Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
who gives a hoot how "Thin" stuff is

Even the business people of the 1980s that lugged around huge briefcase-sized "portables" that appreciate today's advantages surely know there are limits of thinness and power (either CPU capability or at least battery lifespan)
 
PPI is meaningless?
it's a compromise between having enough space on the desktop and making the user interface look good with scaling.

if the zenbook ran macosx, running 1:1 means that all the user interface bits are a bit tiny. If running at 2:1, that leaves 960x540 for a desktop, which seems a bit cramped.

But wndows allows the user to specify an arbritary scaling factors, so maybe 150% provides a suitable compromise.

Really, you can't judge these things on spec. Maybe the retina macbook is a superior ultrabook. Maybe the zenbook is the better ultrabook. It depends on one's priorities.
 
Even the business people of the 1980s that lugged around huge briefcase-sized "portables" that appreciate today's advantages surely know there are limits of thinness and power (either CPU capability or at least battery lifespan)

For sure. I love thin, light, etc as well... to a point. If it becomes too thin for reasonable structural integrity, or I have to sacrifice some reasonable amount of usability (CPU/GPU/battery life), then we've hit that point. IMO, the MacBook and iPhones are skirting that line, possibly crossed it.
 
[QUOTE="Steve121178, post: 22950105, member: 424460"

It isn't spyware, so you can buy one now.[/QUOTE]

Citation please?
Where does all that telemetry go? What does it contain? Does it contain your browsing history? Your inside leg measurement
How does MS know what ads to put on your lock screen?
etc etc etc
Then you have Samsung telling users of its laptops NOT to install W10
Then you have MS borking VMWare?
So, do you really, really want to get into bed with Devil no 2? (Devil No 1 is Google IMHO)
Please, please tell us all. You have a captive aduience here so speak up.
 
The reality is that the Core M is underrated as a processor. More OEMs should be using it rather than trying to force the Core i5/i7 into it just so they can advertise double the base clock speed.
This uses the processors from the Macbook Air, not the MBP's. And as I mentioned earlier, in practice, those processors are going to be thermally limited in such a package such that in the real world you'll get almost no performance advantage over Core M, but you'll get the joy of the high-pitched whine of a tiny, razor-thin fan nearly 100% of the time.
Haha precisely. I don't see the benefit, besides saying it has an i7 in it. Seems the market/people are still clinging to the idea of high end specs, not realizing the low W CPU of today will do most of what they need. And if not, get another, more appropriate high performance tool. Trying to cram a buzzword i7 into a thin laptop indicates confusion about what this class (i.e. ZenBook 3, rMB) of laptop should be used/marketed for. Technology is currently being drastically reshaped by mobility requirements and enabled by technological advances in CPU architecture. Seems Apple is the only one truly recognizing this concept of mobility and applying it in a logical way.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BeefCake 15
Citation please?
Where does all that telemetry go? What does it contain? Does it contain your browsing history? Your inside leg measurement
How does MS know what ads to put on your lock screen?
etc etc etc
Then you have Samsung telling users of its laptops NOT to install W10
Then you have MS borking VMWare?
So, do you really, really want to get into bed with Devil no 2? (Devil No 1 is Google IMHO)
Please, please tell us all. You have a captive aduience here so speak up.

You can run some scripts and create some GPO's to resolve the sending of anonymous data (if it concerns you) with absolute ease. There are many examples on the net you can use or just create your own. It's a non-issue.

Not sure about the VMware issue you are talking about. I run two large data centres and all our servers are virtual, along with a large Windows 10 VDI pool and I've yet to encounter a single issue with Windows 10 clients, virtual or not.

So Samsung then:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/31/windows_10_samsung_fail/

Some PC vendors such as Sony, Samsung etc have told users not to install Windows 10 on certain machines as they have no intention of supporting or supplying Windows 10 drivers for older machines. It's common sense to advice people of this to stop them complaining. The large vendors such as Dell, HP, Lenovo etc supply Windows 10 drivers for machines as old as 6+ years.

I'm happy to educate the uneducated some more if you wish?

If you have any more fears you want me to easily dismiss feel free to reply.
[doublepost=1464855244][/doublepost]
PPI is meaningless?

As a buying decision, yes. Yes it is.

I've yet to encounter a single person that has ever made a decision on purchasing a notebook based specifically on its PPI stats which is what I was referring to.
 
You can run some scripts and create some GPO's to resolve the sending of anonymous data (if it concerns you) with absolute ease. There are many examples on the net you can use or just create your own. It's a non-issue.

Not sure about the VMware issue you are talking about. I run two large data centres and all our servers are virtual, along with a large Windows 10 VDI pool and I've yet to encounter a single issue with Windows 10 clients, virtual or not.

So Samsung then:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/05/31/windows_10_samsung_fail/

Some PC vendors such as Sony, Samsung etc have told users not to install Windows 10 on certain machines as they have no intention of supporting or supplying Windows 10 drivers for older machines. It's common sense to advice people of this to stop them complaining. The large vendors such as Dell, HP, Lenovo etc supply Windows 10 drivers for machines as old as 6+ years.

I'm happy to educate the uneducated some more if you wish?

If you have any more fears you want me to easily dismiss feel free to reply.
[doublepost=1464855244][/doublepost]

As a buying decision, yes. Yes it is.

I've yet to encounter a single person that has ever made a decision on purchasing a notebook based specifically on its PPI stats which is what I was referring to.

You can turn some of the telemetry off. Not all.

Unless you buy enterprise, which is not available unless you have an enterprise licensing agreement. Which you can't buy as an individual.

Absolute ease? Hah

Most don't even know it is going on. Explain to a 65 year old technophobe user how he just has to create a few GPOs and he will be fine, you're assuming a significant base knowledge level there.

Also. It is effort that should not have to be expended.
 
Last edited:
You can turn some of the telemetry off. Not all.

Unless you buy enterprise, which is not available unless you have an enterprise licensing agreement. Which you can't buy as an individual.

Absolute ease? Hah

Most don't even know it is going on. Explain to a 65 year old technophobe user how he just has to create a few GPOs and he will be fine, you're assuming a significant base knowledge level there.

Also. It is effort that should not have to be expended.

A 65 year old technophobic person couldn't care less what data is sent, like 99.9% of everyone else. It simply doesn't matter.

Do you own a smartphone of any kind? If so, that sends far more data than any desktop OS. If you use apps such as Facebook, Whatsapp and anything else for that matter, they are far, far, far, far, far more intrusive than any desktop OS will ever be and I don't see anyone complaining.

Install something on Android and no one seems to crap their pants when an app wants access to their contacts or other highly personal & private collections of data for example.

When it comes to privacy, Windows 10 is the least of your worries especially when you can easily do something about it if you are really that bothered.

Ultimately if you use the internet then you have to be absolutely stupid to not realise that everything you do is logged, stored and archived for eternity. Absolute privacy does not exist.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: rjohnstone
That's cool (love that video), but unless the thermal protection is much better than in the past, I'd be careful doing too much of that kind of thing. I've shortened the life of a couple of MacBook Pros over the years doing a ton of rendering and such on them. :( I'm kind of gun-shy about that anymore.

How does it shorten the life of the system? If a system gets too hot to handle, it will shut down. It does that before any damage has occurred.
[doublepost=1464868569][/doublepost]
You can turn some of the telemetry off. Not all.

Unless you buy enterprise, which is not available unless you have an enterprise licensing agreement. Which you can't buy as an individual.

Absolute ease? Hah

Most don't even know it is going on. Explain to a 65 year old technophobe user how he just has to create a few GPOs and he will be fine, you're assuming a significant base knowledge level there.

Also. It is effort that should not have to be expended.

Nope, Enterprise has that crap too. I had to deal with this and we just decided to wait on Windows 10. I could never get the GPOs and AppLocker to work right. I was able to remove Candy Crush and Xbox (many others) from the installation, but the 1511 update just brought them back.
 
72% of Never The Same Color is basically sRGB, which the retina macbook does as well.

Yeah, it feels a bit strange that some parts of NTSC turn out to still be relevant. It's very close to "Adobe RGB".
01_6.jpg

http://www.eizo.com/library/basics/lcd_monitor_color_gamut/
 
As a buying decision, yes. Yes it is.

I've yet to encounter a single person that has ever made a decision on purchasing a notebook based specifically on its PPI stats which is what I was referring to.

it's a compromise between having enough space on the desktop and making the user interface look good with scaling.

if the zenbook ran macosx, running 1:1 means that all the user interface bits are a bit tiny. If running at 2:1, that leaves 960x540 for a desktop, which seems a bit cramped.

But wndows allows the user to specify an arbritary scaling factors, so maybe 150% provides a suitable compromise.

Really, you can't judge these things on spec. Maybe the retina macbook is a superior ultrabook. Maybe the zenbook is the better ultrabook. It depends on one's priorities.

Do you two live under rocks?

No amount of scaling can increase the number of pixels on the screen.

Where were you when the RETINA MacBook was introduced? Meaning that the PPI of the screen makes text clearer and sharper, which for me makes reading and typing a much better experience.

YES, I absolutely base my buying decisions on PPI. Because now that screen technology is improving and I have the choice between 250 PPI or 150 PPI ( approx) I will choose the higher number as it is easier on my eyes, and looks much better.
 
Do you two live under rocks?
I'd have to compare the two laptops side by side, and evaluate the two subjectively.

Does it feel cramped, or ample?
Is the text easier to read on one machine than it on the other?
Is it fast enough?
Is the fan annoying, when or if it comes on?
Which one has the better keyboard?

and so on.

You're tying to map those subjective qualia to a table of printed values, and I'm not sure that you or anyone else will be happiest with the result.
 
A 65 year old technophobic person couldn't care less what data is sent, like 99.9% of everyone else. It simply doesn't matter.
So people have no right to privacy unless they know how to use group policies and write Powershell scripts to disable all the phone home "features"?
Do you own a smartphone of any kind? If so, that sends far more data than any desktop OS.
Like what?
If you use apps such as Facebook, Whatsapp and anything else for that matter, they are far, far, far, far, far more intrusive than any desktop OS will ever be and I don't see anyone complaining.
I'd argue the contrary, since an app only has access to a limited amount of data, and its use is entirely voluntary, whereas a desktop OS can monitor and access anything and everything you do on the machine, and you have no choice but using it.
Ultimately if you use the internet then you have to be absolutely stupid to not realise that everything you do is logged, stored and archived for eternity. Absolute privacy does not exist.
My own computer is not "the Internet" and not a social media service, no matter how much Microsoft is now marketing Windows "as a service". It is entirely reasonable to expect a different level of privacy and not have everything I do *on my own computer* logged and sent to some unknown server by the very operating system I paid Microsoft good money for.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: SteveW928
How does it shorten the life of the system? If a system gets too hot to handle, it will shut down. It does that before any damage has occurred.
[doublepost=1464868569][/doublepost]

Nope, Enterprise has that crap too. I had to deal with this and we just decided to wait on Windows 10. I could never get the GPOs and AppLocker to work right. I was able to remove Candy Crush and Xbox (many others) from the installation, but the 1511 update just brought them back.

Yup. I forgot. You can turn more of it off than retail though.

I do SOE development here too and have had the same problems you mention.

And "Facebook and google do it" is no excuse.

It's not just privacy. It is data consumption as well.
 
How does it shorten the life of the system? If a system gets too hot to handle, it will shut down. It does that before any damage has occurred.
[doublepost=1464868569][/doublepost]

Nope, Enterprise has that crap too. I had to deal with this and we just decided to wait on Windows 10. I could never get the GPOs and AppLocker to work right. I was able to remove Candy Crush and Xbox (many others) from the installation, but the 1511 update just brought them back.

Damage occurs from heat long before it needs to shut down. Heat is especially bad for the battery, especially in the 85-100% range. In that range, battery longevity goes quickly down the tube if heat exposure is long enough.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SteveW928
How does it shorten the life of the system? If a system gets too hot to handle, it will shut down. It does that before any damage has occurred.

Keirasplace beat me to it, but yes, even if the CPU saves itself, technically, heat does other damage in a system, such as to solder connections (expansion/contraction), thermal connections (compounding the situation), and to other components like battery and hard drive (SSDs help). And, on the mid-2000s MacBook Pros, the fans would fans would go, as well as cause issues for the sometimes unstable GPUs. (Trust me, I learned that lesson the hard way.)
 
It is entirely reasonable to expect a different level of privacy and not have everything I do *on my own computer* logged and sent to some unknown server by the very operating system I paid Microsoft good money for.

If you use the internet and regardless of operating system, everything you do is collected, logged & archived indefinitely. Google 'Tempora' and learn what it is does & 'XKeyscore'. There are many other systems like it. It's so naive to believe everything you do is private so to get upset about the diagnostic data Windows 10 sends is ridiculous.

The data sent from Windows 10 is very well written about here:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-telemetry-time-for-level-playing-field/

It's really not an issue is it? If you use Facebook & Google services for example, then they really do cross the line in some respects. The genius thing about Facebook is that the user willingly chooses to share their lives (lives = data) with the service. For people to complain about privacy yet willingly hand over your most personal data to services like this is plain old hypocrisy at it's best.
 
Keirasplace beat me to it, but yes, even if the CPU saves itself, technically, heat does other damage in a system, such as to solder connections (expansion/contraction), thermal connections (compounding the situation), and to other components like battery and hard drive (SSDs help). And, on the mid-2000s MacBook Pros, the fans would fans would go, as well as cause issues for the sometimes unstable GPUs. (Trust me, I learned that lesson the hard way.)

So we should never do any video rendering on any computer at all? Or intense gaming?
 
If you use the internet and regardless of operating system, everything you do is collected, logged & archived indefinitely. Google 'Tempora' and learn what it is does & 'XKeyscore'. There are many other systems like it. It's so naive to believe everything you do is private so to get upset about the diagnostic data Windows 10 sends is ridiculous.

The data sent from Windows 10 is very well written about here:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-telemetry-time-for-level-playing-field/

It's really not an issue is it? If you use Facebook & Google services for example, then they really do cross the line in some respects. The genius thing about Facebook is that the user willingly chooses to share their lives (lives = data) with the service. For people to complain about privacy yet willingly hand over your most personal data to services like this is plain old hypocrisy at it's best.

Not sure how but you managed to mess up the quote. Check the username and who you quoted
 
If you use the internet and regardless of operating system, everything you do is collected, logged & archived indefinitely. Google 'Tempora' and learn what it is does & 'XKeyscore'. There are many other systems like it. It's so naive to believe everything you do is private so to get upset about the diagnostic data Windows 10 sends is ridiculous.

There are levels, though. Just a few years back, one could use a VPN, and if they didn't use certain apps, they were relatively anonymous. Even against such systems as you listed above. (i.e.: there's no way they've got enough computing power to break every encrypted stream to analyze the contents.)

The problem today is that even if you use a VPN, the OS and many apps (even in the background) are constantly logging into services, such that even if you use a VPS, there's still a lot of identifiable stuff happening at a particular time, associated with a particular IP, which includes identifiable data. (If all that data were analyzed and cross-referenced.)

But, then we get to a whole other level where the OS itself (not apps we *decide* are worth the tradeoffs), is acting like those privacy-breaching apps. It's not like we can opt to use an OS or not. It just isn't a reasonable expectation, even if it's buried in the ToS.

And, it isn't just Microsoft. When I'm using my Mac or iOS device - even if I'm using a VPN - it sends a ton of data across a connection before a VPN can even be established, especially when out and about on public WiFi where you have to 'authorize' the connection through some web-form. And, that hurts the security of everyone... even people trying to be security-conscious.

IMO, it's a design flaw in modern OSs. Saying that it's the case doesn't make it right.

So we should never do any video rendering on any computer at all? Or intense gaming?

No, just be aware of what's going on and be careful. Just because the CPU has thermal protection doesn't mean you're OK. It's a bigger eco-system than that.

If you truly need 100% CPU/GPU 24/7, that's why there are Mac Pros (or other systems designed to better do that kind of thing). And, hopefully, as we keep going to lower and lower power chips, the thermal issues become less as well (although, I'm sure they are decreasing the cooling too). Just something to keep in mind.
 
Zenbook+3+handson+gallery+1+2.jpg


How much more can ASUS shave off of the ZenBook, its flagship ultraportable? Apparently, quite a bit. The company's new ZenBook 3, announced today at Computex, clocks in at just two pounds and 11.9mm (0.46 inches) thick. In comparison, the previous ZenBook UX305 weighed 2.64 pounds and measured 12.9mm thick (0.51 inches). Sure, those might just seem like incremental improvements, but they're remarkable when you consider just how insanely thin and light the previous model was. Most impressively, the ZenBook 3 just barely edges out Apple's svelte MacBook, which weighs 2.03lbs and is 13.2mm (0.52 inches) thick, all while packing in a larger 12.5-inch display.

q:80


ASUS attributes the ZenBook 3's weight loss to a new "aerospace-grade aluminum alloy," which it says is 40 percent stronger than what's typically used in laptops. Honestly, that just sounds like marketing fluff, but there must be something special about the laptop's new material if it lost 0.6 pounds from the last-gen model. ASUS is still sticking with its "spun metal" style, so hopefully you're a fan of the concentric metallic rings on its cases. It'll be available in Quartz Grey, Royal Blue and the seemingly ubiquitous Rose Gold.

Unlike the MacBook, the ZenBook 3 won't be under-powered. At the top end, you'll be able to configure it with an Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB PCIe SSD (which should be faster than a typical SATA drive). The display is covered in Gorilla Glass 4, and it looks like ASUS was also able to slim down the bezel (now the screen covers 82 percent of the laptop's front). The ZenBook 3 packs in a Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port for charging (which it says can juice the laptop's battery up to 60 percent in 49 minutes), and it should deliver around nine hours of typical battery life. As for cooling, ASUS says it's developed the "world's thinnest" fan at just 3mm. There's also a built-in fingerprint sensor with Windows Hello support.

q:80


Source: http://www.engadget.com/2016/05/30/asus-zenbook-3/
 
That does look amazing and boasts some great specs. My immediate concerns would be the thermal system and servicing if it goes wrong. If the CPU is constantly throttling due to poor thermal design, then you won't really get the benefits of that i7.

Although ASUS have one of the easiest RMA systems compared to other Windows OEMs, you're still looking at a larger turnaround time; and you're hoping that the engineer can duplicate something like an intermittent issue, otherwise they won't even do a precautionary repair based on your description.

Regardless, the general build quality of laptops far exceed that of even half a decade ago, so this is nothing but a good thing for the consumer. I mainly hope this encourages Apple to put a little more power in their portables, rather than getting the wrong end of the stick from this product and concentrating on thinner & lighter instead for bragging rights.
 
If you truly need 100% CPU/GPU 24/7, that's why there are Mac Pros (or other systems designed to better do that kind of thing). And, hopefully, as we keep going to lower and lower power chips, the thermal issues become less as well (although, I'm sure they are decreasing the cooling too). Just something to keep in mind.

Not everyone has the same relationship to a computer that you do. I treat my Mac as if it was an Apple IIe, as advanced by 33 years of Moores's Law. I enjoy and have come to expect exponential growth.
 
Might I suggest this would have hardware failure within a few months of aggressive usage.

That's if it survives that long after a few rounds of Windows 10 updates.

Just saying.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.