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Comment by carsongross | Hacker News Reader

I hope that we've gotten to the end of the race to the bottom in desktop computers and that the market is ready for innovative, high quality hardware. With Moore's Law sputtering and becoming less and less relevant for day-to-day computing, build quality can now become a competitive differentiator.

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ugh god, please!

I've been looking for something as Linux/Unix friendly and sturdy as an IBM thinkpad for what feels like an age now.

From what I can tell only the Macbook is of the same class, even business line notebooks have horrible keyboards, screens and touchpads. (in the best case you pick any 2 of those to be good.)

I highly prefer older thinkpads' keyboards to the Macbook ones. And i'm not just talking about the fingertip pressure quality, but the layout as well.

Macbook chiclet keyboards are the worst possible keyboard in terms of key placement and shape (flat-top keys) in terms of typing speed and accuracy. There is a good paper about this in the first edition of Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction (copy is at home right now, will update with a better reference later). Even the "skateramp" shape of classic Thinkpad keyboards is not as good for speed and accuracy as the bowl-shaped keys of older keyboards and typewriters. The "skateramp" shape was a cost-cutting technique to enable keys to be cheaply labeled (bowl-shaped keys need to have the labels molded in in a two-step process: https://deskthority.net/wiki/Double-shot_molding).

Here is the citation: Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction, Martin Helander, ed., 1990. Chapter 21, Section 4, "Key Size and Shape" on p. 483

Google Pixel has build quality far in excess of anything else I have seen including those Apple computers and those Thinkpad computers that others uphold as the benchmark of quality.

I am delighted with the 2013 model, still available but only 4Gb RAM. RAM aside (not a problem for me) the keyboard is best out there as is the trackpad and the speakers. I believe the screen is the best too, because I prefer the 2:3 aspect ratio, but it may not have the most pixels etc. Everything is subjective but I think that the best hardware for a linux dev box is a rather high end Chromebook.

4G of ram is really underpowered.

my Thinkpad from 2010 has 8G and is smaller and still has a pretty good screen for it's size (1440x900 @ 12"). Newer laptops should not be a compromise like that or a downgrade, especially not at the price of a Pixel.

You should qualify "underpowered" with some specific use cases, as 4gb is definitely enough for some.

Considering the device was designed with chrome in mind and chrome routinely consumes 50% of my 8G (so, yeah 4G) I do believe that "Chrome + anything else" would qualify as over the limit of this device's ability to deliver.

FWIW I don't need much ram otherwise, I live in the CLI which tends to be much leaner. But I do not have to justify needing more ram, I desire it, I currently have it, and the cost of my machine twice over is still less than the cost of a Pixel.

Point taken. I overlooked the detail that it is a Chromebook. Is it possible that Chrome is further optimized on these machines?

My laptop still has a Core 2 Duo because my main machine is still a desktop. I've been looking to go exclusive with a single laptop but it's just surprising how much you have to compromise. At this point I'm waiting on the new MacBook knowing very well it would be the most expensive computer I will probably ever buy. I'm not holding my breath on the new MacBook either.

But Macbooks still only come with glare screens, or has this changed?

Macbook Pros used to have brushed non-glare screens... and now the "Retina" has glare again. Why?

From what I've seen and heard, the modern glare screens Apple uses on the Retina models has less glare than the predecessors.

However, I see Retina-quality screens from a few other manufacturers, and those are offered in non-glare variants.

A friend of mine has a 2011 or so MacBook Pro with a brushed/matte screen and it undeniably has less glare than the Retina screens. In fact it almost has no glare at all. No idea why Apple discontinued that.

I believe color reproduction is better on the glossy screens.

Æsthetic preference?

Normally I'd have the same opinion about most laptops being shoddy built with a missing wifi or audio driver for linux here and there, but I've been playing around with the 14" HP Probook from 2012 I think? I haven't had much trouble running ubuntu on it and I'm very impressed with the build quality. Second hand, sandybridge i5 with some extra RAM thrown in, couldn't be happier :)

I should also note that I'm by no means a power user, I'm still learning the ropes on Linux but I'm pretty fed up with Windows so I figure now is as good a time as any to make the transition!

EDIT: It also occurred to me that you were probably talking about more current laptops, in which case I can't really help you, but apparently neither can apple so I guess we wait :(

I haven't put Linux on it myself yet, but how about the Surface Book? Keyboard, screen and touchpad are all wonderful.

I thought thinkpads were linux friendly? Have you had problems with it?

"I hope that we've gotten to the end of the race to the bottom in desktop computers and that the market is ready for innovative, high quality hardware."

As a demanding and discerning desktop computer enthusiast[1], I find it very difficult to see how one could improve on the mac pro.[2]

In fact, the mac pro is so perfectly executed, I would venture to say that the desktop computer is finished. It's all done. We've solved it.

Maybe the mac pro is not a desktop, which allows you to be dissatisfied ?

[1] Prior favorites being the SS20 pizzabox and the SGI Octane2

[2] The real mac pro, of course - not the weird spaceship one.

Pay your Taxes Tim.

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