Technology Android

[dilla]

After the Apple announcement, at first I heard the good news of the Macbook Pros getting the AMD Vega graphics, which is nice, but sadly that was the only good thing about the event.

Then.. Apple killed the Macbook Air. It was by far my favorite Apple computer. Technically they refreshed it and made it into a 13.3' Macbook. Basically, the only thing that's left of the original Macbook Air is the screen size. Sure, the display is finally up to modern standards. But there's no magnetic charger or usable full-sized USB ports anymore, the price went up to $1199 and it got a lowly, low-power dual-core chip, which is akin to killing the Macbook Air and merging it into the other Apple laptop series. Dual-core processors aren't even produced anymore. The last mainstream dual-core chip was a Skylake 2 years ago. The lowest end AMD of today is a quad-core, and ever since even the Intel i3s are quad core. I have no idea how they still managed to order a rebranded Skylake dual-core chip from Intel and still call it an 8th gen i5.

I had the Air, I had a hard time giving it away purely because of the magnetic charger and the keyboard, and how versatile it was for the size, so this makes me unreasonably sad, as it was an amazing product line, which hurts even more. Sure, it badly needed a refresh, but the way they carried it was filled with really bad decisions all across the board and effectively killed the line. It's just a 13,3' Macbook now.



That's very unusual. It should never be like this. I think 3+ hours of screen on time isn't great, but isn't tragic as well. I would stop worrying and just take it for what it is until another upgrade. 32 months is plenty of life out of a phone. 40% of battery degradation is very likely at such time, and it accelerates due to the capacity being lower and thus the battery getting full charge cycles more frequently.

I didn't watch the event today. Didn't think it would be as big as it was and thought it was just going to be an iPad Pro event and not much else. I was surprised at the Mac update but man, some of those options are pricing it close to an iMac with inferior internals and no 4K/5K screen of the iMac.

I think the base model Mac mini has an i3? Has Apple ever used an i3 before? I honestly can't remember.

I missed the news about the Vega coming to the 15" MBPs. I just caught up on the Apple Event using headlines on the Apple sub and I don't think I saw the Vega updates. I don't know how those specific Vega models benchmark but I was looking at eGPUs, as always, and the Vega 56/64 are quite expensive as is. I know, they're desktop GPUs, no comparison to the mobile ones, but I still wonder why Apple would bump the specs on the same line of computers just a few months after its release. Like a mid-cycle refresh. Good for new buyers, I guess.

The iPad Pro is a joke. $800 for an entry level model? My $499 10.5 sounds like an absolute bargain now. No shitty FaceID, still has a headphone jack, and doesn't require a now-$129 Pencil. And there are still schmucks that'll spend $800 on this, not expecting the price bump beforehand, and are going to pretend to be ok with it. Fuck that noise. I suggested to someone that they look to see if they can find that $499 deal for the 10.5 2017 model or if they were intent on spending close to a grand on a tablet, look to the Surface. I don't know how good or bad the Surface is, but I'd rather have a desktop OS and capabilities with a stylus if I'm paying $800 for something. Some people said the Surface was shit for writing on, but whatever. I guess if you like iOS that much and you feel the Pencil and iPad combo works best for you, go for it. But it's highway robbery to charge $800 for that. It looks nice and I'm sure its powerful as all hell but I see it as an option for some Uber-professional that just refuses to use a notebook or ultrabook due to lack of a stylus but still needs a very powerful machine to do work while on the go. The new Pro has a hexa? Octa?-core processor? Something ridiculous. $649 was the outgoing model's price for the base model. I'd have accepted a $50 bump, though it was still a shitty thing to do. $150 more? Apple is just fucking with consumers now. I know people have thought this for a decade or more now, but with the shit they pulled with the Touch Bar MBP models and their price hike, it was no surprise to me they'd do the same with the iPad Pro. They did it with the iPhone X when it was released after the 7 and concurrently with the 8.

As for the phone, I have had replacing the battery on my mind for some time now. I think its $70 at UBreakIFix, which is an authorized Samsung repair center here in the US. I'm assuming its OEM, or like-OEM quality batteries and the work is guaranteed for 90 days. It may be worth looking to that to get another year or so out of the phone.

I'll hold on for that a little bit longer because this deal just came up on SlickDeals for the Note 9: https://bgr.com/2018/10/30/galaxy-note-9-vs-galaxy-s9-black-friday-sams-club-deal-comes-early/

While I don't think I've played with a Note model for more than a minute or two on a display, $300 off isn't too bad. I'd have to look at the terms of the deal because I'd rather buy the phone outright, but the deal may require me to switch to the newer Sprint plans which are shit and then activate the phone on their network. I don't want to do that, so we'll see what their terms are. I don't think I'd complain about the battery life on a Note, lol

 

[masta247]

The iPad Pro is a joke. $800 for an entry level model? My $499 10.5 sounds like an absolute bargain now. No shitty FaceID, still has a headphone jack, and doesn't require a now-$129 Pencil.

While I wasn't ever too fond of the way Apple conducted their business, I could recognize that some of their products were great in several ways. The original Macbook Air and iPad Air were simply excellent pieces of hardware when they launched, and for many years after. Same as the earlier Retina Macbook Pros.

I think Apple lost it by now. The spiritual successors to their most successful lines are getting gutted, with everything that made them great being removed, with no new appealing stuff to replace it. The new products feel more generic than Apple products ever did. They also seem to ditch convenience in the name of trying to be modern (not including proper USB ports, which the whole industry still uses, ditching headphone jacks, magnetic chargers, fingerprint scanners, adding notches). It's the opposite of what the old Apple that I sometimes really disliked but respected for many of their hardware decisions would do. They are now only taking things away without adding any value, and pushing their prices to levels unseen even when their products were much better.

If anything, the new devices look uninspiring, the choices they made resulted in them feeling more like the most generic of OEMs, and the least you'd expect from Apple is that this would never be the case. They stopped going out of their way to make their users' lives easier like they used to, which was that one thing that justified their poor value for money in terms of pure tech.

The iPad Air launched at $499. It wasn't exactly cheap, but it felt reasonable, as it was a revolutionary device at its time. The new iPad Pro is nothing like it in today's market, yet starts from $799/$899. That's beyond just overpriced. Frankly, I think it's the beginning of Apple's slow downfall. Clearly, the old Apple I knew is now gone from their products.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

This is insane.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/25/18021944/google-night-sight-pixel-3-camera-samples

I've got it working on my Pixel 2 XL thanks to the XDA folks. And it is crazy good. It's like some wizard magic.

Saw this like last week and it's really great. However, looking at some of those pictures that are claimed to be in low light outdoors, there seems to be shadows behind various objects such as trees.

I think for my next phone, I'll see what the Xiaomi offering is like come November, I'll keep an eye out for the Poco F2, Mi A3 and the Pixel 4.

The new notch-killing trend with phones seems to be sliding displays (similar to the Nokia N95 and N96) but those were solid phones. I wonder what the implications of this form factor would be for the more fragile devices we have these days. Definitely a welcome addition though as I hate the notch trend.

 

[dilla]

While I wasn't ever too fond of the way Apple conducted their business, I could recognize that some of their products were great in several ways. The original Macbook Air and iPad Air were simply excellent pieces of hardware when they launched, and for many years after. Same as the earlier Retina Macbook Pros.

I think Apple lost it by now. The spiritual successors to their most successful lines are getting gutted, with everything that made them great being removed, with no new appealing stuff to replace it. The new products feel more generic than Apple products ever did. They also seem to ditch convenience in the name of trying to be modern (not including proper USB ports, which the whole industry still uses, ditching headphone jacks, magnetic chargers, fingerprint scanners, adding notches). It's the opposite of what the old Apple that I sometimes really disliked but respected for many of their hardware decisions would do. They are now only taking things away without adding any value, and pushing their prices to levels unseen even when their products were much better.

If anything, the new devices look uninspiring, the choices they made resulted in them feeling more like the most generic of OEMs, and the least you'd expect from Apple is that this would never be the case. They stopped going out of their way to make their users' lives easier like they used to, which was that one thing that justified their poor value for money in terms of pure tech.

The iPad Air launched at $499. It wasn't exactly cheap, but it felt reasonable, as it was a revolutionary device at its time. The new iPad Pro is nothing like it in today's market, yet starts from $799/$899. That's beyond just overpriced. Frankly, I think it's the beginning of Apple's slow downfall. Clearly, the old Apple I knew is now gone from their products.

It's a cliche to say that Apple died when Jobs died but that really seems to be the case. That company and its employees worked best when it was run by an authoritative figure. That's not to say Cook does fuck all at Apple, but whatever Jobs was criticized for in his personal posthumously was likely what made Apple such a success in his professional life. I don't know how Cook is but the media paints him in a very different light than they did Jobs and from the keynotes I've seen, he's more relaxed and is kind of monotonous. Robotic.

I love my MBP and I've started implementing USB-C more and more. Well, I really just bought a USB-C SSD for cheap and that will now be either my Boot Camp drive or my time Machine drive for backups. My iPad Pro now connects via USB-C to Lightning cable to my MBP, but that doesn't happen too often. The next flash drive I buy will be USB-C but I'd look for one with a legacy USB adapter as well, even if it alters transfer speeds. I'd rather have the convenience than the performance in that case. My monitor is connected via USB-C to DisplayPort cable too. But it was a shitty decision and I think Apple overplayed its hand thinking it had as much influence in the industry as it did. They thought they could shift the standard to USB-C the way they are credited with eliminating the optical drive. Or the headphone jack on the iPhone. But that USB-C shift didn't quite hit as hard as they thought it would and they look pretty dumb right now as a portion of users have been buying USB-C peripherals out of necessity for their MBP or to slowly shift over with their newer, non-Apple machines, and then the other portion of people just simply don't give a shit and the only USB-C device they own would be their Android phones that have USB-C ports and they don't know or care about the benefits and switching everything else over.

My dad's XPS 15 has a USB-C port, or two, and the rest are legacy ports. I don't think he knows what the hell that port is or that it even exists.

I'm glad I got my MBP when I did, although the 2018 models do offer double the RAM, which I would have liked and it would have made no difference to get the 2018 instead of the 2017, aside from the time in between. But I think Macs are going to get shat on the next few update cycles as Apple really tries to force the iPad Pro in to users' hands. As a casual user, if I had $1200 to spend, I'd get a base iPad Pro and few accessories over getting the MB or new MBAs. I'd take the performance hit but value the Pencil/stylus and touch screen over what the MBAs offer.

Or I'd look at the Surface line if I wanted a tablet and see what they offered. I still prefer macOS or iOS one Windows but if I had to buy something to be productive and on the go, Windows alternatives are plenty around that price range. 2-in-1s are made by every OEM.

 

[Casey]

Saw this like last week and it's really great. However, looking at some of those pictures that are claimed to be in low light outdoors, there seems to be shadows behind various objects such as trees.

More than happy to do some comparisons myself, if you want.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

More than happy to do some comparisons myself, if you want.

Yeah, go for it - I'd like to see some!

 

[dilla]

While I wasn't ever too fond of the way Apple conducted their business, I could recognize that some of their products were great in several ways. The original Macbook Air and iPad Air were simply excellent pieces of hardware when they launched, and for many years after. Same as the earlier Retina Macbook Pros.

I think Apple lost it by now. The spiritual successors to their most successful lines are getting gutted, with everything that made them great being removed, with no new appealing stuff to replace it. The new products feel more generic than Apple products ever did. They also seem to ditch convenience in the name of trying to be modern (not including proper USB ports, which the whole industry still uses, ditching headphone jacks, magnetic chargers, fingerprint scanners, adding notches). It's the opposite of what the old Apple that I sometimes really disliked but respected for many of their hardware decisions would do. They are now only taking things away without adding any value, and pushing their prices to levels unseen even when their products were much better.

If anything, the new devices look uninspiring, the choices they made resulted in them feeling more like the most generic of OEMs, and the least you'd expect from Apple is that this would never be the case. They stopped going out of their way to make their users' lives easier like they used to, which was that one thing that justified their poor value for money in terms of pure tech.

The iPad Air launched at $499. It wasn't exactly cheap, but it felt reasonable, as it was a revolutionary device at its time. The new iPad Pro is nothing like it in today's market, yet starts from $799/$899. That's beyond just overpriced. Frankly, I think it's the beginning of Apple's slow downfall. Clearly, the old Apple I knew is now gone from their products.

Wow:https://bgr.com/2018/11/01/new-ipad-pros-speed-will-be-a-nightmare-for-qualcomm-and-intel/

They're saying the 1 TB models of both iPad Pros have 6 GB of RAM while the rest have 4. But look at that score.

Someone suggested that Apple make a custom OS for the iPad Pro, be it a modified iOS or just a straight up, brand new iPadOS, or whatever. I think it makes sense seeing how they perform now and what Apple is charging for them. The one issue I think we'd see would be fragmentation of all Apple OSs but it would also be for completely different devices. iPhones vs iPads and it's not like they don't have a watchOS and tvOS, as well, and they seem to be doing fine on their own.

Someone also suggested these A12X chips make their way to the Mac lineup, but these benchmark scores aren't the end-all of judging performance. But I think a custom iPad OS makes sense.

 

[masta247]

Wow:https://bgr.com/2018/11/01/new-ipad-pros-speed-will-be-a-nightmare-for-qualcomm-and-intel/

They're saying the 1 TB models of both iPad Pros have 6 GB of RAM while the rest have 4. But look at that score.

Someone suggested that Apple make a custom OS for the iPad Pro, be it a modified iOS or just a straight up, brand new iPadOS, or whatever. I think it makes sense seeing how they perform now and what Apple is charging for them. The one issue I think we'd see would be fragmentation of all Apple OSs but it would also be for completely different devices. iPhones vs iPads and it's not like they don't have a watchOS and tvOS, as well, and they seem to be doing fine on their own.

Someone also suggested these A12X chips make their way to the Mac lineup, but these benchmark scores aren't the end-all of judging performance. But I think a custom iPad OS makes sense.

While you can't in any meaningful way compare the performance of simple ARM chips (Apple, Qualcomm) with X86 chips (Intel, AMD), surely Apple makes the best ARM chips and they are very fast for almost all simple tasks. I was rightfully excited about them ever since the latest iPhone chips.

That said, the article is horrible, as it makes it seem like you can just put an ARM chip into a Macbook and it will run faster than if it had an Intel chip, lol. These chips aren't meant for more advanced or time-consuming tasks. They will run ARM-specific Geekbench fast or website code fast on an ARM browser, but they won't be even in the same ballpark if you wanted to, for example, edit your video, or create an animation, or even launch a full browser or desktop operating system, or any large program. They were meant for simple tasks and that's what they specialize in, while running anything more advanced painfully slow, because they are super limited in what they excel, which is why they are so small and low power.

If you wanted to run existing MacOS code, even natively, without an emulator (which would require all programs for Mac to be rewritten from scratch), they'd still be several times slower due to the architecture differences and the simplicity of ARM designs. Apple now makes by far the most complex and advanced ARM designs, but when you think about it, laptop and desktop chips are so large for a reason - they are capable of doing hundreds of things really well, and even if an ARM chip can outperform them in one, most common aspect, it's still a one trick pony that is not equipped to handle everything else these large chips can do really well.

Like I said earlier, Apple are surely thinking about how to put their own chips into their Macbooks, and they have all the business incentives in order to do so, but it's just not that simple. They'd have to emulate the existing software, which would make it an additional order of magnitude slower on top of ARM chips already being slower in most tasks.

Where Apple deserves all the kudos is in managing to run simple code native to ARM faster than a full Intel (x86) processor can run the same thing using native X86 code. However, in terms of using ARM in desktop OSes that's sort of like an apples to oranges comparison, except the orange can also do a really good job of being a potato, a carrot, a watermelon and whatever you need it to be, while the apple can simply be just a really good apple.

In terms of the iPad, most of all, mobile OSes aren't capable of competing with full desktop OSes. 6GB of RAM on mobile is nice if you wanna have many browser tabs open or several apps open at a time, but it's still 6GB of RAM on a mobile device meant for consumption rather than professional tasks or serious productivity. You will breeze through all your websites and simple apps, but you won't seriously do much else. It's an excellent media consumption device, no doubt about it. I don't see how it's an $800 piece of electronics though, and I just don't see the "Pro" moniker fooling many people.

 

[dilla]

While you can't in any meaningful way compare the performance of simple ARM chips (Apple, Qualcomm) with X86 chips (Intel, AMD), surely Apple makes the best ARM chips and they are very fast for almost all simple tasks. I was rightfully excited about them ever since the latest iPhone chips.

That said, the article is horrible, as it makes it seem like you can just put an ARM chip into a Macbook and it will run faster than if it had an Intel chip, lol. These chips aren't meant for more advanced or time-consuming tasks. They will run ARM-specific Geekbench fast or website code fast on an ARM browser, but they won't be even in the same ballpark if you wanted to, for example, edit your video, or create an animation, or even launch a full browser or desktop operating system, or any large program. They were meant for simple tasks and that's what they specialize in, while running anything more advanced painfully slow, because they are super limited in what they excel, which is why they are so small and low power.

If you wanted to run existing MacOS code, even natively, without an emulator (which would require all programs for Mac to be rewritten from scratch), they'd still be several times slower due to the architecture differences and the simplicity of ARM designs. Apple now makes by far the most complex and advanced ARM designs, but when you think about it, laptop and desktop chips are so large for a reason - they are capable of doing hundreds of things really well, and even if an ARM chip can outperform them in one, most common aspect, it's still a one trick pony that is not equipped to handle everything else these large chips can do really well.

Like I said earlier, Apple are surely thinking about how to put their own chips into their Macbooks, and they have all the business incentives in order to do so, but it's just not that simple. They'd have to emulate the existing software, which would make it an additional order of magnitude slower on top of ARM chips already being slower in most tasks.

Where Apple deserves all the kudos is in managing to run simple code native to ARM faster than a full Intel (x86) processor can run the same thing using native X86 code. However, in terms of using ARM in desktop OSes that's sort of like an apples to oranges comparison, except the orange can also do a really good job of being a potato, a carrot, a watermelon and whatever you need it to be, while the apple can simply be just a really good apple.

In terms of the iPad, most of all, mobile OSes aren't capable of competing with full desktop OSes. 6GB of RAM on mobile is nice if you wanna have many browser tabs open or several apps open at a time, but it's still 6GB of RAM on a mobile device meant for consumption rather than professional tasks or serious productivity. You will breeze through all your websites and simple apps, but you won't seriously do much else. It's an excellent media consumption device, no doubt about it. I don't see how it's an $800 piece of electronics though, and I just don't see the "Pro" moniker fooling many people.

I'm no professional but there are apps for iOS that are geared towards music production and art creation (for lack of a better word). Design apps? I haven't read any pieces from people that use tablets of any kind (Surface or iPad/Pro) and how they feel it works for them, but those apps do exist. The fact that Adobe sees potential in this means that a good number of professionals do buy the software for the iPad and it works for them.

I wouldn't expect a Hollywood release to be edited completely on an iPad but I feel that smaller jobs and tasks than full-length movies could probably be done on an iPad. Sure, a desktop is best but I don't know the lives of these creators. Maybe they're on the move so much and work for such short periods of time that a desktop is out of the question, obviously, but so a powerful laptop like a 15" MBP or XPS 15 or whatever notebooks out there that are creative powerhouses. So it comes down to an iPad Pro or, maybe, an MBA or MB, or Windows ultrabook that can be used on a train or bus or something.

I don't know, I'm just spitballing on what, where, and when creators work and which ones would need the power of the iPad Pro while it's still running iOS and is limited from being a full-fledge media machine comparable to an iMac Pro. Or just an iMac or MBP. We'd have to hear it from creators themselves on how they use it and what they could see as limitations in the future based on hardware.

I'm just waiting on NotebookCheck and Anand to do a proper review of this thing and see how it compares to the 2017 iPad Pro. This is a much more powerful machine than what I had anticipated and while I don't think the $150 price hike was warranted, this certainly wasn't just some minor spec bump and aesthetic overhaul; I think Apple turned the page completely on the iPad's future and it's going to start gunning hard for the low-end of it's Mac lineup.

And like you said, it's not going to do everything even an MBA or MB could but for some very specific tasks for people on the go, they may appreciate the touch screen and portability and maybe battery life of a Pro and deal with its shortcomings in the speed compared to a computer. But I don't know where I would read a reputable article on the thoughts of those people. Probably just Reddit comments lol

 

[THEV1LL4N]

What did people think of the Google Pixel Slate? I'm just waiting for updates.

I'm interested in the HP Chromebook x2 for the right price. It seems as though they've really inflated the price in the UK to £799 which is a real shame.

 

[dilla]

Anand released the Pixel 3 review.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13474/the-google-pixel-3-review/9
Looks like knocks are again on build quality and lack of features.

The conclusion also mentions being entrenched in Google’s ecosystem. What does that mean? If you’ve owned an Android phone before, you’re in the google ecosystem and even if you don’t, using gmail and their search alone puts you in it with a google Account.

 

[masta247]

Anand released the Pixel 3 review.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13474/the-google-pixel-3-review/9
Looks like knocks are again on build quality and lack of features.

The conclusion also mentions being entrenched in Google’s ecosystem. What does that mean? If you’ve owned an Android phone before, you’re in the google ecosystem and even if you don’t, using gmail and their search alone puts you in it with a google Account.

Yeah, I read the review. I thought it was very good. As usual, the hardware isn't up to par and the build quality is poor but the software is otherwise good. I'm surprised they dared to say the camera is better on the recent Samsung phones. Most websites only compared it against the iPhones, which aren't as good. I find it funny how casual tech sites claimed the camera is so much better than on the Pixel 2, yet Anandtech showed it's pretty much the same module that the Pixel 2 uses with better software (that you can also port to other phones that actually use significantly better camera modules).

What I would also like to point out is that they are saying exactly the same things I've been saying about the Pixel 3 (in a more review-friendly way).

"unless you’re very entrenched in Google’s software ecosystem and you make good use of many of Google US-exclusive features on the Pixel, then you might want to consider some other alternatives"
I think what they really meant is that it's a device for Google fans, as otherwise, the phone isn't too good.
Also, if you buy an OEM device, you aren't bombarded by Google services like you are with the Pixel. A lot of Google things are integrated into the phone and pretty much all Google services come pre-installed. Although it's funny how they mentioned that this is the only reason to get this phone.

 

[dilla]

Yeah, I read the review. I thought it was very good. As usual, the hardware isn't up to par and the build quality is poor but the software is otherwise good. I'm surprised they dared to say the camera is better on the recent Samsung phones. Most websites only compared it against the iPhones, which aren't as good. I find it funny how casual tech sites claimed the camera is so much better than on the Pixel 2, yet Anandtech showed it's pretty much the same module that the Pixel 2 uses with better software (that you can also port to other phones that actually use significantly better camera modules).

What I would also like to point out is that they are saying exactly the same things I've been saying about the Pixel 3 (in a more review-friendly way).

"unless you’re very entrenched in Google’s software ecosystem and you make good use of many of Google US-exclusive features on the Pixel, then you might want to consider some other alternatives"
I think what they really meant is that it's a device for Google fans, as otherwise, the phone isn't too good.
Also, if you buy an OEM device, you aren't bombarded by Google services like you are with the Pixel. A lot of Google things are integrated into the phone and pretty much all Google services come pre-installed. Although it's funny how they mentioned that this is the only reason to get this phone.

I see. Most people I read on Reddit want to remove many of the Google apps and have third party alternatives. So many try to remove the Google Launcher, Messages, don't use Duo/Lingo, or even Hangouts. The only thing they want from Google is Gmail and Maps. Even for YouTube, they look for third party apps that get around the ads.

I disabled the "Ok, Google" feature on my phone and saw my wake locks drop drastically. I know having the feature enabled always has your phone listening for the phrase, but the poor battery life I've noticed the past few months has gotten a bit better since disabling it. But I have always had the feature enabled, at least for the better part of the last year, and never saw the battery life get bad until August or September of this year. But disabling it lowered the wake locks and now my battery drain while is great, and back to less than 2% an hour.

 

[dilla]

After the recent iPad announcement, I've started delving deeper in to my iPad Pro lol.

I no longer use it JUST for academic stuff and now I've developed a habit of browsing the web and using the app for Twitter on it in bed when I don't feel like sitting at my desk and laptop. I don't even use the Pencil when browsing but it certainly makes things a bit easier compared to tapping.

I used it for about 8 hours off charger throughout the week on a single charge and had about 20% battery left to go. This included streaming about an hour or two of Hulu.

I'm not trying to compare it to my S7 but if other S7 users, especially Exynos users, used to get 6+ hours of SOT, I am really upset with my S7's performance since day one. But I am really happy with my iPad handling all the tasks I threw at it with ease.

I run AdGuard on my iPad which, for iOS, only affects Safari and no other browser or app. It's not system wide like it is on a desktop or on my Android phone (paid version). And for some reason, desktop pages render faster on my Pro than they do on my MBP, even. Instantaneously, almost, it's like going through a phones settings menu.

I already started getting the pangs of regret for getting my MBP and not getting a proper desktop when it was time to upgrade last year. Of course, I would have gone almost a year with just my Air and a desktop, but the iPad is just so much easier. The Air would have been fine too, just lacking the Pencil support for writing notes or diagrams, which I do daily on my Pro.

All I prefer to do on my MBP is game, which is one, medially-intense game in DOTA, and watch multiple sports streams, but that also on my monitor. Since I'm not a professional user and don't use an office suite of any kind too often, the iPad has been more than enough during that time. if I needed to use iWorks, I'd probably need to shell out for a keyboard, which I'm not going to do, but if I hadn't upgraded my MBP, I would have done it in a heartbeat. For ~$700, I would have had a Pencil, keyboard, and 2017 10.5 iPad Pro for daily computing. And if I wanted to game, I think a shit-box, sub-$1000 Windows machine with a 1070? 1080? I don't know what "ti" it would be, but that would have been enough.

 

[masta247]

Even for YouTube, they look for third party apps that get around the ads.

Man, it's so sad to see what Google did to Youtube. It was a flawless platform, they had no competition and just did everything right. The ads used to still make them a lot of money since everyone used the service, and they appeared once every couple of videos watched.

Now you see 5 ads on a 10-minute video, on top of ads prompting you to pay for their subscription, which almost nobody rightfully does. It's become worse than TV. I love Youtube, so it's so sad that people started scrambling for alternatives. Basically, greed is killing the platform I once thought would be unkillable, due to how much it would take to offer a viable competitor, and how hard I once thought it would be to kill Youtube. The platform is being horribly mismanaged by someone who thought "subscription money+more ads=more money=investors happier" without caring about the user experience and what happens to the platform after those moves make the users look for alternatives potentially creating real competition, resulting in even fewer users who watch those ads and seriously hurting a once untouchable platform.

And if I wanted to game, I think a shit-box, sub-$1000 Windows machine with a 1070? 1080? I don't know what "ti" it would be, but that would have been enough.

The hardware prices are going up. With RAM and GPU prices higher than ever I normally wouldn't say it's the right time to build/buy a computer, but with the new sets of tariffs coming into effect on January 1 in the US which will actually affect the hardware prices this time, the end-user prices over there will be going up next year rather significantly. While the makers there are already ramping up their prices in preparation for what's coming, in the end, all American makers will be dumping anything between extra 10-25% of their current prices onto the American end-customers, judging by what the tariffs will cost them and by what MBX (a major American system builder behind Alienware, CA Technologies etc.) also confirmed in their press release last Friday. The foreign makers will still ramp up their prices due to some of them manufacturing in China, some of them using parts made in China, and the bulk of them just taking advantage of the higher average prices in the US market. Building or buying a PC next year will likely be significantly more expensive (you can already feel that today, Intel and Nvidia increased their product prices by more than they ever historically did, and they merely supply parts) and will last until the tariffs go away, or major European or Asian competitors (who are not affected by the tariffs) manage to seize the opportunity.

I hate making posts filled with gloom-and-doom, so.. Intel managed to partially work-around the tariffs and span off some of their manufacturing to Taiwan (TSMC) and GlobalFoundries didn't survive the onslaught, so they just span off their American chip-design division and called it Avera, so they can independently operate their remaining plants in UAE without being further hurt by the tariffs. AMD, Qualcomm and Nvidia will be making their chips in Taiwan (TSMC) as well. So some mitigation is happening, as their products won't be hurt by the tariffs as much as well. Also, Samsungs should become more competitive in the US market, as their tech is assembled in Vietnam with most parts made in Korea, while Apple will get their margins hurt (or maybe their this year's higher prices already include the burden of tariffs) in several fields apart from smartphones and the watch, where they got their exemptions.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Man, it's so sad to see what Google did to Youtube. It was a flawless platform, they had no competition and just did everything right. The ads used to still make them a lot of money since everyone used the service, and they appeared once every couple of videos watched.

Now you see 5 ads on a 10-minute video, on top of ads prompting you to pay for their subscription, which almost nobody rightfully does. It's become worse than TV. I love Youtube, so it's so sad that people started scrambling for alternatives. Basically, greed is killing the platform I once thought would be unkillable, due to how much it would take to offer a viable competitor, and how hard I once thought it would be to kill Youtube. The platform is being horribly mismanaged by someone who thought "subscription money+more ads=more money=investors happier" without caring about the user experience and what happens to the platform after those moves make the users look for alternatives potentially creating real competition, resulting in even fewer users who watch those ads and seriously hurting a once untouchable platform.

What YouTube need to do is find a way to improve their casual user base. I feel like they could have had a share of the 'stories' market like Snapchat and IG, and now you see people sharing short videos around on IG and Facebook instead of YouTube. YouTube could have easily conquered those aspects of social but it seems that those types of users are likely to remain sharing on IG/Facebook instead of having to go into YouTube especially to browse and share video content. I know YouTube included contacts but I feel the adaptation of it has been much slower than expected and so has the engagement with it.

Live videos. Content creators and companies seem to use Facebook and IG live to engage with their audiences. This is another area where YouTube should be killing it.

 

[dilla]

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Motor...la-Android-smartphone-in-the-US.355331.0.html

I was kind of excited about this phone's announcement of coming to the US until I saw that it was GSM-only. I'm not tethered to Sprint anymore since my contract is up, but I have still been leaning towards staying. But this phone, at $300, seems like a steal and I'd definitely look into it at some point. But I'd really have to wait for my S7 to die because it wouldn't make sense to abandon the S7 for a cheap-but-good phone in the name of value lol.

I think I'm going to get my battery changed this week at UBIF. I have seen a few people get their batteries change on the S7 subreddit and it's been a mix of good and bad. Sounds like a crapshoot just going to a random shop to get it fixed but those that went to UBIF, an authorized repair center, seem to be happy.

Those that went to other, unauthorized places are skeptical about the quality of the battery that was replacing the old one. Some are saying there are dozens of cycle counts on a lot of these batteries already and apps that check battery health are showing as low as 82% battery health. On newly installed batteries.

Not sure how UBIF does it but if Samsung approves, I'm hoping for the best.

 

[masta247]

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Motor...la-Android-smartphone-in-the-US.355331.0.html

I was kind of excited about this phone's announcement of coming to the US until I saw that it was GSM-only. I'm not tethered to Sprint anymore since my contract is up, but I have still been leaning towards staying. But this phone, at $300, seems like a steal and I'd definitely look into it at some point. But I'd really have to wait for my S7 to die because it wouldn't make sense to abandon the S7 for a cheap-but-good phone in the name of value lol.

This is just a lower mid-ranger. The price isn't that great. There are better mid-rangers out there, and better phones for the price. Basically, this phone seems to be significantly worse than your S7.

 

[masta247]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-new-horizon-7nm-cpu,38029.html

Breaking News - AMD Announces 7nm Rome CPUs and MI60 GPUs
AMD is expected to make major announcements about its new 7nm CPUs and GPUs. Intel continues to struggle with its 10nm manufacturing process, which is delayed until late 2019. If AMD can field 7nm processors early next year, it will mark the first time in the company's history that it also has had a process node leadership position over Intel. That should equate to faster, denser, and less power-hungry processors than Intel's.

And then this was announced:

AMD is already sampling its 7nm Rome processors, which mark the debut of the Zen 2 microarchitecture, to customers.
Zen 2 will provide up to 2X the compute power per node, improved execution pipeline, doubled core density, and use half the energy per operation. AMD has doubled floating point performance with the Zen 2 microarchitecture

....!!

To put it into perspective, Intel increased performance and power efficiency by ~25% between Sandy Bridge (2011) and Coffee Lake (2018).

I'm watching the live stream right now and it's possibly the largest thing in computing I've ever witnessed.
AMD unveiled their new CPU AND GPU architectures manufactured in the 7nm process. That's the world's first full-sized 7nm CPU and first 7nm GPU announced during a single event, hitting the market in mainstream products in just a few months. Then they also announced the largest gen-over-gen performance improvements to the architecture we have ever seen. The company is doing incredible things.
(They also announced a 1TB/s memory module, which is several times faster than today's fastest - one Terabyte per second!).

For the investors, this is a historical moment to buy AMD stock now. The repercussions are significantly larger than those of the original Ryzen launch. Ryzen is at 14nm now, Intel's Coffee Lake (including 9th gen announced last month) is also at 14nm.
AMD is moving Ryzen to 7nm in just a few months, a leap the magnitude that has never occurred before.
Intel is only working on their 10nm process, which they have been delaying for over 4 years now, with the current estimate being end of 2019 to hit the market. Even if it happens on time this time, it will still then be behind of what AMD just launched. And that's on top of AMD making a leap in terms of architecture performance that Intel did not achieve even by launching the Core architecture in 2006.

Nothing like what AMD does now has ever happened before in the semiconductor market, and it's incredibly exciting. Next year's mainstream chips will be orders of magnitude faster than what we are using today, finally, after 10 years of mere 3-5%/year performance gains.

 

[dilla]

This is just a lower mid-ranger. The price isn't that great. There are better mid-rangers out there, and better phones for the price. Basically, this phone seems to be significantly worse than your S7.

Yeah I was aware of the mid level status of the phone. "Android One" though, lol.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-new-horizon-7nm-cpu,38029.html



And then this was announced:



....!!

To put it into perspective, Intel increased performance and power efficiency by ~25% between Sandy Bridge (2011) and Coffee Lake (2018).

I'm watching the live stream right now and it's possibly the largest thing in computing I've ever witnessed.
AMD unveiled their new CPU AND GPU architectures manufactured in the 7nm process. That's the world's first full-sized 7nm CPU and first 7nm GPU announced during a single event, hitting the market in mainstream products in just a few months. Then they also announced the largest gen-over-gen performance improvements to the architecture we have ever seen. The company is doing incredible things.
(They also announced a 1TB/s memory module, which is several times faster than today's fastest - one Terabyte per second!).

For the investors, this is a historical moment to buy AMD stock now. The repercussions are significantly larger than those of the original Ryzen launch. Ryzen is at 14nm now, Intel's Coffee Lake (including 9th gen announced last month) is also at 14nm.
AMD is moving Ryzen to 7nm in just a few months, a leap the magnitude that has never occurred before.
Intel is only working on their 10nm process, which they have been delaying for over 4 years now, with the current estimate being end of 2019 to hit the market. Even if it happens on time this time, it will still then be behind of what AMD just launched. And that's on top of AMD making a leap in terms of architecture performance that Intel did not achieve even by launching the Core architecture in 2006.

Nothing like what AMD does now has ever happened before in the semiconductor market, and it's incredibly exciting. Next year's mainstream chips will be orders of magnitude faster than what we are using today, finally, after 10 years of mere 3-5%/year performance gains.

This is great and all but AMD's success depends on OEMs embracing their stuff (AMD's best stuff, at that) and also marketing it in a way that speaks to people that have been brainwashed by the marketing campaign of Intel. The campaign that made people see AMD as "inferior" 20 years ago and people that hesitated when seeing that an AMD equipped build was cheaper than an otherwise identical build with an Intel processor.

Apple loves AMD dedicated GPUs in their recent offerings. You think we see the GPU with those gains put into the 2019 refresh of the MBPs, or will it be too expensive? Or is this a desktop-only development that won't be seen on mobile GPUs?