[nickjj]

> The competition at this price point is weak.

Is it though?

6 months ago for $575, I picked up a 15" 1080p IPS display laptop with an AMD Ryzen 7 6800H (8 cores / 16 threads), 32 GB of DDR5 RAM, Radeon 680M iGPU that can use up to 8 GB VRAM and a 1 TB NVME SSD with a backlight keyboard, a bunch of USB ports and HDMI port. It weighs the same as a MBP and comes with a 2 year manufacturer warranty. It's upgradable to 64 GB of RAM and 2 TB SSD. It has Windows 11 but all of the parts are compatible with Linux if you want to go down that route.

It's from a brand I never heard of, Nimo N155 but I took a gamble and so far I couldn't be happier. The only problem now is there's major shortages and prices are jacked because of the RAM situation. The same model is $700 today and much harder to find, even their official site is out of stock on this model.

[kube-system]

All of those specs are orthogonal to the gripes people are referring to when they call a laptop a "plastic shitbox"

[bigyabai]

Apple sold high-quality plastic laptops for a very long time, so evidently there's something there.

[addaon]

High quality for their time. The toilet bowl was very heavy for its screen size, and had minimal volume for battery. The G3 iBook lacked rigidity, and had a tendency to damage the mainboard if picked up from a corner. The G4 iBook had grounding issues, and would occasionally get spicy with two-prong outlets. All three of these issues were directly related to the plastic chassis. All three were great laptops for their day; none would be acceptable in this decade.

[kube-system]

There’s nothing wrong with plastic as a material, but there’s a lot wrong with many of the designs of mid-tier laptops that happen to use plastic. The plastic isn’t as much a cause of their problems as it is a signature feature of all hastily assembled corner-cut devices.

[newdee]

Very neat looking device for the price you paid, but you do not mention how (and I have doubts that) it competes in the areas of:

Fit and finish (not being made of creaky plastic) Display brightness & colour representation Battery life Trackpad Keyboard

For a portable these are just as important as “the numbers”for most people and definitely more noticeable. Perhaps not the case for you though!

[nickjj]

It's made of metal and is sturdy. I've taken it on 2 trips (including international), it's all good and still feels like new but to be fair I don't abuse it. For traveling I put it into a regular backpack that has a laptop sleeve, I don't use extra packing.

The track pad is of course not as good as Apple's but it's good enough where it's not in the way and feels ok to use.

The brightness and battery life both fall into the same category of they haven't negatively impacted me in my day to day. For example a few hours of dev work in the park with the sun out hasn't been a problem for both battery life or visibility.

You are right in that I don't value battery life as a top tier feature. ~5 hours of "real work" is enough because if you need extended battery life for doing intensive tasks away from human civilization you can always keep a power bank on hand for extended usage. If you're not out in the middle of no where, access to a power outlet is readily available.

[didip]

What you just described is not better than Macbook Neo.

[bigyabai]

Sure it is. It's even better than the M-series, I bought a similar mini PC for my home theater and it's flawless.

[robotresearcher]

> 1080p

> It weighs the same as a MBP

A much larger laptop with less than half the number of display pixels is not really the same market. And how's that battery life?

[nickjj]

> A much larger laptop with less than half the number of display pixels is not really the same market. And how's that battery life?

Yes, the display isn't as good but the Neo with 512 GB of storage is already $700 and has half the storage of the other laptop. The Neo also has 8 GB of RAM vs 32 GB. Big differences IMO.

Battery life is "good enough" but not great. It really depends on what you're using it for. If you're doing CPU bound tasks a lot, it's not going to last as long. I guess a takeaway is I was never in a situation where I had to change my behaviors because of the battery life. Unless you're planning to be out in the middle of no where without a power bank for an extended period time doing workload intensive tasks it's fine.

Likewise, the display being only 1080p isn't as bad as you would think. I'd be surprised if anyone is running their 13" Neo at 2408 x 1506 at native scaling. That would be 219 PPI. For reference I run a 4k 32" monitor at native 1:1 scaling and that's 138 PPI. It would be bonkers to consider using 219 PPI from a normal viewing distance. Most scaled resolutions with the Neo would be effectively 1080p resolution but with sharper text.

[robotresearcher]

> If you're doing CPU bound tasks a lot

You're not in the market for a netbook-type machine if this is the case.

> but with sharper text.

Text huh? Sounds important.

> Battery life is "good enough" but not great.

So, do you want a lightweight client / light productivity machine with tons of battery life, great text, and a kickass trackpad? Or an affordable workstation replacement? Different markets.

[kube-system]

What you’re missing is that the target market for this devices — the casual laptop user — DGAF about memory or storage if it is at the expense of the directly observable user experience.

Few people want or need 32gb of RAM, nor give a shit about what it even means. Most people just want to run MS Word and Google Chrome and maybe TurboTax.

[nickjj]

Sure but if people want a device for only casual browsing and are ok with 256 GB of storage and 8 GB of memory they can get a Chromebook for half the price of the Neo. Not all of them are bad, there's tons in the $300 range with good enough specs for casual usage.

If you want to spend ~$600-700, the laptop I mentioned fits the bill for casual use, a development workstation, media editing and casual gaming at a directly comparable price to the Neo. I replied initially because you wrote nothing good exists in the $600-700 range.

[kube-system]

Again, this device isn’t someone who’s buying based on specs. Nor is it for somebody who’s buying based on price.

It’s for somebody who goes to the store, puts their hands on the keyboard, uses the touchpad, looks at the screen, and feels the chassis, and then makes their decision. This is how regular people purchase these commodity items. Most people have no clue what the difference between storage and memory is. They just want to know: will it run [software]? That’s all the specs they need to know. Maybe the battery life as well

If you haven’t already go put your hands on one of these at the store. There’s no $600 laptop that feels like it.

[nickjj]

> It’s for somebody who goes to the store, puts their hands on the keyboard, uses the touchpad, looks at the screen, and feels the chassis, and then makes their decision.

We might live in different areas of the world. Every person I know who isn't into tech has never walked into a store by themselves and bought a laptop based on feel or a hunch.

They always get a recommendation from someone who is into tech, either for a specific model to buy online or someone to go with in real life at a store to help them make a purchase.

I don't blame them either, I wouldn't make a big purchase with no information and trust the sales floor to give high quality personalized advice.

[out_of_protocol]

Do note that in current economics 32GB of RAM alone will cost something like $400