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by _a_a_a_ 965 days ago
> but the device failed to win us over in terms of multi-core performance

If a dev machine I'd get it, but biz users are email and a few small spreadsheets. I don't get why biz users need multicore anything.

6 comments

> I don't get why biz users need multicore anything.

To run crapware/spyware installed by their corporate IT, of course! And I'm only half kidding since I distinctly remember how I couldn't even listen to Youtube Music without stuttering on my corporate Lenovo laptop on my previous job.

> biz users are email and a few small spreadsheets. I don't get why biz users need multicore anything.

That's a fairly narrow view of what a business user might do. The spreadsheets aren't necessarily small, there's usually a messaging tool or two open, and several web browsers open to line of business apps, etc. (This is before even considering OS overhead and the like.)

> biz users are email and a few small spreadsheets. I don't get why biz users need multicore anything.

Have you opened a Chrome or Electron app recently? And many biz users need to run those apps while on Zoom with a virtual background for the camera.

Based on your logic, all most biz users really need for email and spreadsheets can be done using Lotus Notes / 1-2-3 on a single-core IBM 5150 with 5 MHZ and 256KB of memory.

I'm not sure if this is a stupid attempt at a rebuttal, or if you've accidentally made a rather good point as well.

BTW My home machine is a decade-old dual core and it runs email, web and all of Libreofffice just fine, and with 90% of its mem unused.

> I'm not sure if this is a stupid attempt at a rebuttal, or if you've accidentally made a rather good point as well.

How about you stop making personal attacks?

> using Lotus Notes / 1-2-3 on a single-core IBM 5150 with 5 MHZ and 256KB of memory

That was a ridiculous interpretation of what I asked so how about not strawmanning people asking questions. And BTW I gave you the spec of my current machine which you ignored.

Webapps like Salesforce, Gmail, Slack, Google Docs drink resources. They occasionally get stuck pegging an entire core indefinitely. Also Microsoft Teams.

When line of business apps like email use 1GB of memory each you need a faster machine than if you use mutt.

Honestly the 8core ~15W things are alright for dev work. It seems to be game for giving all the power budget to one core. Runs a badly configured Emacs with misc c++ parsing nonsense without trouble, and I build llvm on one every few months without too much irritation.
I said biz not dev
In that case, why would biz users ever want this over a quieter, cooler, MacBook with better battery life since Office is available for Mac?