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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

It is the "sex" factor. Meaning, it makes no sense, but a lot of people buy consumer hardware because of how sexy it is which means thin, light, and attractive design trumps a lot of core utility.

I buy Thinkpads because they are more utilitarian. But we cannot ignore that Apple's entire M.O. has always been making the thinnest/most attractive devices money can buy.

I'll just keep voting with my wallet until Apple releases a utilitarian machine again. The recent Mac Mini is the closest we've seen.

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I have a Thinkpad through work and the main thing I notice with it is that the hard edge at the front is a killer on my wrists. Is this not a thing other people run into?

I've got a T480 and my hands rest in front of the edge.

Ergonomically speaking, you should not be resting your wrists down when typing or using the touchpad. Your wrists and palms are supposed to be aligned and hovering over the keyboard.

I just can't type like that. I'm a very lazy typist.

I used to say that too until I started experiencing RSI. I eliminated 95% of the pain just by fixing my typing ergonomics. YMMV ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The main thing I've always heard is that you're supposed to avoid "negative" angles on your wrist when typing. So I have a very thin, flat keyboard that I normally use.

Laptops are a similar concept, but they are raised up enough that my normal typing posture doesn't work that well. With my Inspiron that I have at home, the base of the laptop is thin enough and angled decently that it works out fairly well.

The Thinkpad has a base that is almost an inch thick, and my hand is just the perfect size that the hard edge I referenced is exactly where my wrist bends, which is I think what makes things so uncomfortable when using it.

It's not just negative angles but any deviation at all, really. Your wrists are not supposed to be sitting at a static angle all day long, and having physical pressure from the desk/laptop on the underlying nerves and ligaments is a know factor favoring RSI symptoms.

TIL I've been doing it wrong for thirty years.

Only being slightly facetious. What's going to happen to me if I don't mend my ways?

Honestly? RSI is always a risk. People don't have the same propensity to experiencing it though. I'm late 20s and it already started destroying my wrists, fixing my positioning relieved (most of) the pain.

> the hard edge at the front is a killer on my wrists

I'm not sure it's recommended to be resting your wrists on the laptop at all. You're going to injure yourself like that. Every recommendation I've ever seen is to have your wrists in the air so that they're straight and level.

For 8+ hours a day? Sounds impossible to me...

Maybe this is where the recommended regular breaks come in? ;)

My physio told me it was incredibly unhealthy to sit in the same position for more than 40 minutes at a time. (His exact words were "I'd tell you to move every 20 minutes but I know what you programmers are like")

That's an issue I have with laptops in general, I think. To have the screen in a place where you can look at it comfortably, you need your hands in a place that is uncomfortable for them. And then vice-versa.

I already have issues with repetitive stress pain when I use a laptop too long. I mainly try to avoid the laptop when at all possible and just use my 8+ year old desktop instead for all work things.

As a plus, it has drastically cut down on the amount of "bonus" work I do at home in the evenings. When the choice is getting a little more work done vs not having tendons that hurt to move for the next 3 days, I'll take the lack of pain every time :)

As much as I dislike using my Macbook Pro (2015 vintage), it has easily the best on lap and typing experiencing of any laptop I've had or used in the last 10 years. It has that hard edge but for whatever reason I don't find it an issue.

For the general consumer stuff it matters less, but I wish the pro line of devices worried less the "sex" factor and more on being actual professional tools.

Latest Mac Mini is no better. The decision to bundle the power adapter within the housing has added to the already poor thermal performance leading to throttling [1].

Then again people say "Apple is a design company" in air quotes.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8DOzr7G82U

It's not a "latest" thing -- the Mac Mini has always had an internal power adapter. Whether or not that's worth the thermal trade-off is a different question.

I still have a 2006 Mac Mini, and its power brick is external. The size of the computer suggests it was built around the optical drive, while the newer Mac Minis are visibly wider than a CD. http://lowendmac.com/2006/mac-mini-early-2006/

Only the unibody Mac Minis. PowerPC and Intel non-unibody Mac Minis had an external brick.

My G4 Mini had an external power brick. The inside of the case was pretty spacious; much more so than the unnecessarily cramped current model.

I like having the adapter built-in. The fewer wall warts, the better. YMMV.

I mean, I like my devices to look pretty. Aesthetics have value, and shouldn't be ignored outright.

But, it's not impossible for a thicker device to look aesthetically pleasing. To choose a random example, I've always loved Nokia's Lumia line of phones, which were quite thick but had these lovely rounded edges that made it seem natural.

BTW, this is a good example of "being traffic": Apple isn't the one spreading 'sex factor propaganda' in this thread, the people trying to ascribe motives to Apple and consumers is.

The lesson is, if you don't want something to be the focus of everyone's attention, don't go around repeating it over and over again. Apple has the power to ignore you precisely because you're effectively parroting their brand identity, even if only to criticize it. Propaganda 102.

Of course, no one likes thin, light devices in a laptop that you carry around all the time. That is just silly.

>It is the "sex" factor. Meaning, it makes no sense, but a lot of people buy consumer hardware because of how sexy it is which means thin, light, and attractive design trumps a lot of core utility.

It goes further than that. Apple products are status symbols and owners of Apple products are seen as more sexually attractive.

I got an iPhone and still don't have cute people lining up. I was misled.

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