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back to article Laptop computers are crap

Occasionally, the crumbs scavenged by the Dabbs clan are supplemented with purchases from a local food emporium, the expenditure being partly funded by product reviews that I submit to El Reg. El Reg, by the way, is a real person in a kind of virtual concept common to all omnipresent beings. The last time I was granted an …

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  1. heyrick Silver badge

    I get real work done on an eeePC 901

    Small screen? Check. Lowish memory? Check. SD card four times larger than the internal drive? Check.

    But on the other hand, it fits into a backpack, it runs for ages, and I don't panic if it experiences shock (bad roads etc) while it is running. I guess a real PC is cool if you have an office and a designer chair. Some of us are a little more...bohemian. Just last week (when it was warm!) I wrote code sitting in a reclining chair with cherry blossom falling around and nothing above my head but the sky. The screen was a little hard to see in the sunlight, but I wouldn't have traded it for a cubicle for anything.

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  2. atippey
    Flame

    Two words

    Thermal envelope.

    Laptops (especially Ultrabooks) are damn near just about the worst shape for dissipating heat. The laptop versions of the same part always have reduced frequency, cache, core count, etc. Partially because they would murder battery life and partially because they'd cook your notebook and/or anything it sat on. This is not such a problem now that even mediocre processors are more than powerful enough for needs of 95% of users, but it's one of the primary reasons a tower of some sort will remain on my desk for the foreseeable future.

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  3. Shao

    Widescreen laptops

    My gripe is the move to widescreen laptops.

    They actually do give you the numeric keypad, but then the tradeoff is that EVEN MORE keys double up using the function key so a select down in Microsoft Word is FN-CTRL-SHIFT-DOWN etc. Not to mention that the main keyboard is shunted to the left to accommodate the numeric.

    Second gripe is that wih fairly cheap (sub-£400) non-widescreen laptops, you can get a resolution of 1200x800. New widescreen laptops sub-£700 all have 1366x768. Most people register the 1366 which is great because its widescreen. However, its not until they use their laptop for a while that they notice the x768 downwards which is less than the x800. The problem with this effect is that although the number of pixel differences don't seem that much, you end up scrolling down a heck of a lot more in searches and also when trying to edit anything there is not enough vertical space.

    I am not sure how the Ultrabooks are going to shape up, but let's hope its an improvement.

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    1. dajames
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Re: Widescreen laptops

      "... wih fairly cheap (sub-£400) non-widescreen laptops, you can get a resolution of 1200x800. New widescreen laptops sub-£700 all have 1366x768."

      Non-widescreen (4:3) would be 1024x768. What you're (probably) thinking of is the common 16:10 resolution of 1280x800. 1366x768 is 16:9.

      It's ironic, really, that as manufacturers plunge headlong into the folly of putting wider screens into laptops they don't take advantage of the wider chassis to fit a fuller keyboard. While fitting a numeric pad on a laptop with a 4:3 display would have been a bit tricky, there's a lot more space with a 16:9 screen.

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  4. dajames
    Pint

    Apple are showing the way ...

    No, I'm not an Apple user ... but I really do love the screen of the new iPad. I'm SO close to buying one though $DEITY knows what I'd use it for. I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping that the example Apple have set with their "Retina" displays (stupid name, though it is) will be picked up by every other manufacturer and offered -- at least as an option -- on laptops.

    I'm still waiting for a sub-2kg laptop with a 14" 2560x1600 (or better) display, 4-core CPU of average speed, 8GB+ of RAM and 1TB+ hard disk. Offer me that spec today and I'd pay moderately senseless amounts of money. Let me have it without Windows preinstalled and I'll bite your hand off.

    BIG displays on laptops just bugger the portability, it's the pixel count that determines the amount of information that can usefully be displayed AND the clarity with which it can be displayed.

    No icon seems appropriate ... so I'll go for beer as the default option.

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  5. Simon Harris

    And another thing

    Why is it virtually impossible to find a laptop with a stereo line-in socket and decent audio?

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  6. david 12 Silver badge

    Osborne Computer

    The author does a disservice to Adam Osborne and the Osborne Computer.

    The computer had a useful, intuitive, screen interface, rather like that used on the iPhone/iPad. where the logical screen is larger than the physical screen, and the physical screen scrolls across the surface of the logical screen.

    I haven't used an iPhone/iPad enough to know if their screen design is equally intuitive, but I haven't heard any complaints.

    It was always a mistory to me why subsequent PC designs, including the Apple and Win/86 designs, adopted the useless and painful unix/x-windows multiple-screen/multiple window metaphor, instead of the useful and painless Osborne/iPad metaphor.

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    Dell Precision M6500

    answers most of these complaints:

    * 1600x1200 wuxga

    * Keyboard + num pad

    * Two drive bays

    The only problem? You can't get it with the WUXGA display anymore. In fact the only laptop above 1024 lines of resolution now is the MacBook Pro 17"

    WTF is with this trend of selling business laptops designed for watching "HD" movies?

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  8. doveman

    Cheap solution for home use

    If you just need a portable device at home, running Thinstation (or a stripped down XP) on an old laptop to RDP to a Windows desktop works great. Obviously if you need to take the device out and about it's not so good (although you can still RDP via SSH to the desktop), but it works great for my Dad who just likes to use his laptop downstairs on the sofa in the living room and saves him upgrading his (ancient and knackered) Sony VIAO. Although I do need to try and fix it as it doesn't charge the battery (either of them, he bought an additional one) so he has to run it with the PSU all the time!

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lenovo Thinkpad W701 - 2.25TB storage, 16GB memory, 17" screen, 1920x1600, TrackPad AND TrackPoint, built -in WACOM digitizing pad, built-in color calibtarot built like a tank. And if you want more display space, the W701ds has a secondary 10.6" display that pops out of the side of the lid.

    Of course, the battery life is minimal, and it weighs a ton, but I love it.

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  10. Jason Togneri
    FAIL

    Viewing angles on mobile screen

    ...privacy?

    Not everybody likes to be in public (which, frankly, is the principal advantage that laptops have over desktops - portability) where any stranger sitting anywhere vaguely near you could easily read or watch whatever is on your screen.

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  11. bhtooefr

    I ended up building the laptop I wanted...

    ...because I wanted something with dual cores, support for 8 GiB RAM, and a 2048x1536 IPS display, and I couldn't buy it.

    So, I have a ThinkPad T61p motherboard in a 15" 4:3 T60 chassis, with a display that was used in a certain medical configuration of the ThinkPad R50p.

    That solves points 1, some of 3 (and I can dock if I need better port spacing), 5, and 6 (TrackPoint).

    Unfortunately, it's not what you want in point 8. ;)

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  12. Furbian
    FAIL

    They ARE rubbish, but not for all the reasons given..

    ... they are not economic to service, and about as un-green as you can get. I have a Sony Vaio lying around, which was £1200 new, died after 18 months, examination revealed that board had died, so a perfectly good screen, the most expensive component, wasted and probably going to end up in a landfill one day.

    Nearly all laptop ports are directly on the motherboard, one bad accidental cable yank, and you'll need a board change.

    Desk top's? No component will usually (£400 graphics cards not withstanding) be worth more than 20% of the whole things, motherboard, CPU, etc. Anything dies, getting a replacement is easy.

    My HP Envy 17's Blu-ray drive died, they fixed it under warranty, but if it was not, it looks a total pig to open even for that to be replaced.

    Oh and my fantastic Acer's. One was lasted the distance, despite hinges snapping, which I was lucky to be able to get second had, Acer spent a year trying to get me the right ones, and eventually said it was too old for them to get parts for. Now however the machine has a great display, and Windows 7 works quite well on it, but driver support has gone, none for the TV card, and waking Windows results in screen gunk, fixable by doing a sleep and wake again.

    The Acer 8920G, those Gem Blue ones, well its sound has 'gone', and yes, it's a chip on the motherboard, surface mounted, so we used external USB speakers with an audio device built in. Oh but then its inverter died, so no screen either, time to use with an external monitor. Yes I bought an inverter for it, but for some odd reason they don't last long. Again most of machine is fine, let down by small issues, rendering machine unusable.

    Driver updates from manufacturer? Typically years behind desktops, if they happen at all in some cases.

    They are also 'quirky', 'something' about their architecture will usually result them being slower than a desktop with the same spec. The Envy 17 exceeds (i7, vs i5) my desktop in performance on paper, bar the graphics card, but still feels slower despite a fresh SSD and a clean Windows install, life's too short to work out why. Maybe there are Fn key, power and screen management etc. issues, i.e. laptop related hardware.

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  13. John Savard

    Obviously

    While the article is tongue-in-cheek about laptops, still, everyone is excited about various pad and cellphone devices which really aren't all that useful yet. Because they are more convenient to carry about.

    People will put up with a lot in return for something they can always have with them, instead of something that is an effort to carry around. I wish I had an answer to the tradeoffs between portability and functionality.

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  14. Fink-Nottle
    Coat

    Display

    "let me tell you how frustrating it is to be unable to preview - let alone design - a portrait page on a laptop at actual size. To be able to do this, I’d need a vertical resolution of 1024 plus another 60-or-so pixels to accommodate the software’s title bar, etc."

    It's a little known fact that they did attempt build a laptop with the extra resolution.

    However, the people who design the software used to preview a portrait page at full resolution said they also needed a further 60 pixels to run *their* software at full screen.

    Then the people who make the application needed to design the software used to preview a portrait page at full resolution said they required 60 more pixels to run *their* software at full screen.

    Following this, the firm that develops the software that allows the people who make the application needed to design the software used to preview a portrait page at full resolution ...

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  15. larokus

    Somewhat Disagree..

    Somewhat disagree...

    My 3 yeard old gateway FX has a 1980 x 1200 led screen, full keyboard with number pad, 2 Hard drive bays ALA 1TB (upgraded) and a 1GB 9800GTS nvidia card (top shelf at the time) with hdmi/vga out for additional monitor support. Oh did I mention it was 799 Canadian THEN ? Trackpads are a frustration which is why I always carry a wireless mouse with nano dongle, and a belkin 7 port usb hub in my Laptop bag to address the other issues you mentioned. To sum it up The article is a bla.ket statement making it ultimately false.

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Somewhat Disagree..

      "blanket"

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  16. Andsetinn

    I agree with 1-7

    I agree with most of the reasons from 1-7 and I want to add my 2c.

    * Newest monitors are absurd. They are way to low and wide to allow people to do decent work. As I'm typing this about 20% of the top and the bottom of the screen (together) are unusable because of address bar, tabs, etc. And because it is so wide, about 40% of the space on the sides is black emptiness. Put this together and 30-40% of the screen is unusable because of its proportions. Granted they are good for watching videos, but I use my TV for that.

    * Any monitor over 14-15" makes the laptop to big to be carried around comfortably.

    * If I use laptop with numpad, my hands are not centered in front of the monitor when I type so I have to sit in uncomfortable position.

    * The keyboards are uncomfortable, too flat and even.

    About the only thing I like about laptops is, that as I'm typing this, my laptop is using about 30 watts. My desktop PC and its big monitor use over 100 watts doing the same thing. Although the desktop PC is much more powerful and the desktop monitor is much bigger, I usually use my laptop to browse the net because of the power savings.

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  17. Crok
    Trollface

    Dell XPS M1730

    My laptop has a 1920x1200 display and a numerical keypad. The 300 gig RAID 0 array is sufficient for a Vista/Linux dual boot and I have a NAS for all my personal files. Also, it has enough USB ports that I can plug a mouse in one side, a card reader in another and still have two sockets free for charging my PDA and phone.

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  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Everything is crap

    So much better in my day - Golden Age, cricket on the green, cream teas with Nanny, etc.

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  20. CNXTim

    Notebooks ARE still crap

    I'll add another point; (9?) since i live a beautiful but somewhat dusty part of the world this itty bitty, fiddle farty notebook case needs to be dismantled and cleaned (by a man with smaller fingers and much more patience than i) twice a year to stop it overheating, and as for the footprint, my old cheap and nasty case is still UNDER not ON the desk.. Apart from the two additional screens i also use an external 5 button mouse and keyboard.

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  21. robin penny
    Unhappy

    Current laptops are still C**** 1 picture is worth 1000 words.

    I wouldn't but any of the laptops on the market at the moment. Although resolutions have improved, the vertical screen size is still too small, it's no good being able to see more lines if you have to strain your eyes to do so. The big problem is that laptops with widescreen displays are cheper to make than the older 4:3 layout, so that's why they are foisted upon us. This is probably also another reason for squashing USB ports together (shorter base).

    Unlike the author I think most of us don't use numeric keypads, which on full size keyboards are unergonomic, pushing the Mouse hand too far to the right. A trackpad is fine for me too, particularly if it's a Synaptics one with coasting.

    The future is clearly a 4:3 tablet with external keyboard. Well more than that, something like the Asus Transformer with a 4:3 screen/tablet that can be attached in portrait layout (tablet runs Android, or perhaps Metro, Base runs Windows), but how long are we going to have to wait for it?

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  22. mark 63 Silver badge

    bigger laptop

    Why has no one made a laptop bigger?

    Who decided it has to be A4 sized? - you could have one the size of a 24" screen and it'd be as good as a desktop to use without all the extra wires - and still portable when you needed it to be.

    The limit on portable isnt A4 sized and 400 grams

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  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    the iPad could never be "better" than a notebook.

    …….to say otherwise is ludacris.

    Of course if you’re developing an iPad app, an iPad would be better! W O W Obvious!

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  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I see your problem

    you like cats.

    Really though, the ideal laptop would have a gigantic display, say around 6000 pixels by 1550 or so. Haven't seen one yet, it would be like a surfboard. But we do use multimonitor off laptops here, not quite as good but better than being stuffed into a single laptop 1920x1200 display...

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  25. Paul 135
    Flame

    16:9 Sucks balls

    At the very least we need to demand 16:10.

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  26. sorry, what?
    FAIL

    Utterly pointless article

    The above says it all. Why did I bother to read it? D'oh!

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  27. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Finally

    Finally someone has acknowledged the awful truth. I post this 3 days late because I was holed up in a disaster recovery exercise all last week and forced to use a laptop for all non-DR related computing -- which got old really fast. One point can't be repeated too many times though: as bad as laptops have always been, the imbecilic decision to force wide screen displays down all our throats was the final straw for me. Wide screen displays are not just useless for those of us who have to do *real* work with computers, they're debilitating. Of course the work desktop I'm typing this came with a 19" wide screen display as well because "that's what our vendor offers".

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  28. Derek Clarke

    My current laptop has 1TB of disc and 6GB of RAM, but I didn't buy it like that.

    Just because it's a laptop it doesn't mean that you have to be satisfied with what the manufacturer installs.

    I never own a laptop without upgrading the hard disc and RAM at some point in its life. The most complicated one to change was a Sony where you had to remove the keyboard, but most modern laptops have one or more handy hatches on the bottom to help with this.

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  29. Fading
    Unhappy

    I miss my....

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/12/17/evesham_voyager_64_athlon/

    1400x1050 on a 15.1 inch display was perfect for working on. I haven't found a screen as good and if it hadn't died on me I'd probably still be using it (even if it would have been 8 years old).

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  30. Rob Davis

    Love my 9" Toshiba NB100 XP machine

    Dinky versatile swiss army knife of a machine.

    Three years old running Windows XP home on 2Gb and a 1.6Hz Atom, 120Gb HD and still a swift little work horse.

    Carry it around like a hardback book on the move. At home it hooks up to my 22" 1920x1080 display for extra space and I then forget I'm using a sub-notebook/netbook. Love it. Best of both worlds.

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