Linus is wrong about his future with 16" laptops.

[Thomas A. Fine]

I was just watching the WAN show.  Linus: "I just don't think I wanna carry around a sixteen inch laptop ever again no matter how cool and sexy it is."

 

Ahhh Linus.  You're not getting any younger.  Let me tell you, as a Gen-Xer (on the cusp of a Boomer), that when you hit a certain age, your close vision will go to hell.  It's an inevitable change that will hit every single one of us (typically in early to mid forties).  And at some point, computer glasses or progressives will become mandatory.  But between mandatory glasses for computing, and no glasses for computing, comes the "bigger screen is better" phase of older people using computers.  And even with corrected vision, which I have, there's just limits to what that can give you.  Anything more than 110 PPI simply makes no sense to me any more.  On the plus side this saves money.

 

More generally, I've often noticed on LTT that when you talk about screen resolutions, you never think about people with aging eyes. 

 

I still fondly remember when I could hold my hand an inch from my eyeball and see my fingerprint with crystal clarity.  And how shocked I was when that moved out to three or four inches.  Nowadays, there's no chance of ever seeing my fingerprint without magnifications (and to be clear, another thing that young people don't realize is that computer glasses and reading glasses are just various levels of slight magnification).

 

When you reach this age, it will 100% drive your purchasing decisions with phones, laptops, and monitors.  You will seriously consider 16 and 17" laptops at some point in your future. (Although in fairness, by then, a 3 pound 17" laptop with great performance and long battery life might just exist.)

[manikyath]

the reason you're wrong, is a very important word, that you've glossed over:

5 minutes ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

carry

 

linus's primary workspace is a HUUUUUUUGE desktop screen. his laptop is only a "reference on the go" type device. in that scope display scaling will ALWAYS win from a bigger screen, because the primary goal of the device is that it fits in his backpack, not that it can show a lot of information.

 

past that, i also disagree that a person's vision "by default" goes to pot after a certain age. there's a LOT of glasses in my family, but for every person whose view has gone to pot, i know someone of age with perfect 20:20 vision doodling on their phone like they have the eyes of a 15 year old.

[tikker]

6 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

I still fondly remember when I could hold my hand an inch from my eyeball and see my fingerprint with crystal clarity.  And how shocked I was when that moved out to three or four inches.  Nowadays, there's no chance of ever seeing my fingerprint without magnifications (and to be clear, another thing that young people don't realize is that computer glasses and reading glasses are just various levels of slight magnification).

I think that once they have had some physics classes about optics they realise this fine. Lenses are one of the most common and earliest topics covered in my experience. Glasses also aren't made to magnify, but to correct focus. Magnification can be part of that correction, but it's generally not there for the purpose of making things appear bigger than they are like magnifying glasses, including reading glasses.

.

6 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

More generally, I've often noticed on LTT that when you talk about screen resolutions, you never think about people with aging eyes. 

Screen resolution has very little to do with that. That's what scaling and zoom functionality was made for. If things are too small on a high resolution monitor you can use run on a lower resolution, use UI scaling or you can increase the font size to suit your needs.

 

6 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

When you reach this age, it will 100% drive your purchasing decisions with phones, laptops, and monitors.  You will seriously consider 16 and 17" laptops at some point in your future. (Although in fairness, by then, a 3 pound 17" laptop with great performance and long battery life might just exist.)

This will depend on the person I'd say. I'm not that old yet, but my eyesight isn't great so I wear glasses and it doesn't dictate my buying decisions. For laptops, portability is important to me as well, so I like my laptops 14'' and don't really consider 16" or larger ones. For phones most things allow for zoom, so my S10e's 6.4" screen is also still not an issue and for similar portability reasons I don't like super big phones either. In both cases if things are small I resort to what I mentioned above. That works for me.

[Lurking]

Consumers will decide on the future of 16" laptops (or any other device). Not Linus, and not anyone else on the Internet.

[Thomas A. Fine]

10 hours ago, manikyath said:

past that, i also disagree that a person's vision "by default" goes to pot after a certain age. there's a LOT of glasses in my family, but for every person whose view has gone to pot, i know someone of age with perfect 20:20 vision doodling on their phone like they have the eyes of a 15 year old.

OK I looked it up.  It affects 85 to 90% of people over 45.  The odds get even worse as the age goes up.  But yes apparently some very small minority do escape it.

The loss of close vision has nothing to do with 20/20 vision and the kind of corrections in normal glasses.  The fluid in the eye thickens, making it progressively more difficult for the muscles in your eye to change focus, which is required at closer distances.  You can both have 20/20 vision and lose your close vision.  My vision is pretty good, though not perfect.  My prescription hasn't changed in ages, even as my close vision went away.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

OK I looked it up.  It affects 85 to 90% of people over 45.  The odds get even worse as the age goes up.  But yes apparently some very small minority do escape it.

The loss of close vision has nothing to do with 20/20 vision and the kind of corrections in normal glasses.  The fluid in the eye thickens, making it progressively more difficult for the muscles in your eye to change focus, which is required at closer distances.  You can both have 20/20 vision and lose your close vision.  My vision is pretty good, though not perfect.  My prescription hasn't changed in ages, even as my close vision went away.

the issue you're describing is the reason they sell reading glasses.. again, if this would affect the little man to the point display scaling  cannot resolve the issue.. the solution is a pair of reading glasses, because at that point he would be unable to read a printed piece of paper just the same as his computer.

 

and i'll just wildly  assume that olden day linus wont ask people to print documents A3 size just so he can read them.

[Thomas A. Fine]

3 hours ago, tikker said:

Glasses also aren't made to magnify, but to correct focus. Magnification can be part of that correction, but it's generally not there for the purpose of making things appear bigger than they are like magnifying glasses, including reading glasses.

Have you used reading glasses, or held them up and looked through them?  Yes, obviously the goal is improved focus.  But the mechanism is effectively a weak magnifying glass.

3 hours ago, tikker said:

Screen resolution has very little to do with that. That's what scaling and zoom functionality was made for. If things are too small on a high resolution monitor you can use run on a lower resolution, use UI scaling or you can increase the font size to suit your needs.

But, why would you pay for pixels you can never see?  And by never see, I mean, even with correction, you can't tell the difference in quality.  I'd rather shift that retina-quality money that does literally zero for me over to ultrawide, or hdr, or oled.

 

3 hours ago, tikker said:

This will depend on the person I'd say. I'm not that old yet, but

So you are not experiencing this issue at all.  Traditional correction for younger vision issues are more able to solve the issues, without the need for different glasses at different distances, and without the need for the distortion introduced by progressive lenses.

[Thomas A. Fine]

5 minutes ago, manikyath said:

the issue you're describing is the reason they sell reading glasses.. again, if this would affect the little man to the point display scaling  cannot resolve the issue.. the solution is a pair of reading glasses, because at that point he would be unable to read a printed piece of paper just the same as his computer.

This is just wrong.  Desktop and laptop distances are too far away for reading glasses to work well.  They kinda work, but if read something in fine print with reading glasses and then forget to switch for the monitor, I can see, but I'm on my way to a headache.  Not a solution for someone who needs to stare at a monitor all day long.  So you either need progressives (and live with vast areas of your vision always distorted and out of focus, and always tilting your head to find the zone of sharpness) or you get middle-distance glasses for computers.  Which are typically prescription, because monitors are far enough away that your distance vision issues also need to be corrected.

 

Eventually, I WILL need glasses at all times for all screens.  One of the issues I didn't mention, that I deal with now, is that my vision is better or worse depending mainly on sleep, but apparently other factors are involved too.  If I"m well-rested, I usually don't need the computer glasses even on my 140 PPI laptop.  If I'm very tired, I can't read a thing without the glasses on my 110 PPI desktop monitor.

5 minutes ago, manikyath said:

and i'll just wildly  assume that olden day linus wont ask people to print documents A3 size just so he can read them.

LOL you got me there.

[cmndr]

I would legitimately consider the 16" Framework laptop, or something similar, as a purchase for my next system. 
As in my daily driver. What would replace my desktop. I'd want to make sure I could get a viable thunderbolt dock for a GPU though... that would be my next area of research. The goal would be to drive a 4K display at 120Hz (even if it's for a 20 year old game like HL2). 

If I'm traveling somewhere for fun, my Pixel Slate wins on portability. That thing is DARN slim. And it doesn't run THAT MANY games. This is a feature. I'll enjoy my vacation. It can do spreadsheet stuff and webpage stuff. 

A 16" desktop replacement or similar would allow me to easily yank my system with me if I'm ever somewhere for an extended period - think 2 weeks visiting family - or want to move into the living room to get some space from my desk. Yeah, it's bulky and awkward but for anything light... Chromebook. It also has the added upside of serving as a side display for chat/email or something else that's not particularly critical.
All I really "need" is something i5 13600 level in performance these days and I want to be able to migrate that into a NAS for a second life later on (or over to a parent's system - though I doubt either parent will need another upgrade for a while). 

 

 

23 minutes ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

But, why would you pay for pixels you can never see?  And by never see, I mean, even with correction, you can't tell the difference in quality.  I'd rather shift that retina-quality money that does literally zero for me over to ultrawide, or hdr, or oled.

I'm going to go over to the Wendell argument here... 

You probably just want a bigger screen, not an ultra-wide. GOOD FALD LCD or OLED displays can just black bar parts of the screen to give you a simulated ultra wide. My 55" Samsung QN90a has a mode that letter boxes for a virtual ultra-wide experience and cost less than an analogous ultra-wide display at the time. More screen space and more pixels for less cash. And yeah, it's 4K. That's fine. 

[divito]

If that's his actual quote, he qualifies it with "I," being personal to him, and "think" which is far from a rigid stance for all eternity and all users.

Even if we are taking that as a stance for tech in general, his demographic statistics make it pretty plain that people with vision issues in their later years are not part of his considerations.

And personally, as a 37 year old individual, things I've thought I'd never consider are slowly changing. I personally have shifted from being staunchly desiring a 15-17" laptop to now simply wanting something in the 13-14" range. I'm also nearsighted, which doesn't affect my computer usage.

[manikyath]

26 minutes ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

Desktop and laptop distances are too far away for reading glasses to work well.

by definition a laptop display can be moved, and the place i see most people put their 13 inch laptops is within margin of the distance where one may place a piece of paper.

 

i obviously dont know how you use your laptop, but i have to assume it's not like most people.

[starsmine]

I cant fathom ever considering a 17 inch laptop no mater how bad my vision gets. those things are monsters.

15.6 inch is good enough, and since bezzels have gotten so small, 16 may be in my future. the exclusive reason is because of the keyboard. I STRONGLY desire the numpad. But anyone that does not care about the numpad like linus aint gonna have any issues never going that big again.

Glasses fix your vision 90% of the way, and the other 10% you can just change windows scaling.

I dont know why you even considering thinking for linus here at the end of the day, he knows what he wants out of a computer.

[Neroon]

Can we remove the 'reading' from the glasses part, just to simplify the argument. Otherwise the discussion will just be about how effective reading glasses are and from what distance.

 

To be clear, I understand the choice of not wearing glasses and wanting a larger screen, and it is a fair argument in favour of larger laptops, you could still just get proper glasses and use a 14 inch.

[ImorallySourcedElectrons]

45 minutes ago, Neroon said:

To be clear, I understand the choice of not wearing glasses and wanting a larger screen, and it is a fair argument in favour of larger laptops, you could still just get proper glasses and use a 14 inch.

I'm with Thomas on this one, you're assuming folks with something like -2 dioptre bad vision, some of us are in the < -5 range. At that point anything more than full HD on a 13" screen is an elaborate exercise in pointlessness - glasses only help so much. Heck, I avoid increasing the resolution on my 24" monitors beyond 1080p because it just puts unnecessary additional strain on my eyes. And scaling is horribly broken in all operating systems, try running AutoCAD on a 13" screen with 3840x2400 pixels with the OS scaling options turned on. I've won a few beers around the office by challenging folks to try and enter their e-mail and password.

 

But in terms of laptop screen size, 15" laptops are mostly nice because you can get a decently sized keyboard with numpad, and the screen is up slightly higher - reducing back strain. Typing on a 13" Dell XPS gave me terrible wrist strain and back pain, the key travel distance is zilch, you got to bow down further to see the screen, and most 13" laptops are useless at running any engineering software anyhow due to thermal throttling. Yes, my 15" Thinkpad workstation boat anchor weighs in at around 2.5 kg, twice the weight of the XPS, but for that I get happier eyes and wrists, and my neck and shoulders also complain significantly less. And I can't say I notice any significant difference carrying around the 15" laptop versus the 13" one, you need a backpack with sleeve or laptop bag for either of them anyway. And for travel I've not noticed much of a difference either, especially since the 15" laptop doesn't need a million usb-c dongles and hubs for every peripheral and connectivity feature.

[Neroon]

4 minutes ago, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

I'm with Thomas on this one, you're assuming folks with something like -2 dioptre bad vision, some of us are in the < -5 range. At that point anything more than full HD on a 13" screen is an elaborate exercise in pointlessness - glasses only help so much. Heck, I avoid increasing the resolution on my 24" monitors beyond 1080p because it just puts unnecessary additional strain on my eyes. And scaling is horribly broken in all operating systems, try running AutoCAD on a 13" screen with 3840x2400 pixels with the OS scaling options turned on. I've won a few beers around the office by challenging folks to try and enter their e-mail and password.

 

But in terms of laptop screen size, 15" laptops are mostly nice because you can get a decently sized keyboard with numpad, and the screen is up slightly higher - reducing back strain. Typing on a 13" Dell XPS gave me terrible wrist strain and back pain, the key travel distance is zilch, you got to bow down further to see the screen, and most 13" laptops are useless at running any engineering software anyhow due to thermal throttling. Yes, my 15" Thinkpad workstation boat anchor weighs in at around 2.5 kg, twice the weight of the XPS, but for that I get happier eyes and wrists, and my neck and shoulders also complain significantly less. And I can't say I notice any significant difference carrying around the 15" laptop versus the 13" one, you need a backpack with sleeve or laptop bag for either of them anyway. And for travel I've not noticed much of a difference either, especially since the 15" laptop doesn't need a million usb-c dongles and hubs for every peripheral and connectivity feature.

He already stated his vision is pretty good though. So my guess that proper glasses would fix it.

 

Obviously this won't work for everyone, my sister in law has nystagmus and her sight is like 20%, so she definitely prefers larger screens with scaling on.

[ImorallySourcedElectrons]

37 minutes ago, Neroon said:

He already stated his vision is pretty good though. So my guess that proper glasses would fix it.

 

Obviously this won't work for everyone, my sister in law has nystagmus and her sight is like 20%, so she definitely prefers larger screens with scaling on.

Manufacturers should just make 15" laptops instead of all trying to make yet another 13" macbook clone, that's kind of my point.

[Arika]

I don't see myself ever having a laptop beyond 14".

[seanondemand]

Isn’t hauling around a big-ass laptop the counterpoint to “big screen good”? If I’m shoving a laptop in my bag I’m trying to minimize the weight as much as possible as I get older, and isn’t the reason 13-14” laptops are popular is that it’s a nice balance of usable size and portability (and reasonable power/battery life for everyday tasks, obviously we’re not talking about workstation laptops here). I get back pain from just standing a lot, and I’m only 34. 

[CerealExperimentsLain]

Can the mods please make a 'Complain About The WAN Show While Linus Never Replies To Your Thoughts' subsection of the forum so it can stop flooding the general section?

 

Okay, maybe just call it 'WAN Show Discussion' so the sensitive reactionary types don't complain about that but we'll all know what it really is.

[Neroon]

5 hours ago, CerealExperimentsLain said:

Can the mods please make a 'Complain About The WAN Show While Linus Never Replies To Your Thoughts' subsection of the forum so it can stop flooding the general section?

 

Okay, maybe just call it 'WAN Show Discussion' so the sensitive reactionary types don't complain about that but we'll all know what it really is.

What's the issue here? We are have a discussion on a discussion forum.

[tikker]

14 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

OK I looked it up.  It affects 85 to 90% of people over 45.  The odds get even worse as the age goes up.  But yes apparently some very small minority do escape it.

The loss of close vision has nothing to do with 20/20 vision and the kind of corrections in normal glasses.  The fluid in the eye thickens, making it progressively more difficult for the muscles in your eye to change focus, which is required at closer distances.  You can both have 20/20 vision and lose your close vision.  My vision is pretty good, though not perfect.  My prescription hasn't changed in ages, even as my close vision went away.

That sounds like you never got a prescription for close vision then. If you get a prescription to work towards 20/20 vision then that won't help close vision indeed, because 20/20 is made for something 20 ft away. If you want to improve vision nearby then you need to get a prescription for a closer distance.

13 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

Have you used reading glasses, or held them up and looked through them?  Yes, obviously the goal is improved focus.  But the mechanism is effectively a weak magnifying glass.

Distortions are normal and unavoidable, they are lenses after all, There is magnification involved for reading glasses as they are for nearby, but glasses are to correct your vision to what you would see if you didn't need glasses, their purpose is not exactly that of a magnifying glass.

13 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

But, why would you pay for pixels you can never see?  And by never see, I mean, even with correction, you can't tell the difference in quality.  I'd rather shift that retina-quality money that does literally zero for me over to ultrawide, or hdr, or oled.

Well the point of pixels is to not see them, so that's a plus. For casual use there are 4k monitors that are close in price to 1080p ones, so they don't have to be significantly more expensive. There's a vast share of people for which the higher resolution is beneficial. It is beneficial for larger screen sizes to avoid a pixelated look. It'll also help with displaying high resolution frames since higher resolution screens have more pixels to properly sample details reducing jagged edges and other artifacts.

 

Given that "low-resolution" 1080p monitors with HDR or OLED capabilities would probably be even more niche in the current market than their 4k counterparts, they willl probably cost more as well and so the reverse question can be asked: why would you pay more for a "worse" screen?

13 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

So you are not experiencing this issue at all.  Traditional correction for younger vision issues are more able to solve the issues, without the need for different glasses at different distances, and without the need for the distortion introduced by progressive lenses.

One of my eyes is pretty near sighted. I wear glasses to read monitors or screens further away than my laptop better. Not reading glasses, but makes reading screens a lot more comfortable. Taking them off to read something on paper is also not a foreign concept to me, which can be more comfortable when tired or something like that. I may have an age benefit where my eyes can adjust a bit more still and get away with a single pair, but the issue is similar. Otherwise I could just say you have no issues either and to just put things at the correct distance for your prescription and use UI or font scaling if things are too small.

 

13 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

This is just wrong.  Desktop and laptop distances are too far away for reading glasses to work well.  They kinda work, but if read something in fine print with reading glasses and then forget to switch for the monitor, I can see, but I'm on my way to a headache.  Not a solution for someone who needs to stare at a monitor all day long.  So you either need progressives (and live with vast areas of your vision always distorted and out of focus, and always tilting your head to find the zone of sharpness) or you get middle-distance glasses for computers.  Which are typically prescription, because monitors are far enough away that your distance vision issues also need to be corrected.

Distance should be part of the prescription, so if the majority of your time is spent looking at screens then getting a prescription for that distance is something to consider. Using reading glasses made for smaller distances is simply using the wrong glasses for the job and can indeed give headaches from eye strain. Are we talking about prescription glasses though? Because the last sentence here sounds like you may be talking about off-the-shelf glasses mostly, which rarely are a perfect match to start with. Either way, glasses can't fix everything all at once. You've mentioned pros and cons of multiple glasses and varifocal lenses and that's what one has to deal with at the moment.

13 hours ago, Thomas A. Fine said:

Eventually, I WILL need glasses at all times for all screens.  One of the issues I didn't mention, that I deal with now, is that my vision is better or worse depending mainly on sleep, but apparently other factors are involved too.  If I"m well-rested, I usually don't need the computer glasses even on my 140 PPI laptop.  If I'm very tired, I can't read a thing without the glasses on my 110 PPI desktop monitor.

Vision changing with tiredness is normal. Your eye's muscles fatigue like any other. Using the wrong glasses/prescription can excacerbate the issue since your eye muscles will work harder.

[crazzp]

On 4/2/2023 at 5:30 PM, Thomas A. Fine said:

When you reach this age, it will 100% drive your purchasing decisions with phones, laptops, and monitors.  You will seriously consider 16 and 17" laptops at some point in your future. (Although in fairness, by then, a 3 pound 17" laptop with great performance and long battery life might just exist.)

If boomers can use a 6 inch phone or 10 inch tablet, they can use a 14 inch laptop. There's a reason you dont see boomer lugging around a 24 inch portable monitor and portable power station to plug in their phone(exaggeration here); there's a limit to how much a person wants to carry around and for Linus, it's 14 inch.

[Sol_NB]

As someone with a 16inch MacBook I find it a bit unwieldy when trying to use it on my lap or laying in bed 

[Thomas A. Fine]

12 hours ago, Neroon said:

What's the issue here? We are have a discussion on a discussion forum.

ALL YOUR FORUM ARE BELONG TO US!!!

[saintlouisbagels]

On 4/3/2023 at 10:29 AM, Sol_NB said:

As someone with a 16inch MacBook I find it a bit unwieldy when trying to use it on my lap or laying in bed 

I feel your pain. I kick myself for going with the 16" instead of the 14" because I was too impatient to wait for a restock lol.