It's nice to have a thin machine, but for a few extra millimeters we could have bigger batteries or better cooling. How they keep on getting away with this is just madness (Oh yeah, we buy them).
There's the problem though of 100Wh max battery capacity on flights, and fans using power.
That said, I find it ridiculous OEMs refuse to just make airplane-forbidden batteries. Not everyone is working during a business class flight... Or even catching flights. Hell, they could market it as "a battery so big it's illegal!" and "undeniably better than all its competitors!"
I'd like to see some 11.6 inch fanless notebooks with much larger capacity batteries. The extra thickness could also support slots for removable RAM and storage versus soldered down 4GB and 32GB or if you're buying a premium model, 64GB of eMMC. Then I could do a little more on the road with a reasonable sized laptop instead of having to purchase something in the 13-15 inch screen size class that does not fit anywhere. It's stuff like this that just makes me leave the PC at home and make do with a phone for any work on the road even if it is heavy lifting that is better suited to something with a keyboard and larger screen.
If I understand it correctly, the problem is that Lithium batteries above 100 Wh aren't allowed in the cabin, period. And most of us aren't comfortable shipping our laptops in the checked luggage; many companies even forbid it for their employees' work laptops.
The only way you'll find me on a plane is if someone is shipping my remains home, so I'll take the 200Wh battery, thanks.
It always drives me nuts, as the OP says, they make better laptop CPUs, say the introduction of the 15W CPU, then they use that capability to offer thinner and lighter laptops instead of keeping the form factor the same and giving us massive battery life.
They're starting to get their act together *finally*.
So are you guys going to review any of the 4000 series mobile Ryzen laptops? PC World did their review on Monday and it makes all of these Intel laptops obsolete. I understand logistics can be tricky with everyone working from home, but I've been checking every morning since Monday and nothing. Looks even worse when more than one Intel laptop review dropped today.
AT often doesn't have a day one review because they tend to go in depth. Give 'em time, these laptops have only just come out and those who have put out reviews said they didn't get much time with 'em so it's all early reporting.
Also, what are you talking about with "Looks even worse when more than one Intel laptop review dropped today."? AT hasn't posted any reviews of either new platform, they've basically just posted the press releases with a bit of commentary.
AMD changed the embargo date for 4000 mobile laptops and forgot to tell anyone at Anandtech. According to the twitter feed they're intending to have a review out for Monday.
I'm not sure 240 backlight zones really counts as "mini LED"... Just because a display has FALD doesn't mean you can call it "mini LED". It means a specific thing (chip size), so maybe they technically used LED chips that fell into the "mini LED" size range, but normally it's used to represent a much larger number of backlight zones than that.
A 4K screen with 240 zones mean that each backlight zone is responsible for 34,560 pixels, so you're going to see some serious haloing there.
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damianrobertjones - Thursday, April 2, 2020 - link
It's nice to have a thin machine, but for a few extra millimeters we could have bigger batteries or better cooling. How they keep on getting away with this is just madness (Oh yeah, we buy them).Unashamed_unoriginal_username_x86 - Thursday, April 2, 2020 - link
There's the problem though of 100Wh max battery capacity on flights, and fans using power.That said, I find it ridiculous OEMs refuse to just make airplane-forbidden batteries. Not everyone is working during a business class flight... Or even catching flights.
Hell, they could market it as "a battery so big it's illegal!" and "undeniably better than all its competitors!"
PeachNCream - Thursday, April 2, 2020 - link
I'd like to see some 11.6 inch fanless notebooks with much larger capacity batteries. The extra thickness could also support slots for removable RAM and storage versus soldered down 4GB and 32GB or if you're buying a premium model, 64GB of eMMC. Then I could do a little more on the road with a reasonable sized laptop instead of having to purchase something in the 13-15 inch screen size class that does not fit anywhere. It's stuff like this that just makes me leave the PC at home and make do with a phone for any work on the road even if it is heavy lifting that is better suited to something with a keyboard and larger screen.eastcoast_pete - Thursday, April 2, 2020 - link
If I understand it correctly, the problem is that Lithium batteries above 100 Wh aren't allowed in the cabin, period. And most of us aren't comfortable shipping our laptops in the checked luggage; many companies even forbid it for their employees' work laptops.0ldman79 - Thursday, April 2, 2020 - link
Some of us aren't a "flight risk" as it were.The only way you'll find me on a plane is if someone is shipping my remains home, so I'll take the 200Wh battery, thanks.
It always drives me nuts, as the OP says, they make better laptop CPUs, say the introduction of the 15W CPU, then they use that capability to offer thinner and lighter laptops instead of keeping the form factor the same and giving us massive battery life.
They're starting to get their act together *finally*.
zmatt - Thursday, April 2, 2020 - link
So are you guys going to review any of the 4000 series mobile Ryzen laptops? PC World did their review on Monday and it makes all of these Intel laptops obsolete. I understand logistics can be tricky with everyone working from home, but I've been checking every morning since Monday and nothing. Looks even worse when more than one Intel laptop review dropped today.wolrah - Thursday, April 2, 2020 - link
AT often doesn't have a day one review because they tend to go in depth. Give 'em time, these laptops have only just come out and those who have put out reviews said they didn't get much time with 'em so it's all early reporting.Also, what are you talking about with "Looks even worse when more than one Intel laptop review dropped today."? AT hasn't posted any reviews of either new platform, they've basically just posted the press releases with a bit of commentary.
DanNeely - Thursday, April 2, 2020 - link
AMD changed the embargo date for 4000 mobile laptops and forgot to tell anyone at Anandtech. According to the twitter feed they're intending to have a review out for Monday.0ldman79 - Thursday, April 2, 2020 - link
I don't know how Ian didn't hear about it.I run in the same circles on twitter and even I knew it was March 30th. I think it was an ad on twitter actually.
I suppose he probably has better things to do than pay attention to ads... lol
Guspaz - Friday, April 3, 2020 - link
I'm not sure 240 backlight zones really counts as "mini LED"... Just because a display has FALD doesn't mean you can call it "mini LED". It means a specific thing (chip size), so maybe they technically used LED chips that fell into the "mini LED" size range, but normally it's used to represent a much larger number of backlight zones than that.A 4K screen with 240 zones mean that each backlight zone is responsible for 34,560 pixels, so you're going to see some serious haloing there.