[HN Gopher] The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The ARM powered ThinkPad x13s, as a developer
        
       Author : ingve
       Score  : 102 points
       Date   : 2023-07-08 09:34 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.dev-eloper.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.dev-eloper.com)
        
       | cmrdporcupine wrote:
       | Will these things boot to Linux?
        
         | jeroenhd wrote:
         | Linux 6.0 and higher supposedly support the device. The system
         | boots using EFI so as long as you can get a compatible kernel
         | and the right firmware, it should work.
         | 
         | Based on this:
         | https://blog.rymcg.tech/blog/linux/thinkpad-x13s/ GPU support
         | seems to have issues, which is a shame. That was written a few
         | months ago, though.
        
           | cmrdporcupine wrote:
           | Yeah, tough. I will wait to see if somebody more explicitly
           | Linux-friendly makes a good workstation class ARM (or better,
           | RISC-V even) laptop, because I've had nothing but problems
           | with my Thinkpad Z13 Gen 1 Radeon/Ryzen and Lenovo is in my
           | bad books.
           | 
           | I had a M2 MBP issued for work by my previous job and it
           | really was excellent; performance and battery life. But I'd
           | have a hard time giving up Linux, and I'd worry about
           | installation of Linux on hardware like that always being
           | second-class.
        
             | tracker1 wrote:
             | For me, don't mind mac so much as do wish I could stick to
             | the linux/windows keyboard bindings I'm used to. Rosetta2
             | and docker have come a long way since i got my m1 as well.
        
         | sys_64738 wrote:
         | Can you use WSL2?
        
           | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
           | There's two groups wanting Linux: One wants access to Linux
           | tooling and will almost certainly have a good experience with
           | WSL/2. The other group wants to not run Windows, so WSL in
           | any form is mostly useless.
        
       | wyldfire wrote:
       | > Chrome is slow and frustrating to use, with delayed animations
       | and noticeable input lag, it's such a frustration that I entirely
       | gave up on Chrome in favor of Edge which runs natively
       | 
       | I use native Chromium on my Windows-on-ARM laptop (a couple of
       | generations older than the one reviewed). It runs really well and
       | the only drawback is missing DRM stuff so some videos won't play.
       | YouTube almost always works, but most other non-youtube videos
       | don't. For those I can fall back to Edge. I'm looking forward to
       | Google releasing a native build of Chrome.
        
       | kamma4434 wrote:
       | If the author works with Kotlin, and for that price tag.... Get a
       | mac!
        
         | csdvrx wrote:
         | Some of us (me included) just refuse to use a Mac.
         | 
         | If I couldn't find a good Thinkpad, I would get a Surface.
        
           | soulbadguy wrote:
           | May i ask why ? I don't use Macs because my day to day
           | requires X86 and linux. But pounds for pounds if someone
           | doesn't mind MacOs. The new Mx series of macs is just a
           | better value than most high-end laptop theses days
        
             | shortrounddev2 wrote:
             | I hate Apple, its products, and its ecosystem. The
             | developer tools suck and macOS provides no advantage over
             | windows other than an annoying user interface (if you're
             | into that sort of thing)
        
               | csdvrx wrote:
               | It might be controversial, but I agree. The battery life
               | can smooth out the issues for some people, but I have a
               | plug everywhere I need.
        
               | tracker1 wrote:
               | I don't think the UI is annoying so much as different
               | from what you may be used to. For me the annoyance is a
               | few different key bindings. I like some parts of Windows,
               | Linux (Gnome, KDE) and Mac... I have my Budgie desktop
               | setup with a mix of the three.
        
             | dantaro wrote:
             | Hey there, author here, for me personally it's about the
             | windowing and file explorer. I spent 6 months trying to get
             | used to it at a job, and even bought a M1 Macbook Pro last
             | year to try, but I just couldn't find any combination of
             | plugins and programs that made it feel right. I know, it's
             | not a great reason, and I have no hate for anyone who yums
             | my yuck, but at the end of the day it's what stops me from
             | using MacOS.
        
               | rsynnott wrote:
               | > I know, it's not a great reason,
               | 
               | Seems like a fairly valid reason. I used Windows for the
               | first time since early XP recently (in a VM; wanted to
               | check that an interview question was doable in it without
               | undue pain). I was just astonished at how bad it felt,
               | and couldn't wait to shut down the VM. It's unsurprising
               | that others have the same thing in the other direction.
        
               | csdvrx wrote:
               | > I just couldn't find any combination of plugins and
               | programs that made it feel right.
               | 
               | This: I recently moved to Linux. I was happy on Windows,
               | because with the right combination of plugins and
               | programs it felt just right + I could get everything I
               | wanted hardware-wise.
               | 
               | Last time I checked, this is not possible on Mac. You get
               | a good battery life, but I don't care about that - I'd
               | rather have a Zen3 AMD but I'm happy with my current
               | laptop.
               | 
               | With Linux, I don't have to fight my OS to get everything
               | the way I want it to be, I can get a nice 4k OLED
               | touchscreen on my Laptop with an internal LTE/5G module
               | so I don't have to carry a phone just for getting online,
               | etc.
               | 
               | BTW I use arch (lol) and I think I'll stay - mostly
               | thanks to Arch because before that I didn't like Linux
               | due to Ubuntu questionable choices that made me prefer
               | Windows before.
        
               | soulbadguy wrote:
               | > I know, it's not a great reason
               | 
               | I think it's perfectly valid reason. At the end of the
               | day a laptop is a tool, and your experience using the
               | tool trumps any intrisic quality of said tool.
               | 
               | I can relate, the main reason i do not use Mac's as
               | personal device ( i have had some issue to me in my
               | professional life) is MacOS. It always existed in a sort
               | of middle ground that doesn't suits my needs : Doesn't
               | have the broad compatibility with windows (in my case
               | gaming, CPU/GPU and tools like intel vtune) and it's a
               | unix, but close to enough to linux where most of
               | professional work revolves around (lack of
               | virtualization, not elf format support, native toolings
               | are different etc... etc...)
               | 
               | The hardware is amazing, the price is great, but the
               | software is just not for me.
               | 
               | And it's sucks, because the landscape of high-end windows
               | laptop is just plain embarrassing. I am currently driving
               | a surface pro 9 : Garbage battery life, runs hot on
               | anything but web browsing and worst of the all the screen
               | (120 Hz minds you) have HORRIBLE ghosting.
               | 
               | The only saving grace of windows laptops right now is
               | that if one is patient there are some sweet sweet
               | discount deals to be had.
        
               | csdvrx wrote:
               | BTW you said " I don't have the 5G enabled version as it
               | wasn't available when I bought mine, which I do regret,
               | but if it's even half as good as it is on the SPX then
               | it'll be totally fine. "
               | 
               | If you want to help to make 5G work, get in touch. I'd
               | need to know if you have internal WWAN antennas- if not,
               | you can add them. It's just about installing a M2 module.
               | At the same time, you can replace the current 512G NVMe
               | by a 2T like from Sabrent or WD SN730 (though the latter
               | has some firmware issues when using ZFS due to the power
               | states)
        
             | hospitalJail wrote:
             | >The new Mx series of macs is just a better value than most
             | high-end laptop theses days
             | 
             | ?
             | 
             | I just recently bought a laptop and when I was comparing
             | benchmarks, I didn't see Apple anywhere near the top of the
             | list for CPU single or multithreaded. Not that I remotely
             | care about CPU speeds, my number 1 focus was VRAM. Made it
             | an easy decision since you basically pick something with
             | Nvidia and high VRAM.
        
               | tracker1 wrote:
               | This is ARM. The cpu isn't the only thing. Memory and
               | disk io are also very good. Also portable/laptop and
               | desktop aren't the same. Mx also has good accelerators
               | for x86 and encoding tasks, so it will depend on what you
               | do.
               | 
               | Next gen AMD mobile is also looking very good. AMD 7000
               | series mobile is really nice, but battery life isn't
               | quite there compared to Apple.
        
               | soulbadguy wrote:
               | > I didn't see Apple anywhere near the top of the list
               | for CPU single or multithreaded
               | 
               | Probably wasn't normalized as perf per watt.
        
               | hospitalJail wrote:
               | >Probably wasn't normalized as perf per watt.
               | 
               | Of course, that is a marketing metric, not something to
               | genuinely care.
        
           | kamma4434 wrote:
           | I used to as well. But the M series just blows away every
           | laptop - every Pc - I've ever had in the last 30 years... at
           | some point it is an ideological proposition.
        
             | csdvrx wrote:
             | My position is everything but ideological: I will consider
             | a Mac as soon as 1) the hardware offers an OLED touchscreen
             | and internal LTE (everything else is secondary, with DDR5
             | I've even relaxed my requirements for actual ECC) 2) Linux
             | can run as well as it does on my Thinkpad or Surface.
             | 
             | Until then, I refuse to use a Mac, because I don't like the
             | OS or the limited hardware choice.
        
               | tracker1 wrote:
               | I'm not big on touch myself. As for lte, usually just
               | tether to my phone if needed, then I don't have to worry
               | about after lte, etc.
        
               | csdvrx wrote:
               | To be fair, I enjoy the internal LTE/5G way more than the
               | screen: with it, I don't have to carry a phone!
        
           | rollcat wrote:
           | I'm here with you. I just refuse to use Windows, but I do
           | recognize and empathise with people who feel this way about
           | Mac or Linux. I would rather use something because I love it,
           | rather than not use it because I hate it; but it's totally
           | normal to find something off-putting.
        
       | hospitalJail wrote:
       | Its 2023 and I still don't understand the point of CPU speeds,
       | even as a dev doing both single and multithreading. AI is
       | continuing to put priority on GPUs.
       | 
       | In the worst case, I wait an extra fraction of a second with a
       | bad CPU.
       | 
       | With a bad GPU, you are basically excluded from the latest
       | technology.
       | 
       | I'm sure ARM really wants to advertise that CPU is relevant, but
       | it continues to be nearly irrelevant when you buy something a
       | laptop with a dedicated GPU. (Its good enough)
        
         | oneplane wrote:
         | I suppose it depends on what performance bracket you are
         | targeting. Scripting and interpreted languages, JIT next and VM
         | after that (i.e. JVM, CLR), native code after that and
         | optimised low-level code after that would all have very
         | different reactions to 'good CPU' vs. 'bad CPU'.
         | 
         | A 'slow' process (+-10s) taking 1 second longer won't seem that
         | much slower, but a fast process (+-100ms) taking ten times as
         | long does definitely become problematic.
         | 
         | As for AI, it's mostly irrelevant what your local machines
         | does, unless you are an end-user (i.e. you are running a model
         | from a vendor on a local accelerator for local processing
         | instead of remote processing). Development happens on remote
         | farms and on-line usage also happens on remote farms.
        
           | hospitalJail wrote:
           | I need to do everything locally. Air gapped computer with
           | confidential stuff.
        
             | oneplane wrote:
             | I that case your situation is likely irrelevant for the
             | masses. It also still matters what performance bracket
             | you're targeting.
        
               | hospitalJail wrote:
               | Maybe.
               | 
               | I can picture wanting to do nsfw stuff locally...
               | 
               | But also this is a fortune 100 company that has the
               | airgapped computer with the confidential stuff. Its big
               | bucks.
        
         | imtringued wrote:
         | Try encoding video in real time or NP hard optimization
         | problems (e.g. generating bitstreams for FPGAs) instead of
         | running something as trivial as a database and a Webserver.
        
         | LoganDark wrote:
         | I'm sitting here with "only" 12GB of VRAM and I can't train
         | even the bigger RWKV models, and that's a freaking RNN, it's
         | not even a transformer! And that's highly disappointing for
         | someone who's been working as a contributor to one of the
         | inference libraries, because the fruits of my labor aren't even
         | going to benefit me that much. Bleh~
         | 
         | I (somewhat) lie, all my experience working on rwkv.cpp does
         | gain me knowledge and also contribute to the community. I'm
         | just sort of sad that I don't have enough VRAM to finetune a
         | bigger model to fit something like a chat format, or learn a
         | certain vocabulary or whatever.
        
         | rsynnott wrote:
         | After some years of a 15" 2016 MacBook Pro (perhaps the worst
         | laptop Apple ever made) at work, the M1 Max that replaced it
         | was a revelation. I have no use for a fast GPU (in fact one of
         | my pet peeves about the 2016 MBP was that they eliminated the
         | no-discrete-GPU option that prior 15"s had, resulting in far
         | worse thermals for no gains for many users). Your milage may,
         | of course, vary, but some of us appreciate a fast CPU and have
         | no use for a fast GPU (the M1 Max is, I gather, tolerably fast
         | in this department, but the poor thing never gets to do
         | anything other than displaying GUIs in my case...)
         | 
         | RE ML stuff, do people actually do the heavy lifting for that
         | _on laptops_ much?
        
           | hospitalJail wrote:
           | >the poor thing never gets to do anything other than
           | displaying GUIs in my case...
           | 
           | This is kind of my point.
           | 
           | What actual CPU stuff is done in 2023?
           | 
           | Its why Apple's marketing focuses so much on battery life.
           | For a year, they won a competition that no one had cared to
           | win.
        
       | jeroenhd wrote:
       | > Other tools, such as MySQL, node, git, etc. have no issue when
       | running under emulation, at least in the context of development
       | 
       | I'm surprised the author is using these under emulation. Surely
       | they'd run at completely native performance if you just rub the
       | through WSL2? Linux distributions have had ARM based
       | distributions for ages.
        
         | cmrdporcupine wrote:
         | It may be because he couldn't get IntelliJ to work native in a
         | way that let him access WSL, ( _" It also wasn't able to access
         | WSL, meaning I was locked out of using Linux tooling all
         | together."_) So that tooling was awkward.
         | 
         | If he was stuck using windows, maybe best bet would have been
         | to run an X server and run IntelliJ etc inside WSL itself.
        
           | dantaro wrote:
           | Hi, author here, you are correct! WSL tooling was locked out
           | for a long time due to IntelliJ not being able to access WSL
           | until the native build came down. Unfortunately, WSL on ARM
           | still has some bugs around the VM hard locking itself when
           | waking from sleep. It's frustrating, because when it does
           | work it's fantastic.
        
             | jeroenhd wrote:
             | Have you tried a standard VM? It sucks that WSL2 isn't
             | working right yet, but IntelliJ has some pretty extensive
             | tooling for working over a (virtual) network. It's possible
             | that the sleep issue plagues normal VMs as well, but maybe
             | it's worth a shot?
             | 
             | You'd lose out on things like hardware accelerated graphics
             | but reading your description it sounds like that's not
             | really something you rely on anyway.
        
       | WhereIsTheTruth wrote:
       | > Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3
       | 
       | Slower than a 3 years old M1...
       | 
       | It's 2023 people..
        
       | justinclift wrote:
       | The 14-inch MacBook Pro pricing quoted in the article seems
       | wrong.
       | 
       | Looking at the US Apple Store right now, it has the 14-inch
       | MacBook Pro with M2 Pro (10-core) cpu + 32GB ram and 1TB storage
       | as US$2599, rather an US$3099.
       | 
       | Seems outright cheaper than the Thinkpad x13s.
        
         | tracker1 wrote:
         | Yeah, after I kitted things out with full upgrades, the macbook
         | does seem to be the better option, especially if you like
         | macos. The rosetta 2 support and docker have come a long way
         | and most of what I use at least now has aarch64 support.
        
         | dantaro wrote:
         | Interesting, when I wrote the article the prices were what I
         | could generate on the Apple website, but you are correct that
         | they are not the same now. I should have taken screenshots!
         | Thanks for the heads up, I'll update the article to reflect
         | that :)
        
       | rhamzeh wrote:
       | I'd be much more interested in the Linux situation on this
       | laptop. Most of the UI applications I use casually or CLI apps
       | are available on ARM (I have them running fine on a Pinephone, so
       | the experience on a laptop will only be better).
       | 
       | But not sure how the dev workflow would be: Podman, IntelliJ,
       | Sublime Text, etc.. And some casual stuff like Calibre,
       | Thunderbird, Joplin.
       | 
       | Oh and how much would the battery life improvement be. I already
       | get 4~5+ hours on my 5 year old Thinkpad, so an improvement to 6
       | hours is not really worth it.
       | 
       | How is the BIOS and openness on these systems? I always heard the
       | arm laptops are way more locked down than the x86 ones.
        
         | nalllar wrote:
         | I run Linux on it, it works but you need a non mainline kernel
         | (github.com/steev x13s branches iirc) and a dtb in the EFI
         | partition
        
         | tracker1 wrote:
         | I have largely the same feelings on this. If you haven't used
         | WSL on Windows, the workflow is actually very nice. You can
         | install and run GUI apps in the Linux environment. I usually
         | use VS Code with remoting for WSL though. My current job and
         | personal setup aren't in windows, but have used it in the past
         | and it's very usable, if not ideal.
         | 
         | For now, sticking with my macbook m1 air for personal use.
         | Though I really don't like the differences in the kb layout and
         | hotkeys from nix or windows.
        
         | nirui wrote:
         | Same where wondering if it performs the same/better under
         | Linux. I imagine the battery life could be better under Linux
         | based on my experience with Windows 11 on my own laptop, I
         | mean, the fans don't even spin up that often under Linux unlike
         | the near constant fan chorus Windows gives me.
         | 
         | Also, a computer without a single fan so I can comfortably use
         | it on my bed? With possibility to replace it's SSD? It sounded
         | a lot like my next laptop.
        
           | gyulai wrote:
           | > performs the same/better under Linux
           | 
           | ...yeah, I was wondering that too. This seems like a job for
           | a Gentoo system, compiled from the ground up with
           | "-march=native". Would love to know how that would turn out
           | performance-wise, in comparison to Windows.
        
             | LoganDark wrote:
             | There's also KISS Linux, which I find quite approachable
             | compared to Gentoo. I know, sounds totally backwards, but I
             | think it's really cool how simple it is to manage your
             | repositories and make your own packages. And yes, you
             | recompile the whole system with `-march=native` during the
             | install process :)
             | 
             | GKISS if you want glibc.
        
           | jklinger410 wrote:
           | > imagine the battery life could be better under Linux based
           | on my experience with Windows 11 on my own laptop
           | 
           | God, I have experienced the exact opposite with Linux on
           | laptops. Battery management is so bad I am considering moving
           | to a Macbook.
        
             | freedomben wrote:
             | I have had both experiences. The base system for Linux will
             | be great for battery life (has been ruthlessly optimized
             | for power savings by the biggest companies in the world),
             | but some of the desktop software on top will brutalize your
             | battery.
             | 
             | I've experimented a lot (mainly on Fedora) and the biggest
             | offenders are browsers, but also sometimes Gnome gets in a
             | bad state and eats up a lot of CPU. It's often gjs eating
             | CPU so it may be an app I'm leaving open or even an
             | extension. I've tried to narrow it down but haven't fully
             | figured it out yet.
             | 
             | But, if you keep only a small number of tabs open and close
             | everything you aren't using, battery life on Linux can be
             | really great.
        
               | jklinger410 wrote:
               | > has been ruthlessly optimized for power savings by the
               | biggest companies in the world
               | 
               | It has been ruthlessly optimized to save power for
               | servers with greatly documented hardware structures.
               | 
               | It has not been optimized for Desktop OS, for Bluetooth,
               | Sleep, WiFi, graphics card power saving etc.
               | 
               | I am a tab zero guy, for the record. I've been using
               | computers since Windows 3, so I'm very sensitive towards
               | intensive processes.
               | 
               | My wife can watch netflix on her (5 year old) Macbook for
               | hours. I lose 13% battery life on one episode. I leave my
               | laptop on sleep off the charger, and it is dead sleeping
               | after a few hours. Linux users may hack their way to
               | lower battery usage, but they still do not have it like
               | Mac does.
               | 
               | You must simply leave it on the charger and turn it off
               | when you are done. They are portable desktops.
        
               | michaelmrose wrote:
               | A big difference in battery life comes down to hardware
               | acceleration in your browser which depending on
               | hardware,browser, and version may not be enabled.
        
             | ktm5j wrote:
             | What DE/distro do you use? I'm actually super impressed
             | with the battery life I get with Fedora/KDE on my ASUS
             | Ryzen laptop.
        
             | nine_k wrote:
             | What does your `top` say? What does your browser's
             | performance tool (e.g. `about:performance`) say?
             | 
             | I went from a constantly-overheated Linux laptop to a
             | completely calm Linux laptop, on the same hardware, distro,
             | and DE. Checking for unnecessary processes that eat CPU,
             | spurious ACPI events, overly-heavyweight browser tabs goes
             | a long way. Making sure the browser uses hardware support
             | to play YouTube is another heavyweight.
             | 
             | It takes some time, but much less time than I had expected.
        
               | jklinger410 wrote:
               | So the Mac has battery saving built in to the OS. You are
               | doing a lot of reverse engineering to achieve something
               | other software/hardware does automatically.
               | 
               | And to be specific, I suffer from bad hardware/software
               | communication. On a linux laptop, no less (System76,
               | which I would never recommend). Linux S3 sleep is not
               | hardware sleep, I lose a lot of battery there. WiFi and
               | Bluetooth connectivity either has to be battery draining
               | or have poor performance.
               | 
               | The battery my laptop has itself is also too small, and
               | could only get moderately good life if it had an
               | optimized OS anyway. Again, a Linux-first laptop.
               | 
               | I am sure if I switched to a Lenovo with a big battery
               | that I would be better off than I am now, so I'm also
               | complaining a bit about my hardware. But the problem is
               | still there.
               | 
               | With Apple M2 paired with an OS designed for it, with
               | high end batteries and screens, I don't see any pairing
               | of (laptop) hardware and software competing, on a
               | fundamental level. Every other system is second class.
               | 
               | Edit: ACPI events is the key word here, and it is not
               | worth anyone's time to wade through that garbage to get
               | sane laptop performance. The ACPI stuff isn't even
               | designed for end users to alter, and it is hacked
               | together due to all the hardware variations out there. It
               | is simply doing the best job it can, on average.
               | 
               | There's kind of an implicit lie when people say linux
               | works on laptops at all. It works on MOST laptop
               | configurations in MOST functions. But it BARELY works in
               | others. You find this once you dig sufficiently deep
               | enough.
               | 
               | I keep my laptop plugged in. It's pathetic.
        
               | nine_k wrote:
               | I run the OS of my choice on hardware of my choice in a
               | way of my choice (that is, not Debian, Ubuntu, or
               | Fedora). The small amount of tweaking I have to do to get
               | the experience tailored for me personally is completely
               | worth it, besides other, less tangible benefits like
               | "free as in freedom".
               | 
               | If I were fine with someone else making all these
               | decisions for me, because making them myself is more
               | painful than accepting someone else's not entirely
               | comfortable decision, I'd go for an Apple device, no
               | doubt.
               | 
               | Tweaking the OS to play nicely with particular hardware
               | is key. Apple are very good at it. I suppose e.g. System
               | 76 also tweak Pop OS to run especially smoothly on their
               | hardware. Linux is very much ready for that: when I
               | worked at Google (2011-15), I had a Linux laptop with a
               | Google's internal variety of Ubuntu, adapted to a
               | relatively few hardware models they used as desktops and
               | laptops. It worked basically flawlessly, and my T420 had
               | like 6 hours of battery runtime browsing and coding. All
               | I had to customize was the GTK theme and such.
               | 
               | Maybe something like "tweak packs" that adapt Linux to
               | some very specific widespread hardware could be a hit.
        
               | michaelmrose wrote:
               | > Linux S3 sleep is not hardware sleep
               | 
               | No this is completely down your hard hardware
        
             | rhamzeh wrote:
             | Based on my experience, I can tell you the grass is not
             | greener on the other side.
             | 
             | Forced to use Mac for work, the previous Macbook Pro would
             | lose charge _while plugged in_! The battery goes empty, it
             | shuts off and I wait for it to recharge while off.
             | 
             | They recently changed mine to an M1. Battery is much better
             | than the previous generation and could be good, so long as
             | you're not using it for anything. As soon as the
             | IDE/Zoom/Docker/what have you spins up, it loses charge. It
             | is slower at loses charge while plugged in, but so long as
             | you are not using it except for note taking, I would not
             | trust away from a power source.
             | 
             | If I don't have a power source nearby, I turn everything
             | off and switch my dev workflow to Sublime to prolong the
             | battery.
             | 
             | I don't have to suffer any of these shenanigans under
             | Linux. Granted, I have a Thinkpad, which has great Linux
             | support, so that definitely helps.
        
               | callalex wrote:
               | Sounds to me like you're using a low wattage charger that
               | was not designed to be used with your pro-grade machine.
        
               | oneplane wrote:
               | Sounds like defective devices. Haven't had a single issue
               | like that on any of our fleets. (mixed T2, M1, M2
               | devices, around 210 per fleet, around 7 fleets in 3
               | different countries)
               | 
               | Usage (varies over time...): software development
               | (JetBrains, NetBeans, VSCode, Sublime, vim), google meet,
               | slack, rancher desktop, docker desktop (being phased
               | out), capture one, creative cloud, OBS, virtual desktops
               | for local testing.
               | 
               | We have had self-discharge on HP ProBooks and EliteBooks
               | but that was due to a bad USB-C implementation and was
               | fixed with third-party chargers. Some older Dells had it
               | too, but that was with dual power input (USB-C and
               | classic barrel) and switching over to the legacy chargers
               | didn't have that issue. Those run a mix of Windows and
               | Linux.
        
         | dvhh wrote:
         | I think some of the aarch64 laptop have landed in the Linux
         | kernel source tree.
         | 
         | I am currently using a C630 laptop wich could be considered a
         | predecessor to the discussed model ( with an anemic 4GB of
         | RAM), and following up some botched Windows update (Windows
         | recovery put the system in a worst place). I decided to take
         | the plunge and install Linux.
         | 
         | Hardware support is rough, and depends a lot on firmware file
         | you would need to salvage from the windows partition.
         | 
         | So far without these files, among the most necessary stuff I
         | would like to have.
         | 
         | - Wifi, I a coping with a wifi dongle, wich mean I am out of
         | one of the 2 usb-c ports
         | 
         | - Sound ( usual linux problem, worked around the issue, with
         | another dongle, or Bluetooth audio)
         | 
         | - External display support (worked on windows)
         | 
         | Otherwise, linux experience is leagues ahead of Windows, in
         | terms of boot time and responsiveness. Battery life is great
         | for my use ( mainly write python and C code ). And far as
         | battery life improvement, your mileage can vary, I haven't
         | timed mine yet but can try and will report in a week about it
         | (maybe you ca give me aome pointer to simulate the usual load
         | your would put it through).
         | 
         | - podman work great
         | 
         | - sublime text run as smooth as it is on x86-64
         | 
         | - bios is an UEFI and I dont think it required a signed
         | bootloader, although updating the setting to boot grub was not
         | as straightforward.
         | 
         | - I am mainly using Wayland, with most of the caveats
         | associated to it (Firefox does flicker a lot, so I am mainly
         | using chromium)
         | 
         | On the most annoying side, I don't know if there is a way to
         | configure the lid action, as it put the laptop on standby.
         | 
         | I would recommend, if only for the gain in thinness and if you
         | are traveling a lot with your laptop.
        
           | rhamzeh wrote:
           | Thanks for that! Probably in a couple of years, as my laptop
           | is still serving me well enough for now. It's also pretty
           | light and still has good battery, so not a ton of benefit
           | there.
           | 
           | If the battery life was doubled (~8+ hours), that definitely
           | would be more intriguing.
           | 
           | But ouch, hadn't had WiFi or sound issues on Linux since the
           | 2009~2010 era, will not be fun to get back to that, though
           | hopefully in a few years as the drivers mature, this would
           | become less of an issue.
           | 
           | > On the most annoying side, I don't know if there is a way
           | to configure the lid action, as it put the laptop on standby.
           | 
           | Even when an external display is connected? That's got to be
           | annoying!
        
         | sspiff wrote:
         | When I last checked, the mainline kernel support for the 8cx
         | was EXTREMELY limited. Having messed around with lots of ARM
         | based devices on Linux in the past, I would not bother with
         | this one. Especially given that rather unimpressive battery
         | life.
         | 
         | I'd love a modern ARM based Linux laptop, but I also know that
         | unless it's got mainline kernel support or a dedicated Linux
         | friendly vendor (like Pine) behind it, it's lifetime and
         | updates are going to be extremely limited. And that doesn't
         | even consider graphics API support, which will have an impact
         | on rather basic things, such as YouTube video playback.
         | 
         | Honestly, the only viable ARM laptop with good battery life and
         | modern day performance is an Apple MacBook Air or Pro, which
         | has a very impressive community project behind it. But even
         | that is still incomplete and might peter out if some key
         | figures burn out or become uninterested or preoccupied with
         | for-pay work or whatever.
        
           | wyldfire wrote:
           | > When I last checked, the mainline kernel support for the
           | 8cx was EXTREMELY limited.
           | 
           | Is that the case? I would've thought the devices present in
           | 8cx are similar to the other Snapdragon 8 series which would
           | probably be well supported upstream? Or do they linger in a
           | GKI tree before landing upstream?
           | 
           | Maybe the exclusivity between QCOM/MS is mutual and they'll
           | be able to partner with vendors like Canonical in the future.
           | 
           | Personally - I would love an XPS13 ARM linux laptop,
           | hopefully Dell decides to jump on the bandwagon. I have owned
           | i5/i7 XPS13s for several years now and am looking forward to
           | ARM if they can make one that performs well.
        
         | mfashby wrote:
         | I use a pinebook pro (same company as the pinephone). Sublime
         | works a treat. So does thunderbird, calibre.
         | 
         | Intellij doesn't have aarch64 Linux distributions, you can kind
         | of hack it together it's completely unsupported. Not sure about
         | Joplin but I expect it would be ok (I think it's electron
         | based? VS code works ok too).
         | 
         | Re locked-down: pbp can run many different Linux variants, and
         | boots with tow-boot bootloader. Hopefully that would support
         | ThinkPad to, but I don't know.
        
           | retypepassword wrote:
           | > Intellij doesn't have aarch64 Linux distributions
           | 
           | https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/download/download-
           | thanks.html...
           | 
           | https://www.jetbrains.com/rider/download/download-
           | thanks.htm...
        
       | jillesvangurp wrote:
       | Like the author, I also do a lot of Kotlin development and use
       | intellij and pycharm a lot. This sounds like an awful laptop to
       | do that on. Kotlin is great but it's compiler is rather slow and
       | you end up waiting for that a lot. So, faster is better.
       | 
       | I noticed about a 2.5x build speed improvements when I upgraded
       | my cheap Samsung i5 laptop (a temporary thing I used for a while)
       | to the M1 14" Mac Book Pro. On a typical day, I run full builds
       | quite often so this really matters to me. The difference between
       | waiting 5 minutes or 1.5 is really important to me. During this
       | build, 250 integration tests run with 20 threaads maxing out all
       | of the cpu cores.
       | 
       | This windows laptop is being described as a lack luster i5 sounds
       | like it would be a hard no for me. That and all the other issues
       | (the usual meh touchpad, the underwhelming GPU, etc.) makes for
       | an overpriced laptop that just isn't worth having. You can
       | probably get something way nicer for the money. Including a mac.
        
         | NikolaNovak wrote:
         | Silly question ; am I the only person who still uses a desktop
         | / tower machine? Feels like I'm a huge minority these days, but
         | when it comes to needing processing power and juice it still
         | feels it provides budget and upgrade flexibility no laptop can
         | match.
        
           | cbsks wrote:
           | I use a desktop that I can remotely access. So I can do
           | development on my fast computer from anywhere. It's always on
           | so it's easy to run long jobs.
           | 
           | Since my laptop is basically just a thin client used for ssh,
           | vnc, and a web browser, it's super easily replaced.
        
             | darkclouds wrote:
             | I've yet to find an offline desktop which can be secured,
             | let alone work on it from a remote location.
             | 
             | Cant people detect when their offline machines are
             | being/have been hacked?
        
               | adrian_b wrote:
               | If the desktop is insecure, it is always possible to put
               | it behind a secure firewall implemented with a small
               | computer, e.g. a NUC-like computer or one of the many
               | cheap, small and fanless computers with multiple Ethernet
               | ports that are available now exactly for implementing
               | firewalls, routers or other similar network appliances.
               | 
               | Of course, configuring correctly a secure firewall
               | requires some expertise, but it should not be too
               | difficult to find online resources or someone willing to
               | help.
               | 
               | I have done exactly like this for accessing remotely my
               | desktop during the last two decades, without any problems
               | whatsoever.
        
               | tracker1 wrote:
               | It's much like anything else... I run my desktop under
               | Linux, keep it upodated, have SSH on a non-standard port
               | with only public/private key access enabled for my
               | account. I access it over wireguard running on my home
               | server. Wireguard is the only port available through my
               | firewall.
               | 
               | So I can connect to my home network over wireguard, and
               | SSH to my desktop. VS Code + Remoting extensions work
               | great for this... almost like editing locally, but
               | running remotely. The integrated terminal in VS Code is
               | invaluable when doing this.
        
             | adrian_b wrote:
             | I do the same, for the same reasons.
        
           | helf wrote:
           | [dead]
        
           | LoganDark wrote:
           | I actually built a desktop tower, and then built a laptop to
           | use it from bed! Because I found that regular laptops were
           | totally unacceptable. I tried to cope with a gaming laptop
           | but could not. It built up so many issues over less than 2
           | years that it became worthless.
           | 
           | Anyway, I get all the "portability" of a laptop (with my
           | display, keyboard, and trackpad(!) in bed), but all the
           | performance of an honest-to-Arceus desktop, with a full
           | desktop 12400F (boosting up to 5.2GHz on all 6 cores at a
           | cool 130W) and a full desktop RTX 3060 12GB (I regret not
           | getting the Ti for performance reasons, but for VRAM reasons
           | this is acceptable since I do ML work).
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | glitchc wrote:
           | I have a nice big workstation with heck load of cores, memory
           | and a 4090. It's the only way to fly. Laptops are great for
           | emails but toys when it comes to dev machines.
        
             | LoganDark wrote:
             | Jealous. I'm still trying to save up for a slightly bigger
             | cooler to handle the 130W of my 12400F under load. It hits
             | 5.2Ghz.
        
           | nightowl_games wrote:
           | I noticed a lot of people switching to desktop during work
           | from home. They have this gaming PC just sitting there, and
           | it turns out to be way faster than there stationary MacBook.
           | 
           | Personally I use a desktop at a standing desk from 9-5 and a
           | 13" laptop around the house/on the deck.
           | 
           | I'm likely going to upgrade from the Dell XPS 13 to a MacBook
           | Air, but the desktop is a higher priority. She could use some
           | upgrades.
        
           | didntcheck wrote:
           | My personal machine is a desktop, and I have a laptop that I
           | use for light portable web browsing occasionally. But for
           | work I've come to expect to be given a laptop. It means you
           | can easily WFH, take it to a meeting, or hot desk, without
           | needing to RDP/VNC. And neither I nor my company would want
           | me doing work stuff on my personal desktop. I do know some
           | developers who work by remoting to a VM instead (often as
           | part of a compromise to let developers have admin/root access
           | for development tooling)
        
           | kubafu wrote:
           | You are definitely not. Writing this from my work machine,
           | passively cooled Ryzen desktop, which has been serving me
           | well for the past 5 years. And I don't miss much having a
           | laptop. I work from home anyways.
           | 
           | I think the demographics depends heavily on industry. I know
           | many people doing 3D work and they all use desktops these
           | days.
        
           | sharikous wrote:
           | I notice a lot of people using desktop in the office an
           | having a personal laptop.
           | 
           | But also there has been a shift to cloud instances that
           | provide the flexibility you say at the price of renouncing
           | ownership of the machine. Especially for GPU-based
           | computations.
        
           | goodoldneon wrote:
           | I'd love the power of a desktop but I can't leave my house
           | with it
        
             | cbsks wrote:
             | Wireguard+SSH+VNC works wonders for me.
        
               | ianai wrote:
               | Does VNC get laggy once you're in more restricted
               | bandwidth ie hotel/cell/etc?
        
               | tracker1 wrote:
               | Yeah, it's not great remotely... If you are mostly in an
               | editor, VS Code's remoting extensions over ssh are pretty
               | great as an experience.
        
               | cbsks wrote:
               | Yes. I typically only need SSH so that isn't a huge
               | concern for me. I only rarely need a GUI.
        
               | LoganDark wrote:
               | How's the performance with 4K?
        
       | jimaek wrote:
       | I can't wait for proper high end ARM laptops with Microsoft's
       | backing and support.
       | 
       | I'm like the author, I consider the M MacBooks very impressive
       | but I dislike the OS itself.
       | 
       | And it was very unexpected that Chrome underperform so much,
       | without it it's a complete deal breaker for me.
        
         | imtringued wrote:
         | As if those will come any time soon. The big ARM scare of 2017
         | is already over. ARM is not competitive. By the time they catch
         | up in the server and laptop markets, RISC-V will have eaten
         | their lunch. All they have left to do is run marketing
         | campaigns against RISC-V and watch their inevitable decline.
        
           | pram wrote:
           | 2033 the year of RISC-V on the desktop?
        
         | throwaway2990 wrote:
         | Why? Chrome is such a terrible browser to begin with. How is it
         | a deal breaker?
        
           | jasaldivara wrote:
           | In my own experience, Chromium browser (which is the base for
           | Google Chrome) works much better (faster) than Firefox on my
           | Pinebook Pro (ARM, Linux).
           | 
           | But I think the author is using Chrome under emulation, so
           | bad performance is expected.
        
             | dantaro wrote:
             | Correct, I didn't grab the ARM Chromium build, only Chrome.
             | If you want to avoid using Edge then Chromium or Firefox is
             | the way to go.
        
               | olliej wrote:
               | Given edge is just a chromium wrapper, why avoid it? Just
               | ecosystem issues? (Password managers, etc?)
        
           | kybernetikos wrote:
           | I can't speak to the GPs reasons, but Chrome has a large
           | enough user-base that anyone building for the web is going to
           | want to at least test their work in it.
        
       | justsomehnguy wrote:
       | > Luckily (or perhaps shadily), you will rarely ever pay the full
       | price for the Thinkpad x13s. As is tradition, Lenovo seems to be
       | perpetually running deals, taking up to 40% off (at time of
       | writing, 45% time of purchase), bringing the laptop to a much
       | more reasonable $1479.60.
       | 
       | If something has a $2500 price tag but always has _a deal_ where
       | you can take it only for $1500 then the real price is $1500, not
       | $2500.
        
         | adrian_b wrote:
         | Lenovo is not the only vendor who uses these tricks.
         | 
         | I have not looked recently at the Dell site, but in previous
         | years, for many years, every time when I have looked at Dell
         | Precision mobile workstations, they always claimed that the
         | price that what listed at that moment was more than one
         | thousand dollars less than the "normal" price.
        
           | nikanj wrote:
           | They cost the normal amount when the government is buying
           | them
        
       | einpoklum wrote:
       | For a developer, this laptop sucks.
       | 
       | ... but, why would I use such harsh rhetoric?
       | 
       | That's ecause the most important component of a laptop is not its
       | CPU; it is the --==[[ keyboard ]]==--.
       | 
       | A laptop without a keyboard with decent key travel and tactile
       | feedback simply deters you from using it. People who do not write
       | much (code, documents, etc.) - can perhaps make do with point-
       | and-click-oriented laptops. We cannot. That's why are currently
       | condemned to choose between 10-year-old CPUs and I/O ports, but
       | with decent keyboards; and fancy modern CPUs in laptops that are
       | inconvenient to use.
       | 
       | Now look at this laptop's keyboard:
       | 
       | https://p3-ofp.static.pub/fes/cms/2022/03/03/ww9s3cycoxj6gbs...
       | 
       | they keys barely even protrude from the surrounding surface!
        
         | soulbadguy wrote:
         | Yeah i have to call BS on this narrative that somewhat the
         | keyboard is the most important thing for developer. Writing
         | code is not writing documentation or writing books : Most of
         | time spent not on typing letter... Debugging, reading code,
         | thinking about a code etc... are more important. I have yet to
         | see a case where typing speed is a limiting factor for coding.
         | Loads of non-dev information workers type way more than dev...
        
           | einpoklum wrote:
           | It's true that if a laptop doesn't have a monitor, you can't
           | use it to read code. But - you don't need an ultra-perfect
           | color reproduction, super-low refresh rate etc. on your
           | monitor to read code. So if your laptop has a TN rather than
           | IPS panel - that might be consideration but nothing like
           | decent keyboard or not.
           | 
           | And debugging we do with our brains mostly :-)
        
         | callalex wrote:
         | Please keep in mind that humans have a huge variety of anatomy,
         | movement, and strength. While I don't doubt that high travel
         | keyboards are more comfortable and painless for YOU
         | specifically, I can assure you that your experience does not
         | speak for everyone. Extrapolating your keyboard preferences to
         | every body shape is like expecting an Olympic gymnast to be
         | comfortable in a pregnant baryatric person's pants.
         | 
         | Please consider that most people don't care about long key
         | travel, and that some people such as myself actually strongly
         | prefer short key travel as it reduces pain for me. Also, have
         | you used this keyboard or are you judging it based on one
         | zoomed out marketing image?
        
       | rsynnott wrote:
       | > Chrome is slow and frustrating to use, with delayed animations
       | and noticeable input lag, it's such a frustration that I entirely
       | gave up on Chrome in favor of Edge which runs natively.
       | 
       | This is kind of surprising, because Windows for ARM has been
       | around for _7 years_ (I'm ignoring ye olde Windows RT here,
       | because everyone else did). I got an ARM Mac Mini a couple of
       | months after they launched; at that point, while there was still
       | a good bit of stuff with poor or no native support (most
       | annoying: IntelliJ; don't think it got native support for about
       | six months), native Chrome was already available.
       | 
       | I suppose the difference is that third parties don't see Windows
       | for ARM as a serious product, but there's a definite chicken and
       | egg problem there.
        
       | gyulai wrote:
       | I'm going to assume that, not being an Intel processor, it won't
       | have Intel Management Engine. So where does this device land
       | privacy-wise? Can this device safely be recommended for highly
       | privacy-focused people who might otherwise choose "respects your
       | freedom certified" [1] legacy hardware? Or does it have something
       | similar to IME with similarly negative privacy implications?
       | 
       | [1] https://ryf.fsf.org/
        
         | DaSHacka wrote:
         | Given that this is a Lenovo laptop, one who is truly concerned
         | about privacy may want to avoid it regardless [0]. Not to
         | mention none of it is open source, from the firmware to the
         | hardware, so I hardly see this as a suitable replacement for
         | people looking to run FSF-approved computers.
         | 
         | [0]
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_...
        
       | sspiff wrote:
       | I find that battery life extremely uninspiring. I wonder if
       | that's because of Windows, JetBrains or a combination of both.
       | 
       | I run a x86-64 laptop with Linux AND decicated graphics (Ryzen
       | 6850u and Radeon 6800S) and get 6-10 hours of battery life while
       | developing.
       | 
       | Granted, that's after quite a bit of tweaking - I've configured
       | my monitor to go to 60hz, limit the CPU to only 4 cores/8 threads
       | and 2200MHz while on battery. I write Rust with rust-analyzer so
       | the CPU is constantly in use, and my browser of choice (Firefox)
       | is far less optimized for battery life than any chrome-based
       | browser is on Windows.
       | 
       | This gives me a laptop with no concessions with regards to
       | compatibility and it's probably running loops around this ARM
       | based chip, even when running at my tuned-down power settings.
       | 
       | I'd love to have a Linux compatible ARM laptop, but if they don't
       | give you real world double digit battery life, why bother?
        
         | hospitalJail wrote:
         | Meanwhile I've had my laptops plugged in for 99.999% of their
         | life.
         | 
         | Sometimes I'll unplug to bring it to an overnight christmas
         | party or camping to watch a movie at night. Then I'll probably
         | end up plugging it in when I arrive.
         | 
         | Just remembered, one time I brought my laptop to a real estate
         | meeting, and it was so boring I did work during it. But the
         | meeting was over in an hour.
         | 
         | I'm sure some people like having their computer not plugged in,
         | but a docked laptop is so nice.
        
           | solarkraft wrote:
           | My laptop is plugged in 95% of the time. In the 5% of cases
           | not having to worry about plugging in is great.
        
       | pmontra wrote:
       | What's all the fuss about glass vs plastic touchpad in the
       | article? I never had a glass touchpad on my laptops but I had
       | glass touchpads on all my smartphones (the screen.) I see why the
       | screen of the phone can't be plastic (colors, scratches, more?)
       | but I never felt that the plastic touchpads of my laptops did not
       | do their job as nicely as the screens of my phones.
        
         | faster_harder wrote:
         | It reminds me of the glass vs plastic phone backside arguments.
         | Glass is more fragile than plastic and will not absorb shocks.
         | It is also heavier and harder to replace (most plastic
         | backsides can be removed with a guitar pick).
         | 
         | But glass is considered _premium_.
        
           | ChainOfFools wrote:
           | I was astonished at the amount of ink, or pixels wasted by
           | this ridiculous and completely manufactured distinction on
           | the part of inept tech "journalists" and bloggers who had to
           | find something non-technical to identify a pecking order
           | among phones in order to attract readership who didn't
           | understand the more subtle distinctions between features that
           | affect actual usage of the phone.
           | 
           | The only other ridiculous argument that had an even worse
           | effect on the net usability of phones, as well as the
           | indistinguishable limited variety that we have today, is the
           | ridiculous obsession with thinness. And then everyone puts a
           | case on it anyway.
           | 
           | Thin, thin, thin, and a glass back on top of that. I'm not
           | usually sympathetic to conspiracies but it sure seems like
           | the interests of phone manufacturers ( especially one in
           | particular) who want to sell a new throaway device every year
           | were suspiciously well served by both of these absurd
           | abitrary obsessions of the tech press.
        
             | LoganDark wrote:
             | I hate thin and light so, so much.
             | 
             | People say "vote with your feet" and "just don't buy the
             | stuff you don't like", but you can't exactly buy nothing
             | when there are no options you like, because what if you
             | need a laptop anyway? So you end up having to buy something
             | "thin and light" which is a signal to the OEM that people
             | want more thin and light even if all they wanted was a
             | laptop.
        
               | ChainOfFools wrote:
               | Unfortunately the phrase vote with your feet is too often
               | misapplied either by the hopelessly idealistic at one
               | end, or by the toxically cynical at the other.
               | 
               | particularly those who are well aware that you have two
               | feet to work with while their side has paid influence
               | wrangling a stampede of cattle in the other directiin.
        
               | LoganDark wrote:
               | I mean, some otherkin have (/identify as having) four
               | paws. But that's still not enough to do anything lol
        
         | RistrettoMike wrote:
         | It just feels nicer to use. Not more functional to use, but it
         | does _feel_ different to your fingertip.
         | 
         | Like the author mentions, it's not a dealbreaker, but is a
         | calling-card of this particular machine's build/materials/specs
         | not living up to its pricetag.
        
       | pzautke wrote:
       | Not a developer but have found the T14s AMD Gen 3 to have
       | significantly better real world (i.e. browsing) battery life than
       | my X13s had.
        
       | oneplane wrote:
       | With the current specs, pricing and usefulness this actually
       | seems like a bad deal. Not a useless deal, and in the Windows
       | space perhaps the only real deal, but a bad deal nonetheless.
       | 
       | What it can be is a good starting point for the industry to get
       | moving. Not sure if this runs SystemReady firmware or if this is
       | using Microsoft's UEFI stack, but either way it could finally get
       | vendorland moving.
        
       | soulbadguy wrote:
       | "high-end" arm windows machines never made much sense to me. It
       | seems that the main appeal is longer battery life, but looking at
       | the recent CPU from AMD, and the rumors of the next CPU from
       | intel.It's seem clear to me that x86 is making more progress in
       | reducing power consumption than arm is making in performance. And
       | i wouldn't be surprise that in a couple of year we get very
       | efficient x86 cpu's from both AMD and intel.
        
         | tracker1 wrote:
         | AMD is getting here, certainly... the latest 7430HS mini PCs
         | still use 6-8W at idle though, which is quite a bit more than
         | ARM still. I've been using an m1 air as a personall laptop and
         | when traveling rarely even think about having to plug it in...
         | for my limited use with the screen around 60% brightness, I can
         | use it all day and then some. Mostly text/email or remote
         | editing (wireguard, ssh, vs code).
        
           | soulbadguy wrote:
           | I agree, Mx laptop are still miles ahead in term of
           | performance per what. But i would venture to suggest that a
           | lot of it is more about the platform (OS, BIOS,chipset etc...
           | etc...) then the CPU per-say.
        
           | CameronNemo wrote:
           | Isn't 7430HS a Zen3 chip? Presumably Zen4 will be better.
           | Remains to he seen, though.
        
       | rilut wrote:
       | Does anybody have experience with printers with Windows on ARM?
       | How are the drivers situation?
        
         | tracker1 wrote:
         | Good question... personally I've been using hp laser printers
         | over network for years and they work with everything I've used.
         | Windows, Mac, Linux, Android phones and tablets without issue.
        
       | deng wrote:
       | People forget that it is not just the processor that consumes
       | power. The reason the new MacBooks are so efficient is not just
       | because they are ARM-based, it is also because they have
       | incredibly energy efficient screens, WiFi, RAM, SSDs, etc. They
       | can achieve this through their sophisticated manufacturing
       | process, with highly integrated components directly soldered onto
       | the board, a fact that is widely (and correctly) criticized for
       | making repairs and expansion nigh impossible, but it is also true
       | that this is much more power efficient than what you can achieve
       | with a more modular design. I have a Thinkpad L14 AMD, it
       | consumes well below 10W for casual browsing/reading mails under
       | Linux. I would wager that maybe 1/3 of that is consumed by the
       | CPU. So even if you had a CPU with 0W consumption, I would just
       | increase my battery life by a third, at least for that kind of
       | usage.
        
         | LoganDark wrote:
         | Is it really that hard to design sockets that don't waste such
         | a significant amount of energy? Honest question. Do you really
         | save so much by soldering something without any type of ribbon,
         | socket, or other removable connector in between?
        
           | deng wrote:
           | For RAM, yes. Soldering it down right next to the CPU allows
           | for lower voltages and faster bus speeds. For SSDs, it's more
           | difficult. It surely makes no difference for standard PCIe,
           | there's really no excuse to solder that one to the board. I'm
           | actually not sure how exactly SSDs work in a MacBook M1/M2. I
           | think it's plain NAND storage soldered directly onto the
           | board, with the controller in the M1/M2. I have no idea about
           | power savings here, but it sure is fast...
        
             | LoganDark wrote:
             | For RAM I think even the trace length on the motherboard
             | matters but this is just a reason for why the sockets are
             | usually near the CPU, not a reason why you would have to
             | eschew sockets altogether.
        
           | rsynnott wrote:
           | I'm drawing a blank on what it was called now, but way back
           | in the day, in response to the Intel Apple laptops having far
           | better battery life than apparently equivalent Wintel
           | machines, Intel launched a programme to improve laptop
           | platforms. IIRC, at the time, some laptops had up to about
           | 10W worth of inefficient/non-essential (or completely
           | unusable; controllers for parallel ports but no actual
           | parallel ports for instance) chippery on their motherboards.
           | 
           | I'd assume all the low-hanging fruit is _long_ gone there,
           | though.
        
       | einpoklum wrote:
       | "You're a software engineer who loves Windows... you COULD switch
       | to a Mac... looking around... Microsoft's own Surface Laptop"
       | 
       | What kind of person is writing that article? Sounds like someone
       | who's identity is first and foremost a rich guy from the US.
        
         | soulbadguy wrote:
         | Most of us on here are ... what's your point ?
        
           | einpoklum wrote:
           | > Most of us on here are ...
           | 
           | I hope that's not the case... as most developers are not
           | USers, and while they may make a decent living, I doubt most
           | developers would consider blowing thousands of dollars on a
           | Mac (regardless of whether they like it SW/HW-wise). And who
           | buys Microsoft laptops? That's weird.
        
             | soulbadguy wrote:
             | > as most developers are not USers
             | 
             | Yes, but this a english speaking forum, from a mainly US
             | based incubator, so the audience is self-selecte... Nothing
             | against dev from other part of the world.
             | 
             | > I doubt most developers would consider blowing thousands
             | of dollars on a Mac
             | 
             | Mac are consistently the most selling laptop... so clearly
             | someone is buying them.
             | 
             | > And who buys Microsoft laptops? That's weird.
             | 
             | Agree. Big mistake, but this one is on me :)
        
       | bpye wrote:
       | Full disclosure - I do work at Microsoft on Windows. One of the
       | work devices I have is a Surface Pro X - and it has been
       | generally a good experience. I don't really write code on the
       | device (I work on Hyper-V), but for browsing, Office, Remote
       | Desktop, WPA etc it's good.
       | 
       | My biggest annoyance is that Motu don't have ARM64 drivers for
       | their audio interfaces, so I can't use the one I have for
       | microphone input. I've tried asking - but it doesn't seem like
       | it's even on their roadmap, which is unfortunate. I'm pretty sure
       | they license the Thesycon driver which does now support ARM64 [0]
       | - but I guess they need to either update or just build the ARM64
       | version... The inbox class driver doesn't work because Motu use
       | implicit feedback.
       | 
       | [0] - https://www.thesycon.de/eng/usb_audiodriver.shtml
        
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