That is also a strategy to prevent product comparisons and unbiased reviews. They quickly cycle through product names and sell a certain product no. only in a limited geographical area.
Doesn't matter if a consumer org/magazine/someone on reddit/your friend/etc. does a review. The product will be out of market by the time you read it, or will not be sold in your country. The similar looking product you find on the shelf might be the same, or it might have something completely different inside.
Now compare that to buying a model from Dell or Lenovo, where the current product lineup is already 2-3x the size, the models are sometimes discontinued, sometimes changed significantly between refreshes, often refreshed annually, oftentimes configurable in a meaningful way (1080p non-glossy vs. 1080p privacy screen vs. 4k glossy vs. 4k touch screen), sometimes just available in certain geographical locations and they exhibit more intra-generation manufacturing differences. The chances of finding other folks with your exact same permutation (and same day of the week it was manufactured) of these options are much smaller, so you stand less of a chance of getting something recognized as a fundamental manufacturing issue which should be covered for free by the vendor. Plus, even if you can get repair/replacement for free, you still fear that your specific model has a flaw, so you might only get lucky after having it replaced 2-3 times.
I've seen it happen with Dell and Lenovo where folks sent back brand-new units repeatedly because the first one had overheating issues with the SSD, the second one had really noisy capacitors and the third one had a display cable that wasn't seated correctly. At least with Apple I know that if I'm getting screwed, I'm in the same boat with everyone else ;)
Fortunately that hasn't been my experience with the recent Dell, Asus, Lenovo and HP laptops I've purchased. Each have been without any issues at all.
But my point here is that... it sounds like you're arguing against consumer choice. You can have your Model T in any color as long as it is black. And this is Apple's model. You can have your product in any configuration as long as it's the one configuration Apple offers. Apple tried this, actually, for a long time. The iPhone started out with extremely limited configurations and only more recently branched out beyond 2. In a way, I agree with the confusion, because I know now I can't just say "Macbook" because there is at least one Macbook without suffix, at least one Air, and the Macbook Pro has a myriad of configurations - different sizes, with or without touch bar, etc.
Why did Apple start offering more options? Because that's what consumers want. Dell exists exactly because they were the first big PC manufacturer to accept configuration orders, and then (relatively) quickly manufacturer and deliver those custom configurations to users. Consumers want this. As Apple's share of the market grows, they will have to meet the consumers where they are - or their market share will be limited by the limitations they place upon themselves.
Now, I agree that, for example, the variety of models between different geographic locations is - if nothing else - annoying. Especially when nicer options aren't offered in your location! But I don't agree with the offered example of getting bad replacements. Maybe buying one laptop a year isn't enough to experience these issues.
This really complicates the already limited attempts to run Linux distros on the Mac hardware as users simply can't reliably tell if their hardware will be compatible beforehand.
On the MacOS side they likely paper over the differences, quirks and bugs in firmware and drivers, so the user does not native anything and they can change the hardware underneath as needed.
If the choice is between "you can know about it" xor "you can buy it", there's no real choice.
My 7 year old macbook has "A1465" written in perfectly legible text on the bottom. "About this mac" has the serial number two clicks away, which is convertable online to exact specifications.
On other hand Lenovo X1 carbon is a pretty solid high end laptop along with LG gram. Former specifically is far more customizable, repairable, upgradable and also around 30% cheap while being more powerful.
and revamping the US highway system with assisted driving beacons/lines etc - because they're the only ones with enough money to do so.
If you're making some device (for example, washing machine) which has a power cord and a knob for some mode selection with writing on it, then for the exact same internals you need different models where the power cords are different (USA, UK, Germany and Japan each require different plugs) and the writing on the device is printed in different language and with customizations such as Celsius vs Fahrenheit. You can't sell the exact same laptop model in every market because the keyboard layouts are different. Etc.
The IEC 60320 connectors were specified for exactly that reason. Honestly, I don't get why these were not made mandatory for all kinds of appliances. There are even locking variants available if vibration is of concern.
I'm not sure what you mean by the second sentence but you can't use most appliances made for Europe in America and vice versa. Most electronic appliances depend on the input voltage and supplying 240V can easily cause a fire. That is true for almost all electronic appliances (water heater, fan, washing machine, etc) but not true most "computer related devices" such as a monitor, PSU, charger. Since those devices already operate on a much lower DC Voltage, they often have transformers (not sure if that's the right word), that can scale down the current from either 120 or 240. [0]
That being said, a mandatory IEC connector (and it's variances) would help a lot to cut down unnecessary e-waste. Instead of throwing away a device because the cable is damaged, you can easily order a replacement that is around $2 and high quality, instead of relying third party cords that might have bad wiring from a non reputable brand. The reason they are not mandatory, though, is that most companies like to have their own connectors so that you either overpay for it or just buy a new device.
[0]: You should still always read the specs on the input current for the device though. It is dangerous to rely on the fact that similar devices can operate at 120V/240V because yours might not. You can usually see the specs on the website/packaging or usually near the input plug.
Here in America "electronic appliances" would imply the tech/gadget category like TVs or computers where "electrical appliances" would be the big household equipment. Just to clarify in case that confuses anyone else like it did me, it kind of reverses the meaning of what you're trying to say.
Anyways, at least with relatively modern gear you can generally assume that anything with batteries or USB ports runs off a switch-mode power supply, and all but the cheapest of those will happily accept pretty much anything resembling residential power.
Anything with a large motor or any kind of resistive element (lighting, heating) on the other hand is almost certainly built for a specific variety of electrical service and will likely require modification to accept anything else without releasing the magic smoke.
The stuff in between those categories, well, RTFLabel. Outside of audio and ham radio gear I'd imagine most DC stuff runs on switch mode power supplies these days.
Even if that's the case, the appliances should be easy to repair for a competent person and if necessary allow the cable be replaced.
The biggest problem might be the amount of power a device can draw. Half the voltage gives you half the power, which is the reason why e.g. kettles are much less useful in the US.
That ofc makes electric kettles much less useful in countries with 110V grid. It also keeps stovetop kettles relevant in these counties, since stoves don't suffer power limitations.
That should only affec the power brick, and hence the overall SKU, not the notebook itself.
> the writing on the device is printed in different language and with customizations such as Celsius vs Fahrenheit.
What writing is there on notebooks except for keyboard labeling and the product name? The certification label on the back already shows all labels for all countries.
> You can't sell the exact same laptop model in every market because the keyboard layouts are different.
Keyboard layouts are somewhat orthogonal to regions. I'm German, but use US-layout keyboards.
Now, companies can of course lie about this, in theory, but that's a bit like car manufacturers lying w.r.t. emission tests - possible, but you tend to get caught (cf. the recent Volkswagen case) so it's probably not worth it.
When looking for a nice display a couple of years ago I clearly remember reading about some that were promising yet getting confoundingly variable reports, until some tore their hardware apart and revealed that the internals were different.
It also works the other way round. Find a panel that is good enough for your eyes, then see if there's a mass marketed display with that panel. If you are adventurous, you can grab "DIY" or "assembled" monitors with the panels on Chinese e-Commerce sites.
I remember getting a 27-inch 1440p display from a Chinese manufacturer for really cheap back in high school. It should've been the exact same panel as was in Apple's iMacs. However, the were some quality issues with it long term and it's definitely suffering from burn-in that I don't think the iMacs suffer from.
https://techreport.com/review/23291/those-27-inch-ips-displa...
But overall, they were a great purchase quality/performance/cost wise.
Now, if you were a professional, that quality control and warranty (not to mention better ergonomics, etc.) were easily worth the added cost, but for just "some dude who liked playing video games and doing some photo/video editing", it was a great bang for the buck.
I still use this as my main monitor and haven't noticed any dead pixels (if there are any, they're so hard to see that they may as well not be there). It's not the best monitor out there and you can probably get a better 2560x1440 display for less now, but at the time it was a big improvement over the cheap 1920x1080 display that quickly got demoted to secondary (and has now been loaned indefinitely to a teacher friend who needed a second monitor to plug into her laptop for online classes).
I could (and probably should) investigate fixing it but it was easier to buy a 2160p Philips for $240. Only issue with the Philips is it doesn't have a VESA mount and it would be difficult to make some sort of jury-rigging work.
I run them attached to a Mac Mini and use the DisplayPort on the monitor. At one point I believe HDMI (or maybe just the Mac) wouldn't do 1440p. I'm copying stuff from an Intel Mac mini to an M1 and I'm able to toggle back and forth using HDMI for the Intel just fine.
There's a Chinese panel manufacturer called BOE that makes products competitive with some of the lower-end Samsung / LG panels.
I got one 15.6" 2160p external display with a BOE panel that offers 100% sRGB coverage. I can see a huge difference compared to my Dell Latitude laptop display.
Now if anyone can find a source of 55" 4K OLED panels, that would be the one ultimate display. Combine it with a VBO driver board and it becomes better than any smart TVs.
And outside of a few occupations that might actually require pixel-perfect colour, what does this matter? Is this like the audiophile world, where people argue about seemingly subjective things that no else cares about?
The customer interprets colours differently than you, the customer sees colours differently than you, and the customer is using a monitor that almost assuredly displays the colours differently than yours. And the world continues to turn.
CD quality audio is less than 1 megabit per second per channel, uncompressed. HDR (10 bits per component) 4K60fps 4:2:2 video is around 10Gbit per second of data.
Of course data bandwidth is only a small part of the problem of correctly reproducing an analog signal, but it gives you the orders of magnitude we're dealing with.
I currently use a cheap ASUS 4K display. It's more good enough for coding, but I wouldn't trust it for any sort of graphical work. The viewing angle is pretty bad, so depending on what part of the screen I'm looking at I see colors differently, and some gradients become more or less visible depending on which part of the screen they're on. Contrast is pretty bad, making even some videogame display poorly: depending on the location and time of day contrast seems always too high or too low.
You can buy a good sub $100 pair of earphones and a sub $50 DAAC and they'll be good enough to do 99% of any audiophile work you could ever want to do reliably. If you want to do serious graphics work without having to constantly adjust for your display you'll have to go for something a lot more expensive than an entry-level monitor.
I just unboxed the new monitor 2 days ago. The richer color was immediately noticeable, and when I looked at some random photos I took with my phone recently I was blown away by just how red and green and yellow/blue things were. Like a completely new realm of color.
It's one of those things that you can't appreciate until you experience it (same going from the original 72% to 99% sRGB).
The Dell was $450 for 4k, 2.5 years ago. The new LG was $800, but you can find 60fps P3 4k monitors for around $500 these days iirc. If you're on Hacker News you probably use your computer a lot. Unless you're running low on cash, upgrading to a great monitor is worth it.
I love them for my photo editing.
(This is on my 2019 Mac Pro)
I'm a color blind person and even I can see a color difference between cheap displays that I have at work and an old EIZO one that I bought years ago at home.
I can more accurately diffrentiate between different colors/shades on my EIZO panel.
Having a setup with multiple cheap monitors is imho really underrated for design and development. Moving something between screens and seeing clear contrast disappear, or see pleasing color choices turn ugly can be eye opening.
I am considering my next purchase on the basis of at least 5 years of service and that is a long time to be looking at something "not quite right".
...which bought Korean manufacturer Hydis (was originally part of SK Hynix), so you'll often see panels marked "BOE-Hydis".
Google iMac or LG ultrafine “image retention” or “ghosting.” I have no idea what percent of displays are affected, but there’s enough threads about it on Reddit and macrumors to make me think it’s pretty common.
Battle Angel Sorry, not sure why I didn't share previously. So, I believe this is caused by using a non-HDMI cable with the audio out turned on. Either turn the audio in the display off completely in the settings, or use a new HDMI cable. The alarm is a result of the display trying to send an audio signal through a Displayport cable. Are those of you getting this alarm using Displayport cables? They do not pair audio with video, as HDMI does. I hope this fixes your problem.
https://www.amazon.com/LG-27GL83A-B-Ultragear-Compatible-Mon...
When it comes to assembled monitors, the highest failure rate is in the power supply. The components used and the cooling/ventilation play a big part in that.
What sites are you finding these "assembled" monitors?
> Combine this with the fact that most home users don’t care about good quality or even know what it is, and you have the current situation.
It sounds apt. But... There is an absolutely thriving market for keyboards and mice.
For both, conglomerates like logitech and microsoft are selling both what you describe as 'crap', as well as higher end stuff that tries to care about quality. Possibly not in the way you think is most important, but certainly a Logitech MX Master3 keyboard retailing at >$100 is not a cheap piece of crap. The letters aren't inked on, for example, thus ensuring they don't rub off particularly easily. Not a feature that is advertised or is likely to show up in a review. The kind of quality move that doesn't make sense if the market is just 'assholes selling crap to idiots'.
Keyboards are even more interesting; a lively indie market for custom-built usually mechanical keyboards, supported by parts manufacturers where price isn't particularly important.
I agree, though - the webcam market is quite a mess. So, what's the explanation for that? Why do keyboards and mice not fall under your 'assholes selling crap to idiots' rule?
The problem is that there's only so many companies that truly design and manufacture photographic sensors, lenses and LCD panels. And all the downstream "brands" that assemble this technology into cheap plastic cases to sell to consumers can only do so much to differentiate. Add neon lights for gamers. Make it look dull for business users. Etc. They also sell TVs and have thousands of other SKUs, so they really don't care about any individual product.
Apple is both incentivized (due to their ongoing customer relationships) and able to break out of this mold because they:
a) Produce a tighter number of SKUs
and
b) Do enough volume to control and change what the original equipment manufacturers are producing
Although I have to admit that I was equally frustrated when I wanted a good retina screen with 200-ish dpi to pair up with the mac mini I wanted to buy, only to conclude getting the 5K iMac instead was the most sensible option.
Apple is the most valuable company on earth right now, entirely due to their thesis that people will pay for quality hardware.
The “creator” market is much more profitable than the gamer market where kids only have as much as mom will allow them to spend (vs The tech workers, coders, designers, youtubers, etc that need high quality displays to make a living).
It’s why Apple is able to get insane 50% margins in many products. It’s crazy to me that the big Asian manufacturers don’t see the market opportunity in catering to this crowd.
In their minds you’re either an office drone using excel or a gamer who wants neon lights. Both of which are market segments with terrible margins.
This is a common misunderstanding of the gaming market due to stereotyping. The biggest age category in gaming is 18-34 by far. They generally also slant strongly to people with both more than average disposable income and higher likelihood to spend that same on gaming and related electronic toys. This makes gaming a 100 billion dollar market atm which is still growing rapidly.
> Both of which are market segments with terrible margins.
Not even close to accurate. Gaming related hardware is generally quite high margin. There's a reason ASUS et all use their gaming imprints as the place to introduce new high end parts. It's also a highly concentrated and networked market, making it very efficient to advertise to.
It doesn’t matter how much money you throw at the problem, nobody is making 27” 5k displays right now.
So clearly, Apple could sell a monitor for about $1600, that would be perfectly compatible with Mac Pros, mac mini and as a secondary monitor for all the various MacBooks.
Basically, the ideal PPI of mac displays is a multiple of 110 PPI. So, for retina quality you need a display of roughly 220 PPI, which is what you get from 5K at 27 inch. A 27 inch 4K display is around 160 PPI. If you use that in 2x mode, things will appear too large. If you set it to scaled mode to make things appear the proper size, there are display artifacts (like shimmering when scrolling). In fairness, it's not super obvious unless you know what to look for. But if you're already spending money on a high end screen, why should you have to compromise?
I guess I understand where they're coming from, when most potential customers would likely glaze over and click away if presented with a long list of specs and product numbers.
Still, it's always nice when they at least have a "show all products" link that takes me to exactly that. I want a full list that can be narrowed down with filters.
Recently, I bought two 27GN950, which is a 27" 4k@144Hz gaming monitor with good colors. So far the worst part is the fan and in the long run the absence of HDMI 2.1 might be disappointing, but overall I have the impression of a good product.
Yes, it doesn't have the same PPI as smartphones, but I am not sure if we are going to see that happen ever.
27 inch is perfect for 1440p 100% or 200% (i.e., 5k), but it seems like no one other than Apple has that figured out.
But as this is clearly a software issue, I wouldn't blame the hardware for it ;-)
Just kidding, it comes from the same Chinese factory as every other fan but Apple's fans(pun intended) like to believe in magic to justify the price tag.
However, over the day is is barely audible and it only comes to my mind when I am sitting in front of the PC late at night (+ without headphones).
I've noticed over decades that high quality stuff comes out of the checks-and-balances of experts specifying and purchasing stuff.
Examples I remember are sun monitors based on sony trinitron tubes, sun/sgi hard drives that were always checked - and sometimes returned by he container - so were actually enterprise grade, not consumer grade. Lots and lots of OEM stuff like that.
27" 5k or 22" 4k (4069 x 2304, like the first LG ultrafine was) are the unicorns I am seeking.
Unfortunately the LG ultrafine suffers from image retention/ghosting. So there's ultimately no great displays for Mac outside of the wildly expensive Pro Display XDR.
This means the 27” 4K monitors that are the industry standard now for some reason at 3,840 x 2,160 are almost twice the size, yet have barely more resolution than the MacBook true retina screen.
MacOS can do scaling to adjust for this, but it uses the least amount of resources in native or pixel doubled mode. Any display that is between the resolutions I mentioned (like 27 4K) requires fractional scaling.
This is more resource intensive, and doesn’t look as good as pure retina.
Here’s a better explanation: https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays/
I am talking about good quality display with bearable price. Not display for $6,299.00 Example: https://www.amazon.de/EV3285-BK-Monitor-DisplayPort-Reaktion...
Thing is, people complaim about there not being high quality gear, but when someone then makes it, they balk at the price. Yes people, a great laptop will cost you $3000.
I find the video flattering (camera angle/focal length?)
Cisco had some impressive cameras in their older Telepresence products: https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/collaboration-endpoint...
But the Cisco TelePresence Precision 60 Camera CTS-P60-K9 ist Ethernet Only and needs prohibitivily expensive hardware to work with.
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/collaborat...
Next up is probably the Logitech PTZ Pro 2 or Rally
https://www.logitech.com/en-roeu/product/rally-ultra-hd-ptz-...
Unfortunately, you must select carefully any monitor that you purchase, and the cheapest models are unlikely to be good choices.
I am using 2 good Dell 4k monitors. One is 1-year old (U2720Q), but the other (UP2414Q) is more than 5-year old and it works as well as in the first day.
I say this because it's unwise to hear that Dell has pretty good gear, then go to their site and buy the cheap stuff. It isn't necessarily any worse cheap stuff than anybody else, but it's not what people mean when they say Dell can have pretty good gear.
You have to choose between ghosting or proper colours, higher refresh rate IPS panels are better in this metric but still suck compared to TNs.
27 4k a bad size & resolution for the current computer market. Windows scaling looks like crap, and MacOS has to do more resource intensive 1.5 scaling (as opposed to native or pixel doubling mode) to look okay on these.
M1 might make this a mute point going forward, but the fact is at 27 inches, 5k is the only monitor that will look as good as the screen on your laptop while actually giving you more real estate.
But...that is 4K. It's what 4K is defined as, exactly 2x 1080p resolution in each dimension.
> Windows scaling looks like crap
I don't understand. 2x each dimension (so 1 pixel in the old resolution is 4 in the new) is, like, the easiest possible scenario when it comes to scaling in software.
DCI is relevant for movie industry professionals only, as these are the dimensions used for projection devices and (potentially) their content.
Two groups have competing definitions. One isn't inherently correct.
I say this as someone who was "that guy" when it came to HD Radio: "It's not High Definition, it's Hybrid Digital!" even though that's exactly the confusion they were trying to encourage.
Arguing that this is misleading is a fool's errand, and only plays into things if you assume that the primary purpose of a "4K" screen somehow is inherently "to play back cinematic content", which... it's not.
200% (2 times each direction) scaling on 4K is the equivalent of 1080p. A 1080p 27 inch monitor has huuuge pixels for the normal viewing distance of a desktop monitor. 1080p is common on 23-24 inch displays. Therefore you are forced to use fractional scaling which is less then perfect.
That's irrelevant though, except if we're talking about consuming movies fullscreen.
For a monitor I don't want 4K, I want insivible pixels at viewing distances, so hi-dpi.
I would also prefer no scaling for assets that are bitmap in nature. This ideally means pixel doubling (less cpu/gpu demanding and less fuzzy than fractional scaling).
This, for 27" and more, means higher resolution that 4K. I don't want to restrict myself to pixel-doubled 1920x1080 on my 27" or 32" monitor.
You do get nice DPI, but needlessly large buttons and other assets (compared to something closer to 5K).
I'm so confused by your comment.
That would be relevant is my problem was false promises or misleading advertising.
But my problem is not
(a) "Monitors say they are 4K and they are not"
but:
(b) "Most monitors out there are BS-4K, but for the best quality/viewing comfort at their 27" and above diagonal they should rather be 5K, but most manufactures like Dell aren't bothered to produce at such a resolution and the few that do have prices to the skies".
>There are 5K monitors out there, maybe even 8K? Or just get a 4K one but in a smaller size?
Perhaps you've skiped through the thread?
My comment responds to (and agrees with) the sub-thread started by a parent commenter writing:
"Dell used to have good offerings, but all they seem to push now is the same 27” not-quite-4K 3,840 x 2,160 panels everybody else does.".
It's not just about "not seeing any pixels", and "barely see any pixels" is not the same as enjoying hi-res typography and fine detail.
27-inch 1440p monitor is about 108 ppi. That's hardly better from what we used in the 90s and 00s, dpi-wise. Sure, if you haven't used to hi-dpi it looks ok. But try using a 5K/27-inch monitor for a while and then go back to 1440p/27-inch to see the difference you miss.
Now, 4K hi-dpi (pixel doubled) on 27" is 1920x1080.
This makes pixels just fine and detail is great, but everything too large and cuts off screen space, as it's 33% less area than 1440p (which, I presume, you don't use pixel-doubled)
The solution is either 5K/27" (which gives you back the 1440p kind of screen space and UI control size PLUS hi-dpi), or using a non-doubled, fractional resolution, to overcome, (which is not optimal, looks fuzzier, and wastes cpu).
What matters for perception is angular resolution, not DPI. And 27" display covers more visual field that 17" from 90s, so you can and should sit further away from it. Once angle of perceived pixel is smaller than angular resolution of your eye, reducing pixel size only adds to the resolutions of shades you can show to the user in that area (closer to bpp increase, than dpi increase, because you can't see pixels anymore, but still can perceive irregularities of brightness on edges).
That's what we say too. 27" 4K monitor is too small at 100% scaling, while too small at 50% scaling (pixel-doubling hi-dpi mode).
That's why the idea is to have a 5K at 50% scaling (so everything is pixel-doubled on each axis, and a pixel becomes 4 pixels, doubling the detail you see).
The whole point of this thread is people complaining that, outside of LG's fragile Apple collab, there aren't any 5k options widely available.
Go on amazon and search for 5k 27. There's the Apple collab LG UltraFine, and then nothing.
Ditto for 22" 4k, which would provide the same DPI as your laptop screen for that given size.
On the other hand, HDMI 2.1 can now support 8K@60hz, so maybe this is not an issue anymore.
Not to the upthread specific claim that the resolution was “not quite 4K”, which is what the comment you are responding to addressed.
On the bigger issue, I don't really see the complaint. I have pretty good vision (corrected—to 20/15 or so—uncorrected is crap but I'm not coding without glasses/contacts) and honestly my 34” ultrawide at 3440x1440 is excellent for coding, and pretty much any other use. Now, would I prefer whatever resolution a 5K 16:9 would be when extended to 21:9? Or better a 4320p at the same aspect ratio? Sure, more pixels are always better. But does the sub-4K display look like crap or force bad sizes for controls? No.
Sure, I can work with a 3440x1440 34". Heck, I've worked with CGA monitors back in the day, and black and white (!) SUN Sparkstation monitors.
But, as you said, it's about looking better. "Doesn't look like crap" is a pretty low bar, no? For 2020, and after 10 years of hi-dpi phones and laptops, I expected better from monitor companies...
That's cool I guess, I was just objecting to calling the 4K "Not quite 4K".
Huh? I'm using LG's 27 inch 4k and scaling looks good. It can bug and force you to relaunch app but that's not something you encounter often.
The point of using a High-DPI display is that you can use scaling without losing the screen real-estate. With 5K @ 27" you can get what looks like 1440p in physical UI element size, but with an increase in clarity, readability, and quality.
Make what you will of this, but it's not just a panel per se, it's also how it's integrated and used in the whole product.
Companies like Eizo typically have agreements where they will take the cream-of-the-crop panels though.
They cost multiple thousands (or tens of thousands for reference monitors with built-in calibration and Dolby Vision certification).
Grab something like the i1Display Studio to calibrate and it'll be golden for anyone who doesn't need a hardware LUT or built-in calibration.
Meaning the only people buying it are top tier youtubers
Windows has multiple GPU-accelerated vector graphics GUI frameworks. Well-written Windows apps look well with non-integer scaling.
> awfully glitchy Windows 10
Here's what you should do with new computers.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 Make an installation USB drive, boot from that drive, remove all partitions from the laptop's SSD, perform clean install. You don't need product keys to reinstall Windows as long as the SKU matches (i.e. if you have Win10 home edition, reinstall the same edition).
Don't just blindly click through the wizard, read messages and you'll get better UX (you don't want cortana, personalized ads, geolocation, etc).
Connect to internet, run windows update.
Open device manager. If some devices are left in "unknown device" state, you might need to manually find their drivers. Make sure to only install drivers and not user-mode utilities.
Awful, but I remember similar issues on Dell and an HP. It’s an issue with the device driver or some “value add” driver control software. :(
I ended up going with a budget option, no local-dimming. It's frustrating how behind, how stagnant, computer displays are. I don't want to sit in front of a 48 inch OLED tv, too big, not high enough dpi, but I feel like I'm throwing money at bad products trying to buy a computer monitor. At least there are some fair budget options (Pixio PX275h 95Hz 4k, $250, doing ok).
Sadly, it’s not available anymore. I have one in my office but needed another one for home. Ended up buying an LG with the funny name of something 27UKi6716263 that looked similar on amazon. It’s so different... what a shame
EDIT: it’a not available in Germany
The 22" LG Ultrafine used to have a 4069 x 2304 resolution. So in pixel doubling mode you actually got more screen real estate than newer 24" 4k models (which are only 3840 × 2160)!
The problem is better described here: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/2/20678597/lg-ultrafine-4k-2...
I've got one and really like it although it doesn't seem to support HDCP.
They will hit local, isps or teleconferencing bandwidth cap well before sending all the bits a webcam captures, with subsequent recompression to crap quality.
Why would they bother then?
You think that complete vertical integration will improve product quality?
The qualities I value however are freedom, security, and privacy.
In that lens, the quality of Apple is very poor.
The lazy conglomerates who sell these peripherals often don’t actually produce the parts in them. They simply rebrand commodity cameras and IPS panels in a crap plastic housing and slap their logo on it.
Then they give the product a hilariously user-hostile product name, like “PQS GRT46782-WT” as an extra f-you to the user.
They don’t care about you because they have no ongoing relationship with you, and their executives mistakenly see their own products as commodities.
Combine this with the fact that most home users don’t care about good quality or even know what it is, and you have the current situation.
A friend once described the peripheral market as “Assholes selling crap to idiots.”