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Comment by playpause | Hacker News Reader

> I actually like the USB charging better, as it allows you to connect the cord to either side, and it doesn't get accidentally knocked out if I use it on my lap.

I felt the same until my cat pulled my laptop off my desk by the cord. It landed on the corner with the USB plugged in, destroying the port on the laptop itself. Probably knocked a few hundred off the resale value. The little shit.

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Apple’s goal is to have every portable computer work like an iPhone: you charge it overnight, then unplug it and use it unwired for a full day. This is why the charging port on the mouse is on the bottom, for instance.

They never quite got their Intel laptops there, though. (Especially running MS Teams, Slack, and Chrome!)

It’s kind of funny that, now that they can make a laptop that really does last all day on one charge (according to tests of M1), they’re switching back to MagSafe.

Unfortunately that doesn't work for those of us that need to run compute intensive tasks, like browsing the web, or compiling stuff, or running docker.

There's this stupid dream that the computer needs to be light and fanless and thin and sexy. It doesn't need to do that. I'm happy if it doesn't melt while trying to run some software I need to do my job.

> compute intensive tasks, like browsing the web

Modern computing is a sad place :(

My experience with my mpb M1 16GB is that it barely every spins up the fans, even when pegging 2 cores to 100% because web.whatsapp is doing it's thing again and I have a Python process doing some hammering. Docker in silent model is just consuming RAM but not really consuming battery. The only thing i've noticed that is really heavy is jitsi. But Discord or Teams are pretty chill on the battery life to my experience

One thing Lenovo gets right is that they have fairly clear desktop replacement and travel laptop personas. I'm pretty clearly in the latter category although I'm hoping that the new rumored 14" will be able to replace both my 2015 MacBook Pro and iMac.

> run compute intensive tasks, like browsing the web

lol, it's not only browsing though but web-infested Electron apps as well. Used draw.io (which is otherwise a fine diagramming app) the other day, with fans spinning up all the time. It's sad to see that draw.io was (and internally largely remains) originally a Java (Swing) app, seemingly only ported to a fscking browser frontend as a fashion statement when the exact same things it does I could do almost 20 years ago on a PowerBook using OmniGraffle.

I can comfortably work all day on battery doing all of those tasks on my M1. I can work all day at a coffee shop and leave my charger at home.

> They never quite got their Intel laptops there, though.

Man is that an understatement. My work MBP - a 16" i9 - may as well be a desktop.

A desktop would probably be quieter than my 16”, which ramps up the fans at even a whiff of CPU usage.

Always a fun game of “which browser tab is burning my lap?”

I bet that's true for most laptops regardless of whether it's got the battery life or not.

Maybe the difference is that I'm not often using the laptop with the cord strung out around animals (not that there is anything wrong with doing that). For me, at home where I have a dog and several small children, the laptop is usually on the dock. The same is true at work. When on the go, I don't usually have the dog/small children.

Magsafe saved my laptop from a dog who heard thunder just last week.

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