distro trying.
That said, I'll probably also try using VM's as per Runaway: the box I plan should run VM's recently. Never had that before.
Still deciding Nvidia vs AMD, leaning towards Nvidia.
SSD for sure and looking at 32GB ram to start.
Will play with things at pcpartpicker probably after Christmas and then pull the trigger.
Intel is leaving a bad taste.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Tuesday October 13 2020, @02:32AM (2 children)
Nvidia eh? Can I ask why? AMD generally has far better compatibility with Linux in my experience. Out of the box FOSS drivers work fine. If you're not a big gamer, might even go for an iGPU like the Ryzen 5s have nowadays. The iGPU in AMD chips really skullfucks the shit out of Intels' iGPUs.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 13 2020, @01:47PM (1 child)
I'm kind of fishing for advice: about 15 years ago i had an Nvidia card and it worked great. My latest was an AMD Radeon HD 6250: the 'real' drivers froze and the open source driver wasn't very good.
I'm open to convincing, but i want GOOD support.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Tuesday October 13 2020, @02:39PM
I don't get to play with a ton of new hardware, but if I had to go for a GPU myself, I'd definitely go AMD. The new generation has pretty nice performance and my Raven Ridge graphics in my Ryzen 3 2200G have very stable FOSS drivers, no blobs in use for over a year now. The nouveau drivers were always garbage in my experience, and Nvidia's proprietary blobs are a bit heavy.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Tuesday October 13 2020, @01:25AM (5 children)
I built my new desktop last year. It was a cheapie. Ryzen 3 2200G (4 cores, overclocked to 3.8Ghz), integrated AMD GPU, 16GB of the slowest, cheapest RAM I could find, a 250GB siliconpower SSD, and a 2TB spinning rust drive.
I used the case from my ancient, childhood PC. Looks like a beige box from 1999 from the outside, but the guts are, as you can see, respectable enough.
I still need a laptop though, for the times I don't want to sit up straight in a chair. For that, a refurbished Thinkpad T410 running Fedora.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Tuesday October 13 2020, @02:04AM (3 children)
That's pretty similar to my eight year old machine.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Tuesday October 13 2020, @02:25AM (2 children)
Yeah, difference is that it can run most modern games, and the IPC/power usage/overall performance of the Ryzen 3 chip is a lot better than a chip from 2012.
My previous setup was comparable, but with a Core 2 Quad CPU. This blows it entirely out of the water on raw processing power.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday October 13 2020, @02:36PM (1 child)
I have updated the video card a couple times since building it, so the 8 year old can run every modern game I've tried too. Cpu performance was pretty stagnant for a while there, but seems to be picking up a bit now.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Subsentient on Tuesday October 13 2020, @02:44PM
Yeah, I was honestly surprised at the stark difference between my old and new PCs. I was very much also of the mind that CPU power had stagnated.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 13 2020, @02:20AM
Yes: I'll keep my laptop for 'relaxing' and watching Plex as I clean the toilet, lol.
Laptop, tablet and decent desktop: heaven. :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 13 2020, @01:31AM (1 child)
I stopped dual booting around the time virtual machines became a thing. It's so much easier to switch from one workspace or monitor to another, than to shut down and reboot to whatever you need to use. Virtual machines require a bit more muscle than multi-booting, but it's so very convenient. Windows tasks run side by side with Linux tasks, on the same hardware, at the same time.
It's very possible to put all your Mac work on one monitor, Windows work on another monitor, Linux on another, and your favorite BSD on yet another, and run them all at the same time. Drag and drop from one to the other, clipboard works between them, you can even network them together, and/or share a virtual hard drive between them.
To each his own, of course!
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 13 2020, @02:02AM
hmmm...something to look at: i've not yet had machine really capable of running VM's much.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Troll) by legont on Tuesday October 13 2020, @01:23AM (5 children)
I talked to my airport neighbor a few days ago. He is 77 and files $2 million turboprop between his homes in NJ and FL. Turns out he owns a trucking company. 300 rigs. He told me that there is no recession by far. The business is booming. He tries to have all his trucks on the road 24x7 but can't find enough drivers and even maintenance people.
BTW, He drives his own fuel truck to his airplane with Trump sticker and his take is that all the economy troubles is bull by liberals to remove Trump. It's all fake he says; my trucks don't lie.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Mykl on Tuesday October 13 2020, @02:56AM (2 children)
Who would've thunk that people would need to have trucks transport things when they're locked up at home and ordering everything online? Amazing.
I hear the videogame business is booming too. Strong economy!
Don't take the libruls word for it on the economy - why not ask Trump's own Bureau of Economic Analysis [bea.gov], part of the Department of Commerce (spoiler: the economy is not so great right now).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @03:55AM
Well, if you skew just a little the meaning of "manufacturing", then you'd have another "industry" booming.
Not everyone can deal with 1.5m distancing [sbs.com.au].
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:01AM
Man, you got to check your bases. It takes 2000 miles on average to get your stuff to a store near you. It takes just another 2 miles if you order it delivered home. Come on, think first.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @12:58PM
The economy is coasting on free money provided by the government. When that goes away, the disaster of the democrats locking down the economy will become acute to your pilot friend immediately.
Though if the subsidies disappear, the Zoom and Skype WfH class the democrats have been courting will collapse like a house of cards, along with big tech. Therefore, I'll peg that happening after the election. We'll have a recession for everybody.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 14 2020, @05:31PM
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charts-historic-u-s-job-losses-perspective/ [visualcapitalist.com]