[HN Gopher] Let's redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era
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Let's redesign the laptop for a work-from-home era
Author : prostoalex
Score : 45 points
Date : 2021-03-10 02:38 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| draklor40 wrote:
| There exists a good solution. It is called a desktop.
|
| I turned my company provided laptop into an almost full desktop
| with external monitor, keyboard and mouse, speakers, a USB
| microphone, USB camera. At this point I am wondering why do I
| even have a wimpy ULV processor to write code 8 hrs a day. The
| sheer amount of time I could save by switching to even a basic 4
| core 45-65w Desktop class CPU.
|
| Saving pennies on the dollar.
| gcatalfamo wrote:
| Yes, in theory. But I end up not liking having to sit at the
| desk for "everything computer". Sometimes I just want to work
| while sitting comfortably on the couch.
| draklor40 wrote:
| I never get work done at the couch. Youtube, surfing,
| browsing, yes. Work ? No.
|
| I like a work desk. Keeps work and other stuff separate. Got
| a height adjustable desk. keeps my back from going bad before
| I hit 40.
| plun9 wrote:
| You could get a wireless keyboard/trackpad combo and use a
| TV/projector as a display.
| dhosek wrote:
| That doesn't really work for me with my fading vision in my
| senescence. My monitor that I work on is a super-wide
| screen monitor about 2 feet away. The optimum TV-watching
| distance is much further for me.
| dingaling wrote:
| > Sometimes I just want to work while sitting comfortably on
| the couch.
|
| Grab some paper and a pencil and use it as non-screen time.
| Else you can find yourself spending too long on a poor
| posture on furniture that's designed for lean-back, not lean-
| in.
| neogodless wrote:
| When I'm working, most of the time I'm on my desktop, with a ~5
| year old web cam attached to a monitor. For a while, I wondered
| if software was just making "me" look good (quality, not my
| face, ha!) but I had someone do a screen shot. And my $50 web
| cam is 5x better than basically every Macbook web cam for video
| chat. And my desktop is a ~2 year old 8-core, 32GB machine. Not
| a _monster_ but excellent power plus 27 " and 32" monitors, and
| an ergonomic chair, keyboard and mouse. The webcam mic works
| well, too, even in conjunction with my external speakers.
|
| I can game on a laptop (with a decent laptop stand and flat
| surface for a mouse) but I certainly wouldn't want to do 8
| hours of work on it. (Or a laptop on a table/desk, which isn't
| the right height or a good keyboard setup either...)
|
| Long-winded way of saying I agree with you. _But_ I did buy all
| of my desktop gear - nothing was work supplied.
| vlod wrote:
| https://archive.is/qhIjV
| llampx wrote:
| Thanks for the archive link.
| kps wrote:
| Let's not. Laptops are an ergonomic and productivity nightmare.
| anotheryou wrote:
| Make usb-c docking work...
|
| I got an older dell xps that get's heart trouble on 3rd party
| usb-c chargers (short freezes under moderate load) and is
| throttled even through the expensive dell dock.
|
| I got a lenovo with linux (maybe linux is at fault) where hdmi
| through usb-c causes all sorts of issues.
|
| ---
|
| allow to limit charging to 80% (dell can do it, should double
| battery life. Too bad my xps batteries die a bloaty death every 2
| years anyways... :)
| geocrasher wrote:
| Forget laptops. Bring back the portable computer.
| dhosek wrote:
| My first computer was a lunchbox portable. It had a monochrome
| plasma display and one or two open ISA slots inside (I remember
| I added a SCSI controller to it to drive an external CD-ROM
| drive). No battery power, but back in the 90s it wasn't that
| big of a deal to only use your computer somewhere you could
| plug it in.
| 1-6 wrote:
| I stare at my Echo Show (1st Gen) and it reminds me of my very
| first Mac Classic. Why can't Apple bring back that small
| computer form factor?
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/qhIjV
| ryankrage77 wrote:
| Thank you.
|
| Can't wait until paywalling what amounts to less than an A4
| page of content finally dies.
| throwaway74737 wrote:
| Smartphones come with many physical sensors. Laptops are bigger
| and have more power, so they should have just as many.
|
| - Very good quality cameras front and back, including IR, dot
| projector and flash
|
| - Analog audio I/O
|
| - GPS receiver
|
| - 3D accelerometer and gyroscope
|
| - Magnetometer
|
| - Ambient light level and color temperature
|
| - Ambient temperature, air pressure, hygrometer
|
| - Radiation detector
|
| - Wasn't there some research into a user-facing radar that could
| detect gestures?
|
| - GPIO and SDR
| fwip wrote:
| How do any of these, beyond the cameras, improve the work-from-
| home experience?
| Agingcoder wrote:
| I expected this to be about ergonomics, which laptops are
| anything but.
|
| I have seen too many people working on laptops ans getting hurt
| (hands, back, shoulders, etc). I'd start with a foldable keyboard
| which expands into something big and comfortable (I have RSI!),
| and a detachable screen which can be set higher on the desk.
| rollcat wrote:
| My ideas exactly! I was just sitting in the bed today with a
| laptop (normally using a desktop) and thinking how nothing in
| this device really makes any sense wrt ergonomics, it's not
| really possible to use it for more like an hour or two without
| getting really uncomfortable.
|
| I've accidentally bumped into r/cyberdeck today (not ergonomic
| at all but provided some inspiration), and now this thread.
|
| How would you go about designing a portable computer that's
| also more ergonomic to use? How would you raise the screen? How
| would you split/tent the keyboard? What steps would you take to
| reduce wear / risk of damage on moving parts?
| 6510 wrote:
| Its official! Ergonomics are not considered because the most
| basic demands (keyboard an monitor position) are nowhere near
| where they should be. Whatever one tries to design besides
| those is nonsense. The article is nonsense.
| hc-taway wrote:
| 1) physical kill switch for camera (as in, it breaks the power or
| data connection to it, physically) or at least a physical cover.
|
| 2) physical kill switch for the microphone
|
| These are very much not "nerd" concerns, either. I see a lot of
| non-techies with stickers over their laptop cameras.
|
| [EDIT] teachers in particular spread the "put a sticker over the
| camera" practice, in my experience, both before and during the
| pandemic. The last thing they need is to be responding to some
| student message late at night and accidentally snap a picture or
| start a video chat. That could easily be career-ending, and they
| wisely don't trust software safeguards to prevent that. Yet they
| do _want_ the camera, sometimes. Not having a kill-switch or
| cover built in sucks.
| Fezzik wrote:
| My work Laptop is an older ThinkPad and it has a physical
| sliding camera cover as well as the F4 key which functions as
| an all purpose mute button for the microphone. The F4 key even
| lights up when enabled. So these options definitely exist, to
| some degree.
| originalvichy wrote:
| Isn't it funny people use and hand out camera covers but a mic
| that can hear the sounds of an entire apartment is forgotten
| about? :)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> or at least a physical cover.
|
| I want a mechanical microphone switch too. Being seen can be
| embarrassing but being caught saying something can end your
| career instantly. See that school board that all had to resign
| after they were caught badmouthing parents.
| deadmutex wrote:
| I don't know how a mechanical microphone switch would have
| helped in that case.
|
| That seemed to be a UX issue. The board was on a call with
| other members, and didn't realize that there was another
| participant. Some news stories just called it a "hot mic"
| issue because it is easy to glance and get an idea of what
| the story is about, but that's not exactly what happened.
| dv_dt wrote:
| An external microphone with a physical push to talk button
| would be a pretty perfect UX if that is your worry.
| atoav wrote:
| Although this might not be simple enough for typical
| users a (On)-Off-On toggle switch (momentary in one
| direction, latching in the other) would be perfect for
| this.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| And trusting that the internal mic is actually off.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Not sure what incident you're referring to, but school board
| is an elected position. Politicians, of all people, should
| not expect job security and need to be transparent and
| accountable to the voting public. They don't deserve privacy
| at all, at least not in their professional capacity. I like
| privacy, sure, but I achieve that by not running for public
| office.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/21/us/california-school-board-
| re...
| drcode wrote:
| Of course, let's not forget that the core problem here is the
| "end your career instantly" part, not the design of the
| microphone.
| pwinnski wrote:
| By which I assume you mean that the core problem is that
| they were casually denigrating the parents rather than
| trying to work with them?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Just because something will end your career if overheard
| doesn't mean that it was something bad. Think of a lawyer
| on a long zoom call. What if they answer a client call and
| that conversation is pickup up by the zoom computer? Or
| what if someone in my office asks for login/account info
| and that conversation gets pickup by zoom? Or a system
| administrator sitting through a long zoom meeting about
| pension plans who accidentally has a side conversation
| about security issues on the production server. These are
| everyday acceptable office conversations that, if broadcast
| to zoom accidentally, can end a career far faster than
| looking unkempt on a webcam.
| notriddle wrote:
| Sending a video feed that you don't want to send is not
| okay, even if it doesn't put you out of a job. The
| excessive severity is just exacerbating something that
| would be a problem anyway.
| paulcole wrote:
| If you're saying things that can end your career instantly,
| be more careful about what you say?
| WalterBright wrote:
| So you don't share confidences with a trusted friend? I'm
| sad for you.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| Lots of companies distribute their employees laptops with a
| little plastic slider to shutter the camera, so it's further
| than not-just-nerds - corporate IT decisionmakers are
| recognizing the need too.
| llampx wrote:
| I'm disappointed that Apple hasn't seen fit to put a physical
| camera cover on their webcams like recent Thinkpads.
| tfandango wrote:
| In fact last year when it was okay to meet your benefits
| providers in person, one of them handed out plastic stick on
| webcam covers you could slide back and forth with their logo
| on it.
| hc-taway wrote:
| Trouble is, lots of laptops are subtly (or not so subtly)
| damaged over time by extra stuff being closed in the lid.
| Apple laptops, notably, but plenty of others too. It'd be
| much better for it to be built-in. Covers also ruin the
| (absolutely wonderful and hard to do without, once you're
| used to it) True Tone feature on Apple laptops, so they'd
| need some kind of secondary ultra-low-res never-exposed-as-a-
| real-camera color-temp sensor to properly support either
| built-in or add-on camera covers or kill-switches while still
| letting that work.
|
| (I'm basically agreeing and elaborating, not correcting you,
| since your point isn't that that's a great solution, but that
| it's more proof that more than just security geeks and
| computer nerds consider this a problem)
| monocasa wrote:
| One issue is that laymen know enough to not trust that switches
| are true kill switches, but don't generally have the skill set
| necessary to verify for themselves what their hardware has in
| that regard.
|
| A piece of tape is a very low technical skill system that you
| know will cut off a video feed.
| 6510 wrote:
| Transparent casing with the wires running to a slightly to
| large mechanical toggle switch that switches all wires. Then
| it looks like someone went out of his way getting it right.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I would like to see prisoners provided with in transparent
| laptops. Take away the lithium battery if worried.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Does not necessarily work on the microphone though.
| Anon4Now wrote:
| Not just non-techies. I use a band-aid (doesn't leave adhesive
| on the lens) because toggling the video settings on Win10 is a
| pain in the ass.
| gumby wrote:
| A band aid makes a better cover as it doesn't leave gluey
| residue on what's already a crummy camera.
| mschild wrote:
| The HP Spectre x360 line has had a physical kill switch for the
| camera for the last 3 generations. It's a slider on the right
| side of the laptop. The new gen ones also come with a system
| wide mute button although I believe that is software only.
| hadrien01 wrote:
| In addition to a kill switch, it would be great to have a
| switch that affects 1) the physical device 2) the OS switch and
| 3) the Teams/Zoom/Webex switch.
|
| Regularly we have people in meetings forgetting one of those
| switches (the physical switch being on the headphones) and
| trying to talk without being heard.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| OS just needs to know about that switch state and report it
| to apps if necessary.
| deadmutex wrote:
| This is great -- most people skip over the last use case. But
| it seems like very useful to have.
|
| It seems that option #1 is mainly used because it is easy,
| and we might not fully trust #2 and #3? (Not because of evil
| doing, but because of bugs, and unlikely case of hacks).
| tokamak-teapot wrote:
| If you're on MacOS, open 'Audio MIDI Setup' and look at 'Built-
| in Microphone'. You can tick the 'Mute' box next to 'Master'
| and your microphone is now muted independently of Teams, WebEx,
| or whatever.
|
| It's not a physical switch, but it's a good second safeguard.
| Teams is even polite enough to tell remind you that you're
| muted because it can detect this.
|
| A slightly folded post-it note also works well as a camera
| cover that's easy to remove and easy to replace if you lose it.
| I also find that when I'm about to join a call and my video's
| dark pink (rather than black), it's a good reminder I have my
| 'shutter' in place and haven't noticed, despite it being
| physically in front of my face.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Software switches are always hackable. Never ever rely on
| one.
|
| Half of hacking exploits would go away if there was a
| physical write enable switch on device ROMs.
| roland35 wrote:
| Most of the suggestions are taylored to video conferencing, such
| as a better camera and microphone. I have gotten around this
| personally by purchasing a separate external microphone and
| camera for a huge improvement.
|
| My main issue with my (intel 2019) MacBook Pro is the noise!
| Whenever I do heavy work it gets very hot and loud, and uses more
| power than my desktop PC. Driving a 4k monitor also contributes
| to the heat. It would be great to have a better cooling computer,
| but maybe that would just be a mac mini!
| swizzler wrote:
| You might be interested in controlling Turbo Boost directly
| (e.g. google find this: http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/)
|
| Your computer will be slower. Depending on the task that may or
| may not be welcome. Some video conferencing can eat all
| available CPU/GPU cycles and generate fan noise; this is
| probably a good time to manually disable Turbo Boost. Unless
| you want more sword fighting time, disabling during compilation
| tasks is probably not a great time.
|
| Better battery life and less fan noise are benefits, though!
| ghaff wrote:
| It's also easier to get a good mic and webcam if you're not
| constrained by the thickness of a laptop screen. A lot of
| people would benefit from better lighting as well although some
| of that can be a function of their physical environment which
| can be hard to do something about.
| roland35 wrote:
| Yes I should have added I bought a desk light which also
| helps the poor quality camera significantly!
| ghaff wrote:
| I think a lot of what you see, given modern laptops, isn't
| so much low-quality webcam issues as it is poor lighting
| issues, whether because of low light levels, backlighting,
| or a combination of the two.
| throwanem wrote:
| It's a little of both. A larger lens gathers more light
| from a given scene and thus doesn't need to crank the
| sensor gain as high (which adds both luminance and color
| noise) for a given exposure value. Even a fairly basic
| webcam will have a larger lens than the camera built into
| a laptop's lid.
|
| So, while my laptop from 2016 almost certainly has a
| better sensor than my webcam that hit the market in 2013,
| the 2013 webcam still _looks_ better, because it can do
| more with the same amount of light - for example, I 'm
| facing three windows in full sun right now, and the
| laptop video _still_ manages to be washed out and grainy
| while the webcam looks just fine.
| maxcan wrote:
| Noise is solved by the M1s. I have a new 13" M1 MBP and I've
| never heard the fans turn on in spite of pretty heavy dev use
| jedberg wrote:
| I got an external cooling pad for my MacBook Pro and that
| helped a lot. I actually got the overpowered "gaming" cooler
| since I don't plan on taking it anywhere with me. It just sits
| on my desk.
|
| One other tip for the MacBook Pro: If you haven't opened the
| case and blown out the dust elephants in the last year, you
| might want to do that. The fans and fins tend to get really
| crusted up and it makes a big difference.
|
| This is the one I got: https://www.newegg.com/rosewill-
| rwnb17b-laptop-cooler/p/N82E...
| Tagbert wrote:
| The new M1 Macs are so much quieter than the Intel ones, you
| really have to ask "what is going on in there" to cause all
| that fan noise.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| That's so bad, I just ordered an M1 MacBook Pro because in the
| reviews they said that it's not noisy even with extreme use. I
| hope you are talking about an Intel based one.
| tpmx wrote:
| Having a built-in "ring"-light would be nice. Perhaps in the
| bezels? Or perhaps even done via detailed software-based control
| of the screen backlight via zones?
|
| Audio is already pretty great with a modern laptop, but it's
| tricky to arrange proper lighting for video conferencing.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| I bought a USB-C rechargeable light bar, works like a charm.
| psidhu wrote:
| Not necessarily good for people wearing glasses!
|
| I bought one and it glares off of mine a lot so I stopped using
| it. Other angles where the glare stops makes me look like a
| sociopath.
| dhosek wrote:
| I imagine the flayed human corpses in the background don't
| help with the sociopath thing.
| tpmx wrote:
| (Edited.)
|
| Perhaps mounting a polarizing filter in front of the laptop
| camera to kill most of the glare would make it work with
| glasses.
|
| Otherwise: For those who can make it work, contact lenses and
| lasik are nice options. Increased FOV.
| abduhl wrote:
| This response sounds very much like "just stop holding the
| phone wrong" to me.
| [deleted]
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Not everyone who wears glasses qualifies for lasik or can
| wear contact lenses. I'm lucky that I can wear contact
| lenses and get pretty good correction, but LASIK and PRK
| are off the table for me (I'd still need glasses all the
| time).
| tpmx wrote:
| > I'd still need glasses all the time
|
| So trying out a polarizing filter is perhaps worth
| looking into? I'm curious to how well it would work.
| jaywalk wrote:
| Not everyone who wears glasses wants to stop wearing
| them.
| dont__panic wrote:
| Though admittedly wearing a mask during the winter time
| has made me consider it much more than usual this year.
| ghaff wrote:
| I wear contacts and still at least like to use readers
| for reading (even with multifocals). For day to day stuff
| I just let people deal with it. I have a key light which
| is elevated so the glare isn't too bad.
|
| If I'm recording video or something like that I just make
| sure any notes on my screen are in a big enough font that
| I can read them.
| viklove wrote:
| This article is hilarious because it shows how poorly the average
| tech consumer understands pricing and hardware.
|
| You want a better camera and a better mic? Buy them. They're not
| cheap. You can easily spend $3-400 on a teleconferencing setup
| (as I have for my desktop), and it pays off. But if you think my
| Blue Snowball mic and Logitech webcam will fit into your Macbook
| Air...
|
| On that note, all of these concerns could be solved by upgrading
| to a desktop. More and better screens? Let's ignore the fact that
| 4k laptop displays are fairly common these days, but please
| explain to me how you can fit 2+ displays on a laptop.
|
| Honestly, I'm not sure why this article is even on HN. It's
| complete drivel that adds nothing useful to any conversation at
| all. It's blogspam through and through. But who am I kidding
| really, HN is just Reddit with fancy words.
| brmgb wrote:
| You are completely missing the point (it feels like I am now
| posting this everyday on HN).
|
| No one is asking for a Blue Snowball mic and Logitech webcam in
| their laptop. People are rightfully wondering why in world a
| ubiquous small competent cameras (see every iPhone from the
| past decades) and mic, the ones laptops are using are so poor.
| The answer is most likely because no one cared so I fully
| expect that to change but it makes sense to list as a complain
| with laptops.
|
| Talking about desktops is also entirely missing the point.
| People are issued work laptops. They don't choose their
| computers and most of them do want the portability anyway. It's
| extremely useful when you are doing a presentation of visiting
| customers.
| viklove wrote:
| The answer is very simple: the display of your laptop is much
| thinner than your phone.
|
| So if you want something better, you will need to use an
| external camera.
| sonofhans wrote:
| This is entirely correct. Even phones are these days too
| thin to fit good cameras, thus the bump.
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| I'm willing to bet that adding a bump to a laptop would
| be viewed as acceptable by the market if it means we get
| good cameras.
|
| Heck, if Apple's the first to do it, it'll be seen as a
| feature.
| 6510 wrote:
| The article should have been "Let's teach employers
| ergonomics and stop the 8 hour laptop insanity", something
| like: It's 2021, the first question in an interview should
| be: Can I work form home? The second should be: You don't
| expect me to work 8+ hours per day on a laptop - or do you?
| podiki wrote:
| I don't really understand the point of this article as
| "redesigning the laptop." Nearly all of the things they mention
| is either software (e.g. better processing of mic input) or
| called a desktop (screens, noise, etc.). If people are working
| from home that negates a big reason for the laptop: portability.
| Sure it is nice to move to the couch or kitchen or whatever, but
| maybe that could be having a keyboard and using a tablet. Or if
| you are working from home nearly all the time, a desktop will be
| a better and more economical choice.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| You don't need a desktop - you just need a monitor arm, two
| monitors, and a good keyboard and mouse.
| Shivetya wrote:
| I am going with, I use mine in a docking station at home or at
| work and honestly all it is to me a small little tablet that I
| never use the built in screen or keyboard.
|
| Considering that use case I would love a system no larger than
| my phone with some apps to give me use of mail and such while
| not docked. Then while docked it is my Windows/OS X desktop
| adrianmonk wrote:
| > _if you are working from home nearly all the time_
|
| No doubt the pandemic has had a permanent effect on how people
| work. But how big of an effect? When the pandemic no longer
| forces 100% WFH, will people still do 100%, or will they do
| (say) 90%?
|
| If you go in to an office for an occasional day or half day,
| you'll want your computer while you're there. Though I guess
| this could also be solved by borrowing a loaner laptop at the
| office to use to remote desktop into your main computer at
| home. (Maybe we can call this reverse telecommuting?)
| specialist wrote:
| For me, the macbook's keyboard & trackpad combo is the sweet
| spot. I also have magic mouse, for the occasional direct
| manipulation stuff (eg drag & drop).
|
| Ages ago, with Teleport, I used by MBP to drive my iMac. If
| Apple sold just the lower half of a macbook, bring your own
| monitor, I'd be in heaven.
|
| Just the keys and trackpad would be great too. I've held onto
| my dead 2015 MBP, with hopes of salvaging just the input
| devices.
|
| Aha! Teleport has been resurrected, now works with Big Sur.
| https://github.com/johndbritton/teleport
| stock_toaster wrote:
| I have the bluetooth keyboard and bluetooth touchpad. Not
| quite the same ergonomics as the one in the laptop, but I
| still prefer it (bluetooth touchpad) to the magic mouse.
|
| The apple keyboard I have is very close to the scissor
| switches that preexisted the much maligned butteryfly
| switches. Not sure the current bluetooth keyboards use the
| same switches or the newer version of the scissor switches,.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Or if you are working from home nearly all the time, a
| desktop will be a better and more economical choice.
|
| If I'm not doing something that requires huge wattage, the only
| thing a desktop computer does is to force me to sit at a desk
| 100% of the time I'm using it. Hard pass. Tablets are nearly
| all toys, and the ones that aren't weigh more and cost more
| than a good laptop (but with a cumbersome UI). If you want to
| sit at a desk to work, a laptop still has you covered.
|
| Desktops are a very impractical, niche product these days,
| they're a Ford F-350 when most people just want a decent
| hatchback.
| akulbe wrote:
| You beat me to it. I came here to say... this is a solved
| problem. It's called a "desktop machine". -\\_(tsu)_/-
| unethical_ban wrote:
| What if, and hear me out on this, the person needs to take
| their workstation with them to multiple locations? Or, as can
| be the case with smaller quarters, simply _wants_ to?
|
| Yes, desktops have this featureset. Why _don 't_ laptops, is
| the point of the article. (Answer: either laziness, arrogant
| design aesthetic, or NSA conspiracy)
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Laptops, by necessity, have smaller fans, since they're
| smaller. Same amount of cooling with a smaller fan means
| the fans spin faster, and faster fans are louder. Laptops
| simply can't have acceptable performance with adequate
| cooling unless you're willing to compromise on either
| noise, or running x86.
| toast0 wrote:
| If you stuck the processor behind the screen, you could
| get a lot more airflow.
|
| Let the bottom be essentially be a battery, keyboard,
| mouse, and a docking station. And the lid be processor,
| memory, a m.2 for storage and an m.2 for wireless. Put a
| big, but thin fan on top of the processor and lots of
| venting on the side. Probably won't be very thin though.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > If you stuck the processor behind the screen, you could
| get a lot more airflow.
|
| This is essentially was the trick I thought of for my
| project of "genuinely mobile desktop replacement."
| Ironically, it was COVID which put a pause on it, and
| prior to it frequent foreign assignments.
|
| Were I to proceed with it before COVID, I might have hit
| the jackpot by now.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| This is how the surfacebook has been built. It's a
| problem because (1) you don't actually have more room on
| the top than the bottom, since these are the same size
| (2) the side vents are actually less surface area than
| simply having the bottom be fans. It doesn't work out
| well, there's just no way to have the airflow.
| baybal2 wrote:
| What matter is cubic metres of air per minute, everything
| else mattering very little.
|
| Actual fan inside surfacebook is very tiny. Last
| surfacebook brings a second fan, but it still throttles.
|
| You still can put more, and bigger fans in the lid to
| solve the issue at 45-55W TDP levels. I actually did some
| thermal simulations.
| notriddle wrote:
| In addition to freeone3000's problems, having the CPU in
| the screen also means you need a sturdier way to keep it
| vertical, instead of using the tiny hinges that normal
| "bottom heavy" laptops use.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| My macbook does just fine as a zoom terminal, VSCode
| runner and web browser. Battery can go almost the entire
| day if I'm not on calls. All code is developed locally
| and run through pipelines in the cloud.
|
| Many people don't need a workhorse machine, simply a
| portal for communication and reading.
| deadmutex wrote:
| Does that work for everyone?
|
| I have a desktop, but I often need to use my laptop in
| different rooms throughout the day.
|
| Just thinking about my parents as well, it doesn't work for
| their use cases. So, I urge you to think beyond just a
| handful of cases.
| Maarten88 wrote:
| Yes, at home I have choice of computers and usually I take a
| desktop. Just add a good webcam and headset (or microphone) and
| it's the perfect work-from-home system. Much faster than any
| laptop, better ergonomics and cheaper too. And you can even
| disconnect mic and webcam physically (a.k.a. unplug from USB)
| as a security feature!
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I'd be surprised if even most people agree with you that the
| best computer is a static one tethered to a desk, even if they
| never leave their home. Gamers aside.
|
| I built a desktop computer and never use it. Having to sit in
| the same desk just to use it is a nearly insurmountable
| drawback. It's more of a niche appliance than we admit.
|
| I'd suspect most people with the option would need more than a
| better deal on components to make it worthwhile to be stuck in
| the same chair in the same room in the same position every day.
| I just look around at everyone I know and everyone prefers a
| laptop, even the homebodies.
| svachalek wrote:
| The ergonomics of using a laptop 8 hours a day are pretty
| horrendous. It may be hard to notice in your 20s but it will
| wreck your body. Using a proper desk and desk chair, or
| sit/stand desk, will save a lot of wear and tear.
| rasz wrote:
| Desktop. Laptop for working-from-home is called a DESKTOP.
| jswizzy wrote:
| Now convince management that they should purchase a desktop for
| you. Probably not gonna happen I've tried for years to get a
| desktop.
| betaby wrote:
| I know some companies what purchased beefy NUCs for the
| employees.
| 6510 wrote:
| Could show them studies and numbers on Musculoskeletal
| Disorders. Anything over 2 hours per day is surely going to
| cause fatigue first, then pain, then permanent damage. Loss
| of productivity starts on day one.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| > In addition, research shows that the audio quality is just as
| important as video quality when judging the overall "quality" and
| "presence" of the conference experience
|
| Audio transmits 80% of the intellectual content. That's why when
| your TV news crosses to an outside broadcast unit, and there's no
| sound but the vision is perfect, they give up and go back to the
| studio until they get audio.
| mvip wrote:
| > Let's Redesign the Laptop for a Work-from-Home Era
|
| Isn't that just called a desktop? ;)
| thomascgalvin wrote:
| I think there's an argument to be made for bulkier laptops now.
|
| The trend of the last two decades has been smaller form
| factors, which puts a hard limit on the battery, the hard
| drive, the number of ports you can support, and even how much
| thermal energy you can radiate.
|
| That was important largely because you were going to be lugging
| the thing around everywhere, and a pound or two could make a
| real difference.
|
| Now that I travel with my laptop once a month, not once a day,
| I think that equation changes. I still want portability - I
| still _need_ portability - but using the machine on my desk is
| the more common, more important scenario.
| asdff wrote:
| It's going to be tough to claw back to a decent thickness.
| Imagine the cooling you could run and the performance you
| could have today if laptops were still an inch thick in the
| market.
| sidpatil wrote:
| These are known as _mobile workstations_. They can get quite
| bulky, quite heavy, and quite powerful.
| dhosek wrote:
| I worked for a while at ISI. They let people choose their
| hardware for a desktop and laptop with a generous budget.
| One of the guys on the team had some monster gaming laptop
| as his laptop--I think it was a 20" screen or something on
| that beast.
| rchaud wrote:
| No, because your home is your home, and your desktop might be
| located somewhere where other people are around, e.g. spouse,
| roommates, parents or children. That's not really workable for
| video calls.
| asdff wrote:
| If we are to redesign the laptop why can't we admit that it's
| current design and use cases are at odds? People are running zoom
| and docker and slack and a dozen other things at once. We waste
| more resources than ever doing the same chat/etc. stuff we've
| been doing for 25 years. Things aren't moving faster, fans are
| going full tilt and CPUs throttle down.
|
| What the people need more than anything is for manufacturers to
| take a step away from making a 2.5lb aluminum blade and instead
| offer a sufficient cooling solution.
| 1-6 wrote:
| Just move the company to an IRC. Done, why need anything else?
| olyjohn wrote:
| It's the same craze affecting smartphones. We get rid of useful
| features like headphone jacks just to save 0.25mm of thickness.
| Thickness that nobody would ever notice in a practical use
| case. We buy thin, fragile phones and then put them in big
| thick cases.
| Koliakis wrote:
| I loved my old Thinkpad. Thick, but it could run at full load
| without throttling for as long as I needed it to. But nowadays,
| even their T series keeps getting thinner and they've been
| soldering the RAM.
| thrower123 wrote:
| Once you go to an actual desktop, you can't ever go back to
| working on a laptop.
| Koliakis wrote:
| Funny, I work from home and I'm on my laptop 99% of the time
| instead of my more powerful desktop. The flexibility of being
| able to choose where at home I can work is unbeatable and has
| made the pandemic slightly more bearable.
| jxramos wrote:
| Products to help the macbook out with work from home variation
|
| - a lapdesk, to rest the laptop directly or an external keyboard
| for stability
|
| - https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ2R2LL/A/magic-
| trackpad-..., best when paired with an external keyboard to gain
| distance to the macbook.
|
| - https://www.raindesigninc.com/mstand.html, to elevate the
| laptop for more comfortable viewing
|
| - https://www.goalzero.com/shop/portable-power/goal-zero-
| yeti-..., to work on the road anywhere, 60W USB-C -> C cable can
| run a macbook all day and some.
|
| - https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/viewsonic-vg1655, get that
| portable second monitor experience.
| zozin wrote:
| I agree with most of these, but the Rain Design laptop stand
| sucks. Why is it static when it can easily adjust based on
| various people's heights and use cases. This was a much better
| buy (I compared it to the Rain Design one side by side):
| https://www.amazon.com/Adjustable-EPN-Heat-Vent-Aluminum-Com...
|
| As far as a second monitor is concerned, in the Apple universe
| you're better off buying an iPad and using that as a second
| monitor.
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