I feel the same way, but I wouldn't be bold enough to call it dumb. I mean, I assume they know what they are doing. This is very inconvenient for me, as a buyer, but I suppose most companies just aren't Apple, so they throw at us a lot of various stuff hoping that something sticks. And, for that matter, Apple's product line gets more diversified each year too. now it's Air, and Pro, and Max, so I wouldn't bet it won't be G1 Ultra F12b in 10 more years too.
the whole pc laptop industry really is an embarrassment right now. It has been 5 years since the M1 Macbook release, and there is no real equivalent. I'm on a thinkpad x9, which might be the closest I've seen, but the cpu performance just isn't as good.
The gaming laptops that have been made a bit less game-y without the RGBs and thick chassis turned out to be the sweet spot for me. Some compromises here and there, sure, but they mostly have the hardware I want. Asus has a good line up that works very well with Linux from 13 to 16 inches, all with dGPUs, AMD CPU (though Intel is also there), high-refresh rate OLEDs etc.
I don’t know. Just run Linux in a VM on macOS. What exactly is Apple not permitting you to do?
Asahi would have 100x more adoption if it was about better virtualization of Linux on macOS. It would be a DIFFERENT product and I guess that’s the point, right?
I tried this for a virtualized full screen gnome desktop environment but the latency was unbearable. I also couldn't get passthrough of command/caps lock etc to the virtual machine stable. Finally connecting an USB device (like a yubikey) didn't work seamless.
I wonder why ThinkPads are not mentioned. It's not like I recommend them (I mean, I use one, but it's not like I've tried most laptops out there, so who I am to judge), but I was under the impression it's still a de-facto Linux laptop standard.
They used to be genuinely great, now they coasting on brand name and simply not being as bad as most laptops. DIY hardware upgrades are no longer possible, the keyboard is no longer a differentiator, and linux battery life is about 1/4 windows running on the same machine.
From what I remember the last time I bought a laptop, they also have a really annoying pricing model where everything is 30% overpriced but are running constant discounts
This is a refreshing take in some ways. I'm beyond tired of the usual rose-tinted attitudes towards customizability and after-engineered things.
It was a bit disappointing to see the cold shower not reach the thermals situation however, despite the heavy emphasis on performant parts. Apple's offerings are phone-like, they let them saturate then throttle. The alternative is the ugly gamer laptops with their jet engines. Not sure I can wholeheartedly prefer either.
All I want is a thinner Thinkpad X220 but with upped specs and newer ports. Framework-style upgradable motherboard would be nice but optional. The X220 already has a perfect keyboard, a mousing system that doesn't suck (sorry, I've never been happy with a trackpad: they feel too imprecise), a beautiful form factor for a laptop (if I want a laptop, I want it to be 12-14in for easiest portability), it's practically indestructible and has an array of ports that makes me wonder how people manage with just 3 USB-C ports. Maybe this is just me though.
Honestly if you actually need high end specs then you should just build a PC.
"16 core Zen 5 CPU, 40 core RDNA 3.5 GPU. 64GB of LPDDR5X RAM @ 256 GB/s + stunning OLED" - Easily done as a pc build.
In a world where you can get this laptop with Linux, there's a new set of trade-offs -
- be prepared for a LOT of things not working because the size of the market for extremely expensive configurations with high end CPU + GPU + RAM + Monitor + Linux is practically zero.
- when closing the lid and walking to the coffee shop will the battery be dead before you finish your coffee? probably
- will a new GPU/GPU architecture be a headache for the first X years...yes, and if you want to replace every 2 years, I guess you will have a permanent headache.
- will updating graphics drivers be a problem? yes
- is the text in your "stunning oled" going to be rendered correctly in linux? probably not
- will the wifi chip work in linux? maybe
- will all the ports work/behave? probably not
- will your machine perform worse than a high end PC that cost 1/2 as much from 3 years ago... yes.
I’ve been feeling exact way for a while now. Tahoe brought it to a head. I just want a portable machine I truly own and control that doesn’t suck. Why is that so much to ask?
I get the complaint about naming but hp is different then apple. They sell a variety of configurations and one isn't neccesarily better then any other.
I'm holding out a little bit of hope that Valve puts out a laptop - the Steam Deck has notably good power management for a linux device of its class (and I've even heard of people using them as laptop replacements), though the idle power is still higher than a Macbook. They're going to have made a desktop, gaming handheld, and VR device; why not one more?
What would be the reason for their laptop to exist? People on the move get the steamdeck. Others get the GabeCube. Based on the steam hardware stats / graphics cards, there's very little laptop usage. I'm not sure there's enough market to get them interested.
I mostly think of when geohot wanted to make his own RISC-V core and cranked out some basic verilog. It was incomplete and barely commented, and never touched again. I suspect we are going to get a few blog posts of analysis and then he moves on to something else
> Consumer electronics naming is very simple. Make a good product with a simple name. “iPhone”, “comma”, “Z Fold”. Then every year or two, add one to the number of that product. If it’s a small refresh, you can add a letter after the number. “2 3 3X 4” “4 4s 5 5s 6 …” “2 3 4 5 6 7” Why is this so hard for companies like HP?
Oh man I feel this every time there’s a games console launch. I still have no idea what the latest Xbox is called but Sony gets it right with “Playstation <N>”
Apple loses some points here since every macbook from like 2007 until 2020 was just called “Macbook pro” with no year officially in the name so you have to be really careful when eg looking at used listings for macbooks. But since the M1 it’s been good with M<1-5>
If I dare to ask, why do you care so much about naming ?
It's something that has always bothered me in reviews as well. To me a product is primarily supposed to be used, and I also don't want to buy a new one every 6 months.
For instance I like my headphones very much, been using them for 4 years now. I did a ton of research and read a bunch of reviews before buying them, and to keep the exact and unique product name somewhere for research, but from the point they were delivered to me whatever they're named has been completely irrelevant. Same for my computer or phone, I could check the marketing name, and there is skew number somewhere on the product, but in my everyday life it's completely useless.
I'd argue having a impossible to remember but perfectly unique and SEO friendly names wins over using common names like Apple does, for my purposes at least.
I like the joke where windows 9,..10,..11 would eventually give us windows 1995 again.
HP is like they assigned good people to the right task, had everyone make a draft, pulled it from their hands and declared it finished. The combined drafts do not resemble a product so they also have someone make a draft solution for that problem.
> Oh man I feel this every time there’s a games console launch. I still have no idea what the latest Xbox is called but Sony gets it right with “Playstation <N>”
Not so easy: even for old PlaysStations, there existed different versions:
1. PlayStation, PSOne, PlayStation Classic
2. PlayStation 2, PlayStation 2 Slim
3. PlayStation 3, PlayStation 3 Slim, PlayStation 3 Super-Slim
4. PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Slim, PlayStation 4 Pro
5. PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, PlayStation 5 Slim, PlayStation 5 Digital Edition Slim, PlayStation 5 Pro
And then Sony used the PlayStation branding for other consoles, too:
- PlayStation Portable
- PlayStation Vita
- PlayStation Portal
- PlayStation TV (which is also called PlayStation Vita TV)
The real answer is that you either rename the product right around version 10 (because 17 is too big for iPhone versions) or you use the year like sports video games.
It's really hard to come up with a product name as good as "iPhone". Simple does not mean easy.
Unless they're writing a phone review, nobody ever says things like "I took a picture with my Galaxy", or "I edited the video on my Pixel", but substitute "iPhone" and they sound normal.
It also hasn't become generic. Nobody calls another brand of phone an "iPhone" unless they actually mistook it for one.
I agree about some criticisms of the framework. I think they could do away with the plug modules and just go all in on usb-c. I don't mind the occasional dongle for HDMI. I also would prefer a thinner screen bezel, even if that means it's not swappable either.
But having easy access to internal hardware for upgrades is pretty huge. Rather than blowing 1-2k on a new machine every few years, it's just $200-500 for more RAM and a better CPU (assuming prices go back to normal in a reasonable amount of time)
Agree; the choosing ports thing is a gimmick. These days, one video/charging-capable USB-C on each side, plus a USB-A and maybe an SD slot somewhere are enough for most use cases.
geohot: "I want a laptop with a high-end AMD chip, great Linux power management, good docs, solid build, and a normal name"
My brother in christ, the ThinkPad T14s Gen 5 AMD exists. Zen 5, aluminum chassis, legendary Linux support, actual power state documentation. They been doing this for 30 years. Dude, you're bikeshedding a product that's been sitting in the enterprise aisle this whole time
ThinkPads have been the Linux laptop for decades precisely because of the things he's wishing for. Public ACPI/power management docs, upstream kernel support, and AMD options with sane power profiles. He even admits the ZBook touchpad is fine but fails to acknowledge ThinkPads have had excellent trackpoints + multi-touchpads since forever.
>the trade-off I’d prefer is 0 upgradability or customizability in exchange for less weight and more polish
This mentality is ruining everything. Not just computers, but everything including cars and appliances. It's disappointing - I thought geohot was more of a hacker. If he really wants a glued together, disposable piece of crap, you can't do better than Apple, and then just tolerate the OS and maybe VM Linux.
79 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 94.2 ms ] threadAs for the PC ecosystem, there are no good x86 cpus with good power effciciency. Maybe geohot would like https://metacomputing.io/products/metacomputing-arm-aipc ? Framework 13 does not have his specific touchpad complaint
Asahi would have 100x more adoption if it was about better virtualization of Linux on macOS. It would be a DIFFERENT product and I guess that’s the point, right?
From what I remember the last time I bought a laptop, they also have a really annoying pricing model where everything is 30% overpriced but are running constant discounts
It was a bit disappointing to see the cold shower not reach the thermals situation however, despite the heavy emphasis on performant parts. Apple's offerings are phone-like, they let them saturate then throttle. The alternative is the ugly gamer laptops with their jet engines. Not sure I can wholeheartedly prefer either.
That thing is my platonic ideal of a laptop
"16 core Zen 5 CPU, 40 core RDNA 3.5 GPU. 64GB of LPDDR5X RAM @ 256 GB/s + stunning OLED" - Easily done as a pc build.
In a world where you can get this laptop with Linux, there's a new set of trade-offs -
- be prepared for a LOT of things not working because the size of the market for extremely expensive configurations with high end CPU + GPU + RAM + Monitor + Linux is practically zero.
- when closing the lid and walking to the coffee shop will the battery be dead before you finish your coffee? probably
- will a new GPU/GPU architecture be a headache for the first X years...yes, and if you want to replace every 2 years, I guess you will have a permanent headache.
- will updating graphics drivers be a problem? yes
- is the text in your "stunning oled" going to be rendered correctly in linux? probably not
- will the wifi chip work in linux? maybe
- will all the ports work/behave? probably not
- will your machine perform worse than a high end PC that cost 1/2 as much from 3 years ago... yes.
You’ll lose 90,000 of your 100,000 with one or more little nitpicks.
Probably 50% right off the bat because you chose a keyboard with or without a numpad.
Another huge chunk because you chose the wrong screen (Retina resolution? Low resolution? Refresh rate?)
Too bad, because I want this. Or at least the version of it I have in my head :)
Oh man I feel this every time there’s a games console launch. I still have no idea what the latest Xbox is called but Sony gets it right with “Playstation <N>”
Apple loses some points here since every macbook from like 2007 until 2020 was just called “Macbook pro” with no year officially in the name so you have to be really careful when eg looking at used listings for macbooks. But since the M1 it’s been good with M<1-5>
It's something that has always bothered me in reviews as well. To me a product is primarily supposed to be used, and I also don't want to buy a new one every 6 months.
For instance I like my headphones very much, been using them for 4 years now. I did a ton of research and read a bunch of reviews before buying them, and to keep the exact and unique product name somewhere for research, but from the point they were delivered to me whatever they're named has been completely irrelevant. Same for my computer or phone, I could check the marketing name, and there is skew number somewhere on the product, but in my everyday life it's completely useless.
I'd argue having a impossible to remember but perfectly unique and SEO friendly names wins over using common names like Apple does, for my purposes at least.
HP is like they assigned good people to the right task, had everyone make a draft, pulled it from their hands and declared it finished. The combined drafts do not resemble a product so they also have someone make a draft solution for that problem.
Not so easy: even for old PlaysStations, there existed different versions:
1. PlayStation, PSOne, PlayStation Classic
2. PlayStation 2, PlayStation 2 Slim
3. PlayStation 3, PlayStation 3 Slim, PlayStation 3 Super-Slim
4. PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4 Slim, PlayStation 4 Pro
5. PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Digital Edition, PlayStation 5 Slim, PlayStation 5 Digital Edition Slim, PlayStation 5 Pro
And then Sony used the PlayStation branding for other consoles, too:
- PlayStation Portable
- PlayStation Vita
- PlayStation Portal
- PlayStation TV (which is also called PlayStation Vita TV)
Unless they're writing a phone review, nobody ever says things like "I took a picture with my Galaxy", or "I edited the video on my Pixel", but substitute "iPhone" and they sound normal.
It also hasn't become generic. Nobody calls another brand of phone an "iPhone" unless they actually mistook it for one.
But having easy access to internal hardware for upgrades is pretty huge. Rather than blowing 1-2k on a new machine every few years, it's just $200-500 for more RAM and a better CPU (assuming prices go back to normal in a reasonable amount of time)
There is market demand, but at what price? Hardware is a thin margin product.
Is it a few off the shelf parts placed in a custom CNCed block of aluminium or is it engineered, from the ground up, to suit purpose.
Getting an idea of what would people pay for such a product is step one.
5k?
However over the years they dropped the ball big time. Arch may be the new hotness but BSD was the once (and hopefully future) king.
My brother in christ, the ThinkPad T14s Gen 5 AMD exists. Zen 5, aluminum chassis, legendary Linux support, actual power state documentation. They been doing this for 30 years. Dude, you're bikeshedding a product that's been sitting in the enterprise aisle this whole time
ThinkPads have been the Linux laptop for decades precisely because of the things he's wishing for. Public ACPI/power management docs, upstream kernel support, and AMD options with sane power profiles. He even admits the ZBook touchpad is fine but fails to acknowledge ThinkPads have had excellent trackpoints + multi-touchpads since forever.
This mentality is ruining everything. Not just computers, but everything including cars and appliances. It's disappointing - I thought geohot was more of a hacker. If he really wants a glued together, disposable piece of crap, you can't do better than Apple, and then just tolerate the OS and maybe VM Linux.