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Comment by jankotek | Hacker News Reader

> Ultramobile, slim, and desktop replacements

No! I want proper thick modular 17" desktop replacement with 256GB RAM. Platform that would replace old Thinkpads.

We're the "nonexistent" market of IT consultants with high incomes that need a high-end laptop. As a third-party to my clients, I cannot rely on the availability of external monitors, keyboards, docking stations, or WiFi.

I lug around a heavy Clevo laptop with a 17" 4K screen, 2x RJ-45 ports, quad-core 4 GHz CPU, and 64 GB of memory.

These are my minimum requirements, and practically nothing meets it any more!

Clevo has largely stopped making 17" 4K screens in favour of 144 Hz gaming screens.

Most laptops have tiny keyboards that are uncomfortable to type on for any length of time, and are particularly irritating if you do programming.

Most laptops are 14" or smaller, which makes my eyes hurt after an eight hour day.

Most laptops focus on battery capacity and low power operation, which doesn't affect me because I work plugged in 99% of the time.

Most laptops assume "everything is wireless" and no longer have RJ-45 connectors, let alone two, but all too often guests can't get on the main corporate network on WiFi, but can plug in to the LAN just fine.

Most laptop manufacturers are in a race to the bottom. I paid $6,000 for my laptop because it's a tax writeoff, and I'm willing to go as high as $8,000 if I get what I want.

Apparently though people like me are "too low margin to bother with" as a market...

I've thought about making (well, more about 'having' it to be honest) a 'semi-portable' computer for people like us. Basically a briefcase that when folded open would 'swing out' two screens. Maybe you would fold it over so that the rest of the case (where the mobo etc are are in) would work as a stand for the monitors. You wouldn't be able to use it on a couch or plane but it would give you a vastly superior experience when at a desk. Sort of like a portable office. Ideally the whole inside would be 3d printed (maybe some of the display panel mounts would be metal and the rest custom) so that you can make it fit for any briefcase and any hardware you want to put in it.

There are vast untapped markets that are being totally ignored. As in, you can't vote with your wallet because there's literally nowhere to put your money.

Very few laptop manufacturers allow key customisation (e.g.: using laser engraving). None allow a choice of keyboard (e.g.: with or without a keypad, with or without dedicated ins/del/home/end/pgup/pgdn keys, separate arrow keys, [fn] button left or right of [ctrl] etc...)

Nobody makes laptops with really good HDR screens and HDMI inputs capable of RAW recording. There's production crews out that there that will happily drop north of $10K for something like that.

Similarly, there's only a handful of laptops with non-key inputs, such as shuttle/jog wheels and the like.

I don't think anyone on the planet makes OLED 4K screens in the 16 to 20 inch range. They're just not made, for any purpose, let alone laptops.

I've never seen a 17 inch or larger laptop with a narrow bezel. They all seem to add an extra inch on both sides just to waste precious space.

There are telco engineers out there who would appreciate a laptop with a built-in QSFP+ connector. In general, laptops with > 1 Gbps wired network connections are very rare or borderline non-existent.

Very few laptops have built in GPS, although this is slowly becoming more common.

I bet there's a lot of field engineers (think oil exploration, forestry work, etc...) who would appreciate a large, capable laptop that's semi ruggedized. As in, not a shoebox with bumper bars designed to hammer nails in, but merely rainproof. Think cooling fans but with the fans outside a sealed electronics compartment so the water isn't sucked in.

I'd like to see internal power-supply as an option to replace the battery. Alternatively, the option to switch between two batteries or one battery plus integrated PSU.

I'd like to see high-wattage PSUs optimised for weight instead of cost. My 130W PSU is a literal brick in size, shape, and weight. It doesn't have to be, and Apple has demonstrated that this is possible, albeit at a slightly higher cost.

Again... the race to the bottom is fine if selling laptops for Moms and Dads that need to buy their kid something for school, but it's not okay for the high-end that professionals are looking for.

There has to be small manufacturers in the US. In Spain I know this two guys: https://www.mountain.es/en and https://slimbook.es/en/ and I've been pretty happy with their products.

Most small laptop manufacturers sell Clevo based laptops with some customization, so there's a limit to what they can customize on the Clevo base model.

I'm not sure with Slimbook,it could be, but Mountain seems to be more custom than that.

A portable computer with a high-res screen and a standard mini-ITX board with a PCIe slot would seem to do the trick. The big problem is battery life (unless they could live without a battery, which would help the size quite a bit.

What happens when you get called in to a meeting? Do you take your luggable and dominate the conference room table with it? Or carry around a second laptop or iPad?

For the occasional presentation I either use whoevers laptop that is already plugged into the projector, or the dedicated machine that's already in the room. For day(s) long meetings, I take a dedicated ultrabook.

I'm surprised you find that guests can plug into the main corporate LAN. That's a sign of totally incompetent security (unless it's a lab network or something firewalled away from the regular enterprise network). Wired Ethernet access should be locked down to only authorized devices.

You can do 802.11x cert-based authentication on wired LAN too.

Don't dismiss other people's technical choices because you ignore the existence of certain technical possibility.

I didn't dismiss other people's technical choices or ignore the existence of a certain technical possibility. 802.11x is obviously a way of locking down a LAN to authorized devices. I assumed every network administrator would be familiar with that.

PC Specialist have some nice custom built 17" laptops. You can configure them with 4k displays, 8 core i9's and 64GB Ram, might be worth checking out. Looks like they have RJ45 ports as well.

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/octaneVI...

I assume you've heard of them before but just in case, System76 higher end laptops have 17" 4k, RJ-45, high end CPU, high end GPU, 64GB RAM

https://system76.com/laptops

Doesn't the Thinkpad P7x line of laptops still tick all those boxes? The only one it might not have is dual RJ45 ports, but I'd think a USB RJ45 port would suffice in the cases where a second LAN port was required.

You and me both but unfortunately we are a invisible minority since just like with phones, when it comes to laptops, consumers want something sleek and sexy that looks good in a hip cafe regardless of thermal performance or reparability.

Gaming laptops are 80% there though but the ones with good build quality and modularity carry a hefty markup.

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