[bartread]

This has given me flashbacks. I went down this rabbit hole prepandemic with a Dell laptop I had for work at the time. I got tired of getting on the train to find my laptop dead.

Back then Windows would default to a crap version of sleep but you could still disable it in the BIOS and by tweaking a couple of other settings, thus forcing it to use proper sleep. I’m pretty sure I wrote a lengthy response on HN about this including the specifics at the time.

That worked well until I got a new Dell laptop that removed support for the good sleep mode entirely.

So then I’d make sure to always leave the machine plugged in and switched on overnight before any travel… which is how I discovered that the machine had a bug where sometimes it would fail to charge whilst plugged in and switched on but not awake, so occasionally I’d still end up with a dead laptop on the train.

So then I’d start up the machine as soon as I got out of bed so it’d get at least 30 - 45 minutes of charging with not much load on it whilst I was getting ready to leave.

I absolutely hate Dell.

For my own use I’ve been buying Apple laptops since 2011 and, although they went through a grim period meaning I kept a machine from 2015 to 2024, I never had this sort of nonsense with them.

[skydhash]

I like PC laptops. But only the business line, so that you get sensible admin options and good hardware.