Portable convenience [The Square Comics]

Guilty of this. I've never used a track pad that didn't feel like complete ass.
- I've never used a PC one that I liked, but Macs have superb ones. They are so good I now get trackpads for every desktop I work on too (home + work).
  
  They're great, now if apple could concede that right click is an important thing that's not going away and not relegate it to a corner barely larger than my finger then they'd be perfect.
  EDIT: I forgot the default way to right click on Mac is two finger click, I changed it in the settings when I first got it to be click in the bottom right. If you've gotten used to two finger click good on you, but point still stands for us who like the "right" way.
  
  Seconding this. My company issued me a MacBook and I was really surprised by how well the touchpad worked, and how smoothly gestures work with it. For as much hate as Apple gets, a lot really Just Werks™. Windows and KDE (Wayland) (I haven't tested other DEs) are certainly improving, but they're still nowhere near as smooth as what MacOS has had for a pretty long time now.
  The crazy thing is that I've hackintoshed a ThinkPad T430 and T480, both with full gesture support (but no force touch, though to be fair I don't use that anyway). In both cases, using their touchpads on MacOS was much better than on Windows or KDE. Though some touchpads aren't that great to begin with (like, the one on the T430 is pretty small), it's crazy how much of a difference good software can make to how they feel to use.
  
  Yep exactly, a Magic Trackpad is my main input device. It’s great for design work where you often interact with canvases and might need to scroll in every direction. It’s also more comfortable to use for long time periods.
- Trackballs have ruined trackpad a for me.
  
  Look at a Charybdis from bastardkb. Got a trackball built into the keyboard.
  
  That particular model makes my wrist hurt almost instantly.
  
  Haha I have the same ball
- Seriously, they ALL fucking suck. I honestly kinda miss the old nub thingie that IBM (now Lenovo) had (has?). It took some getting used to but it was so much better than a touch pad.
  
  The old clit mouse was my favorite!
  
  They still have them, along with some Dell and HP laptops too I think. Honestly I like both. My laptop has that and I find myself switching between them mindlessly. Touch pad is great because of gestures. But the nub is more comfortable imo.
  
  One of my old laptops had the little nub mouse, but it would rub my finger tips raw if I used it too much, from the grippy texture on it
- I'm sure they do make trackpads that don't have a hole in the middle.
- I have. The Steam Controller (and Steam Deck) trackpads are very nice, mostly because there are two of them and they are thumb operated. The haptic feedback is really nice as well.
  
  Aside from my linux macbook, the steam deck trackpad is one of the best trackpads I've ever used. The "taptic engine" (don't know the generic term) simulated clicks and feedback on the deck's trackpad feel so much more refined compared to the standard tactile button used in the original steam controller. Being able to adjust the click pressure level too is a nice bonus.
  I just wish the Deck trackpad was better at ignoring finer movements closer to the click threshold, like a standard trackpad - likely something that could be added with a future update I guess?
- The keyboards are garbage too. Can't stand typing on laptop keyboards and every one I've tried (mostly Dells at work) has been shit for the last 15 years. I bought a $10 bluetooth keyboard for my tablet that's a better experience and smaller than a laptop for fucks sake.
  
  They got a lot worse after 2010 when "thin" happened. I've got an NEC laptop from 1998 that has an excellent keyboard.
- I use a Logitech keyboard + trackpad and it works great.
  But yeah, laptop ones I’ve tried always sucked.

I can only use it as a laptop 1% of the time and it still makes perfect sense because otherwise I would have to own a separate device for this 1% of the time.
- That makes sense. Though I think it depends on what you're doing for that 1%. For me personally I prefer a beefy desktop for work+games, and a low-power laptop/tablet for portable jobs.
  That way I can upgrade the PC tower every couple years and keep using the same portable device for years and years, since it's basically just an email/web/SSH terminal. I've been using the same desktop PC since 2009, just upgrading it as needed. Over 15 years it feels like fewer devices than having to keep replacing a high end laptop every 3-4 years or so.
- I use Syncthing to sync files between devices
  It's pretty seamless, and doesn't require a dedicated central server
  I use it for my Obsidian notes folder between my phone and PCs, and for synching my shell scripts between my home and work PCs

you’re telling me there are people who DON’T have a high-refresh monitor, mechanical keyboard, and wired 13-button mouse on them at all times?
- Sometimes I have to pee. And I can't use a computer because it takes both hands. Hey-ooooooo!
- Does a laptop with a built-in high refresh rate display and mechanical keyboard count..?
  
  Only if you got that 13 button wired mouse in your laptop bag.

I mean, you still can use it on the go if you need to.

how about...
..some wheels

I want to add an extra panel where the laptop gets connected to AC power as well, and powers up like Popeye eating spinach.

I literally rocked an old laptop for years like this, lol.
Pros:
Comes with 2 screens by default
Cons:
Overheating
Some models refuse to start if a faulty battery is detected, and some models will use battery even while plugged in, and worst of all some batteries are inside the laptop case which must be pried open for access
- And some models work without any battery at all, my dell XPS circa 2008. I am still amazed at that. It still runs too, I just retired it from server duty a few years ago once I got a dedicated server.
  
  Actually, I was referring to that with the comment about access to the battery. If it still uses the battery while plugged in and won't start from battery failure, removal of the batter is a possible solution that fixes the problem.

Haha that's me but with my phone, as soon as I get to work I plug in my phone to a kvm that has a monitor keyboard and mouse, my phone has a desktop mode that I use on a second monitor while my main monitor is my work laptop.
This way I can switch between my personal phone and work computer, on my phone I mostly just have chats open or I vpn to my home lab to fix issues with my media server or game servers, if things get a little too wild I jump into a VM so I have all my tools. I also use this to edit photos or other projects during my lunch and breaks.
My work requires a lot of waiting for machined to reboot or go through tests so I like this setup that keeps my browsing on the guest network and non work device, and at the end of the day I just unplug one usb c and put my phone in my pocket so I don't have to worry if I stop at a grocery store on the way home about carrying a bag with me everywhere with a laptop
- Hey, that's really nice! I always wondered what's the actual real life use case of the external monitor desktop mode on the phone. Your workflow is a perfect example of that.

ergonomics. portable screens need to be at eye level, keyboards need to be nearer, pointing devices are overdue for revolution on portables.
- Also the shittier hardware for more money, terrible ergonomics, and noise/heat of a laptop. I tried using a high end laptop for a couple of years. Now I'm much happier after selling it and replacing it with a PC. 8th gen Intel laptops are dirt cheap and very capable for most tasks (as a secondary device) for when the portability is absolutely required.
- pointing devices are overdue for revolution on portables.
  Tilt control laptops when
  
  id like to see eye tracking with dual caneras
  
  Already possible on a Steam Deck

I have four laptops and two desktops... More or less.
One laptop is an antique, I might break it out to play music while I cook, but it's kind of useless for anything else at this point. One is a tablet, complete with a digital pen. I only bust it out to sign digital documents. My main personal laptop is an 11th gen framework. The last laptop in my collection is my work laptop. Technically not mine, but I'll throw it in anyways.
My work laptop 99% of the time is sitting on my desk, connected to a dock which is plugged into a KVM switch.
My main desktop is also plugged into the same KVM.
My laptop rarely moves. I like that about it.
My framework is almost never on any kind of dock, or connected to any external display. I mainly use it on my lap around the house
The other desktop is plugged into my TV to play video games.
I mean, I have other computers, but those are the main ones.
- I mean I don't want to talk negative about your hobbies, but you have a pc hoarding issue.
  I have one for myself, but not that bad yet.
  
  You have no idea.
  
  Back in the early 1990s, I would go to Goodwill and pick up whatever ancient computers and related machines that people had discarded there. I amassed quite a collection. But at some point, when you're hauling a useless VT240 terminal home and you realize it's just going to sit in the garage, you conclude that you're really not doing a smart thing.
  I would say the person above should keep the ones they're talking about and get rid of the "other computers" unless there's a good reason to keep them.

I went from desktop to 100% laptop over several years; now I'm back on a desktop - using one of those Ryzen 7 mini-PCs - and a 36-key GMK Cherry MX split keyboard that, stacked, is barely larger than the computer. I'm seriously considering getting a small Thunderbolt dock and just carrying that with me between work and wherever. The only annoying bit is the computer I have isn't powered over the USB-C port, which means also carrying a power brick, and that's the straw that keeps me synching data between my computer and laptop.
I could move everything to a bootable USB device, but even over USB-C that'd be orders of magnitude slower than NVMe or SATA.
The laptop is only two years older than the desktop (and maybe less than that since I didn't buy the most current model), cost nearly 3x the PC, and is utterly blown out of the water by the specs on the micro(? 12.5 x 12.5 x 4 cm) PC. Yeah, the laptop has keyboard, pointer, battery, and monitor; that impacts size and cost, but still. I could almost use my PC in a coffee shop, if it weren't for the power brick and the need to do something about a monitor.
I have a foldable phone. Maybe by the time that display technology gets scaled up (and onto the market) there'll be a micro PC that's powered over USB-C and I can put together a small, laptop-sized case with everything I need.
The Frameworks are looking good, though, now that they're selling AMD models. I'll have to check in, in a year or so.
- I can't get over it.
  You're one neat backpack and a decent repurpose-able display tablet with a kickstand away from a dream nomad set up.
  How big is this power brick that it features so strongly in the 'cons' column!?
  
  It's not, really: 10x5x2.5 cm, plus the wall plug; but it's still there, and it's irritating because they could easily have powered this thing over USBC. Hell, most of my flashlights have USBC charging ports. It's an additional thing to carry, and another thing to have to plug in. Plus, not being USBC makes it far harder to run off a battery pack.
  You're right about the rest of it, though.
- You could get an nvme to USBC thing, that should be pretty fast
  
  TB4 is like 5000MB/s if the mini PC has that. Plenty fast for a lot of applications. It'll cap an NVME but it's good enough to run off of.

I feel bad for a drawing of a laptop with a face

I do you better. I have my macbook plugged into a 32", and a crappy 19" (which sits on top of my macbook), so I'm using two screens without using my macbook screen

That's me!! Whenever I have that sucker at home from work the first thing I do is using my own peripherals. The difference is Day and Night!

I feel so called out

I've done this before building a dssktop PC. Probably not a bad way to start if you're planning to have a desktop anyway, but not have enough money to buy all things needed to buy one.

When I need to do stupid tasks like timesheets and emails I unplug. The lack of screen space means I don't get distracted.
When I need to do hard work I dock my system and use my dual 4Ks to maximize visual bandwidth.

I used that when there were some games unsupported on my XP PC, but working on a shittier but light-weight W7 notebook. That was weird. I was worried it'd melt through my table.

I love this animation style so much haha

I did this too long and now my battery barely holds a charge
- This is simply because of how batteries work. We're focusing on lithium ion batteries, the most common in computing at our current point in time, and these are simplifications and not electrical engineering down to the exactest detail.
  They can only hold the max charge when brand new. As they are used (charged and discharged), literal physical wear is happening within the battery (really, series of battery cells, it is not one chunk that fails at once). The capacity for the ions to "stay" on the desired side of the anode-cathode pair diminishes over time.
  This is why batteries are advertised as maintaining x amount (usually 80%) after x cycles (usually 500) and why a device having a good Battery Management System (BMS) can be as important as how many mAH units a battery is rated as having.
  As to why a plugged in battery suffers the same fate? Physics is cruel. A charge cycle is just defined as using an amount equal to 100% of your battery. Nothing says it has to be all at once.
  A plugged-in lithium-ion battery still undergoes wear because it experiences minor discharges and recharges, contributing to charge cycles. Heat from constant charging and chemical aging also degrade the battery over time, leading to shorter battery life when eventually used unplugged.
  
  I have learned my lesson. At least it's old enough that if I really wanted to the battery is swappable.