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  • Miggleness - Friday, January 4, 2019 - link

    Ugh. That page up/down placement.
  • leledumbo - Friday, January 4, 2019 - link

    ThinkPad inspired, I guess. I would still opt for full size arrow keys with home/end/pg up/pg down on their own column above the right arrow key. That's the best keyboard layout that every laptop should follow, except when space doesn't permit.
  • PeachNCream - Friday, January 4, 2019 - link

    That's been a thing for Dell Latitudes since the Sandy Bridge e6x20 series was released. I've gotten used to it over the years and a recent switch to HP at my workplace to a ProBook that has a row off to the right that includes home/pg up/pd dn/end still trips me up after a couple months of use. The change isn't bad, just different as I'm used to using the arrow keys in conjunction with pg up & pg dn because it's efficient to cluster coarse and fine grained scrolling in one area rather than spreading them out. I am terminally annoyed by the half height up an down arrow keys on the HP.
  • Inteli - Friday, January 4, 2019 - link

    Having used both HP's style and the Thinkpad style, I don't really have a preference. Home and End are definitely better on HP's layout, but I think there are merits to both. The three-quarter-high keys don't really bother me, but then I don't use them much anyways.
  • HStewart - Friday, January 4, 2019 - link

    I bet the extended battery life is something new with Whiskey-Lake U CPU's.
  • Prestissimo - Saturday, January 5, 2019 - link

    Not really. Just the bigger battery combined with what is rumored to be a LP display.
  • HStewart - Saturday, January 5, 2019 - link

    My XPS 15 2in1 has just as big batter battery Quad core CPU - but of course it has Vega RX GPU and a 4k screen. Yes I understand the 4K is major part of power drain - 3x battery life is significant - Intel must have done something with Whiskey lake. to achieve 20 hours. Keep in mind they are under threat by the Qualcomm Windows for ARM and this computer looks like a perfect attempt.
  • Prestissimo - Sunday, January 6, 2019 - link

    External pressure on Intel is definitely a welcome change. I suppose 7nm Ryzen will be like fire on their doorstep. But there's only so much Intel can do. Remember the 7W Core M CPUs were supposed to achieve exactly this - reduce power consumption and further improve battery life. Instead now they've been rebranded under iCore Y and M3 series because Intel failed and created the worst value chip next to Celeron.

    This Latitude 7400 2-in-1 will get 12 hours of battery life on average. The most comparable laptop I can think of is Lenovo Yoga 910 that had identical specs apart from the Kaby Lake chip and got around 10 hours. Power efficiency for 15W CPUs has been virtually at a standstill since moving from 22 to 14nm with Broadwell in 2014. And even that was a minor improvement.

    Whiskey Lake is literally Kaby Lake R with clockspeed boost so if anything that and power hungry NVMe SSDs should slightly raise the power draw that is probably offset by LP memory and display. At least that's my guess.
  • Prestissimo - Sunday, January 6, 2019 - link

    *4.5W Core M
  • hybrid2d4x4 - Friday, January 4, 2019 - link

    The rumored 3:2 displays would've made a lot of sense in a productivity-oriented machine like this. Or any new laptops in general...
  • Ej24 - Saturday, January 5, 2019 - link

    My thoughts exactly. So tired of 16:9 for trying to do real work.
  • Prestissimo - Friday, January 4, 2019 - link

    HP offers EliteBook x360 1040 with 700 nits FHD "Sure View" / 500 nits UHD displays, both anti-glare.
    Lenovo's "retracting keyboard" Thinkpad X1Y3 has a 500 nits WQHD "HDR" display.
    Where are Dell's premium screen options?

    Speaking of screens, why are convertible laptops stuck at 16:9 60Hz when detachables and tablets have moved onto 3:2 / 16:10 / 120Hz?

    Also why do none of these business laptops have a full sized SD card reader and expandable Ethernet port when they can fit a full HDMI? Or upgradable RAM and x2 SSD slots when a lighter and more compact LG Gram 14 2-in-1 can fit everything in alongside a big 72Wh battery?

    And why should I buy a Dell or HP when I can get a Lenovo X1Y3 refurbished / discounted new for $900?
  • Prestissimo - Friday, January 4, 2019 - link

    Also now that Whiskey-Lake provides 16 PCIe lanes, U-CPU laptops can finally connect PCIe x4 to NVMe, TB3 and dGPU simultaneously, confirmed by the new Razer Blade Stealth.

    MSI PS42 has a 4GB 1050 Max-Q in a 14", 1.2 kg chassis and the Stealth has a 4GB MX150 in a 13", 1.3 kg chassis. Surely Lenovo, Dell and HP can cook up 2 in 1 laptops with a decent dGPU and stop selling overpriced Intel iGPU laptops.
  • StevoLincolnite - Friday, January 4, 2019 - link

    Or drop in a Ryzen...
  • Prestissimo - Saturday, January 5, 2019 - link

    7nm efficiency and Vega 20 power for undercutting prices would be nice indeed. Really tired of these cheap quality Intel iGPU systems that cost north of $1.5k up to $3k charading as "business" and "premium". I mean just look at those awful speakers and webcam. You just know a laptop hardware is subpar when its key marketing points are a proximity sensor and smart card reader instead of going back to fundamentals.
  • Tams80 - Saturday, January 5, 2019 - link

    That display is just sad.

    I don't get the microSD over SD card, especially when they stuck a honking great smart card reader in it and USB type A ports, and a HDMI port and a headphone jack. They're clearly not too worried about saving space and clearly want it to be very functional.
  • wr3zzz - Saturday, January 5, 2019 - link

    16:9 might not be efficient on 14" or below screens but most business laptops docked to a desktop monitor. Last time I saw a 4:3 desktop monitor for sale was my 1024x768 LCD and I don't think I've ever seen a mass market 3:2 standalone monitor.
  • Prestissimo - Sunday, January 6, 2019 - link

    *HP now offers 1000 nits FHD IPS anti-glare matte displays on their EliteBooks. Base option is 400 nits FHD.
  • ajp_anton - Saturday, January 5, 2019 - link

    "HDMI 1.4"

    Why...
  • Prestissimo - Saturday, January 5, 2019 - link

    Good catch, didn't even notice. Rightfully assumed it would be 2.1, or at the very least 2.0b which is 3 years old. This is worse than USB 2.0, with which you can at least plug in peripherals lying around.
  • TheJian - Sunday, January 6, 2019 - link

    Make me a 16:10 monitor for under $700 with gsync and I'm sold. Otherwise, ...whatever (yeah, in my laptop too...ROFL). Heck, just bring back 16:10 period. I'm sure you'd find they sell like hotcakes as we have no other choice really. If you're alone you'll certainly make a mint. We get oodles of shorter variants every year (see the new samsung 49 inch junk), but can't get a new 16:10 model every year (a single one) in various sizes. What gives? Surely Dell can take a poll on their site or something for whether or not you like 16:10 or 16:9 (or worse). Is that too hard?

    I'm still hanging on to my 24in dell from a decade ago...LOL (wfp2407-HC or something like that, can't be bothered to look it up now). It was $650 with 4yr warranty special. Just offer me the same thing in 27 or 30in with either gsync or freesync (freesync better be a LOT cheaper though, as it's 2nd place IMHO by far) and I'll gladly part with my money. I might end up buying 7nm amd just to be able to go both ways (htpc one way, main pc another). But I'm not buying a monitor without one or the other.

    https://www.dell.com/ed/business/p/dell-u2412m/pd
    All they've done since, mine has 95% color gamut IIRC. 82% today and no gsync/freesync.
    https://www.dell.com/ed/business/p/dell-u2415/pd
    Better gamut, but still no freesync/gsync.

    It's that or the 30in (again without either gpu tech), which is ~$1100 usually. FAIL. I digress...Quit making stuff we don't want, and you'll sell better. $1600 for this thing...Ugh. I'd rather have a larger box and better stuff. I hope you can disable that sign on thing. Something tells me this is easily hackable like 95% of the palm scanner market is with wax it seems (hitachi/fujitsu beaten). The researcher said "quite surprised that it was so easy"...ROFL.
    https://hexus.net/business/news/components/125744-...
    16:9 at home? LOL, maybe for spreadsheets. Stupid for web or gaming (read, home use). I'll add more monitors for width if I want in gaming, and wide web is just dumb unless you like scrolling all day. Either way, I'll take a FIVE lb laptop to go please ;) These skinny things just make me laugh if you're not a road warrior. Face Auth, FACE PALM, likely just as hackable as everything else like this. A hacker just cancelled his talk on this subject yesterday for black hat. I guess he pissed someone off at his company? LOL. Claim is he can only hack X model, and not XS/ XSmax. They act like nobody buys/bought X models. It's still a hack, but his company shut his talk down probably because they use FACE ID stuff in alipay :) Bkav researchers already did it anyway in 2017. Not even going to get into all the things I'd LIKE in a new laptop that are NOT here but for a starting price of $1600 I'd expect MORE.
  • BigDragon - Monday, January 7, 2019 - link

    The anemic graphics solution is disappointing. That's far too much money to pay for only Intel graphics.
  • biswasd - Wednesday, January 9, 2019 - link

    Only 300 nits?!

    Way too dim compared to elite books and new thinkpads....

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