Are laptops getting worse?

[roelforg]

I started to notice how people are walking around with the latest shiny laptops.
When they see me and my beat-up (well, only a few scratches on the lid but the thing just looks old, and i don't care) acer, they laugh at me for using that old thing.
But when they see the smooth 3D and it's speed, they're silent.
Anyways, i've noticed how the number of ports on laptops is shrinking and screens keep decreasing in vertical space.
I also dislike (but that's personal) the shinyness because it scratches so fast.

So, are laptops getting worse?
Post your opinion now!

[Paqman]

They were getting a lot worse very quickly for a while, but things have improved a bit. They were getting enormous, it used to be easy to buy a sensible 13" or so laptop that didn't weigh a ton, but then people started buying them as desktop replacements and portability seemed to drop off the list of requirements.

Glossy screens are awful, but people keep buying them so somebody must like them. At least some matte options are creeping back in.

Battery life still sucks for everything except Macbooks and netbooks. Once Win8 lands we should finally get the ARM machines and that'll hopefully improve.

[Skara Brae]

Yes, they are getting worse, and for the same reasons that you, roelforg, mention.

Once Win8 lands we should finally get the ARM machines and that'll hopefully improve.

Microsoft Windows improving? I would find that astounding.

[roelforg]

Yes, they are getting worse, and for the same reasons that you, roelforg, mention.


Microsoft Windows improving? I would find that astounding.

Me too, and suddenly having every x86(_64) binary package useless on those arm systems isn't very useful either (just look at the debian-arm team and the difference between the arm and normal repos).

[Paqman]

Microsoft Windows improving? I would find that astounding.

I meant that once Microsoft ship an ARM version of Windows manufacturers will start to put ARM laptops in the shops in decent numbers. Anyone with good taste will of course be running Linux on them

[roelforg]

I meant that once Microsoft ship an ARM version of Windows manufacturers will start to put ARM laptops in the shops in decent numbers. Anyone with good taste will of course be running Linux on them

Anyone who followed the news right knows that ms will only let arm windows run on a mobo when it's locked to the point where only windows can run.

[Erik1984]

They were getting a lot worse very quickly for a while, but things have improved a bit. They were getting enormous, it used to be easy to buy a sensible 13" or so laptop that didn't weigh a ton, but then people started buying them as desktop replacements and portability seemed to drop off the list of requirements.

Glossy screens are awful, but people keep buying them so somebody must like them. At least some matte options are creeping back in.

Battery life still sucks for everything except Macbooks and netbooks. Once Win8 lands we should finally get the ARM machines and that'll hopefully improve.

Improving for Windows usage maybe. ARM notebooks that are Windows 8 certified will have secure boot that can't be turned off. I do look forward to ARM notebooks running Ubuntu, just hope there will be any.

[roelforg]

Improving for Windows usage maybe. ARM notebooks that are Windows 8 certified will have secure boot that can't be turned off. I do look forward to ARM notebooks running Ubuntu, just hope there will be any.

+1
But don't forget that the repos for arm will have to catch up first.

[Paqman]

Anyone who followed the news right knows that ms will only let arm windows run on a mobo when it's locked to the point where only windows can run.

The jury's still out on that. MS have time to flipflop on this (as is their way), and it's likely to get cracked pretty quickly. Just look at how quickly the Android community overcame signed bootloaders on the phones from a couple of years ago.

I'm not a subscriber to the Chicken Little camp of opinion on secure boot, even on ARM. The Linux community does this all the time, there's a great wailing and gnashing of teeth on some issue that turns out to be nothing.

[roelforg]

The jury's still out on that. MS have time to flipflop on this (as is their way), and it's likely to get cracked pretty quickly. Just look at how quickly the Android community overcame signed bootloaders on the phones from a couple of years ago.

I'm not a subscriber to the Chicken Little camp of opinion on secure boot, even on ARM. The Linux community does this all the time, there's a great wailing and gnashing of teeth on some issue that turns out to be nothing.

I know, but the difference between the android thing and the secure boot is this:
MS (a company with a very big influence) will force mobo makers to have their BIOS prevent the booting of any bootloader/os that doesn't match windows, Google never did such a thing with android.