You know when grown-ups tell you everything's going to be fine, and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better?
Yes.
Everything's going to be fine.

Sunday, April 30

Geek

Daily News Stuff 30 April 2023

Road To Nowhere Edition

Top Story


Tech News

  • Microsoft has been quietly - very quietly - supporting right-to-repair legislation.  (Grist)

    Apple is the Wicked Witch here.  Microsoft has actually made small improvements, like user-replaceable storage in many of its Surface tablets.  Apple meanwhile is at war with its own authorised repair centers, requiring them to sign NDAs forbidding them from even mentioning the existence of the NDA.


  • AMD's Radeon 7800 graphics cards will have 16GB of RAM.  (WCCFTech)

    There's been a lot of fuss recently over the fact that 8GB of VRAM - as found on the previous generation's 3070 Ti - is no longer enough to run some new games at full resolution.  Performance isn't just a little bit slower; in some cases the 3070 Ti is slower than the much cheaper 3060 because that card has 12GB of VRAM.

    So AMD is making a fuss about its high-mid-range cards having 16GB, as much VRAM as Nvidia's 4080 at half the price.

    The Radeon 7700 will have 12GB of VRAM like the 6700 - the article doesn't mention this but knowing AMD's RDNA3 cache design, 48MB of cache means 12GB of VRAM.  12GB is probably fine for a low-mid-range card like this.



Disclaimer: Ow.  Thumped in the basket by a biscuit.

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Saturday, April 29

Geek

Daily News Stuff 29 April 2023

Almost Exactly Except Not Edition

Top Story

  • The AOKZOE A1 Pro has AMD's latest Ryzen 7840U and up to 64GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD.  (Liliputing)

    That should make it close to twice as fast on the CPU side as my new laptop and more than twice as fast on the GPU side.  Memory isn't upgradeable but since the entry model has 32GB and 64GB is available as an option, that's not a problem.

    Confusingly, it also has a 1920x1200 8" screen covering 100% of sRGB and the other four essential keys - the A, B, X, and Y buttons from an Xbox controller.

    Because it's a handheld gaming device and not a tablet or a laptop.  It's like they've been reading all my complaints and did their best to produce the perfect device but spilled coffee on the plans at some point.

    The Asus ROG Ally has similar specs but is limited to 16GB of RAM and uses a smaller 7" 1920x1080 display.  It also nominally uses the AMD Z1 Extreme CPU, but that's just a rebranded 7840U.

    Same thing for the Aya Neo Air Plus, Neo 2S, Neo Geek 1S, and the forthcoming Neo Slide.

    The Neo Slide being a little different because it actually has a keyboard.  Would have been a very useful thing to have when I travelled more - full laptop power that fits in a coat pocket.

Tech News




Disclaimer: BWCHNT WBAGNFARB.

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Friday, April 28

Geek

Daily News Stuff 28 April 2023

Number Five Is Alive Edition

Top Story

  • The Asus Flashtor (not FlashStor as I had it previously) is in stock right now on Amazon's US and AU sites.  I couldn't find it before because I was spelling it wrong.*

    Curiously enough the Australian pricing is almost exactly at MSRP when you account for exchange rates and sales tax, while the US price is 8% higher.  Usually it's very much the other way around - Gigabyte's laptops for example cost 30% more in Australia.

    I want one, but I won't be able to afford to fill it with SSDs until maybe September.  I think it supports volume capacity upgrades, though, so I can start with one SSD and then add a couple more at a time.  (One reason to go for Btrfs over ZFS.)

    * Wait, no.  I had it right.  The listings on Amazon are wrong - and it's being sold directly by Asus.



  • Intel is not having a good day.  (Tom's Hardware)

    Sales for Q1 of 2023 were down 36% over 2022 and profits were down 133%, which is, well, bad; the company lost $2.8 billion.  Mind you, that's 30% less than Facebook's Metaverse project lost in the same period.

    Server chips usually save Intel when consumer sales are weak, but not this time: Consumer products were down 38%, while datacenter products were down 39%.  Mobileye was the only bright spot with sales up 16%

    I have no idea what Mobileye is.

Tech News

  • Need to connect more monitors but only have a low-profile PCIe slot free like maybe you have a Hyte Y60 with a main graphics card or a SilverStone CS01-HS case?  And you're allergic to fan noise?

    Matrox - yes, they're still around - has you covered.  (WCCFTech)

    These are low-end Intel Arc A310 and A380 cards, so don't plan on playing anything more taxing than Minecraft.  The A310 is equivalent to Intel's Xe integrated graphics with the full 96 cores, while the A380 is one step up from that with 128 cores.

    Since the cards have dedicated VRAM they'll likely perform a bit above expectations.  And one of the A310 cards is a 30W passively cooled model.

    All will run four 4K or two 8K monitors over DisplayPort.

    Price is not mentioned anywhere which means it will be way more expensive than you think.


  • Colorado has signed into law a right-to-repair bill for farm equipment.  (Ars Technica)

    Louis Rossman has been covering this for years on YouTube.  A right-to-repair bill passed in the New York legislature but was killed by Governor Kathy Hochul, so I think this is the first major piece of such legislation to become law.


  • Twitter competitor Bluesky is dead.  (Tech Crunch)

    It's still wriggling around but these people are fucking morons, even dumber than the ones running Twitter before Elon Musk fired them all.

    Nearly as dumb as the utter retards of the tech media reporting on them.  (The Verge)

    I'm all for competitors to Twitter but these people don't have a single functional brain cell shared among the lot of them.


  • Clubhouse, a kind of spoken-word Twitter that was briefly pseudo-popular during the Wuhan Bat Flu Death Plague, has fired half its employees.  (Tech Crunch)

    The total number of which reportedly never exceeded 100, so it's possible they didn't burn through all their capital and are about to die.  Just slowly fade back into obscurity.


Disclaimer: Mute them all.  God will know his own.

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Thursday, April 27

Geek

Daily News Stuff 27 April 2023

The Thirteenth Hour Edition

Top Story

Tech News

Disclaimer: Quittin' time!

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Geek

Have Laptop, Won't Travel

It's here already already.

Genuinely impressed.

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Wednesday, April 26

Geek

Daily News Stuff 26 April 2023

Ship Shipping Ships Edition

Top Story

  • Ordered my new laptop at 9:30 this morning.  It shipped at 1:45 this afternoon.

    HP has it all over Dell in this department, at least for Australia.  Dell seems to ship out of Singapore.  Takes them days to ship and then a week to arrive.


  • The tech startup sector is fucked beyond imagining.  (Tech Crunch)

    On an annualised basis, successful exits for VC funds in this sector are down 97% from 2021.

    The article is behind a paywall but nobody really cares.


Tech News

  • Rapid - formerly Rapid API - which was recently valued at $1 billion, has laid off half its staff and frozen all hiring.  (Tech Crunch)

    I took a look at their site.  I can see where they'd need 20 or 30 staff to build that system and deal with customers and payments.  

    They had 230.

    Now they have half that.

    They took $150 million in funding a year ago so the question is, did they correct course in time or have they burned through their case and are about to fold?


  • Apple pays a lot of money to TSMC to get first dibs on the latest chip technology and sometimes that doesn't entirely work out.  (WCCFTech)

    The next generation iPhone may be in short supply because only 55% of 3nm chips coming off the production line pass testing.  That's not terrible - Samsung started 3nm production earlier and their first production runs apparently yielded something like 20% fully working chips - but throwing out half your product isn't great either.

    On the seventh hand, without Apple customers paying too much money for shiny gadgets TSMC wouldn't be able to churn out cheap 4/5/6/7nm chips for AMD and Nvidia.


  • Speaking of Nvidia, nobody continues to buy the 4070.  (WCCFTech)

    It's not that expensive, but the people for whom money is no object (or creative professionals for whom time is money) already bought a 4080 or 4090.  Customers for the 4070 are at least a bit price-sensitive and they seem to have decided to wait a bit and see what happens.

    Which frees up some 4nm capacity at TSMC because Nvidia seems to be cutting production rather than prices.


  • Nine ways to shoot yourself in the foot with PostgreSQL.  (Phil Booth)

    I was an early user of PostgreSQL but then MySQL got good enough (mostly) and PostgreSQL got complicated (very).  I would like to dive into PostgreSQL and learn more of its tricks, and learning the bad tricks is a good start.


  • Microsoft's revenues are up 7%.  (Thurrott.com)

    Or, given inflation, they're stagnant.


  • Google's revenues are up 3%.  (Thurrott.com)

    Which means they're down.


  • Intel's PC revenues are down 53% for Q1 over the same quarter last year.  (WCCFTech)

    I hope their server sales are better.  Their server CPUs suck compared to AMDs, but companies buy them anyway.


  • Digital Ocean has opened a datacenter in Sydney.  Last November, apparently.

    Kind of handy except we already have Vultr and Binary Lane (an Aussie company) and OVH (French) and all the major players.


  • Web spiders suck in general, and web spiders that explicitly ignore robots.txt suck twice as hard.  (Motherboard)

    Should call them web mosquitoes.


  • I noticed that Amazon Australia finally has the Team MP34 4TB model at a reasonable price and I don't need to buy it from Amazon US.

    Except they don't.  It's a marketplace listing from Australian computer store Scorptec.  And it's cheaper on their own site.

    I'm planning to buy about 20 of these as I fit out all my new computers over the next year or so, so I got one to give a workout in my new laptop.

    There are some cheaper 4TB SSDs now but those are QLC and DRAMless which is fine for regular files but much less fine for databases and virtual servers.


  • AMD's new Ryzen Z1 and Z1 Extreme CPUs have been announced.  (Tom's Hardware)

    The Z1 Extreme is the 7840U.  Literally the same chip, just marketed at handheld game consoles rather than laptops.  The Z1 is probably the 7640U or 7540U.

    AMD and Intel sell a lot more different chips than they actually make.  The Ryzen 7900, 7900X, and 7950X desktop CPUs and the 7945HX laptop CPU all have exactly the same silicon on them, and there are there are half a dozen other models with the same silicon but one fewer chip on board.  It costs a fortune to make a new chip, even based on an existing one, so when it is at all possibly to avoid doing so, they don't.

    All that said, the 7840U looks to be great.  I want that in my next laptop.  Which might be a while since I just bought one this morning.


  • Oh, and speaking of Apple's overpriced toys, I priced a MacBook Pro with the same configuration as my new HP Pavilion 14.

    Almost exactly four times as much.


Disclaimer: Which used to be a lot and still is.

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Geek

Best I Can Do

The HP Pavilion 14.

The Pavilion Plus 14 has my ideal keyboard layout, a 2240x1400 LCD screen or a 2880x1800 OLED, and an Intel 1240P or 12700H CPU - but has just 16GB of soldered RAM.

The Pavilion 14 without the plus has my ideal keyboard layout, a 1920x1080 LCD screen - but not an awful one, it's still 100% sRGB, and a Ryzen 5625U (5825U available as a build-to-order option in the US but not Australia).  And two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots.

And right now it's 20% off in Australia, and because the memory and SSD can easily be swapped, and I already have suitable replacements, I can buy the cheapest model with just 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.

If it weren't upgradeable that configuration would be instant e-waste, but give me a couple of hours and it will be 64GB and 4TB.

Sold.  Not quite perfect, but it will do.

Update: Order placed.  I managed to control myself and only bought one.  I know that two is one and one is none, but I have four other working laptops.  One of them is pretty beaten up, but there are three that are still as-new, just a couple of generations out of date.  Though technically with a Ryzen 5625U this one is also a couple of generations out of date.

Also Update: Ordered another 64GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD so I can max out everything.  A year ago 2TB SSDs were plentiful and relatively cheap but 4TB SSDs were few and expensive.  Now 4TB SSDs are plentiful and cheap but 8GB SSDs are few and expensive.

4TB M.2 SSDs start at about $200; the cheapest 8TB models are around $1000.  Fortunately the new Asus FlashStor devices solve this problem, as long as 10Gbps is fast enough for your use case.

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Tuesday, April 25

Geek

Daily News Stuff 25 April 2023

Rise of the DIMM Hero Edition

Top Story

  • With SSD pricing in free fall - I just checked on the PNY CS2241 and the 4TB model is down by 45% since January - it is tempting to just buy a dozen of them and build a big RAID-5 array and forget about mechanical drives and their abysmal random I/O performance (one budget SSD can do as many random I/Os as two hundred mechanical drives) and their inevitable hardware failures.

    Except - how?  There are some expensive hardware NVMe RAID cards but they won't work in my case - literally - because my Hyte Y60 PC case only accepts one full-height card.  There are cheap half-height cards that take one or two SSDs but depend on channel bifurcation and most consumer motherboards just don't have the PCIe lanes.  And there's the SilverStone CS01-HS which tough luck I just bought the last two on the market.

    And then there's the Asus FlashStor 6 and 12 Pro, which are compact desktop boxes (12x8x2 inches) that take 6 and 12 M.2 SSDs respectively.  (AnandTech)

    The FlashStor 6 has dual 2.5Gb Ethernet ports; the 12 Pro has a single 10Gb port.  Apart from that they share a 6W Intel Celeron N5105 CPU (not fast, but adequate for this kind of thing), 4GB of RAM, four USB ports, HDMI, and an S/PDIF audio output if you want to use one as a media server.

    Which is not a terrible idea: There are no noising spinning drives and the cooling fan is nearly silent at 18dB.

    These are real NASes too.  They run Btrfs where I'm a ZFS fan, but they support snapshots, SMB, NFS, iSCSI (so you can mount part of the space it as a dedicated rather than a shared disk), rsync, and a swarm of Docker apps if you're into that kind of thing.

    4GB of RAM will disappear fast if you're running Docker apps, but the memory is upgradeable using standard DDR4 SO-DIMMs, which I have lying around everywhere.  The specs say it goes to a maximum of 16GB, but I've seen reports that these Celeron chips work fine with 32GB.

    $449 for the FlashStor 6, $799 for the 12 Pro.  I'm going to get that one as soon as I can.  Even if I can't get 10Gb Ethernet running for the whole house it's small and quiet enough that it can sit in the main office rather than the computer room.

    Oh, and while there are no spinning drives included, either model will support up to two external expansion units with four 3.5" drives each if you need more capacity.

Tech News

  • If you need a tiny high-performance fanless router to complete your home network after CWWK (who?) has you covered.  (Serve the Home)

    The i5-1235U is more than three times the speed of the N5105 in the Asus NAS above, so it should be able to keep the packets flying through the six 2.5Gb Ethernet ports and the optional WiFi but you may have to fight with it to get your preferred operating system installed.  It comes with a preconfigured key for Windows 10/11 Pro - just download and install it and it will activate itself - but pfSense, Proxmox VE, and Ubuntu 22.04 all needed workarounds to get running.

    And if you hoped to run VMWare ESXi, just give up.  It doesn't work on Intel's big/little CPUs and there are no plans to fix that.

    Apart from all the Ethernet ports there are four USB ports and HDMI and DisplayPort, so if you want to run it as a media server....  Why?  Anyway, you can, and it has an M.2 slot and two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots for up to 64GB of RAM in case you have that lying around.


  • If you want a 14" laptop with the Four Essential Keys in their proper location - in a column to the right of the main keyboard - reasonable CPU and graphics performance, a 1080p screen covering 100% of sRGB, and the ability to upgrade to 64GB of RAM using those DDR4 SO-DIMMs you have lying around, there is exactly one such model available: HP's Pavilion 14.

    Not the Pavilion Plus 14.  That has a better screen (2240x1400 or 2880x1800 options are available) but all Plus 14 models have soldered RAM.

    I skipped over this one not realising that it had dual SO-DIMM slots, but after checking and double-checking it really does, and the screen is far superior to options from Acer or Dell.

    Plus it's not at all expensive.  I'll be getting one of these.  I'm tempted to buy more than one, but since I'm planning to build some new desktop systems it wouldn't really make sense to do so.


  • Stability AI - the people behind the open source Stable Diffusion image generation software - have launched an open source chatbot similar to ChatGPT.  (Ars Technica)

    Many - not all, but many - of the problems with ChatGPT are due to the biases of developers OpenAI.  As open source, you can afflict StableLM with your own preferred set of biases.


  • Speaking of chatbots ever since Snapchat unveiled their chatbot they've been flooded with 1-star reviews.  (Tech Crunch)

    Oh no.  Anyway-


  • Apple has won its antitrust battle with Epic Games...  Pyrrhically.  (Tech Crunch)

    The court has ruled that Epic didn't prove that Apple was acting as a monopoly, but also that Apple couldn't forbid developers from linking to third-party payment processors to escape Apple's 30% skim.  

    Which was the entire reason for this fight.  Apple seems to have won the battle but lost the war, and Epic vice versa.


  • Learn a trade.  (New Yorker)

    Web designers don't get called out at 4AM, but plumbing problems can't be outsourced to Bangalore.


  • Disney is outsourcing 7000 people to /dev/null.  (The Verge)

    Also their dragon caught fire.  (CNN / MSN)



Disclaimer: Paging Alanis Morissette.  Will Alanis Morissette please come to the white irony phone.

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Monday, April 24

Geek

Daily News Stuff 24 April 2024

Corncobs R Us Edition

Top Story

  • Don't let them eat cake: The mental patients recently stripped of their little blue warning labels contrived a campaign to block every paid subscriber to Twitter.  (Mashable)

    The article quotes Dril, a guy famous for once saying something mildly amusing about corncobs.

    Seriously, that's the kind of academic wizardry we're dealing with here.  They got one tiny bit of unearned recognition and they'll burn down the planet before they allow anyone else to have what they did.

    Since none of them ever says anything worthwhile, all this achieves is making it slightly more involved to mock them the way they deserve.

    And there's a very simple solution to all this: Make the Block button a paid feature.  Then everyone will be happy.

    Twitter took a slightly different tack: Handing out blue checks to leading proponents of the "Block the Blue" effort.  That works too.


Tech News



Disclaimer: Save up to $1000 or more on your insurance with this one simple trick: Increase your excess.

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Sunday, April 23

Geek

Daily News Stuff 23 April 2023

Isn't Not Edition

Top Story

  • The 7730U isn't a 6800U, but the 7735U is.  AMD's 7000-series numbering is even worse than I thought.


  • We all contribute to the municipal sewage system.  Should we get paid?  (Tech Crunch)

    Actually they're talking about AI, but the same principle applies.  If your output had any value, you would have been paid already.

    Sam Altman-Fried, CEO of OpenAI, thinks sewer-contributors should be paid.  This is because his company has an intrinsic value in the millions but a temporary market cap in the billions, and he wants urgently to pull up the ladder behind him before anyone else can climb up and shove him off the ledge.


Tech News

  • HP's Omen 17 has the best keyboard layout of any laptop.  (Notebook Check)

    It not only has the Four Essential Keys, but a full desktop cursor section (thirteen keys in total) and six programmable macro keys to the left of the main keyboard section.

    Other than that there's either a 16-core 13700HX or a 24-core 13900HX CPU - both of them power-hungry beasts, but this is a 17" gaming laptop so that is rather what you'd expect to find, a choice of Nvidia RTX 4060/70/80/90 graphics, up to 64GB of RAM and 16TB of SSD (if you install your own), and a 2560x1440 165Hz or 240Hz screen covering close to 100% of sRGB.  Not perfect for artists or video editors, but just fine for most users.

    Large and heavy (2.8kg) but that goes with the territory.

    I hadn't noticed before that this has the six macro keys; that's true of last year's model as well, which is currently selling at 30% off with a 3080 Ti.


  • But this is probably not the year to spend big on a hot and heavy gaming laptop, because next year everything is going to change.  (WCCFTech)

    AMD's Zen 5 chips will be coming out in the latter half of 2024, both desktop and laptop.

    Fire Range will replace Dragon Range in high-end laptops, swapping 16 Zen 5 cores for the current 16 Zen 4 cores.  Nothing dramatic but probably about 25% faster.

    Strix Point will replace the current Phoenix chips for mid-range laptops, upping the current 8 Zen 4 cores to 12 Zen 5 cores, and 12 RDNA3 graphics cores to 16 RDNA3+ cores.  That will give a nice graphics boost - comparable to a dedicated RTX 3050 - and a huge CPU boost, bringing next year's midrange just behind the fastest laptops available today.

    And then there's Strix Point Halo.  This will offer 16 Zen 5 cores, 40 RDNA3+ graphics cores, and a 256-bit memory bus.  That should be able to match not an RTX 3050 but a (laptop) RTX 4070.  The laptop 4070 is basically a desktop 4060 which is comparable to a 3070 Ti, or if that's too complicated for you, it should be faster than an Xbox Series X or Playstation 5.

    This chip will use 90W of power, but in a gaming laptop with an Intel CPU and Nivida graphics, both of those chips are using more than 90W of power right now.

    It's very unlikely we'll see this in a laptop with upgradeable RAM - they rarely include even one DIMM slot, so four is out of the question - but with the 256-bit bus manufacturers will finally be forced to include at least 32GB.


  • Speaking of laptop manufacturers, we hates them.  I'm still looking for a laptop that fits my needs:

    - A 13" or 14" QHD+ screen (that is, 2560x1440 or higher)
    - The Four Essential Keys
    - Upgradeable RAM or at least 32GB of fixed RAM
    - Graphics that don't entirely suck - at least equal to AMD's 6800U's integrated graphics

    What is actually available?

    - HP's new Pavilion Aero, with a 13" 2560x1600 screen, a 6800U processor, exactly the keyboard layout I want, and a maximum of 16GB of RAM

    - Also from HP the Pavilion Plus 14, with a 2880x1800 OLED screen, a 12700H processor, exactly the keyboard layout I want, and a maximum of 16GB of RAM

    - From Gigabyte the Aero 14 (the industry ran out of names and has to recycle), with a 14" 2880x1800 OLED display, a 13700H processor, Nvidia RTX 4050 graphics, exactly the keyboard layout I want, and a maximum of 16GB of RAM

    - From Asus the Rog Zephyrus G14, with a 14" 2560x1600 screen, an AMD 7940HS processor (which already has integrated graphics that are fast enough for me), Nvidia RTX 4060 graphics as well, 16GB of fixed ram but also a free slot for another 16GB or 32GB, four programmable macro keys...  And no sign of the Four Essential Keys.

    - Also from Asus the Zenbook 14, with another 14" 2880x1880 OLED screen, an Intel 13900H CPU, Nvidia RTX 3050 graphics, 32GB of fixed RAM...  And neither macro keys nor the Four Essential Keys.

    - Also from Asus the Zenbook Pro Duo 14, with yet another of those 14" 2880x1800 OLED screens plus a 2880x864 LCD touchscreen, an Intel 13900H processor, Nvidia RTX 4050 graphics, 32GB of fixed RAM, no Four Essential Keys but with that second touch screen you can configure as many keys as you want...  But not only is it expensive but with that second screen there is no palm rest so it's basically impossible to use unless you're sitting at a desk and if I was sitting at a desk I wouldn't need a laptop.  (Except for a couple of days a year.)

    - The Framework Laptop, with a 13" 2256x1504 display, a selection of CPUs with Zen 4 chips on the way, up to 64GB of RAM and whatever SSD you want, configurable I/O ports, and 21 available keyboard layouts not a single one of which includes the Four Essential Keys.

    - From Lenovo the ThinkPad L14 G3, with a Ryzen 5875U CPU, up to 64GB of RAM, the Four Essential Keys albeit not quite where I would like them, and a truly mediocre 14" 1080p screen.  (The same colour problems I mentioned with Acer's laptops.)

    - Lenovo's ThinkPad E14 Intel edition, with the 4EK and upgradeable RAM, but a mediocre screen and a mediocre CPU, though they do have the option of mediocre dedicated graphics.

    - Lenovo's ThinkPad T14s, again with the 4EK but a mediocre screen and 16GB of soldered RAM.

    - Lenovo's ThinkPad Z13 which is 30% off right now, with a Ryzen 6850U, up to 32GB of fixed RAM, a 13" 2880x1800 OLED display (there's a lot of that going about), and unlike every other ThinkPad ever made no sign of the Four Essential Keys.

    - Lenovo's ThinkPad P14s Gen 3 AMD, with - wait.  That option wasn't there yesterday.  With the Four Essential Keys though not in my preferred layout, a Ryzen 6850U CPU so solid performance and good integrated graphics at low power, up to 32GB of soldered RAM, a good selection of I/O ports including wired Ethernet, and a build-to-order option of a 14" 3840x2400 colour-calibrated display covering 100% of DCI-P3.

    Only problem is, it is not 30% off right now, with all the build-to-order options it costs A$4000.

    - And finally Lenovo's - yes, again - ThinkPad P14s Gen 3 Intel edition, with a 1240P CPU, Nvidia T550 workstation graphics which are the bottom of the barrel when it comes to workstation graphics but are about as fast as the integrated graphics in the Ryzen 6850U above which means at least passable, 8GB or 16GB of soldered RAM but also a free RAM slot so you can go up to 40GB albeit not in dual-channel mode - and is 30% off right now.

    Lenovo alone sells 76 models of 13" and 14" laptops, and even they only come close to getting it right when you go through ever single build-to-order option.

    Also, they're the only major manufacturer in Australia that still does build-to-order.

    I think the solution is to buy two laptops.  It's actually cheaper to buy two mass-produced 16GB models than one built-to-order 32GB model with the specs I want. 


  • The best small tablets you can buy today.  (ZDNet)

    Spoiler: It's the iPad Mini and a bunch of suck.

I Need a Little Pick-Me-Up After Spending Four Hours Combing Through Laptop Specs Anime Music Video of the Day




Disclaimer: If you can't always get what you want, want the thing you have.

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