Thank goodness for the transition away from the terrible 16:9 screens that have plagued almost every single PC laptop for years. These are all 16:10 with a few screen options (at least for the X1C9):
- 14" UHD+ (3840 x 2400) IPS, low-power, HDR400 with Dolby Vision™ DCI P3 100%, 500 nits, TÜV Rheinland-certified for reduced blue light emissions
- 14" FHD+* (1920 x 1200) IPS, anti-glare, low-power, 400 nits, Low-power, TÜV Rheinland-certified for reduced blue light emissions
- 14" FHD+* (1920 x 1200) IPS, anti-glare, touchscreen, 400 nits, TÜV Rheinland-certified for reduced blue light emissions
Also nice that the HiDPI version is low-power. Interesting that the smaller x1 nano is also using the 16:10 screen, what a relief to have this across the range.
Utter joy. There are even 3:2 SKUs. 16:9 screens are an unbridled plague that deserve to be binned tout de suite, especially on 13" ultrabooks. It's like typing while looking at code through a keyhole.
I welcome a future where gamers are told to fuck off, and laptop manufacturers instead embrace professional looking laptops with tall displays with very high PPI, long battery life, non-gamery keycap fonts, and no RGB anywhere.
HDTV has done a lot of damage to computer screens. You used to be able to get pretty hi-resolution CRT screens, but when "HDTV" became a thing manufacturers actually lowered the resolution to 720p so they could call it "HD".
It took 4K for computer screen resolutions to start going up again.
You could get CRTs back in the day that were higher than 1080p with over 100hz refresh rates. I think some of the Trinitons went even higher res. It's only in the last few years that LCDs have caught up.
I used 1600x1200 through the 1990s, so even 1080p wasn't all that impressive to me. Now 1440p is getting interesting.
But even apart from the number of pixels, why must screens be shaped like a letterbox? The only thing 16:9 is good for is watching movies, and if you happen to want to do that on your laptop, small black bars at the top and bottom really aren't any problem at all.
Sure, but on a big screen. On a laptop screen, you can only read a few lines at a time. Especially on apps that add menus and other stuff to the top and bottom, like IDEs, browsers, editors, etc. A few lines more would do a lot of good. It's really like you're looking at everything through a letterbox opening.
In fact, 15 years ago I had a coworker who used two 20" 1200x1600 on their side next to each other. That worked really well for having lots of text next to each other. It's basically a gigantic 3:2 screen, which is still a tiny bit taller than 16:10.
A colleague of mine made the same comment. I'd love to use one too, but my desk has no horizontal space for it. I can only fit a 24" because the new monitors are so-called "frameless" displays.
I thought the 16:10 plague was because TV's were typically made in that aspect ratio and therefore it was cheaper to use the same panels in a laptop.
I've been told this too, but just how many 14" TVs does the consumer electronics industry sell in a year? And compared to laptops? It's hard to believe that laptop sales don't completely dwarf this weird niche 14" TV market.
Just thinking about this for a minute, maybe 16:9 panels are cheaper because they're more efficient to cut from the mother-glass? If the mother-glass is some compatible multiple of 16:9 in order to cut full-size (40" and above) TV's from, maybe cutting 16:10 14" laptop displays from it wastes more glass than cutting 16:9 14" displays from it?
At any rate, it seems like we all agree that 16:9 is a rubbish aspect ratio for a laptop screen. I can't wait for Lenovo to release a 16:10 version of my X1 extreme.
Dock/Taskbar on the side looks even better on 16:10 vs. 16x9.
16x9 is simply unusable for me on a laptop screen. Using an 4:3 iPad with keyboard/mouse reminds me of the good ol days before the HD screen size abominations.
I hide all kinds of shit like ribbons, status bars etc. to gain every last vertical pixel I can. Even better if an app will let me rearrange toolbars vertically.
For something so thin, that's probably unavoidable.
Personally, I don't think I want a thin laptop. Not for any kind of meaningful work, at least. Thin doesn't just mean less key travel, it also means less space for battery, and less space for cooling.
I mean, I don't want an excessively bulky laptop, but there's definitely a point where the returns from thinness diminish really hard.
Well, I would prefer them to leave the chassis at x1g6 dimensions with good enough key travel and introduce new x1 "paperthin" model for people who like such designs. Now apparently I will have to switch to T14s during next upgrade. Unless Lenovo also mutilates it somehow...
After having gotten a Dell Alienware laptop with an OLED display (just turned four years old last month), I intend to get OLED displays on all future laptops.
I want it thick enough for a decent battery and a keyboard with nice travel. Oh and make it easy to open and close it an replace/add stuff. Sure add some room for a 2.5" sata drive. Like you, I don't really get the race to the thinnest. Perhaps it pushes tech in other aspects to limits that allow for better batteries in my thicker laptop... in that case, I'm ok with it ;)
> We’re lucky that we still have removable M.2 SSDs at all. It looks like devices will be moving to fully soldered storage in the next few years.
What makes you say that? Unlike smartphones, laptops are still widely used as productivity stations. Surely that means there will continue to be high demand for upgradable and replaceable internal storage.
And this is probably the only reason we still have that as an option. The Surface Pro 7 Plus just came out with a removable drive, so hopefully that shows there really is still a need for removable drives. But for consumers I think the only option will soon be cloud.
I want it to be thick enough to allow for proper cooling so the laptop doesn't immediately throttle as soon as it boosts. That requirement would pretty much allow for everything else anyways.
My Thinkpad T480s has a collapsed ethernet port and it sucks. I tried it a couple of times with different cables and the clip got stuck in the port and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get it out. I had to open up the case and unscrew the trap-door holding the cable just to get it out.
I have an ultrabook from tuxedo (clevo reseller like System76) since several years. The foldable ethernet port still works. Used to treat my stuff badly too.
I have a such Fujitsu Lifebook. To be honest, I always use an USB-Ethernet adapter instead of the built in foldable. But it's great to have an Ethernet port for emergency use. It's a nice notebook anyway. Very light, mate touch and pen display (a pen can be stored inside of the notebook), a lot of ports. Battery and SSD can be replaced very easy (sadly RAM not).
I've thought about this a fair amount and come to the conclusion that HN readers as a group just cannot wrap their heads around why the majority of consumers are so enamored by thin stuff - but they are, and that's why these companies keep doing this.
It seems wildly stupid, and it is in some objective sense, but people make bad purchasing decisions. See: Cars in the united states continuing to get bigger and bigger.
Are they really enamoured with it, or is it just that when they go to upgrade their (phone|laptop|fridge) the mainstream store only has a choice of the 10 best-advertised products?
I searched for weeks to find a phone matching my SO's requirements and in the end had to order it from China . Few 'majority consumers' have the time or patience for that, so they just put up with thin batteries and camera bumps.
> dunno, this seems like a sane thing to want AND think that this is what your users might want.
I don't think most people care about RAM upgrades. Non-technical people will probably either just put up with their computer becoming somewhat slower if software requirements change over time, or they don't have use cases where they'd run out of RAM in the first place.
A nice and "modern" looking form factor is probably a greater factor for most people even if they did care about the upgradability to some extent.
I don't really get the trend towards non-replaceable batteries, though, at least not from a customer perspective. Batteries often begin to degrade much earlier than a decent laptop would otherwise show any age, so it makes almost no sense whatsoever (except perhaps some kind of a small improvement in size due to simpler construction) to not be able to replace those. Maybe people get their batteries replaced at a shop or they just put up with degraded batteries, too.
I agree it replacements and upgrades should be doable, and that it would be responsible, and I'd appreciate it if at least models marketed towards developers, engineers and other technical professionals would have that. Most people probably just won't care enough, though.
> Like this trend with protruding cameras out of phone's body. Just make the body that bit thicker and slap bigger battery on it.
I had always assumed they did this for case reasons. A smaller phone means room the case could occupy. Fairly logical imo, though it feels like crap if you don't have a case.
As it is my iPhone 10, a fairly small phone (not a large model, i forget which) feels huge with a case. Cases make it weird.
Yes please. Glued batteries make for difficult repairs, which ultimately reduces lifespan. Of course, that's the goal, that way you can be a thinner, crappier version in 3 years time, with a further reduced feature set, an even worse keyboard, and a dongle for your dongle.
OTOH a good thing for now is that there are many portable batteries that enough to power laptop via USB Type-C. It's inexpensive alternative way to extend product life.
Wow. Those are still pretty expensive. I've been considering replacing my T430, but I'm not sure it's worthwhile. Mine has 16GB of RAM, i7 quad core, 1TB SSD, etc. I think my money would be better spent upgrading the screen on my existing machine. It's also worth noting that I was able to buy a backup/spare T430 to use for parts and experimentation for ~$100. All in all, I've been very happy with this model.
My main laptop is still an ~7-year-old ThinkPad W530. I pretty much maxed it out when I bought it: quad-core i7-3740QM, 32 GB of RAM, a pair of Samsung 850 Pro SSDs (RAID1), Nvidia something 2GB, FHD screen, etc.
I was thinking about upgrading recently and was leaning towards the T470 for various reasons, including seeing a few nice used ones available locally at "okay" prices... until I started to actually compare them!
Based on the benchmarks I could find, I came to the conclusion that the performance of the T470 was no better than that of my old tank, the W530 -- and may have even been worse! Once I looked into the cost of upgrading the RAM on the T470 (as I tend to run several VMs concurrently) I decided I'd simply be wasting money "upgrading" to the T470.
Additionally, I've got a T420 which, although even older, still performs amazingly well -- once it was upgraded to 16 GB of RAM and a 480 GB SSD. I've only got ~$150 in it and it'll do a fine job if/when the W530 finally dies.
(The "upgrade" wasn't really a priority anyways, as I've got a beast of a workstation that I use 90% of the time.)
Sorry I don’t know any good vendors but I do see an i7 with the rarer IPS 1920p display on eBay for 500 bucks and I’m sure other marketplaces have more than a few.
Personally I’d like it to be thick (and possibly heavy) enough that I can open the lid without having to hold down the bottom. I yearn to be able to set a laptop down on my desk and not have it slide around or move when I’m adjusting the screen.
Yep, it's decent. I also have its successor, T490s, which is much worse (e.g., no full ethernet port).
That being said, my T480s had to go into warranty aleady, three times total if you count the TB3 docking station (which to me counts as one system I use together all the time): the motherboard was fried on the T480s. And since everything is one block of silicon, they had to switch out the entire thing, except for the hard drive.
The TB3 dock gen1 is the single worst bit of technology I ever had the displeasure of owning and using. Next to countless incompatibilities and instabilities, it just died a sudden death on me recently. Still a couple months within the 3-year warranty.
That's a serious engineering flaw on Lenovo's side. A better manufacturer would've made sure it died outside of warranty. They're really dropping the ball, you can tell by that.
I totally agree that thinner is not always better on a laptop where key travel and full-sized ports are important. But a Yoga is also meant to be used as a tablet. As a programmer I want my key travel and ports. As a musician I want to fold the thing backwards and put it on my music stand. I currently have a Yoga X390, a little too thin for a laptop, and a little too thick to put on my music stand. A compromise, clearly, but one that works for me
...and I don't care! This is so stupid. Give me runtime! Motorola Moto Gx Power models are on the right track on the smartphone side. Awesome battery life, just a little beefier.
Agreed wholeheartedly. I hear "thin", and think "so it's fragile and has poor thermals, battery life, port selection, and overall compromised performance".
Ultrabooks are fine, but we have to remember who they're aimed at. They're aimed at office users, casual home users, students, and a large subset of programmers who don't need to run 50 VMs. They're not aimed at gamers, engineers, (some subset of) programmers, and technicians.
For those 4 groups, most ultrabooks suffer from:
1. Being underpowered (for gamers and some engineers this means graphically, for programmers memory/cpu count/cpu speed)
2. Insufficient ports (particularly for engineers, technicians, and some programmers and gamers)
3. Insufficiently sturdy (technicians, some engineers and programmers)
But often they do have good battery life, but by virtue of being underpowered that doesn't really help in the balance.
Companies that do make laptops (IME) aimed at gamers, tend to not make laptops that have decent battery life (that is, most desktop replacement laptops get good performance, but terrible battery life). And laptops aimed at engineers and technicians tend to be 3" thick, have terrible battery life, and have grossly underpowered processors and graphics, but they have every port you could ever want.
I don’t think the ultra book is a meme. I’d consider the MacBook Air to be the single most successful laptop of all time, and for good reason. For many people it’s basically the perfect compromise of size, weight, power and battery life. (Also, while the Air is thin, it is certainly not fragile). The current M1 Air is a really great machine. And while it’s not powerful enough for my work (data scientist - waiting for a 16 inch MBP, or perhaps I’ll get a larger thinkpad and put Linux on it), I am not going to delude myself into thinking that my needs are in any way representative of the average consumer. A good ultra book is perfect for people browsing the web and using office apps who want good portability.
is that really necessary? my "work" is a complicated desktop c++ application. short of a 17" desktop replacement, there simply isn't enough thermal budget in any conceivable laptop design to compile this program in under an hour. thus, all I want out of a laptop is the thinnest lightest x86 machine that offers decent performance for web browsing, playing movies, and editing word documents.
I really hope for a future in which we can both get laptops that fit our needs.
My issue with ultrabooks proliferating is that they've made other, more capable machines more niche and more expensive. It's similar to the way that mobile phones standardized on featureless glass slabs after the entire industry decided to take after Apple, with shockingly little innovation happening outside of software.
It lowers the lowest common denominator, in other words. The gulf between "consumption machine" and "work machine" is now higher.
that's understandable, but it sounds like what you're really saying here is that you want to take advantage of economies of scale for products that don't make the trade-offs that most consumers actually want.
I don't really know if all of that is necessarily true. I've had a ThinkPad X in daily use for 6-7 years now, and I've even fallen flat on top of it after slipping on ice going home one winter. It's still chugging along. It's not the thinnest device there is, but there's definitely some kind of an attempt in that direction compared to bulkier devices. (The associated compromises in general are also there.)
I have no experience with Apple hardware, but I don't think Airs have a reputation of being super fragile either.
The thinner and lighter form factor also does have its advantages; it's a bit more comfortable to handle when using it to watch video on the couch, for example.
Compromised performance is definitely true, though. (Or compromised thermals, or some kind of a compromise on that axis in any case.) Ditto for more or less compromised upgradability and replaceability, which is unfortunate.
I wouldn't necessarily want the thinness to end, although striving towards it at all costs is something I would also disagree with, and probably wouldn't go for the absolute thinnest stuff there is.
Does it get noisy? That is the really pertinent question. My last job required me to work on a Lenovo T490 and that thing spun its fans to 3300 RPM the moment you looked at it and asked it to do a 5 second CPU-intensive task. Hated those machines for life but I suspect at least 90% of all laptops are like that.
Now all that I've heard about MacBook M1 models, that's what sounds appealing. Nearly zero audible fan activity.
Definitely, not arguing about that. Although my iMac Pro begs to differ -- I hear its fans only if it maxes out all cores for more than 20-30 seconds. Otherwise not at all. But it's an exception (and that machine is quite the marvel of engineering, too, minus the flimsy VESA mounting stuff where it's an absolute catastrophe).
I have no qualms with my Win10 gaming PC being slightly audible (I use FractalDesign case with Noctua fans to it's not easy to actually hear it). I have no trouble with a machine spinning its fans here and there.
But for my former work Lenovo T490 killed all my desire to work. Sometimes it even started making noise (again for a full minute) after I saved a file in Emacs (so the language server kicked in for 2-3 secs).
From here on I'll just be only on desktop machines and will soon buy a Linux desktop workstation plus a MacBook Pro M1 with which I'll only do work outside when I absolutely positively can't do it at home. And use it for remoting to my machines as well, of course.
I'm using an M1 Mac as a terminal for all my stuff. It's a nice compromise as the things that you want on a desktop are there and work properly.
I did however move all my hardware shit into the cloud as it works out fractionally cheaper than running a hefty desktop as and when I need one and things blowing up in it aren't my problem any more.
I was on Ubuntu 20.04 with a 5.8 kernel. The moment I did an incremental compilation of a Rust project (5-10s) the fans kept at very noisy levels for at least a full minute.
It was awful. :(
I was at 40GB RAM (the stock soldered 8GB plus an extra 32GB stick). And for what it's worth, an external 2560x1080 display. Maybe that was it? But IMO no, it activated fans on CPU load only. Still, maybe the extra strain on the video stack kept it at a higher temperature internally so it was quick to turn on the fans at the smallest of loads? Could be.
Glad it works well for you though. What OS do you use?
Actually just checked and it's 24gb of ram which makes more sense. I'm on Windows on this computer. I have Fedora on my other. I honestly never hear the fan on this computer at all, it barely runs, and when it does it's very silent. It feels like we're talking about 2 different computers.
did they actually do QC this time? my 2020 X1 Yoga I got from work is atrocious. Since years the touchpad driver for these models bugs out from some sleep state - only remedy: shutting and reopening the lid in order to reinitialize. Besides, microphone sounds like you're talking inside an oil drum - perfect during the year of home office.
I had this on a laptop, the caused seemed to be an old touchpad driver that wasn't compatible with S0 "low power mode" which Windows defaults to now. If you know your device supports S3 sleep, you can force Windows to use it. My identical problem went away.
Interesting--I have the 3rd gen X1 Yoga and have issues with the touch screen, and that is only fixed by shutting and reopening the lid. Running Arch Linux. Bummer that there are still dumb issues like this
This only seems to be for a special version of the X1 Yoga, not for all models in the X1 line. The new X1 Carbon is the same thickness as the previous generation: 14.9mm[1], though it looks like they reduced the bezels and redesigned the hinge.
Do people still care about how thick a laptop is anymore? I thought that was pretty much done since 2015. I personally care more about weight and battery life since carrying a laptop and charger can add weight quickly..
Not only that, but there is a serious factor of diminishing returns. Without putting one laptop next to another, could you tell that one laptop is 11.5mm and another is 13mm?
I've tried switching away from my MacBook and each time I've been left underwhelmed by the build quality. Hopefully this will be built better than the past Lenovo X1 models that I've tried.
That is one thing that Apple is very consistent with. Other than fraying cables, Apple hardware is solid.
Whereas, I have replaced almost everything (keyboard, charger, battery, wifi/bluetooth) on my Dell XPS and the case is falling apart (broken monitor hinge glued back together). Its very frustrating..
Well it occasionally leaves me desk :) also I like the small footprint. It’s mainly my “work at home check the news” laptop so I can keep my work laptop 100% work. I don’t even check the weather on it.
I bought a P51 off Ebay for ~$830 over the summer. It is really well built, and I definitely got a better laptop used than I could have new for the same money.
Great laptop for my needs, 64 GB RAM, came with M2 SSD and took for 2 more drives, and has dedicated graphics card. No complaints.
P50 series was horrible on Linux with the dual graphics setup (the intel + nVidia combo). Just a nightmare for more than 1 external monitor and a docking station setup.
Not particularly pleased with it. Gets really hot (i7 chip) and quite noisy, touchpad glitches out and gets 'sticky' randomly, battery seems to often go to a 'plugged in but not charging state' and the battery life is pretty dire.
Machine itself feels nice though and the performance is good.
I think my next purchase will be an ARM Macbook if I dare to cough up the dough.
My good friends and I have an inside joke that when we get a new laptop we either show it to each other or take a picture and just go, "But my laptop is soooooooo thin!" I think that started because at one point thinness was the only redeeming characteristic of one of our laptops but I don't really remember. In any case good to see that we'll be able to keep the joke alive.
Recently I had to get a new laptop for work, and went Lenovo due to possibly unwarranted brand loyalty.
I found the T490(s) to have a very bad set of possible options. My T480s came with a 1440p Screen and 24 GB of RAM, but I couldn't configure that with the new series.
I was forced to go with the X1 Carbon Linux Edition. I have a mild feeling that the T line is being gutted for the X Line
Can’t you have 8+16GB memory? Max is 16+32 for T490. That’s pretty ok.
But on display side it’s then 1080p or the 4K screens. No personal experience on 4K, but I’ve heard battery life can take bit hit. I’m happy with lower res as I can use it on Windows without scaling.
I disagree. I have an aging 12" 4K laptop (Toshiba) and it is absolutely glorious compared to non-4K. It get amazing sharpness. I have 3 workspaces:
Full screen Sublime, full screen tmux and a full screen web browser.
It also drives another 4K monitor when I'm in the office.
I really want to find something to replace it when it dies but so far I can't find anything that works well and does not look like someone's go to market product
They target different markets. The Yoga line are laptops that can convert to tablets, and this particular model is their flagship. Also this Yoga is both thinner and lighter than the MacBook Air.
When I hurt my back and returned to work unable to sit, having a convertible was a huge lifesaver. It took a while to adjust everything to a standing lifestyle and having a pen tablet like the Yoga (I had a Dell 2 in 1) was amazing. While I now have a portable standing desk for meetings and such, while I figured it out the convertible was awesome.
Now I want a high-spec traditional laptop again though. :)
Just put some decent speakers in them already please. I hacked mine with some MacBook Air speakers, it is barely better because the bass is so much better now that the whole thing rattles.
16:10 is very welcomed though.
It's been 226 days since I sent my laptop (p51s) to Lenovo for warranty repair for a HDD controller failure. They lost the laptop, and have continually told me they were going to call me back to rectify the matter, and have never done so.
Never buy Lenovo unless you're willing to lose your machine without recourse.
I was about to buy a Lenovo laptop recently, having nearly always had Dell before. Looked into on-site warranty options, found very little information, emailed them to get details and got no response. People online seemed to be saying they could only be purchased as warranty extensions and are expensive.
So I got another Dell Latitude. Refurb, i7, last model with expandable RAM. 5 YEARS of on-site warranty (which I've used numerous times and been very happy with in the UK/EU).
I also ordered some other kit from Lenovo, unfortunately they filled in a customs form wrong and UPS returned it to sender immediately. That was 3 weeks ago, they seem to have lost it.
Just another unrepairable and unmodular system for rich people who want to flex.
Please search in the net for "Agbogbloshie" and see where this laptop will end up as soon as a thinner one comes out.
When are we stopping this madness and go back to make modular things that are easy to repair?!
- 14" UHD+ (3840 x 2400) IPS, low-power, HDR400 with Dolby Vision™ DCI P3 100%, 500 nits, TÜV Rheinland-certified for reduced blue light emissions
- 14" FHD+* (1920 x 1200) IPS, anti-glare, low-power, 400 nits, Low-power, TÜV Rheinland-certified for reduced blue light emissions
- 14" FHD+* (1920 x 1200) IPS, anti-glare, touchscreen, 400 nits, TÜV Rheinland-certified for reduced blue light emissions
- 14" FHD+* (1920 x 1200) IPS, anti-glare, touchscreen, PrivacyGuard, 500 nits
Also nice that the HiDPI version is low-power. Interesting that the smaller x1 nano is also using the 16:10 screen, what a relief to have this across the range.