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Comment by elnygren | Hacker News Reader

The problem with this is that you either do something like what Apple does (and receive the hate for it) or then you do "what people want" and get this https://twitter.com/JonyIveParody/status/850350499840888833

AFAIK this whole System 76 blew up because of the disappointment in the newest Macbook Pro. People say they'd wanted bigger battery and more connectors -- however, I'm a bit skeptical if those would be enough to choose a much heavier, uglier and bulkier model when actually buying a laptop.

The way laptops are built, I'm not sure a 10-20% increase in battery size would mean only a small change in the size of the laptop (everything fits pretty tight in there...).

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Fallacy of the excluded middle. They can do something more than Apple (i.e. not just USB-C ports), but less than others. The Apple design doesn't end up being small or light, because to actually use it you need a plethora of connectors.

At a minimum, I would expect standard USB, headphone, sd card reader, standard HDMI, mini displayport.

You're going to have a hard time convincing me that an HDMI connector adds more than a few grams of weight. Thickness, maybe. But even then.

VGA and ethernet could be nice too, but wouldn't see much use in my case.

The battery could be removable (i.e. half internal half external, like the thinkpads).

Optical drive is obviously not much use in a laptop anymore and should be external. (this one actually adds weight and not just thickness)

vga and ethernet on modern laptop is a sin. they are barely younger than 5" floppy disks.

Is it a sin to use the latin alphabet on keys? That's several thousand years old.

What's wrong with widely used communication standards?

great straw man!

VGA is still the most common connector type I see on projectors and in conference rooms. It's being slowly replaced by HDMI, they might be about even now.

Ethernet is still the premier PHY layer for people who want their shit to work. Wifi is still flaky as crap these days in many places. Thus, there is no Ethernet replacement yet.

As chriswarbo says, the age of the tech is completely irrelevant. Instead, it's the utility / cost tradeoff that matters. A floppy drive would be expensive in terms of weight/size, and would be useful to approximately 100 people (10 if it's 5"). VGA and Ethernet adaptors would be useful to probably 1/2 to 1/4 of the users, and cost almost nothing to have.

Also, VGA specifically is one of those ports that's still really nice to have, just in case. Last thing you want is to show up at a conference room and not be able to plug in your laptop.

> cost almost nothing to have

you're dead wrong here. it costs space, which is a precious resource in modern laptop builds.

i just feel like companies and people hanging on to these archaic technologies is hindering progress and adoption of newer and better technologies. after all why do you need thunderbolt port if you already have the vga? why do you need better wireless chip if you can always plug in the cable? these stupid decisions are made on a level that impacts the whole industry.

BAM: https://www.notebookcheck.com/fileadmin/_processed_/csm_sony...

right, so how do i stick thunderbolt cable into that thing?

If I needed a VGA, I'd prefer a mini Display Port with an adapter cable (which are relatively cheap). If they made a micro DisplayPort, that would be cool too.

I'm of a different mind. A laptop is inherently portable, and I want wireless.

- No headphone cable, I have bluetooth headphones - No ethernet, I have wireless - No hdmi/displayport, I have chromecast/miracast

In general, I don't want to connect all that much to my laptop. And for the things I want to I'd prefer a universal connector such as usb-c. Make a docking station that works over usb-c where I can connect whatever is on my work desk such that I only have to plug in a single cable and everything is good for me.

You can do both. My point is that most of the ports and features they removed really cost nothing in terms of weight, and so aren't really engineering tradeoffs in a sense, but rather design tradeoffs (i.e. thinner). In the feature/weight space, they are not even close to the pareto optimum.

Personally I find wireless anything to be a persistent pain and not worth the trouble, but since it costs almost nothing to add, I'm totally cool with adding it. Maybe in 10 years it won't suck.

Only thing that isn't quite there yet is casting of the entire screen. Casting video to chromecast just works. My BT headset just works. Wlan just works.

The previous model of the Retina Macbook Pro 15" (the one without the touchbar) had a 99 watt hour battery, which is right at the limit for what they'll allow you to take on a plane. The new one with the touchbar is 76 watt hours.

I have a pre-touchbar model and it's more than thin enough. It can be done. To my mind, the question is can a company that doesn't have Apple's resources manufacture on the same level as Apple? I'm not sure.

Reminds me of the hassle it was to internationally get hold of a nice replacement battery for a MBP-17 (OWC 103Wh). Lines being drawn at nice round numbers are understandable but can be galling!

I don't think that's a fair target for a laptop startup. I'm thinking Linux devs would benefit more from and prefer something of a thinkpad clone. Added bulk for modularity and maybe ease of manufacture.

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