Comment by lmm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lmm | Hacker News Reader

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My experience with a Surface Book (which I use in at least 3 different ways - as a tablet, as a laptop, and connected to a monitor/keyboard/etc. on my desk via Surface Dock) makes me think that's coming eventually, but it'll take longer than you think:

- External GPUs are still pretty bad

- Tablets with cellular connectivity are if anything less well supported than before. I think this is mainly because carriers aren't really supporting the idea of one person/account having multiple "phones". Smartwatches have the same problem - I remember going to a Samsung store and they were showing off a smartwatch that had its own SIM card and cellular modem, but the staff couldn't tell me what kind of phone contract you had to have to make it work

- Small devices still mean a noticeable compromise in power. I've tried using Samsung Dex as well and it's... ok, but appreciably worse than even a netbook, even if on paper the processor/memory/etc. ought to be catching up. Laptop as primary computer only really took off once you genuinely couldn't notice any performance disadvantage compared to a desktop, at least in my friend group; I think it'll be the same with tablet and (eventually) phone/watch/ring form factors

> Smartwatches have the same problem - I remember going to a Samsung store and they were showing off a smartwatch that had its own SIM card and cellular modem, but the staff couldn't tell me what kind of phone contract you had to have to make it work

I might be missing something about cultural differences but... why would you expect an electronics store to tell you what kind of plans your telco has?

Here in Switzerland pretty much every telco offers an additional SIM for tablets and watches, but you need to talk to the mobile operator not the electronics store ^^

I guess the OP was from the US. Most US providers still seem to live in the mental world of selling SIM-locked phones, they are no smooth experience for customers bringing their own device.

Prices for just a SIM without buying a phone seem to be pretty high.

Here selling SIM-locked phones is not even legal. In most European countries it is legal, but still less common than in the US. So operators have to serve customers not buying a device from them on competitive terms.

> Most US providers still seem to live in the mental world of selling SIM-locked phones, they are no smooth experience for customers bringing their own device.

This was true 5-10 years ago. Nowadays, nearly every mobile network regularly has offers to entice users to bring their device from a different network in exchange for a cheaper monthly plan or similar.

Most smart watches don’t have a physical SIM card slot since that would be way too big. The software used to load an eSIM onto the watch often has a whitelist for carriers.

Another issue is that both the watch and the phone need to share a phone number if you want to leave your phone at home and answer calls and receive SMS on the watch. This isn’t standardized and only works with each watch’s supported carriers.

The solution to the SMS problem is to use VOIP. I personally very much like JMP.chat.

That would be ideal, but VOIP numbers are blocked in many situations. Most 2fa providers and bank transaction verification comes to mind.

>Most 2fa IME: banks and such are fine with it. Coinbase definitely works.

I'd expect the person selling me a product to be able to tell me what I need to use the product. Like if I was buying a car that runs off LPG or something, I'd expect the salesperson to be able to tell me where I can buy that fuel and roughly how much it costs, even if the car company doesn't actually sell it themselves.

Many of those telco plans in Switzerland that just add a data eSIM don’t actually work with something like an Apple Watch, which is why I assume the GP asked at the store. At least the Apple Watch requires a mobile network to offer a special shared-number add-on and support Apple’s GUI for provisioning this plan with an eSIM on the watch. Unfortunately, this usually means sticking with more expensive first-party networks rather than MVNOs and paying whatever fees they require.

It’s quite possible the Samsung watches don’t rely on this system, but I’m not sure and may have also assumed it was worth asking like the GP.

> Tablets with cellular connectivity are if anything less well supported than before.

Not my experience. I'm sure it depends a bit on your carrier, but on T-Mobile it was easy to order a data sim for a tablet from their website. Setting up a smart watch was even easier with eSIM, it just sets up everything for you when you pair with your phone.

You seem to be talking about the US. T-Mobile seems to be the only operator not having custom firmware for modems. Maybe a small remainder of the European influence in the company. In Europe national and international interoperability between any SIM and device (1) has been a thing since 1992 when GSM came. In the US operator business models were based on technical incompatibility and complete lock-in for decades.

(1) SIM locks exist in some countries. But they are commercial practices, not technical incompatibility.

I don’t see how the history of GSM is very pertinent to the present scenario. At least in the last several years I’ve used phones from Europe or Asia or other networks in North America and they all just work with first-party or MVNO SIM cards in The US, from T-Mobile, AT&T, Tracfone, Mint, and others, assuming the device supports the appropriate bands (which varies a bit by region, especially for LTE).

What's the problem with eGPUs? The most problematic thing I see is that they only work with intel CPUs for now and that all enclosures are tb3.

Also Samsung is really good at adding features and then locking them down in weird ways, breaking basic features or just providing horrible user experience.

> What's the problem with eGPUs? The most problematic thing I see is that they only work with intel CPUs for now and that all enclosures are tb3.

Maybe they've gotten better, but the last time I looked at reviews they were generally flaky (driver issues or incompatibilities with particular games) and had performance issues, to the point that a lower-model built-in card would often outperform a higher-model in an external enclosure. I'm sure they're coming eventually, but I haven't heard of anyone having an actually polished experience with one in day-to-day use yet.

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