And there's the soldered RAM and storage, and glued-in or screwed-in battery...
this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
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As someone who daily drives a laptop for work and does field work on server facilities, finding a modern replacement that has both a RJ45 port and square USB (USB-A?) ports available on both sides, has been a pain in the hassle.
And I'm not even crying over the loss of VGA any longer. That one I can live without.
gpd pocket is the best field work laptop series I know of right now.
8.8 inches (22 cm for civilized folks)
would have to basically "chinese man squinting meme" at any serious work
no function key row
no physical navigation keys
not even the physical keys for braces
Fam, thanks but am looking for daily driving some sort of laptop, not a glorified smartphone.
I accept your take fully. Here's why I still love it:
I have docks in any location where I plan to work for an extended period of time. "The smallest device which can run x86/x64 code" is what I look for in the handheld device I carry around with me that isn't company issued.
You're right about one thing, though. It and the surface go 2 before it are items I targeted when I saw the use that others were getting out of their iOS and Android tablets. I wanted a device that still gives me access to calibre for e-book sorting and the time waste-y low resource usage portion of my steam library even if I'm on an airplane. The pocket, as well as a charger, a slim bluetooth mouse, and an e-reader all fit in a pouch not much larger than a case for a study bible. I can pull that out of my travel backpack and tuck it in the pocket of the seat in front of me, then I don't have to fight with any of my carry-on luggage during the flight. I take a bluetooth controller or two with me if I'm going to be somewhere for more than a few days, and then when I'm back at the hotel I can hook this same tiny device up to the TV in the hotel room and play emulated games or resource friendly steam games.
I've been using laptops my whole life, and it seems like whenever I'm using the built in display, it's already a poor environment for productivity. Portability gets my attention in its stead.
The new (not that new anymore) macbook PROs do have separate DC input, HDMI, SD card slot and HDMI. And to be honest, for an average computer user those ports are pretty useless, however if you do need them it comes at a rather steep premium.
Yes, they should totally bring back the firewire port!
I'm no Apple fanboy (never owned a product of theirs and never will) but to be fair, those two USB-C ports can do everything the old, removed ports can do and more. The real crime here is not putting enough of them on the laptop.
Edit: The only port I'll lament the removal of is the headphone jack. USB-C headphones are rare, adapters get lost, and bluetooth headphones compress the audio and have input lag. Everything else can go, though, and won't be missed. (Okay fine ethernet can stay too.)
But my existing mice, keyboards, monitors, printers, and more don't use those ports.
So now people get to carry around an external hub just to plug in damn thumbdrive.
Those threads are so funny. One day, we see people talking against planned obsolescence and the environmental impacts of the tech industry. The other day, the same people are cheering for removal of backwards compatibility and happy to throw away their stuff to buy new ones, and even making peer pressure on the ones who don't do the same so they feel "antiquated".
USB-C keyboards & mice have been around for years. I switched to USB-C almost half a decade ago and haven't looked back.
Regardless, you can easily mod your existing gear to USB-C with just a screwdriver and a soldering gun (or electrical tape if you're lazy like me).
So your solution is for people to either throw away perfectly-good products (Logitech mice still don't have USB-C receivers btw), or learn to hack something together?
My laptop from 2018 ago is no thicker than a modern laptop and managed to have 2 USB-A, 2 USB-C, a power adapter port (though it also supports PD), an SD card reader, and a headphone jack.
Now that PD is a better standard and power bricks had no standard, I can see dropping the power port for another Type-C port for a lower-power laptop that can't draw more power than PD can deliver, but there's no justification for dropping the other ports that are "still" standards being used by new devices.
For some yes, for some not.
My ideal minimum is this: 3x USB-C with support for slow 5V charging, 3x USB-A, 1x RJ-45 Ethernet (not some shit like ThinkPad Ethernet extension), 1x HDMI or 1x DP++, 1x DB9 serial port, 1x MicroSD or 1x SD slot (flush when inserted), 1x 3.5mm combo jack.
The sd card reader is cool too
Apple’s MacBook Pro includes HDMI and a third usb/Thunderbolt port alongside an SDXC and headphone jack (the latter of which is on all their laptops albeit on the other side). This seems like the perfect balance for most users.
It’s nonsense they don’t include HDMI on the Air, but then “it’s kinda thin and kinda light”.
I was not sad to see FireWire and mini-DisplayPort replaced with usb-c/thunderbolt.
Current port line up on “pro” machines:
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They remove the extra ports because they take up space in the board.
That aside if you’re buying Mac you took it from yourself. No one made you buy it.
Tim Cook came to my home and put a gun to my head until I bought an iPad. :(
The 2nd from top has two lightning sparks. To charge the laptop, I have to connect them to the two holes in my outlet, right?
I actually prefer the standardization here. Sick of having 2 boxes of different cords.
Problem: This is what happens when you pick Apple.
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