Reply 20 of 136, by mothergoose729
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- Numero Uno is always the keyboard. Modern laptops have either (A) a chiclet "island" style keyboard, with very short travel and a cheap, plasticy feel -- or (B) in the case of the MacBooks, a "butterfly" keyboard that feels like typing on little pieces of Scotch tape and frequently breaks. These objectively inferior keyboards are engineering compromises made in order to prioritize thinness (I'll get back to that later). In addition, the keyboard layouts are increasingly minimalistic, with various hotkeys and shortcuts taking the place of frequently used keys such as PageUp and PageDown.
Agreed!
wrote:
- Build construction -- most modern laptops prioritize thinness over all else. Since there are limits to how well we can engineer things for a particular price, this often results in laptops that feel cheap and flimsy. We have reached the point of marginal returns in the thinness department, and we have driven off that cliff into the abyss.
I think this is a "you get what you pay for" thing. On the premium products like a Razor Blade and other good unibody designs, I think the build quality is a lot better than the 90's and early 2000's by a fair margin. I haven't forgotten the plastic clamshells and garbage hinges of yesteryear.
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- Ports -- many modern laptops eschew standard ports such as USB or HDMI, in favor of either a new standard such as USB-C (which is not bad in and of itself, but breaks compatibility) or just removing them altogether and relying on wireless capabilities to do everything. Not the best for usability!
Nobody like this. If everything eventually moves to USB4/type C I think it will be less of an issue. Two or three everything ports would be enough, and there are dongles for stuff like SD cards and other peripherals. I think the issue is sex appeal. Thin, sleak laptops have much tighter margins on space and something has to give.
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- No optical drive options -- this is a mistake in my opinion. Yes, most consumers don't need an optical drive any more. But many still do -- people have DVDs and CDs lying around they still want to be able to play, and many businesses will have use for the optical drive for various reasons. But I'm pretty sure none of the PC companies still make a laptop that has the option of an optical drive.
We are on an island on this one. Optical media is very nearly completely dead. I use a USB DVD drive.
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- Modularity and upgradeability -- most companies are striking down things such as removable batteries and socketed RAM/CPUs in favor of cementing the specs of laptops in stone. Fine for the average consumer but not so great for power users and developers who want to be able to upgrade their machines, or squeeze as much life out of them as they can.
That's always been a problem though. With the pace of technology having slowed down in the last five years, I am less concerned about upgrading my laptop than I used to be.
wrote:
- Screen aspect ratio and overall laptop dimensions. 16:9 is just not a pleasing aspect ratio! Many people have noted this over the years. I prefer 4:3 myself -- others say 16:10, or 3:2, but the main point is that 16:9 is just too wide. It has to do with the field of view of the human eye -- while you are working, you shouldn't have to keep panning your eyes back and forth all the way from the left of the screen to the right.
You mentioned the surface books. As a software developer I agree with you that really wide aspects aren't particularly useful. With that being said, I do 100% of my development in 16:9, and did so all throughout college and my professional career. An affordable TN or IPS panel with 5:4 aspect ratio and a high resolution would be great. On laptops though, content consumption is key. Anything not targeted at professionals is going to be 16:9 or 16:10 because it matches most media, and wider aspects are generally better for gaming.