HP Dev One - A Great, Well Engineered AMD Ryzen Linux Laptop

[Redeye]

Is there a single OLED display that can fit the frame.work bezel? There must be...

In any case, it's a standard-sized eDP display that's also used by Acer, so there will likely be in the future, if not microLED.

[deusexmachina]

Is there a single OLED display that can fit the frame.work bezel? There must be...

[Redeye]

So it's a laptop specifically for programming and they neither gave it a 3:2 display nor at least bumped it up to 1440p? I'm on a 1920x1080 display right now and I honestly don't get any of the "two windows side by side" claims, they're definitely not comfortable. 100% 1440p is the minimum I can imagine for side by side -- and 3:2 would be way better for single-window because of the extra rows. Hell, even 16:10 if they don't want to bother with 3:2 would be better.

Actual Dev laptops like the Thinkpad P15 can have up to 128GB of RAM and are intentionally heavy bricks of machines that are desktop replacements, usually combined with some sort of docking station. Though something in the vein of a normal T series is fine too. It's just utterly laughable when Dell and HP are trying to claim ultrabooks as dev class hardware.

Is that really what counts for a heavy brick these days? Kinda looks like my PowerBook G3 would squish it flat. I'd happily carry that around places no issue.

I am rather conflicted on weather I should keep my frame.work laptop pre-order with a 12th gen intel chip or I should get this HP laptop instead. I am not developer. I also selected 16GB on my fame.work build, (they are basically the same exact prices with taxes (shipping is free on both). I really wanted to support frame.work for its repair-ability / ability to upgrade parts myself.

Did I miss a section on battery life of the HP Dev One or is that missing?

Definitely stick with the Framework. This is laughable.

[castlefox]

I just got my Dev One delivered to me yesterday.
The Good:
I really like how how sturdy and the decent battery life. (did get rather warm to the touch though)

The Bad:
I REALLY do not like non-IPS screen that they used. I am rather sure it is a non-IPS screen the because off angle viewing looks really terrible.
The Up/Down arrow keys are stupid small and hard to press. SUPER ANNOYING!

Not sure if I will return it.. Not sure yet if the non-IPS display is enough of an issue for me and I need to return it.

[arQon]

My problem with this isn't the (admittedly, stupid) omission of a middle mouse button (or better, an actual wheel, which there's ample depth for if you use the right part, i.e. a knurled cylinder, like the volume control on decent keyboards) but the keyboard layout, which is... well, garbage, basically.

"Developers" need arrow keys etc. We're "real" creators, not just consumers of cat videos. While there are definitely issues with laptop keyboards being off-center thanks to numpads etc, it's not impossible to have a TKL layout with a movement block without skewing the positioning to uncomfortable levels - in fact, the keyboard Michael is actually using with it is a fairly good example of exactly that. This laptop trend of shittifying the up and down keys to an absurd unusable size just because most laptops are vanity devices for hipsters is fine when that IS the case, but it's a joke on something that's supposed to be aimed at people who do Actual Work with a keyboard all day long.

So I don't really get what the "real" market for this machine is. It's just not suitable for the supposed developer audience, but at 16 cores it's stupidly OP for office use. It's more like they're targeting people who want to PRETEND to be developers, or middle managers who "have to" have better equipment than their peasant underlings, who'll just plug it into a dock in the office and use a real keyboard , mouse, and monitor, then take it home to goof around on in the evening. Which is fine if that's what you want to sell, but no use to me.

It's a shame, because I've certainly done plenty of work on much less powerful laptops than this. But while a crappy keyboard *response* is basically what you're stuck with on a laptop but can get used to, a crappy keyboard *layout* is a deal-breaker, especially if you're going to transition to and from a real keyboard while at rest.

[Mez']

" laptop optimized for Linux developers" ?

The keyboard layout just sucks.

half-sized up/down ?
power button between printscr && delete ?

pageup/pageodown/home/fin vertical on the right ?

Why can't we have classic layout keyboard like previous laptop ? Thanks Apple, everybody is following you.

(IMHO, only thinkpad still have good keyboard)

Thinkpad keyboard is the worst I've ever used.

Between that pointer in the middle (any sane person disable it first thing), the prominent physical buttons that you trigger randomly while typing because they're still on top of the trackpad and that stupid swap between Ctrl and Fn (even if you switch it in the BIOS, you get a small Ctrl button while it is much more useful than Fn). I only had to use it for 3 months as I switched jobs but it's still the most terrible laptop keyboard+touchpad combination I've ever used.

[Mez']

Sadly, and as usual from bigger brands, they only see Linux as a developers' market. This laptop, like the XPS or Thinkpads is made for developers and developers only.
Pretty useless for 95% of computer users.

[spirit]

" laptop optimized for Linux developers" ?

The keyboard layout just sucks.

half-sized up/down ?
power button between printscr && delete ?

pageup/pageodown/home/fin vertical on the right ?

Why can't we have classic layout keyboard like previous laptop ? Thanks Apple, everybody is following you.

(IMHO, only thinkpad still have good keyboard)

[mmstick]

Absolutely incorrect.

A "Dev Laptop" properly is a class of enterprise grade hardware more commonly known as a Mobile Workstation handed out by businesses to developers. It's not whatever random computer you want to develop on for your personal enjoyment. By definition they are high spec machines relative to the current hardware ecosystem using enterprise grade hardware. They need docking station capability which lives it's life in your cube, hooked up to 2-3 monitors and other peripherals, but is also expected to have a decent built-in keyboard and a large (historically replaceable) battery for on the go. This combination of requirements means they are absolute bricks.

What HP and Dell are trying to do is take barebones basic tier enterprise-grade ultrabooks that businesses hand off to HR, middle managers, and the like and passing that off to consumers as something it's not.

Did you see the benchmarks here? The Ryzen CPU in this laptop is overkill for the audience you're describing. They'd be fine with a $400 Pentium netbook. Silicon manufacturing has gotten to the point where even a lightweight ultrabook can readily replace a workstation desktop that developers were using a few years ago. You can totally connect to a docking station with 2-3 monitors with this laptop. There's an HDMI 2.0 port, and a DisplayPort 1.4-compatible USB-C port.

The 5850U is only slightly slower than my desktop with a Ryzen 7 5700G. And speaking as a software developer that develops software in Rust, which notoriously requires a high number of CPU cycles to compile software, this CPU is perfect for developing Rust projects with. Even with the default 16GB configuration, since I'm not building web browsers you know?

[Sin2x]

FYI, several years ago I bought a generic thin/light HP laptop (one of their first Ryzen models) for my wife and after a little over a year (conveniently right after the warranty ran out) the thing had literally torn itself apart. The laptop has metal hinges for the screen which is fantastic, but the hinges are anchored into the plastic screen housing using pressure-fit screw mounts. The stress of opening and closing the laptop screen causes the plastic surrounding those screw mounts to fail and hinge ends up tearing itself out of the screen housing. Note that this laptop was otherwise in pristine condition and saw mild/gentle use. There are tons of reports with people having the exact same problem and HP claimed it was user wear and tear and was charging people hundreds of dollars (nearly half the value of the laptop) to fix it.

This model has a different hinge design so perhaps it is immune from this problem, but after seeing how poorly constructed the machine is over all I'll never purchase another HP laptop. The generic Chinese gaming laptop I got my daughter is far sturdier and easier to work on.

hp_hinge_flaw.jpg

Don't ever buy non-MIL-STD-810-tested notebooks, irregardless of the brand. They are meant to be disposable.