1. A 1080p screen with a reasonably good backlight. 100% scaling is just fine thank you.
2. Totally agree with the keyboard, if you can fit a numpad on that thing even better.
3. A functional touchpad. Precision and lag measurements certainly dont matter to me. I mostly won't be using it anyway.
4. Gigabit Ethernet, at least 2 usb-A ports, at least one hdmi or displayport port.
5. 3.5mm jack.
6. Reasonably modern cpu, it doen't have to be super fast.
7. Discrete GPU is a nice bonus
8. User replacable RAM, User replacable nvme drive.
I do remember having issues with accidentally touching the touchpad.
Now days I almost always have a keyboard with me.
This was to allow for a nearly-universal established workflow where the right hand would shuffle the papers or maintain a pointer at a ledger as the data was entered to a mechanical adding machine, without taking the eyes off of what the right hand was doing. The #5 key with the tactile marker is the home position for the middle finger.
The adding machine sitting to the left of the desktop (sometimes on a cart) didn't need to be observed at all, it printed each entry on the roll of paper as you went along, subtractions or negative numbers optionally in red ink. Which could be audited later if necessary if there were any questions about correct data entry. Printing calculators having a financial mode have mimicked this like forever too.
Nobody would have ever expected IBM to be able to sell a calculating machine of any type without maintaining at least this particular backward-compatibility feature.
So it could be seen as more easily integrated by those businesses adopting their first computer of any kind.
MacBook Air M4 is sufficient for almost everything (except maybe gaming), but that depends on how much you want to get caught up in Apple's ecosystem.
Lenovo did themselves a disservice by discontinuing the W15 which I thought was worth a solid shot until they started putting spyware in everything.
The author of linked post is a KDE dev.
I've been hovering over the "buy" button on a StarBook as I get increasingly frustrated with the MacOS experience.
My chief worries are battery life and speaker quality..if you have a StarBook are you happy and can you speak to those?
I had to remap the home/end/ins keys which were oddly placed. It has that useless and totally annoying CoPilot key that cannot be remapped either since touching it sends multiple keystrokes both down and up.
- Too damn many SKUs, and despite that, the combination you want (say, screen type, CPU and weight) doesn’t exist OR is not available for months.
- Despite how dramatic the advancements in CPUs both from intel and AMD have been recently, all machines come with really old CPUs, sometimes two years old, and at full price. If a new CPU is released, you will be waiting at least one year to get it… if it is available in the combination that you desire (cf. my previous point)
So… I ended up getting a MacBook. Yes, slightly more expensive, but despite that, you don’t feel ripped off.
theandrewbailey•5h ago
Then there's the cheap laptops with what I call a "Shenzhen Special": a 1366x768 TN screen. Those should never have been a thing. Even cheap phones 10 years ago did not have screens that bad, but laptops 5 years ago do.
throwawayffffas•5h ago
I disagree, sometimes all you need is some sort of screen, a keyboard, a wireless interface, and the cheapest x86 processor invented by man.
A whole laptop for less than 400 USD is a great thing for the other half.
prmoustache•2h ago
Recently bought a Thinkpad x390 for my significant other for 170€ with a brand new battery. Works well enough, is small, light and quiet, has a decent keyboard and fullhd screen. Very little battery drain when suspended. Brand new laptops at twice that price offer a much crappier experience.
throwawayffffas•1h ago
It think a modern under 400 laptop would not have all of the above issues.
znpy•1h ago
I paid my "new" ThinkPad X13 Gen1 400 Euros + 29 euros for shipping, less than a month ago, from eBay. It comes with a 8c/16t ryzen cpu, a full-hd touch display and 32GB ram.
Even if it was 500 euros, it's an incredibly better value than a "Shenzhen Special" piece of trash.
Please stop promoting e-waste.
cranberryturkey•5h ago