That's when I realize how much my weird hardware preferences set me apart: I mostly care about an OLED screen and ECC ram. Then, a touchscreen supporting pen entry, and a good keyboard (with the edit keys like home/insert/pageup/pagedown directly accessible, bonus is there's also printscreen) especially if it's not a foldable or a tablet.
Apple's got good CPU and battery life, but unless the core features are present, I really don't care.
Here, 0/4 of my core features are present. It's certainly nice hardware, but it's not for me.
I have a Galaxy Book Pro 360 and a 14 inch Macbook Pro. The Galaxy book has like 2.2 of those core features (OLED and touch + Pen).
The level of a beatdown that the Macbook Pro 14 gives on the OLED display is nuts, the brightness difference is crazy and gets even more crazy with HDR. OLED really isn't there yet against Mini LED for outdoor brightness performance. Something also feels wrong with the OLED white balance too but I think that's a fact of life in many windows machines color tuning, white just never feels....correct? It always feels like changing the display brightness is ALSO changing color tuning, white feels not just less bright but contrast falls in an uneven way.
Even compared to the Samsung-built OLED in my iPhone 14 Pro, just massively different tuning.
Depending on how I hold my laptop, yes I like to click and scroll with my finger, especially when taking notes or mindmapping.
@temptemptemp111 you seem to be shadowbanned, but your comment is spot on: OLED is about comfort. Sometimes I like working at night, sometimes in the daytime. I want a gorgeous screen that doesn't hurt my eyes, that can go very bright or very dark.
Having a powerful CPU is irrelevant when working on the console. Having days of battery life is irrelevant when having a plug nearby.
Would I take a powerful CPU and better battery life? Of course! But only if it was a bonus: for my specific usecase, there's 0 benefit from using a Mac. I'm sorry if that's hurtful to apple fanboys - you certainly have a wonderful machine if you care about battery life, a powerful CPU, and if you carry a cellphone with you at all times. I don't mean to be hurtful: I just have different tastes and priorities.
Like, I refuse to use or carry a cellphone except on very specific circumstances. Replacing my laptop with a Mac would be a net negative, as having a 5G or LTE modem in my laptop is more valuable to me than a long battery life: integrated cellular connectivity enable me to spend 1h at a coffee shop without wifi: there're various options for PCs (Microsoft Go, Thinkpads, Dell...) but 0 option for a MacOS laptop with an internal modem.
I'm looking at the Ryzen Thinkpad with great interest! But so far I haven't found one with both the screen I like (OLED) and the keyboard I like (pageup and pagedown around the up key), but as soon as I get 4/4 of my core requirements I'll move to AMD, as a Xeon is a bit power hungry :)
> integrated cellular connectivity enable me to spend 1h at a coffee shop without wifi
So you go a hour + without the ability to make phone calls or return texts? Can you dial 911 on your laptop if an emergency happens while on the way to the coffee shop? Does the coffee shop not have Wi-Fi or do you not use public Wi-Fi? How much is the additional data line for your laptop? Is it just data or voice too?
> So you go a hour + without the ability to make phone calls or return texts?
Yes. Actually, that's most of my days too, as I rarely have a cellphone turned on, even when I'm at home. I've done my best to remove that from my life.
So that's also true when I leave home, except in super specific circumstances.
> Can you dial 911 on your laptop if an emergency happens while on the way to the coffee shop?
I think I might be able to, even if they don't guarantee service? TBH I don't care about that much: if an emergency happens to me, either I'll be unconscious and someone else will have to call 911 for me anyway, or I'll remain conscious and then I can decide what to do.
> Does the coffee shop not have Wi-Fi or do you not use public Wi-Fi?
Most of them do, but I don't like looking for the password/asking for it/fighting connectivity issues. It's too much of a hassle.
Instead, I type Win-A, click on "cellular" - and that's it: I'm online and everything works! Even if I only took my laptop and paid for a coffee! If offers a unique peace of mind: no distractions, no interruptions!
> How much is the additional data line for your laptop?
I don't remember the exact price, but quite cheap, about 20 a month. I mostly use it for ssh outside home.
> Is it just data or voice too?
It's just data, as voice requires some specific audio and call routing that's tricky. But if you use skype or google voice, you can do voicecalls.
> Touchscreen on laptop is like touch on a phone! once you use it you can't go back!
Totally this! I'd put OLED and even 4k in there too.
And I'd say that's true even for console work: 4k is great as it gets me crispy fonts in my terminal :)
It's a net positive, as I use Windows so I don't have the DPI compatibility issues that still plague Linux distributions (especially with multiple displays)
Thinkpads. I like the Fold https://csdvrx.github.io/ but it doesn't have ECC, so it's only 3/4 (the keyboard is not ideal, but it's a foldable, so I can bring my own keyboard, which grants the "keyboard" point)
The P7x P5x and some of the previous P1 have Xeons and ECC, so it's 4/4 core requirements.
Yeah I was a bit sad to see the rain of downvotes, but 1) I did expect that, even if HN may be better that other websites 2) it's against the rules to complain
So I take it on the chin and I laugh all the way to my sofa with my ECC OLED 4K dual NVME "wonderful keyboard" thinkpad in my hands :)
Different people like different things. If they're happy to get a Macbook Pro with a M2 Pro, I'm happy for them too!
No, not weird, it is called having good taste. For OLED that means DC dimming not PWM dimming - big difference. And with all of the Ryzen Thinkpads there is no excuse for not having ECC when all of the Ryzen mobile CPUs they're using already support it. I don't get the touchscreen thing, but you can always use one of those artist pads via USB and not affect your screen and be decoupled from the rest of your system (USB peripheral).
What laptop would you recommend that use DC dimming with OLED? Also, does this compromise color accuracy? (I was under the impression that PWM was used with OLED partly because OLED's color accuracy diminishes at lower brightness levels, but I'm not sure where I read that.)
Apple's got good CPU and battery life, but unless the core features are present, I really don't care.
Here, 0/4 of my core features are present. It's certainly nice hardware, but it's not for me.