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Comment by bitL | Hacker News Reader

You can't really find a good AMD workhorse laptop; all of them end up with some outdated 1080p displays at best :( There is like only one notebook with a decent HiDPI screen with Ryzen (some HP, but not a workhorse). There was also terrible problem with Mobile Ryzen drivers resolved only like a month ago.

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1080p strikes me as the pinnacle of a workstation display for laptops right now since I highly doubt any productivity improvement from higher dpi is gonna beat out battery life in the vast majority of cases. Even in the one use case where it matters, 4k video production, theres a reasonable argument for using screens similar to what your consumers will use at least some of the time. Especially if it saves you money and you get to use discounted top performing cpus to boot.

Realistically the AMD laptops lack of color accuracy compared to shit like the trutone Intel macs, and lack of display connectivity especially compared to a thunderbolt outfitted x1 extreme that can connect to four 4k displays is a bigger problem. Especially since external displays actually need the resolution.

Counterpoint to battery life argument against HiDPI displays are obviously retina MacBooks since 2012 (7 years ago). In addition I have a ZenBook with 3200x1800 and Core-M and its battery life is great. By outdated 1080p displays I also meant color accuracy, no HDR, bad viewing angles, slow latency etc. Seems like most AMD laptops are a dumping ground for old tech that can't be marketed as premium any longer. I'd rather suggest AMD to start manufacturing/contract somebody to develop high end models with their own brand to showcase what they can do.

Yeah but MBP aren't running 4k. 3k/2560p screens seem to have a lot easier time with battery life at the moment. I actually think Apple is being more sensible than say, Samsung when it comes to the resolutions they choose.

I looked at reviews of several laptops with a 1080 vs a 1440 vs a 4k option and 1440 > 4k was the biggest drop in battery life.

>1080p strikes me as the pinnacle of a workstation display for laptops right now since I highly doubt any productivity improvement from higher dpi is gonna beat out battery life in the vast majority of cases.

Well... I went from a 1080p Thinkpad x260 to a 1440 Thinkpad Yoga X1 a year ago and honestly couldn't go back now.

It's mostly plugged into an external monitor and delivers 1440 resolution to it through DP, but even on a train I can work or 4-5 hours in 1440 resolution with no issue.

And it runs Fedora.

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