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Comment by RandyRanderson | Hacker News Reader

Every 2 or 3 years I think to myself: maybe this year? I check System and other laptop vendors in their tier. Disappointment.

I'm sure there are a lot of economic issues that I don't understand but here is my request:

. all the ram possible . pretty good CPU w/ lots of cores . a good keyboard (no numpad) . a good 4k-ish screen . a big battery (if you make this laptop, ppl will optimize the software to make it last) . decent speakers . is it too much to ask for a decent GPU?

Overall: please just make a premium laptop and charge a lot. There are more ppl on the Internet like me than you realize.

Things no one cares about:

. thin

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  Things no one cares about:

  . thin

I won't try to speak for everyone like that, but I for one love having a thin laptop.

Lightweight is good, but how does thickness impact you? I haven't had an issue fitting a laptop into a bag in over 20 years.

Sometimes there are other things to squeeze in a bag besides a laptop.

I guess you adapt to whatever you've got, but at this point I'm spoilt by being able to easily slide my thin laptops in and out of my backpack. Makes going through airport security that much easier.

Nothing commands respect in airport security like a Thinkpad T420.

Aesthetic? That feeling that we're in the future and this isn't grandpa's laptop? Some other intangible quality from which I derive subjective satisfaction?

That you can fit your laptop into a bag doesn't seem to me to be a reason to be happy with thick laptops.

Because thinness tends to correlate with lightness in laptop designs.

You're looking for a mobile workstation / desktop replacement. Some of these care little enough about the "thin and light" to have built-in carrying handles :)

> built-in carrying handles

Sign me up. I don't care if my computer fits in a manila envelope

Ive had multi sys76 machines...

They were best buy for the buck. Although, appl beat them out on chassis - alum frame is BEST - but the guts of S76 is top notch.

The only thing I am pissed at S76 is, is that they changed their vid interface for screens on the same laptop - so I couldnt replace a dead machine with a good machine based on their screen redesign

and they wanted $90 for a fn power receptacle....

Else, I support them they are like 60% apple evil

I haven’t owned one but wouldn’t the Dell XPS series fit your description?

XPS are great but I would caution about poor thermal management, even after reseating the GPU and CPU cores it doesn't take much to hit the CPU temp limits with full fans.

Yea, I've always had trouble with XPS thermals. I've had two personal ones with thermal and battery issues and decided I wouldn't get another ... and then I got one for work and it has a lot of the same quirks. Not the best Linux machines honestly.

We have XPS in our office and the 15 inch ones with 45W chips and nvidia graphics are a disaster. Over half of them have/had various issues: overheating, constant power/thermal throttling, sleep issues, trackpad issues, charging issues, HDMI issues, keyboard issues. One had its board replaced three times!!!. And we don't even stress them, just windows, IDEs and terminals, no rendering, no gaming.

The warranty experience was great as a tech would always come to our office to perform replacements but I don't get how Dell makes any money on those with so much RMAs.

If their QA is so bad on their most premium line, I shudder to think what the experience must be like with their cheaper devices.

what year/model are those XPS? They seem to have improved a lot in the past year or two.

Interesting, I was on the fence between my MBA and a XPS. I did not expect the XPS to have these issues. Would you happen to know if you use the proprietary or open source Nvidia drivers?

He's very likely talking about older generation devices, but I'm not sure.

What laptops don’t have issues?

Many people seem to think MacBooks have exceptionally high build quality and they have m̶o̶s̶t̶ all of the types of issue you listed:

• Overheating https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2020/06/24/apple-mac...

• thermal throttling

• sleep issues (IIRC they’re hard to keep awake while trying to use them closed and docked to an external monitor in “clamshell mode”)

• trackpad issues (subjective and they do seem to have the largest trackpad fanbase, but some have complained they’re too large and easy to brush while typing; perhaps the palm rejection isn’t good enough for everybody)

• charging issues (they charge differently through ports on one side vs. the other and some have complained they build up charges that can be felt when picking them up)

• HDMI issues

• keyboard issues (butterfly keyboards destroyed by dust, Apple delayed addressing this for years IIRC).

Plus staingate. Plus actively anti-repair design and a user hostile OS.

Edits: bullets and paragraph separation, found the last type of issue (overheating)

> "clamshell mode"

Yeah, that particular phrase kind of irks me. Most people who don't use Apple products simply call that 'with the lid closed.'

Dell Precision 5540 is that laptop

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