Opinion: It’s 2023, so shouldn’t mobile computing be better than this?

[Redaktion]

Having spent the past few weeks trying to find a new laptop, I have made a few observations about the landscape of mobile computing in 2023. Am I just a crazy old man yelling at clouds? You be the judge.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Opinion-It-s-2023-so-shouldn-t-mobile-computing-be-better-than-this.716118.0.html

[Wouter]

In my opinion, Lenovo's Thinkpad line now makes some awesome laptops. For example the T14 or P15v. They make for great refurbished laptops as well. Many laptops now have options for OLED screens and 720p webcams are (mostly) a thing of the past. On the more budget end, you've got brands like Xiaomi and Huawei introducing Macbook lookalikes for half the price, though unfortunately they're hard to get in Europe. One thing I agree that is worse now are keyboards though, very few laptops do a good job with that now.

[A]

For me, laptops have been going in the wrong direction for a good decade. I am all for making laptops lighter, but the race to make the thinnest laptop is pointless. I can understand companies making something like the LG Gram, those are fine. What isn't fine is trying to make every laptop in their lineup as LG Gram junior. The whole point of having different models is precisely to reach different needs right? Instead models have now just turned into Regular, Premium, Ultra Premium of all the same thing with a few different hardware specs. And in turn customization for laptops went out the window, you now just shop models

Even worse, these laptops are moving less and less from productivity to more and more just tablets with a keyboard. I want a proper touchpad with proper click buttons, good travel keyboard with proper keys (stop getting rid of important keys), and yes full sized arrow keys please! And of course matte screen and upgradable components(I like my 64gb ram and don't want to pay a grand for it if it is even an option)

At first we had some respite in business laptops, but even business laptops started to follow consumer laptops into being junk.

Though I personally don't care too much about having a 3.5mm port or not, unless you are doing something analog, I just attach a converter to my headphones and keep it on with the headphones. It doesn't provide too much inconvenience, a bigger inconvenience is lack of ports altogether. 2-3 usb ports is no where enough.

For me the best changes in laptops has been:

- AMD releasing APUs. I don't game on my laptop at max settings, I just need a good amount of GPU power to have gpu acceleration for browser and other stuff. Having decently powerful APUs means I don't need dedicated gpus anymore. If I ever need more gpu power, eGPU or cloud gpus will get me what I need

- USB-C, finally we have alternative ways to charge our devices in case our power port breaks. We also have ways to do video out, networking and run all our accessories on one unified port. I have enough adapters around my house to go from ground to sealing (hdmi, mini-hdmi, micro-hdmi, vga, dp, mini-dp, dvi(ones with 4 pins and ones without), mini-dvi, micro-dvi, all the barrels of different size, mini-usb, micro-usb, usb-a, usb-b, 3.5mm, sata, m2 and etc). It will still be a while before everything has a usb-c port, but at the very least I only need to usb-c adapters and not start mixing and matching multiple adapters and hope they work

[A]

Forgot to add, while APUs have been awesome, what isn't awesome is vendors pairing top end APUs with dGPUs and no option to just have the APU without the dGPU

[L. H.]

But we still have 2 interesting options:

The Samsung Galaxy Book 3 line.
And the iPad Pro 12.9 M2 with a detachable keyboard.

But if you want, you can simply use a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra in Dex mode with a monitor and a keyboard and mouse via usb-c adapter.

[LL]

I concur a lot with gist of article.

It seems companies lost their ethos of doing products for clients and now have a lot of other priorities before arriving to the poor client.

For example Lenovo forces you to buy a top of the line CPU 13900 to have a 4080 or 4090 Nvidia. I wonder if Nvidia realises this prevents them selling top of the line GPU's

Then there is the whole pre historic thing that a laptop can't work fully silent while the user are seeing youtube, doing office, sending emails, seeing a movie, listening to music.
Toutatis! a mere 4Gb RAM, Snapdragon smartphone from +4 years ago can do it without any noise.

Then we have Nvidia policy of laptops GPU having less VRAM. A drastic example of this is the RTX 4070 only 8 Gb in laptops but 12 Gb in desktop. A giant difference of 50%.


 

[flaep]

Thats what happens when sites like notebookcheck.com hype every s*** brick that is thrown into the market.

You notebookcheck, played yourself.

[asl97]

While it's not ideal to be carrying a whole bunch of accessories, USB hub, Powerbank and Type C DAC should extend your options greatly

Signs are showing OEM wants to cut budget DGPU so I guess wait a while more for it for mid-low end chipset without a weak DGPU like the MX series

[21jaaj]

Author, is the 13th gen Intel or Ryzen 7040U Framework laptop not almost exactly what you're looking for? Its only weakness is battery life, though the newer models (and I suspect the AMD edition in particular) promise good improvements in that regard.

[Kenneth]

Laptop manufacturers give better design to Intel CPUs but not AMD. This does not benefit consumers since they would also like better and lightweight laptop design with AMD CPUs. Like the HP Dragonfly Pro which uses AMD but the weight of the laptop is 1.55kg. And HP still use the brand name "Dragonfly" for marketing which the laptop itself is not lightweight at all, unlike the Intel counterpart machine.

[The Werewolf]

The "problem" is that for most people, a laptop is a portable desktop. You carry it from one place to another and plug it in. In fact, that's why the transition to USB-C and PD 2.0 was such a big deal on laptops - it meant that the power brick could be used for ALL your devices (most people don't use eGPUs, TBH).

So while we all feel we need 16hr 'all day' battery life, the reality is that very few of us really use all that. On the commute to/from work if you use transit - maybe on a plane (although at seat power is becoming the norm) - even going to a coffee shop - more and more of them have power rails and power by the seats for regulars, while the power bricks as getting smaller and lighter thanks to GaN tech and of course, your USB-C cable is universal.

Many budget laptops have two SODIMM slots, so upgrading memory and SSD is often an option.

Oddly, requiring USB-4/TB-4/TB-3 kind of negates the 'budget' part. That's still mainly a high end feature. Conversely if you do find a laptop with that, it's almost always going to be mid-tier to high end, so upgradable memory and SSD is very likely. Similarly, if you want a full sized keyboard - same thing, that's mid to high end.

Of course that depends on your definitions. To me, low end is US$250-US$600, mid-range is US$600-$1250, and high end is US$1250+. Over US$1750 and you're in the specialty range.

[CmdrEvil]

Thanks for your opinion!

Regarding ports problem - that is why I love my 2021 legion 5 - amazing value for money, 5800h offers great battery life in the range of 8-9hours when browsing.

Rtx 3070 is plenty quick for all games played in high settings in ultrawide qhd.

And port selection...? I'm able to use them all at once without ever needing an adapter ( plenty type c and type a usbs is a gift!)

I'm definitely skipping this gen  due to poor battery life and absurd price hikes. Maybe NVIDIA 5000 series Will bring something decent to the table - but probably I'll be good til series 6000 easily

[A]

For example Lenovo forces you to buy a top of the line CPU 13900 to have a 4080 or 4090 Nvidia. I wonder if Nvidia realises this prevents them selling top of the line GPU's

Considering how hard it is to get a top of the line CPU without a GPU it makes up for it

Laptop manufacturers give better design to Intel CPUs but not AMD. This does not benefit consumers since they would also like better and lightweight laptop design with AMD CPUs.

Doesn't intel pay manufacturers to make designs that fit certain benchmarks?

if you want a full sized keyboard - same thing, that's mid to high end.

Full sized you mean number keys on the right? But some don't need that when they say not missing keys since numbers keys are in theory duplicate keys. But things like missing Home and End key, or pg up and pg down. All stuck behind the fn key

[LL]

Considering how hard it is to get a top of the line CPU without a GPU it makes up for it

? I am not talking about extremes, i don't say that 4090 card should be paired with the lowest of lowest AMD/Intel offers an i3 or so. But to have a medium level option, a 13500 or 13700 same for AMD equivalent.

And that way Nvidia would sell much more higher GPU's.

[Aindriú]

I couldn't agree more, I really despise all the ports missing, 8GB of RAM when the minimum should be 16GB, crazy high resolutions on relatively small displays, glossy screens with no option for matte ones, inefficient Intel chips and poor battery life.  Laptops are designed and built for retailers who know nothing about portable computing and make life Dickensian for everyone.