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Comment by SapporoChris | Hacker News Reader

Since I've been traveling extensively I have started using a laptop also.

The downsides are the obvious extra cost for the laptop. Less obvious is the maintenance.

Every few years I will spill a drink on my keyboard. If it's an external keyboard I can repair it or replace it easily. If it's a laptop it could be catastrophic failure. Yes I know I can attach keyboard to laptop.

Then there's the laptop screen, it is easily damaged when traveling. Sometimes the damage is minor. My laptop screen recently started having problems, sometimes it works, sometimes it flickers, sometimes it's just a black screen. External monitor is currently attached, but that's a poor mobile solution. Replacing an external monitor is cheap. So, I found a website that can sell me the replacement monitor. I have to decide is it worth repairing or should I get a new one. Cost of repairing is about 1/3rd the cost of a brand new equivalent laptop.

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> Every few years I will spill a drink on my keyboard

I thought this only happened in movies. I always have drinks around my laptop and desktop, and it hasn't happened to me even once in the last 20 years. In my opinion, the 1/1000 chance of a spill happening in a given year shouldn't guide your purchasing decision.

> Then there's the laptop screen, which is easily damaged when traveling.

How does this happen? Do you drop your laptop often? Do you take it to the beach and does it get full of sand? I always travel with a laptop and cannot picture the screen getting damaged, unless I place the laptop in checked baggage.

I had a mug handle break, shatter my trackpad and spill all over my keyboard. I now treat any mug with a level of distrust.

Others in the company always buys those paper thin laptops that can't be opened. They either break or get stolen. Not sure how they treat them. Mine is built like a tank and can hardly be called laptop. It mostly gets used with Anydesk from a desktop computer though it does follow nicely on trips for work now and then. Not a scratch on it.

My wife's MacBook was destroyed when a small cup of water was spilled on the other end of the coffee table. Apparently it was so thin that the water could flow right into the back vents. Sadly, we didn't realize it had been exposed, and turned it on the next day.

Not the OP, but I just lost a keyboard to a spilled drink as well. Not all of us have perfect dexterity and spatial awareness at all times.

I haven't lost a laptop screen to dropping it, though I have had a laptop screen spontaneously fail--two in fact. Both were HP laptops. Not buying those any more.

This reminds me of people who always forget their keys. I always thought: "nah that doesn't happen to anyone", and then I discovered it happens to a lot of people. Different brains work very differently, and there are some common bugs that affect some people but not others. See also those who can't stand watching a video to learn about a subject, versus those that can't stand reading. And that's even without getting started on personality disorders.

It's really hard to internalize it if you are not "weird" in any of those ways, but we should all be more aware of it.

Exactly. I spill drinks periodically, but I don't ever forget my keys.

I don't ever let them leave my pocket, of course, so I'd need to forget my pants to forget my keys...but we did agree not to get started on personality disorders. ;)

It's large laptop, 4.56 kg and a 17 inch screen. This makes it a bit bulky for carry on. I often check it in luggage, I take pains to wrap it to prevent damage, but I'm sure at least some has occurred when checked. Yes, I know it's fairly foolish to check a laptop, but for it's weight, it's a pain to lug around as carry on. This laptop has lasted about 4.5 years so far. So, I agree with the 1/1000 chance of a spill happening shouldn't really factor into purchasing decision.

Regarding spilled drinks, sometimes it's just been morning coffee, sometimes it's a beer late at night. I've only had one cup of coffee go into this laptop (apparently without damage as it was months ago), but I've taken out several external keyboards over the years.

Two more downsides I'd like to add to your list:

- A laptop will never have greater compute power and heat dissipation than a similar tier desktop.

- Current laptop models will often consume more power than can be provided by their included power supplies (one culprit is USB-C's 100 watt limit, the other is simply cost). Thus, their compute endurance is hampered by the battery. I see this when merely running Google Meet.

My first run-in with this was a customer that complained that their computer was slow. When I had a look at it, it was an HP laptop about 10 years ago. While booting I noticed a funny message in the direction of "For full capacity please buy this external power supply from HP". Looked at the power lump and it was about 60 W and the computer had a bad battery so could not keep up at all. They sell expensive laptops and expect you to throw away the power supply and buy a new one?

Yeah, I've seen it justified (by users) as "most of the time I don't need the full capacity and I don't want to pay for that extra capacity when the battery can make up for it".

A lot of assumptions wrapped up in such statements - one of which is the one you found: Batteries are typically among the first components to die.

I always used to unplug the battery when I'm not traveling so it would last longer. Can't do that any more if you need it the whole time.

Nowadays batteries are non-removable and sometimes even soldered in. I miss old laptops.

They still exist but you have to look for them specifically. Usually gaming laptops around 4 kg though :-)

1) My M1 MacBook begs to differ

2) My M1 MacBook begs to differ again

I feel like you are talking about laptops that should not have been laptops in the first place here

First off, I will say that yes, M1 chipsets are much more power efficient than intel based chips. However, this does not make intel based laptops "laptops that should not have been laptops", as evidenced by Apple (and everyone else) producing them for well over a decade.

1) Even with the thermal dissipation a M1 macbook has, a desktop could cool a M1 better. There's simply more room for a larger heatsink with more surface area, and fans that don't have to throttle, than a laptop format could ever provide And with the coming M1 desktops, we will see this in action.

2) The M1 MacBook Pro has a measured draw of ~120 watts under load (measured by anandtech; there's still the GPU to power, despite the better performance of the M1 itself). Apple power supplies, until recently, topped out at around 90 watts.

Here's where Apple's slightly ahead of the game - they're using the updated PD specs in their latest chargers to get a 140 watts out over USB-C, and packing them with the new 16" macbook pros (though not the 14", they're still topping out at 67/94 watts).

So the outlook for M1's in terms of power is better than average, so long as you pay the Apple tax. Worth it? Perhaps. Perfect? Not yet.

To be quite honest that sounds like you problems and not laptop problems.

I have never managed to spill anything on my MacBook and I travel 24/7 and it is in prime condition.

Speaking about condition, it seems to me like you really just have to condition yourself to not place any liquid near it and always keep it in a good protective bag.

Sounds like you need a thinkpad. New screens for my x220 are 40 bucks on aliexpress, a new keyboard is like 15. In addition, the keyboard has drainage holes, I use it routinely with dripping wet hands and the keyboard survived a coke spill + cleaning with flowing water.

Add to your list, Flexgate.

Macbooks have become notorious for industrial design faults that come up late in the lifetime of a laptop.

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