A perfect laptop would also be waterproof, user upgradable hardware (eg add more memory), user serviceable, hardware buttons for camera & bluetooth, more travel for keyboard (I know that's hard when its thin but I can ask).
There is ultimately some tradeoff between repairability and size/weight/thermals due to physics. But companies compromise on repairability way below an actual physical limit.
Examples:
- To replace the batteries of a MBP Retina, you must disassemble the entire motherboard before freeing up the batteries [0]. A lot of people end up damaging the board in the process.
- The Surface Laptop isn't even meant to be opened. If you open it, you can't put it back together [1]. I wonder what "physical tradeoff" Microsoft made here that even Apple didn't have to make in an iPhone?
- All MBPs after MBP Retina have the NVMe drive soldered on [2]. The drive is paired with the secure enclave, but clearly they could've offered a mechanism/service to pair a new drive rather than force the user buy a whole new laptop.
[0] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Retina+Disp...
[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Laptop+Tea...
[2] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+16-Inch+2019+Tea...
Native performance doesn't mean anything aside from the same program/OS running on the same system. In other words, "native performance" is the baseline for a relative speed comparison, not some absolute value that makes sense in itself.
Thus, "Near native" on the M1 could be faster than native on an Intel machine. Or on an ARM, for that matter: https://www.macworld.co.uk/news/apple-m1-runs-windows-faster....
If there is a hypervisor in between you and your CPU - let alone emulation - you lose direct access to things like performance counters (which I need to be able to do a lot of things I enjoy programming). On top of that you also now have to trust (this isn't even security, the implementation can be buggy) a hypervisor - they effectively have to mimic the behaviour of a CPU, they aren't perfect.
Yeah, I know what "native" means.
I talked about the use of "native performance". That when used for comparison, it doesn't mean anything, unless it compares between the program running on the native OS and virtualized on the same machine.
So, saying
"Near native performance" i.e. not native"
(a) doesn't say anything as a general statement (of course it's less than 100% of native, as its virtualized), and
(b) is moot as an argument against the M1 (since this "non native" performance could still could be e.g. 100% or even 120% of the native performance of another machine, which would make it more than enough).
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/06/pinebook-pro-review-...
My 10 year old Thinkpad x230 has most of that (retail price circa $100)...
2K @ 12" or 13", some USB-C ports, 500GB storage and a good battery. Vanilla butter brain bath for some magnetic dock connector. Standard Linux DE for all I care.
That would be the perfect mobile device.
External mobility module with mobile internet, GPS, small laser beamer, lidar and camera; Compute module with additional graphics or cpu power.
All this would be possible today, although not for pine64.
I think he also means it would be usable. That has neither the battery life, nor the speed, as in TFA.
I am glad I am not the only one.
.7 mm - butterfly keyboard
1 mm - new 16” MBP scissor keyboard
1.3 mm - old scissor keyboard
I dont want a 0.3mm thinner MacBook at the expense of typing experience. To me it is a world of difference.
Edit: I guess there are too many M1 news this is now being flagged.....