Old laptop features that we hope will never come back

[Redaktion]

After testing laptops for well over a decade, we've seen our fair share of configurations and traits that have thankfully died or are on their way to being six feet under. Here are some of our old favorites.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Old-laptop-features-that-we-hope-will-never-come-back.635258.0.html

[NikoB]

RGBW/WRGB Panels

Almost all macro photos of Amoled panels indicate exactly the same cynical deception with the declared resolution compared to RGB IPS. Forget about 280+ ppi on "4K" AMOLED 15.6. Moreover, all AMOLED flicker at a low frequency (50-250Hz typically), harming eyes and nervous system (someone faster, someone slowly, as smoking develops the increased risk of cancer), and there where DC Dimming is used - forget about the "endless" contrast, how they like to boast of cunning marketers. We go further. All AMOLED today have a 2 time worst resource in hours for than a typical IPS (from max brightness drop to 50%). And all AMOLED today in glossy - all The glare and fatigue of the eyes and nervous system are also yours. Well, on the snack - almost all AMOLED (and especially options with "DC Dimming") are very poorly calibrated. The scatter in colors, as reviews on this site almost never fit into dE<2. Moreover, in dark shades is still worse.
Do you need such a future in monitors and laptop panels? I definitely don't. But on smartphones we have already been sentenced to such a future manufacturers without asking our opinion - buy a smartphone with an good IPS panel (with native contrast from 1500:1), as on my old, now it has become almost unrealistic in the middle and top segment, so that without fatigue of the eyes and damage to the view, to calmly read the news from the screen of the smartphone..

Optical Drives and HDDs

I have nothing against the disappearance of HDD in laptops, although as a capacious (the cheapest one at the same time, despite the increase average prices, since 2015, as the Forbes analyst proved) and a more reliable, long -term period of time storage, it is still non -alternative . Also, flash drives ousted DVD/BD discs. But the need for reliable media did not decrease and exponentially increased for all consumers from the growth of the volumes of stored data. Clouds and the like mate are for idiots who do not care about their data ...

Proprietary AC Adapters

I have nothing against the disappearance of proprietary AC adapters in smartphones  and in laptops. But listen - the unreliable usb-C plug perpendicular to the body of laptop is the worst of invented by the engineers. To break such a plug is elementary, because the cable with him rintes to the side and by irony, laptops manufacturers do not make it angular, like previously reliable round power plugs, and even a splash, on the left side of laptop where right-handed peoples have legs (which most on the planet is on the planet) with using laptop on the sofa. As if it is aim - to break out faster or a power plug or a usb-c port. Is it a conspiracy or stupidity of manufacturers? Decide for yourself ...

Nvidia SLI and AMD Dual Graphics

I have not been a player for a long time, too old, but the owners of AMD laptops still feel infringed compared to the owners of laptops with Intel processors, because The latter often have TB3.0-4.0 port with EGPU, i.e. The opportunity even on a business laptop without a discrete card, connect an external desktop level video card and play (use 3D and computing power of the desktop chip). But it is surprising that many consumers do not pay attention to when buying such a clear loss with AMD platform for the future. Apparently consumerism has done its black deal - it is easier for an ordinary gamers to buy a new laptop than to bother about this feature...

TN Panels

Again, I have nothing against it, but many consumers do not know that the interpixel distance on TN is less than on IPS and the picture looks more monolithic, even with a slightly lower resolution than on IPS. I personally convinced this with a good TN from Samsung 1680x1050 15.4" vs. all panels 1920x1080 15.6 IPS class. Until you see this personally, it is difficult to argue about the taste of oysters ... At the same time, horizontal viewing angles at that old TN from Samsung were even better, than on the current shameful "IPS" with 45% NTSC and even some 72%. Well, what can I say? A good panel is always visible at first glance and most often it costs slightly larger than the average level ...

PS, but there is still a darkness of nuances in hardware, which only an expert knows about ...
Buy a laptop with eyes, ears and tactile. Do not buy such things remotely (and still never buy HDD - the most delicate product in the world), if you can't guaranteed to return it to the seller without money losses.

[JulianR]

The f*** are you hating on optical drives for? Optical Media is far superior to that of streaming. I mean if it's a cheap computer it's gonna have cheap parts. Optical drives are great. So I'm not sure why you're hating on the simple fact that you can't go wrong with optical Media. Much faster than a USB stick.

[lakotamm]

I totaly disagree with the opinion on USB-C chargers. I just ordered anew laptop and I specifically chose one with a proprierary charger because USB-C ports are so vulnerable and hard to replace.

USB-C charging on my T490 which is 2,5 years old already failed because it got worn down and the laptop had to go for a motherboard swap.

So no, I do not appreciate USB-C charging if it is done the way it is now on most laptops - with no way of replacing the connector.

[JRS]

RGBW/WRGB Panels

Almost all macro photos of Amoled panels indicate exactly the same cynical deception with the declared resolution compared to RGB IPS. Forget about 280+ ppi on "4K" AMOLED 15.6. Moreover, all AMOLED flicker at a low frequency (50-250Hz typically), harming eyes and nervous system (someone faster, someone slowly, as smoking develops the increased risk of cancer), and there where DC Dimming is used - forget about the "endless" contrast, how they like to boast of cunning marketers. We go further. All AMOLED today have a 2 time worst resource in hours for than a typical IPS (from max brightness drop to 50%). And all AMOLED today in glossy - all The glare and fatigue of the eyes and nervous system are also yours. Well, on the snack - almost all AMOLED (and especially options with "DC Dimming") are very poorly calibrated. The scatter in colors, as reviews on this site almost never fit into dE<2. Moreover, in dark shades is still worse.
Do you need such a future in monitors and laptop panels? I definitely don't. But on smartphones we have already been sentenced to such a future manufacturers without asking our opinion - buy a smartphone with an good IPS panel (with native contrast from 1500:1), as on my old, now it has become almost unrealistic in the middle and top segment, so that without fatigue of the eyes and damage to the view, to calmly read the news from the screen of the smartphone..

Most laptop OLED panels have a unique red, green, and blue subpixel per pixel so you're getting the full resolution.  They're just not in a stripe layout.

The RGBW/WRGB layout being complained about in this article is where each white subpixel is shared between adjacent groups of RGB subpixels.  This is different from LG's OLED TV WRGB layout where each pixel has a unique red, green, blue, and white subpixel.  That is also full resolution.

The only misleading OLED pixel layouts (pentile) I'm currently aware of are used in phones and tablets.

[Balaji VG]

Optical drives are still required, Not everyone works on up to date hardware.
In any industry with air-gapped hardware/instruments the use of optical drives becomes essential.
Scientific research in universities involve a wide variety of "new "to "age-old" instruments that are too costly to replace and too difficult to find engineers to fix whenever there is a software or hardware failure. These instruments do not permit usb drives. Mostly due to poor user habits and the risk of viruses that would cripple their old operating systems. There's one engineer for all of southeast-asia with the training to fix an instrument in our university without which the chemistry department is essentially shut down.

I regularly need to transfer data to and from these machines. Mine is one of the last generation of laptops with optical drives. I would like the option of optical drives to be available for professional laptops. Need not be for all but a modular attachment like in the old thinkpad series.

On another note HDD's should go the way of the dinosaur.

[Barebooh]

Though I do appreciate convenience & breadth of choice, streaming is no way to enjoy your favorites. So if I'm going to re-watch the classic X-Men, it better be an X-Men 1.5 DVD - with all the extra's - and not some shabby Netflix rip.

[PdV]

The opportunity even on a business laptop without a discrete card, connect an external desktop level video card and play (use 3D and computing power of the desktop chip).

eGPUs have proven to be an extremely niche thing for selected geeks, they never made it to mass market. And from a cost-performance perspective, you can usually benefit more from selling your older laptop and upgrading to a newer model than from purchasing an eGPU dock + a discrete GPU. If for consumers who purchase laptops on an AMD platform a TB connection is irrelevant, then why bother?

but many consumers do not know that the interpixel distance on TN is less than on IPS and the picture looks more monolithic, even with a slightly lower resolution than on IPS. I personally convinced this with a good TN from Samsung 1680x1050 15.4" vs. all panels 1920x1080 15.6 IPS class. Until you see this personally, it is difficult to argue about the taste of oysters ... At the same time, horizontal viewing angles at that old TN from Samsung were even better, than on the current shameful "IPS" with 45% NTSC and even some 72%.

This is just some kind of non-sense. What the heck does it mean for a picture to look more "monolithic"? I've never seen this term, but I think most people would agree that 1680x1050 looks grainy on a 15" screen regardless of its quality. The pixel density is calculated the same for TNs and IPS anyways: its number of pixels divided by screen size. It would be good to know the model of this mystical Samsung laptop. Also, Samsung makes PLS panels, maybe it was this panel rather than TN? Also, no IPS has viewing angle of 72%, not to say 45%. And what the heck is 45% NTSC horizontal viewing angle? Do you mean color gamut coverage? NO TN in the world can approach even a mediocre IPS when it comes to horizontal viewing angles. The only advantage TNs had were fast response times, which was relevant for gamers. But today's IPS panels are astonishingly fast and leave old TNs in the dust.

[DantePierttyr]

I still see a lot of laptops with TN screens, I don't know where you got that data from..

[xpclient]

Now write an article "Old laptop features that NEED to come back" e.g. dedicated touchpad buttons, full keyboards with no keys missing or combined with Fn, every feature where usability and function have been compromised by appearance.

[SyCoREAPER]

My laptop (ROG Strix G15) will never see the MASSIVE power brick removed. It can do 100w over USB-C but otherwise needs a 280w brick. On the upside at least it doesn't need two bricks like some laptops. 

[RedBrown]

You have a very elitist attitude towards optical drives. Optical media is still very important for many people especially those in developing nations that don't necessarily have good Internet connectivity for streaming.

[Superguy]

I regularly need to transfer data to and from these machines. Mine is one of the last generation of laptops with optical drives. I would like the option of optical drives to be available for professional laptops. Need not be for all but a modular attachment like in the old thinkpad series.

Is there a reason a USB optical drive wouldn't work with your setup?

[Hunter2020]

I can personally confirm TN is better than IPS.

Everyone knows AU Optronics screens are pretty decent. Which is why you find Huawei laptops using them.  I have 15.6 inch 1366x768 AUO TN screen laptop (Fujitsu) and also 15.6 inch 1920x1080 AUO IPS screen laptop (Huawei Matebook).  The TN screen has better contrast (not how black black is but how much you can tell similar colors apart).  Movies/anime look better on the TN screen even at the lower resolution.

OEM stopped using TN panels because they ALL dim the screen by PWM.  Consumers are conscious and very wary of PWM today which is why no OEM dares use them.  The Fujitsu TN laptop above is no exception, but still kicks the Huawei IPS laptop's butt even in the presence of PWM!  Of course, I prefer using the non-flickering laptop, but wrt image quality the IPS screen cannot compare!

[Hunter2020]

The misconception people have is because the TN screen is often lower resolution than IPS, the picture will look grainer and not nice!  This is plain wrong.  Most IPS subpixels have the shape of a chevron (arrow) while TN subpixels are plain straight rectangles.  Which ever dumb idiot engineer thought of this?  Why we all gotta suffer because of this?  The subpixel shape may explain why even at FHD the IPS screen looks worse than the lower resolution HD TN screen!