GPUs & CPUs & Enthusiast hardware: Questions, Discussion and fanboy slap-fights - Nvidia & AMD & Intel - Separe but Equal. Intel rides in the back of the bus.

[Brain Problems]

I can't believe this thread has turned me into (may Allah forgive me for even uttering it) a laptop macfag. Nothing you say will convince me desktop-wise so don't waste your breath. Cellphones I know nothing about and curious if peoples' autism here extends to that realm. I don't give a shit about phones at all except for how good the camera is and how not-shittily it can load applications.

Maybe this website does make you gay.

 

[DavidS877]

I can't believe this thread has turned me into (may Allah forgive me for even uttering it) a laptop macfag. Nothing you say will convince me desktop-wise so don't waste your breath. Cellphones I know nothing about and curious if peoples' autism here extends to that realm. I don't give a shit about phones at all except for how good the camera is and how not-shittily it can load applications.

Maybe this website does make you gay.

Did you put the required LGBTQIAP+ flag sticker and pronoun stickers on the laptop yet? Apple won't honor the warranty if they're missing.

 

[The Ugly One]

I can't believe this thread has turned me into (may Allah forgive me for even uttering it) a laptop macfag. Nothing you say will convince me desktop-wise so don't waste your breath. Cellphones I know nothing about and curious if peoples' autism here extends to that realm. I don't give a shit about phones at all except for how good the camera is and how not-shittily it can load applications.

Maybe this website does make you gay.

I, like you, don't give a shit about phones and have an older Samsung. Seems like just getting a very mid phone every few years is fine. Camera's fine. Scrolling hate sites works fine. Pandora is fine. I just don't give a shit about phones that do more. Unlike my Win86 laptop, it doesn't actively annoy me by failing at its purpose.

 

[Susanna]

I can't believe this thread has turned me into (may Allah forgive me for even uttering it) a laptop macfag. Nothing you say will convince me desktop-wise so don't waste your breath. Cellphones I know nothing about and curious if peoples' autism here extends to that realm. I don't give a shit about phones at all except for how good the camera is and how not-shittily it can load applications.

It's okay to support a superior product. Macbooks are pretty much uncontested as the best laptops right now. On desktop, even someone who likes macOS (like me) would find it hard to justify getting a mac, but that's because the things that make Apple Silicon so great in phones and laptops don't apply. A desktop isn't size constrained, and how much power it uses is pretty much irrelevant. Apple Silicon is remarkably powerful for how few watts it runs on, but in high-end PCs 1kW power supplies aren't uncommon, and a high-end x86 CPU with a mid-range GPU will trounce the M2 Ultra easily. I love macOS and have money to spare, but even I would never buy a Mac Studio. The Mac Pro is basically for businesses who specifically need macOS workstations on fibre connections, it's irrelevant for almost everyone.

 

[11 Herbs and Spices]

Cellphones I know nothing about and curious if peoples' autism here extends to that realm. I don't give a shit about phones at all except for how good the camera is and how not-shittily it can load applications.

Phone autism is more akin to Linuxfags: their arguments hinge on use cases of <1% of the userbase or otherwise the most minor of things. If anyone has any actual loyalty to a phone ecosystem, they've either wasted five figures of money on it or that many hours arguing about distros.

 

[Susanna]

Phone autism is more akin to Linuxfags: their arguments hinge on use cases of <1% of the userbase or otherwise the most minor of things. If anyone has any actual loyalty to a phone ecosystem, they've either wasted five figures of money on it or that many hours arguing about distros.

I've mainly used iPhones, but I have owned android phones too. I absolutely prefer iPhones for a number of reasons:

• Better quality. Aluminium and glass on both sides means it's rigid. Android phones usually only have glass on the front and aluminium on the sides, with the back being plastic. It makes them feel cheap and flimsy.
• Better hardware. Apple chips have much better performance than the qualcomm garbage androids use. iPhones feel snappy to use, while on Android you have to turn on developer tools and turn all the animations off to not feel like the phone is lagging just opening the menu. During animations like an app sliding from one view to another, on android the frame rate often drops such that you can see each individual frame.
• More battery life for a given volume. Android has options where the phone is twice as thick, and obviously Apple can't compete with the battery life then, but for slim flagship phones, Apple reigns supreme.
• iCloud is a much better backup system than the fragmented Android systems that are never compatible between makes.
• Stability. Only twice has an iPhone crashed on me and actually needed to reboot to fix. On Android that was a weekly experience.
• iMessage and FaceTime, best video call and messaging apps on the market.
• Better camera experience. Android has options with better camera hardware, but something about iPhone photo app just makes it take better pictures.
• File manager with built-in SMB support. It's easy to connect my iPhone to my home network over wireguard and access that storage directly, Android makes you use shady third party apps.
• Lifetime. Apple phones last longer. Apple guarantees updates for five years, but in practice that stretches as long as eight. On Android you're lucky to get three years before you need an upgrade.

Am I loyal to the iPhone? I guess, but only because of the poor experience Androids have given me. Even a low-end iPhone is a better experience than a flagship Android phone, I shudder to imagine what a cheap Android would be like.

 

[Betonhaus]

Am I loyal to the iPhone? I guess, but only because of the poor experience Androids have given me. Even a low-end iPhone is a better experience than a flagship Android phone, I shudder to imagine what a cheap Android would be like.

 

[11 Herbs and Spices]

[...]

Spoiler: off-topic

My first smartphone was the launch iPhone and then a 3G then a 4 and then a flagship Droid and back and forth since. I have no loyalty to either and don't even really carry photos or such forward when migrating, just backing them up on a computer and a backup drive. I will agree with build quality and QoL features to iOS/iPhones that Androids all universally suck at. You can just say they're niggercattle devices but at the end of the day, they worked their main focus extremely well. The use cases I was talking about were the people that use their smartphone as a retarded version of a laptop with things you wouldn't want to do on a mobile device without a keyboard. It's the "freedom" to do whatever you want with Android devices that they're talking about but it's never anything really core for a phone to do. Apple is anti-consumer in too many ways worth listing but it doesn't make Android phones somehow a better experience. Edit: I meant to add I would just say you're with a preference, not someone loyal to an ecosystem. Most people simply do not care that much about their phone as long as it's not shit.

 

[Susanna]

Spoiler: off-topic

My first smartphone was the launch iPhone and then a 3G then a 4 and then a flagship Droid and back and forth since. I have no loyalty to either and don't even really carry photos or such forward when migrating, just backing them up on a computer and a backup drive. I will agree with build quality and QoL features to iOS/iPhones that Androids all universally suck at. You can just say they're niggercattle devices but at the end of the day, they worked their main focus extremely well. The use cases I was talking about were the people that use their smartphone as a retarded version of a laptop with things you wouldn't want to do on a mobile device without a keyboard. It's the "freedom" to do whatever you want with Android devices that they're talking about but it's never anything really core for a phone to do. Apple is anti-consumer in too many ways worth listing but it doesn't make Android phones somehow a better experience. Edit: I meant to add I would just say you're with a preference, not someone loyal to an ecosystem. Most people simply do not care that much about their phone as long as it's not shit.

Ironically I think one of my favourite "laptop replacement" ideas has only ever actually been implemented by a low-end Android manufacturer. Basically the idea is that for most people, a work laptop is more than is usually needed, while a work phone often isn't enough. So have a work phone you can plug into a dock at a desk, which has a displayport to connect a monitor, and a USB port to plug in a mouse and keyboard. So basically your phone charger turns the phone into your office computer. Phones do have enough compute power to do 99% of office work, so it would be a good way to cut down on costs, and could let you easily bring work with you for presentations or to work from home. But obviously the idea never caught on.

 

[11 Herbs and Spices]

Ironically I think one of my favourite "laptop replacement" ideas has only ever actually been implemented by a low-end Android manufacturer. Basically the idea is that for most people, a work laptop is more than is usually needed, while a work phone often isn't enough. So have a work phone you can plug into a dock at a desk, which has a displayport to connect a monitor, and a USB port to plug in a mouse and keyboard. So basically your phone charger turns the phone into your office computer. Phones do have enough compute power to do 99% of office work, so it would be a good way to cut down on costs, and could let you easily bring work with you for presentations or to work from home. But obviously the idea never caught on.
View attachment 5535312

With the switch to USB-C, I wonder if Apple will try a spin on it. I doubt it since it'll cut into their corporate sales but it would be neat to see.

 

[Susanna]

With the switch to USB-C, I wonder if Apple will try a spin on it. I doubt it since it'll cut into their corporate sales but it would be neat to see.

Sadly, I doubt it. M1 iPads were the perfect opportunity for a "laptop mode", since the hardware now could run both iOS and macOS directly. There seems to exist zero intent to make a mobile device that can dock to work like a desktop device. Despite their reputation Apple aren't really a very innovative company, they never have been. They make more polished versions of products that already exist. The Macintosh was just a modernised Xerox Alto, the iPhone combined the Palm Treo with the LG Prada to make a touchscreen phone people would actually want to own, and the iPad was little more than someone watching Star Trek TNG and realising that the PADD is basically just a big iPhone, and the requirement for a stylus was a big part of why tabletPCs (and smartphones) never caught on earlier.

 

[AmpleApricots]

I have a chink phone. I recently replaced battery and the whole PCB where the USB-C port was located (because it got wonky)

costs? ~25 €

A friend of mine broke his iphone oled screen a while ago. The spare parts cost about 180€ (+ Programmer for ripping the eeprom of the old screen) and that thing was an overengineered nightmare to take apart and had lodged some moisture, as I found out when taking it apart, as the rubber seal apparently detoriated in one corner at some point. (My guess is some cleaning agent managing to work it's way in) My phone doesn't even have one, just a snapped on metal case, secured by two screws. It relies on the shape of the case+physics for being water resistant. (not waterproof, but neither is the iphone) Quite a good design actually, simple but I liked it. I bought it because it has a long history of being supported by LineageOS and being cheap. I don't really use it for much.

Same friend also bought an iPad and we played around with it trying to use it as a desktop in some way, do some game emulation, even configure it for game streaming from a PC. Eventually we gave up in frustration. It's insane how locked down that thing is. Apple intends it to be a media consumption device first and foremost and it is noticeable. There's a way around some of the limitations by buying a "developer's pass" you have to pay for I think it was annually but jeez. It was like pulling teeth. Apple truly thinks it is not your device, but you're only allowed to use it.

Ironically I think one of my favourite "laptop replacement" ideas has only ever actually been implemented by a low-end Android manufacturer.

You can do that with any phone/tablet where the USB-C port is also a DisplayPort and allows receiving power while being used as host. (otherwise your battery will be dead in five minutes - you can even skip the display port part, there's some specific IC in some docks that works with proprietary software and is basically a low latency video stream decoder hooked up to a HDMI or DP port) The USB-C spec has all this.. it's just rarely implemented completely. Android even has some tentative support for stacking windows last time I checked. The biggest problem probably would be getting good performance out of these devices because while they often have very impressive SoCs on paper, they're usually significantly thermally limited by the device they're in.

When some penny shaving bean counter looks for a way to look good in front of the execs, the USB-C implementation on any given device is usually the first thing that suffers as a result. USB can do a lot of fancy shit, you can even connect two PCs directly via USB 3 and have a very fast connection. Bet never heard of that one either. Because the ICs allowing the port to switch modes and be used that way cost a little more and are basically never found in desktop PCs and only sometimes in Laptops. That's why USB-C is always such a fucking mess, you never know which subset of features was actually implemented.

Also remember that USB-C is not only 5V but can negotiate for different voltages, that's why such a high wattage via an USB-C port is quite possible. If it's implemented properly on your particular device on every port though...

 

[jeff7989]

I watched enough Rossman's videos to think that Apple products are gay antiuser toys. Sure they may look pretty, but I'm not woman. Keep your ARM toys, I'll stick with my x86 Ryzen laptop, it runs cool, has 64GB of RAM, pretty vibrant 144Hz IPS screen, user replaceable RAM and two standard 2280 NVME bays, guess what, storage can be expanded by user as well without reballing, losing warranty and fucking with NAND programmers.
I am pretty excited to see AMD's Big-Little with cores that don't compromise on instruction set. Hopefully intel unfucks itself and releases something that isn't a housefire to compete.

 

[Susanna]

Ryzen laptop

user replaceable RAM

Not a great combination. Ryzen thrives on high-frequency memory, and user replaceable SODIMM means you're on 5600MT/s, if not (shudder) 4800MT/s.
Also, IPS panels suck. Hideous glow in the corners, washed out colours, it can't do blacks any darker than a very bright blue, and so much motion blur that the high advertised frequencies are utterly meaningless.

 

[jeff7989]

Quick google shows 6400MT/s kit from Kingston. If it doesn't work with AMD right now them I'm sure it will in future.

Spoiler

I'm on DDR4 3200 right now, waiting for a laptop which will double my GPU performance, current options provide 30% when going for similar price I paid two years ago. Doubling CPU oomph in multithreaded tasks is tempting but I can hold for two years.

I can feel a clear difference in perceived smoothness between 60 and 144 hertz by the way. I'm happy with it, I'm not a "content creator".

 

[Susanna]

Quick google shows 6400MT/s kit from Kingston. If it doesn't work with AMD right now them I'm sure it will in future.

Spoiler

I'm on DDR4 3200 right now, waiting for a laptop which will double my GPU performance, current options provide 30% when going for similar price I paid two years ago. Doubling CPU oomph in multithreaded tasks is tempting but I can hold for two years.

I can feel a clear difference in perceived smoothness between 60 and 144 hertz by the way. I'm happy with it, I'm not a "content creator".

I did a quick search too, and couldn't find anyone actually selling anything above 5600MT/s. It'll probably exist one day, but for now I'm fairly sure the only way to get DDR5 over 6000MT/s is if it's soldered.
Yeah, doubling the framerate will make it feel smoother even though the result is super blurry. I'm not a "content creator" either, but LCD panels suffer from smearing issues even when you're just watching TV-series (which are 30fps), and IPS is only marginally better than VA there. By contrast my OLED TVs display things much more crisply.

 

[DavidS877]

Apple intends it to be a media consumption device first and foremost and it is noticeable.

And it's still only good at that within their walled garden.
My Android phone has a 1TB MicroSD and a program called foldersync. Before I travel I tap the button and foldersync copies any updates from my media library to my phone.

VLC on my iPad just barely works, to copy stuff I either have to hook it to Wifi and then open a web browser on my laptop to copy the files or use the VLC GUI on the iPad to download them.

Maybe there's more automated sync for iOS now, but I haven't looked in a while since the current pain in the ass method works well enough.

Similarly Music, I can use Apple tools to play in the standard player or I can use alternate tools to play in other players, but a simple rsync from server:/flac to the default iOS player doesn't seem to exist.

 

[Susanna]

And it's still only good at that within their walled garden.
My Android phone has a 1TB MicroSD and a program called foldersync. Before I travel I tap the button and foldersync copies any updates from my media library to my phone.

VLC on my iPad just barely works, to copy stuff I either have to hook it to Wifi and then open a web browser on my laptop to copy the files or use the VLC GUI on the iPad to download them.

Maybe there's more automated sync for iOS now, but I haven't looked in a while since the current pain in the ass method works well enough.

Similarly Music, I can use Apple tools to play in the standard player or I can use alternate tools to play in other players, but a simple rsync from server:/flac to the default iOS player doesn't seem to exist.

VLC on iOS has SMB support, just connect to your NAS over wifi/wireguard and watch your media library directly. You can also use AirPlay to easily cast the video to a TV. No need to sync your media library or anything like that, just use a NAS the way a NAS is meant to be used...

 

[Betonhaus]

VLC on iOS has SMB support, just connect to your NAS over wifi/wireguard and watch your media library directly. You can also use AirPlay to easily cast the video to a TV. No need to sync your media library or anything like that, just use a NAS the way a NAS is meant to be used...

Jellyfin has an iOS app and is a much more seamless experience then VLC...

 

[Susanna]

Jellyfin has an iOS app and is a much more seamless experience then VLC...

I agree, but the guy specifically mentioned VLC as not having a feature VLC very much does have.