Flip Flopping between macOS and Windows

[pshufd]

There is a difference, however....It's not nearly as much as the industry will have you believe. Take your 4k tv, sit at viewing distance, and put it on 1080. you can't tell a difference if the video you are watching is quality. Its only when you watch a ft or two away from the display. A quality 1080 display on a laptop/desktop, is quite good, sharp etc as a 4k display but scaling is different.

Just like processor speeds. YOY the new processor is a minor increase in speed unperceptable to normal workloads. It's only apparent during synthetic benchmarks. Like take the intel 14700 vs 265. about 2 seconds faster for the 265 doing a batch process of 500 images in lightroom. Other benchmarks the 14700 comes out on top.

Everyone is so caught up in manufacturer specs, marketing baloney, and benchmarks instead of seeing the real picture of it all. They are trying to milk money out of people every year claiming huge increases that are not there.

Take my current laptop. it's an 1165g7, it's quite comparable to the M1 macbook pro 13. performance wise it trades wins in REAL WORLD use, synthetic benchmarks are useless and does not provide real world results. It's shows what the processor / gpu is good at for that exact purpose. My battery life is 8-10 hrs and the Pro 13 is like 12-14. That's the only place where the M1 Pro 13 beats my system. Video editing, photo editing, etc they are so close it's seconds either way doing the same task.

Yesterday on Reddit, someone asked about a laptop and I responded that you have to carefully consider the CPU as the various families and companies have vastly difference performance, heat and battery life. This person wanted something without loud fans and was asking about a Core Ultra 1 system. I recommended Lunar Lake or Panther Lake. I could not get across the idea of efficiency, performance and thermals - this person kept going back to the Core Ultra 1 system. They finally asked me what I thought and I answered several hours later that I wouldn't buy it if thermals was one of their important issues.

Ideally you test to see what works best for you. But short of being able to borrow a lot of hardware or testing in stores, you have to go by benchmarks, articles, advice, etc. to at least get in the ballpark of a solution.

I've been posting about these investigations to see what works for me and you can see that it's time-consuming with the experiments with different hardware. For me, 4K at 14 inches is ideal. 3.2K or higher in a laptop works well. 2.8K which is getting more and more common doesn't work. But my situation is uncommon which is why the industry has been migrating to 2.8K.

There's no substitute for experimentation. But it can be costly and time-consuming and many don't have the skills to go through the process.

 

[BSDnostalgia]

For example, 4k vs 1080. 4k is not 4k sharper/clearer/better than 1080. 1080 is a vertical measurement and 4k is measured on the horizontal. So in reality 4k is only 2x sharper/clearer/betterer (supposedly) than 1080. That one opened my eyes so now I am not even shooting in 4k for our content. Everything we do will be in 1080 and it will be fine.

I disagree. "Pixel perfect" 1080p is quite good. In order to deliver content that is perfect 1080p, you need to be shooting and producing in 4K or even higher. Look at HDTV TV shows that were shot in the early days of HD. They look quite rough. Frame rate is another factor. 24-30 fps was good enough until we had 60 fps. At room levels of brightness, we are all used to 60 fps now. Not to mention color detail.

There is a difference, however....It's not nearly as much as the industry will have you believe. Take your 4k tv, sit at viewing distance, and put it on 1080. you can't tell a difference if the video you are watching is quality. Its only when you watch a ft or two away from the display. A quality 1080 display on a laptop/desktop, is quite good, sharp etc as a 4k display but scaling is different.

Actually, the only way I can't tell the difference between 2K and 4K from normal viewing distance is if I take my glasses off. If you want cinematic quality, you shoot and produce in 4K, so you can see detail in the entire image in the finished product. If you are doing "talking heads", SDTV ~640x480 is plenty good enough. (Many people seem only to care about talking heads, but many others appreciate "more". Not everybody is wired the same way.)

 

[pshufd]

I disagree. "Pixel perfect" 1080p is quite good. In order to deliver content that is perfect 1080p, you need to be shooting and producing in 4K or even higher. Look at HDTV TV shows that were shot in the early days of HD. They look quite rough. Frame rate is another factor. 24-30 fps was good enough until we had 60 fps. At room levels of brightness, we are all used to 60 fps now. Not to mention color detail.

Actually, the only way I can't tell the difference between 2K and 4K from normal viewing distance is if I take my glasses off. If you want cinematic quality, you shoot and produce in 4K, so you can see detail in the entire image in the finished product. If you are doing "talking heads", SDTV ~640x480 is plenty good enough. (Many people seem only to care about talking heads, but many others appreciate "more". Not everybody is wired the same way.)

I usually switch YouTube resolution depending on the type of video. NBA playoffs is at 1080p. Podcasts at 480 or 720.

 

[BSDnostalgia]

I usually switch YouTube resolution depending on the type of video. NBA playoffs is at 1080p. Podcasts at 480 or 720.

There are times watching sports when 60 fps is not good enough to see what you can see in person. They really should capture in 120-240 fps for the purpose of blur reduction. Golf balls, baseballs, hockey pucks, even basketballs move too fast for 60 fps. Not my area, but, I do wonder if they couldn't use cameras that have a much faster effective shutter speed. The TV networks seem intent on adding "color commentators" to everything to tell you what you are supposed to feel about something, rather than actually show it to you.

 

[Steve Adams]

There are times watching sports when 60 fps is not good enough to see what you can see in person. They really should capture in 120-240 fps for the purpose of blur reduction. Golf balls, baseballs, hockey pucks, even basketballs move too fast for 60 fps. Not my area, but, I do wonder if they couldn't use cameras that have a much faster effective shutter speed. The TV networks seem intent on adding "color commentators" to everything to tell you what you are supposed to feel about something, rather than actually show it to you.

Agreed with that one. Hockey (the best sport in the world) is brutal on TV when they move the puck fast. I love going to NHL games live. What an experience. It's good at home, but could be better.

I still think apple or meta are missing the boat in pursuing all major sports organizations to put a small camera center field, ice, court and having a 360 experience with the headsets on. Oh, one at the mixing stations of all concerts too. You could zoom in or out depending on what experience you want.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I disagree. "Pixel perfect" 1080p is quite good. In order to deliver content that is perfect 1080p, you need to be shooting and producing in 4K or even higher. Look at HDTV TV shows that were shot in the early days of HD. They look quite rough. Frame rate is another factor. 24-30 fps was good enough until we had 60 fps. At room levels of brightness, we are all used to 60 fps now. Not to mention color detail.



Actually, the only way I can't tell the difference between 2K and 4K from normal viewing distance is if I take my glasses off. If you want cinematic quality, you shoot and produce in 4K, so you can see detail in the entire image in the finished product. If you are doing "talking heads", SDTV ~640x480 is plenty good enough. (Many people seem only to care about talking heads, but many others appreciate "more". Not everybody is wired the same way.)

I don't know what I am doing wrong then, but I can't stand even 1440p for Mac. With both Windows and Mac, I can definitively tell when I am on 4k at 150% scaling on my 27" 4k monitors vs. 27" 1440p monitor. I have both.

Development and everything (including gaming) all look way sharper on the 4k. So yeah, it's definitely a personal thing. My wife (photographer) uses a 1440p 27" Asus color accurate Pro Art monitor and it is great for her. I see it as blurry.

 

[pshufd]

I don't know what I am doing wrong then, but I can't stand even 1440p for Mac. With both Windows and Mac, I can definitively tell when I am on 4k at 150% scaling on my 27" 4k monitors vs. 27" 1440p monitor. I have both.

Development and everything (including gaming) all look way sharper on the 4k. So yeah, it's definitely a personal thing. My wife (photographer) uses a 1440p 27" Asus color accurate Pro Art monitor and it is great for her. I see it as blurry.

What happens when you go 5k?

 

[eltoslightfoot]

What happens when you go 5k?

Sir, I can't afford 5k. 4k is the best I can do.

 

[Madhatter32]

I don't know what I am doing wrong then, but I can't stand even 1440p for Mac. With both Windows and Mac, I can definitively tell when I am on 4k at 150% scaling on my 27" 4k monitors vs. 27" 1440p monitor. I have both.

Development and everything (including gaming) all look way sharper on the 4k. So yeah, it's definitely a personal thing. My wife (photographer) uses a 1440p 27" Asus color accurate Pro Art monitor and it is great for her. I see it as blurry.

You are doing nothing wrong. It mostly comes down to pixel density and on a 27" and above, 4k will look better to most people even when if it scales down to 1080p.

 

[QuarterSwede]

I don't know what I am doing wrong then, but I can't stand even 1440p for Mac. With both Windows and Mac, I can definitively tell when I am on 4k at 150% scaling on my 27" 4k monitors vs. 27" 1440p monitor. I have both.

Development and everything (including gaming) all look way sharper on the 4k. So yeah, it's definitely a personal thing. My wife (photographer) uses a 1440p 27" Asus color accurate Pro Art monitor and it is great for her. I see it as blurry.

1440p for text falls apart above 24”, only good for gaming.

 

[skodises]

Just a voice from nowhere: speaking strictly for myself, I chose not to choose. I’m now happily running Sequoia under OCLP on my beloved 2010 Mac Pro 5,1, after having recently upgraded from Catalina. And for my Windows needs, I run a clone of my much-hated, employer-mandated Windows 10 laptop under Parallels, made back when cloning was still an option.

I have been able to upgrade to the latest Parallels release now, which realistically was what forced me to upgrade at all. And time has now stopped for me, once again: everything I need for my current professional activities just works, and I’m far enough past retirement age that I do not need this tool to also satisfy any entertainment purposes. I’m not a gamer, I don’t need it to run videos or grind on AI or any of that dreck- it is simply a Unix-like platform with a nice UI to run the open-source CAD tools I use, and enough support for Windows virtualization to keep my company’s IT bozos and their absurd Windows-centric corporate mandates at bay. Sequoia and W10 will certainly take me through to the end of my working career, at which point I suspect my willingness to stare at screens will evaporate, and I will be able to just go fishing.

I think that I’m well and truly getting my money’s worth from this nice vintage hardware (that I’ve owned from new). I’ll leave trying to optimize everything else to those with the needs and the energy… (;-) Of course, everyone else’s mileage will most certainly vary.

 

[jido]

Familiarity I would assume. I'm much more effective and efficient using windows cmd shell and powershell, then I am with Linux's terminal

I don't see that changing, as I use the cmd shell and powershell extensively in my work, where as home use, its not as needed, so I have less opportunity to learn and use bash

Do you install PowerShell on your Linux and MacOS devices then?

 

[QuarterSwede]

Just a voice from nowhere: speaking strictly for myself, I chose not to choose. I’m now happily running Sequoia under OCLP on my beloved 2010 Mac Pro 5,1, after having recently upgraded from Catalina. And for my Windows needs, I run a clone of my much-hated, employer-mandated Windows 10 laptop under Parallels, made back when cloning was still an option.

I have been able to upgrade to the latest Parallels release now, which realistically was what forced me to upgrade at all. And time has now stopped for me: everything I need for my current professional activities just works, and I’m far enough past retirement age that I do not need this tool to also satisfy any entertainment purposes. I’m not a gamer, I don’t need it to run videos or grind on AI or any of that dreck- it is simply a Unix-like platform with a nice UI to run the open-source CAD tools I use, and enough support for Windows virtualization to keep my company’s IT bozos and their absurd Windows-centric corporate mandates at bay. Sequoia and W10 will certainly take me through to the end of my working career, at which point I suspect my willingness to stare at screens will evaporate, and I will be able to just go fishing.

I think that I’m well and truly getting my money’s worth from this nice vintage hardware (that I’ve owned from new). I’ll leave trying to optimize everything else to those with the needs and the energy… (;-) Of course, everyone else’s mileage will most certainly vary.

I like you.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Do you install PowerShell on your Linux and MacOS devices then?

Wow, I didn't even know this was a thing! Interesting.

 

[maflynn]

Do you install PowerShell on your Linux and MacOS devices then?

No, I knew it existed, but I was not really interested in dealing with it on MacOS.

 

[pshufd]

I'm getting happier with Windows with the addition of Obsidian. I have it running on my iMac Pro and MacBook Pro and am using it just like iCloud Notes. There are a few minor annoyances but there are overall fewer than on iCloud Notes and the huge win is running natively on Windows. Obsidian on Windows uses about 200 MB of RAM while running iCloud Notes on Edge uses 1 GB of RAM. I will migrate notes off iCloud Notes as I use them over time. The vast majority of what I use it for encompasses about ten notes and the vast majority of my notes are only used a few times a year. I do need to get it running on my iPhone as I look at Notes for reference.

The one other thing that I'd like to improve is downloading YouTube video or audio. I am using YT-DLP on Windows, and, it works. But I can only do one at a time. On Downie on macOS, I can just drag the URL to Downie and it will run the download. If I drag multiple URLs, it will do them in parallel up until some limit and then it will queue the others. I need to see if there's something that will do that on Windows too.

I originally thought that the Lenovo Yoga power brick wasn't well thought out. It is similar to the MacBook power brick. There's an AC cord that's six feet that goes to the wall, the brick, and then the six foot cable that goes to the laptop. These are a nuisance when you have a backpack as they take up more space than an Anker block charger but they work really well in my tomtoc bag. It has a larger pocket and a smaller pocket. The MacBook Pro or Lenovo Yoga can go in the pocket because the chargers aren't that high - which is a problem with the charging blocks. I put my reading glasses in the small pocket so that I can always use the laptop when mobile.

The only thing that I'm missing is the Logitech mouse and I put that in my gym bag. It's not ideal but the mouse is just too tall for my bag. This is one area where I could use the Magic Mouse but I might as well just use the trackpad in that case.

I am disappointed that the Thinkpad X1 Carbon Panther Lake does not have high-resolution options and that the storage options are now 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB. On the Lunar Lake models, the options are 1 TB and 2 TB (gen 5). The Panther Lake options are all Gen 4. So I'm guessing that they will add options down the road if SSD prices come down. I do not have a good reason to get this device right now as I'm using Windows for my software and efficiency and I need high resolution. Panther Lake is about performance and the best battery life may still be had with Lunar Lake.

I've seen some YouTube channels that say that RAM prices are collapsing. That's an exaggeration from what I'm seeing though DDR4 prices have dropped a lot after approaching DDR5 prices. I am seeing lower DDR4 prices but my benchmark is G-Skill Flare DDR5 32 GB. The current cost is $509 on Amazon. We paid $84 for it last July. But Microcenter has the 9900X with MSI Tomahawk X870E and G-Skill Flare for $699 which is $100 more than we paid last July. The Microcenter discount is $329. Someone is eating a large cost. At this point, I see no reason to buy anything now if we just got off the peak.

I may entertain an Arrow Lake Refresh build this summer. I don't see a reasonable way to side-grade my current Windows system because the CPU cost is so high. An i9-11900K is $429 and I might as well just do a new build at those prices. If I can get RAM, motherboard and CPU for $500, then that would be a much better option. Even better would be Nova Lake but that's 2027.

 

[maflynn]

I've seen some YouTube channels that say that RAM prices are collapsing.

I've seen conflicting articles where this decrease is just temporary due to delays in data center builds and it may spike again.

I am disappointed that the Thinkpad X1 Carbon Panther Lake does not have high-resolution options

What were you hoping for? I see on the tech specs you can get a 1920x1200 and a 2880 x 1800 display. I've said this before, on laptops, high resolution displays are not ideal, as you need to scale it up anyways. Just my $.02

 

[pshufd]

I've seen conflicting articles where this decrease is just temporary due to delays in data center builds and it may spike again.

What were you hoping for? I see on the tech specs you can get a 1920x1200 and a 2880 x 1800 display. I've said this before, on laptops, high resolution displays are not ideal, as you need to scale it up anyways. Just my $.02

I need at least 3.2K for my setup. I've tested 2.8K and it's not enough. I scale 4k at 1.25 and that's perfect.

 

[maflynn]

I need at least 3.2K for my setup. I've tested 2.8K and it's not enough. I scale 4k at 1.25 and that's perfect.

I don't think you're going to find many 13" laptops that are 4k. I think Dell may have one

 

[pshufd]

I don't think you're going to find many 13" laptops that are 4k. I think Dell may have one

14 inches is fine with small bezels. I thought that the MacBook Air 15 would be good enough but the PPI is a lot lower than the MacBook Pros. MacBook Pro 16 works for me as it's 3.4K. I'm not sure that the 14 would work.

I discovered this morning that Lenovo makes the Ideapad in 4k 14 inches and was shocked as the Ideapad is one of their lower-end products. I see people routinely complaining about how fragile they are on r/Lenovo.

 

[pshufd]

I took a quick look at pricing for the Yoga Slim 9i Lunar Lake 14 4k at Best Buy. $2,099 on sale from $2,599. Last year it was $1,899. Panther Lake is so late that they' just raised the price 30% from last year for the same model. Not surprised that they have to discount it to get anyone to look at it.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I took a quick look at pricing for the Yoga Slim 9i Lunar Lake 14 4k at est Buy. $2,099 on sale from $2,599. Last year it was $1,899. Panther Lake is so late that they' just raised the price 30% from last year for the same model. Not surprised that they have to discount it to get anyone to look at it.

It's getting wild out there. Apple is now a bargain.

 

[maflynn]

It's getting wild out there. Apple is now a bargain.

Yeah, crazy,

There's still deals, the Thinkpad T14S is currently 1580 and that's a decent deal

Performance
Processor AMD Ryzen™ AI 7 PRO 350 Processor
Graphic Card Integrated AMD Radeon™ 860M
Memory 16 GB
Storage 512 GB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 TLC Opal
Camera 5MP RGB+IR with Microphone and Privacy Shutter
Display 14" WUXGA (1920 x 1200),

Granted the display is not what pshufd preferes but overall this 14" laptop is still priced nicely. I bought a couple of years ago, and the price has not increased terribly. I paid I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 bucks, not for a similar configuration its 1580

 

[pshufd]

Yeah, crazy,

There's still deals, the Thinkpad T14S is currently 1580 and that's a decent deal

Performance
Processor AMD Ryzen™ AI 7 PRO 350 Processor
Graphic Card Integrated AMD Radeon™ 860M
Memory 16 GB
Storage 512 GB SSD M.2 2280 PCIe Gen4 TLC Opal
Camera 5MP RGB+IR with Microphone and Privacy Shutter
Display 14" WUXGA (1920 x 1200),

Granted the display is not what pshufd preferes but overall this 14" laptop is still priced nicely. I bought a couple of years ago, and the price has not increased terribly. I paid I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 bucks, not for a similar configuration its 1580

The deals on the Lenovo website itself can be great and they cycle the percentage discount during the month. So you can watch the price every week if you want a deal.

From a price perspective, you can get a 13.3 inch portable 4k monitor for $129, so the high-resolution displays don't really cost that much.

The Thinkpad you listed has only 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB SSD and those would have been double last year at the same price.

I get that their component prices have increased but it seems like they are piling on to increase their margins and blaming AI. One of the Dell XPS models I looked at yesterday had a $1,000 price uplift to go from 16 to 32 GB of RAM. It wasn't actually all the RAM. The 16 GB model was discounted and they didn't give you the discount if you got 32 GB for a specific configuration.

But, as eltoslightfoot said, it's wild out there.

 

[maflynn]

The Thinkpad you listed has only 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB SSD and those would have been double last year at the same price.

I bought the T14S (gen 4) AMD model in 2024 and paid 1200, 16GB of ram 1TB of storage. The latest generation has the same ram, less storage and is only 1200

While I have more storage, the ram is the same, and the price isn't terribly different.

This laptop may very well go to my daughter for her school next year, and I can see myself getting one of these again.