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Comment by aqme28 | Hacker News Reader

Would you prefer a larger bezel?

I would prefer something like the Dell XPS laptops, very minimal bezel with a camera and screen that still looks edge to edge. I'm talking about the new XPS ones, not the old ones with the camera at the bottom of the screen.

Then buy a Dell XPS laptop? Why do macbooks need to be perfect for everyone?

What kind of comment is this? Your parent expressed a valid criticism followed by a reasonable solution.

It's not like Apple can't do the same as Dell.

I have to think Dell and others could have put in a notch if they wanted to make that compromise. They clearly felt it better to either do it right (and find a way to nestle the camera stuff into the bezel) than to go full notch.

Is a company not beyond reproach? Can't I like the product but still criticize its flaws?

But it’s not a flaw. There’s nothing objective here. The notch is preferable for many, and annoying to some.

That approach leads to a webcam that's garbage. Apple chose the notch approach to allow thin bezels on most of the screen while still having a 1080p webcam with good low light performance.

for folks following this the 2020 Dell XPS camera's have absolute TERRIBLE quality.

https://www.dell.com/community/XPS/XPS13-9300-2020-version-w...

The Apple camera solution here, while it doesn't make you happy, may make others happy.

It's unlikely the reason for that on the dell is the design of the bezel, most likely they just cheaped out or got a discount on several year-old parts.

Sure, but when people say ie, Dell does this better - every time I go look at the Acer or Dell product - they haven't actually focused on what users want.

My guess - looking good on a zoom call for your work or your soririty or your dating videos is going to matter a TON more to folks than whether or not something is integrated into a fat bezel, or is in a notch.

This debate has already occured BTW with the phones, and despite various claims that the notch would destroy iphone sales it did not.

That said, I build my own PCs (talk about driver issues long term) and do purchasing of Lenovo and Dell for business (and a dell "server" costs a mint even though what is inside is also not THAT amazing) and don't use a mac personally, but my family does, and so I'm not totally blind to the value offering they have.

Yep, and the notch was a lot smaller than I expected from the discussion when looking at the apple site.

Hardware performance and design don't seem to be the same here though - XPS could have gone with a better camera in their smaller bezel and GP's point still stands.

The XPS has a 720p camera and people complain on forums it has terrible picture quality. It also has thicker bezels than these new macbooks.

I think apple made the right trade-off. Thin bezels and a good camera at the top of the display. Sadly you cannot have both in a laptop without a notched design.

I would prefer the menubar to not be messed up.

I would be surprised if the new OS didn't handle that

> Would you prefer a larger bezel?

I would, if only along the bottom!

tl;dr: a thicker bottom bezel allows the necessary space for a better keyboard layout without shrinking the touchpad, and makes the laptop more usable when your eyes are at heights closer to that of the screen rather than looking down on it from above

Because I have poor eyesight but I like to keep a lot of text on my screen, I often work partially or fully reclined with my laptop lying on my chest or my stomach. When I do this, the height of my fingers as they rest on the keyboard tends to obscure the bottom part of the screen on 'modern' laptops with super-thin bezels all around, so I have to reduce the height of my full-screen terminal.

On older laptops, where the bottom bezel may be a full inch or more tall, I don't need this. Additionally, I prefer a full, standard, IBM style keyboard layout: a dedicated row of F keys, spaced out in the standard way, and with full-sized arrow keys. One problem with such keyboards is that they compromise the size of the trackpad, because of th space they take up on the bottom of the laptop. On keyboards without trackpoints, or with designs centered on large, excellent trackpads like MacBooks, this cannot work well.

So for me, an ideal hardware setup for input on a laptop might well be something like a MBP, but with a 3:2 display and a bottom bezel 1-2 inches tall, which would allow for a full-size keyboard alongside a spacious, Mac-like trackpad.

Apple fits a camera, a lidar, and god knows what other sensors on the front of a phone in a notch that's three times thinner than the one on its own laptops.

So yeah. They could have a thin bezel. They deliberately chose not to, even if it eats into the precious little space of the top menu bar.

It looks like the iPhone is about 2-3 times thicker than a MacBook lid. I'm not sure they actually have the space to put iPhone equivalent hardware above the MacBook screen.

The module itself is very thin: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+12+and+12+Pro+Teardow...

I believe they could've quite easily reduced the bezel width.

For content consumption yes, creation maybe not.

What content are you consuming? Because if you remove the screen area next to the notch, it's 16:10, and if you're watching videos, you're probably doing it at 16:9, and games at 16:9 or 16:10.

Yes. Yes I would.

I would rather take a bezel and reduce the amount of e-waste this custom garbage has on the world. Add to that this will most likely make screen replacements significantly harder and more expensive.

I think the e-waste angle is mostly unrelated.

Can you explain why you like a larger bezel? It seems like a hands-down negative to me.

I think the e-waste angle is mostly unrelated.

Is it though? I was able to replace a broken Macbook screen a couple of generations ago. It was hard and took a while, but I managed. I'm very sure I would not be able to do this given this kind of screen.

I guess we'll see when the first tear-down comes out. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the only way to fix the screen is to replace it together with the webcam.

There will be 3rd-party screens that fit this, just as there were 3rd party screens that fit every other macbook.

I'm pretty sure there hasn't been any "3rd-party screens" for macbooks since Retina displays came along. It's all sold as the display + case, lcd bonded to the glass.

Probably true. I haven’t looked into this since I did a screen replacement on a MacBook in like 2013

For me, notches are just ugly. The main purchasing decisions behind my current phone is its lack of notch. I hate the feeling of something interrupting my screen.

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