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Comment by jackvalentine | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. Just discourage people from turning the PC off instead of putting it to sleep.

No. The right response is to have two modes: on or off. A user shouldn't have to understand the difference between blank screen, sleep, hibernate and shut down. The iPad can do it, smartphones can do it. A user just wants to turn it 'off' when not in use and only very occasionally should have to turn it /off/ off.

If you read the article, most users don't like sleep mode (which is what iPads and smartphones do). When they start up, they want a clean boot. I'm one of those people, I shut off my computer every night and have it auto-start on a timer in the morning.

Sure, I read the article and I get that, but those are user expectations based on existing Windows PC behavior. In a 'post-PC' world, computer devices don't behave like that. Users will come to expect instant 'on' and only one possible 'off' state once they realize that their $300 Android tablet can get to their email instantly, yet their super fast expensive laptop can't.

But all that exists today with sleep mode, yet apparently a large number of people don't use it.

That is his point. Most people don't want to know about "sleep", "hibernate", "standby" etc. The device should not need to bother the user with that choice.

The device doesn't really bother the user with that choice. All the user needs to do is close the laptop's lid or hit the power button and the device would go to sleep (by default). Every time a shutdown happens it means the user's going out of the way to make that choice.

Don't conflate notebook and desktop PCs here though. Most notebooks seem to have little trouble with sleep/hibernate but I've never owned a desktop PC where the fucking ACPI worked like it is supposed to. As a result I always turn off sleep and hibernate and avoid the frustration.

I've been setting up other people's PC to sleep and I've had a problem with it. It's 2011, ACPI works now.

You guys don't care but they're reporting that the majority of users do. They're not saying its rational.

It's not rational to turn my PC off?

Why would I want my home PC turned on at 3AM, exactly?

Probably because you're awake playing Starcraft or doing an all night coding session.

Ok, maybe that's just me, but I suspect I can't be the only HN reader who uses his home PC at 3 AM more than he does at 3 PM.

You shouldn't have to turn it off because atleast on Windows 7 - by default it will go to sleep after certain inactivity. And then wake up after a few hours and go to hibernate. Since hibernate is 0 power state, it is as good as turn off. Additionally, you don't lose any of your in-memory data.

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