Laptop Size preference

[MurphCID]

Looking at a 17" laptop and channeling a really bad movie from the '80's (First Nudie Musical): "Eeets so Beeg!"

You are talking about the Laptop?

Absolutely1

[MurphCID]

I am sitting in the breakfast shop at the Fredonia Hotel in Nacogodoches, Texas drinking coffee while waiting on the wife and child to get up. The 14" Lemur Pro is the perfect size laptop for this sort of thing. I have been asked "What laptop is that?" I tell them it is a Linux Monster, able to eat Windows laptops for breakfast! Even getting older I think this is the perfect size laptop.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I am sitting in the breakfast shop at the Fredonia Hotel in Nacogodoches, Texas drinking coffee while waiting on the wife and child to get up. The 14" Lemur Pro is the perfect size laptop for this sort of thing. I have been asked "What laptop is that?" I tell them it is a Linux Monster, able to eat Windows laptops for breakfast! Even getting older I think this is the perfect size laptop.

One's ideal laptop size depends on what it will be used for. I never use a laptop (notebook, netbook, etc.) when at a restaurant, etc. (at most, I use an e-book reader and catch up on my reading) so I prefer having the far more usable (for me) larger screens over increased portability.

On occasion, in the past, when I've been on the road (prepandemic and preLinux), when I needed to access data stored on my desktop machine, I could access that data from my cloud backup service. Now that I've ditched Windwoes and use Linux only, that option is no longer available for me. The solution? Get a laptop that is capable of storing all my data on it as well as on a desktop machine; a larger, far more usable screen for my needs is a huge bonus. My system 76 laptop meets those needs except for the minor problem of it turning out to be an unreliable POS from an unreliable company.

This not to say that others will not benefit from smaller machines, as MurphCID has pointed out.

[MurphCID]

I am sitting in the breakfast shop at the Fredonia Hotel in Nacogodoches, Texas drinking coffee while waiting on the wife and child to get up. The 14" Lemur Pro is the perfect size laptop for this sort of thing. I have been asked "What laptop is that?" I tell them it is a Linux Monster, able to eat Windows laptops for breakfast! Even getting older I think this is the perfect size laptop.

One's ideal laptop size depends on what it will be used for. I never use a laptop (notebook, netbook, etc.) when at a restaurant, etc. (at most, I use an e-book reader and catch up on my reading) so I prefer having the far more usable (for me) larger screens over increased portability.

On occasion, in the past, when I've been on the road (prepandemic and preLinux), when I needed to access data stored on my desktop machine, I could access that data from my cloud backup service. Now that I've ditched Windwoes and use Linux only, that option is no longer available for me. The solution? Get a laptop that is capable of storing all my data on it as well as on a desktop machine; a larger, far more usable screen for my needs is a huge bonus. My system 76 laptop meets those needs except for the minor problem of it turning out to be an unreliable POS from an unreliable company.

This not to say that others will not benefit from smaller machines, as MurphCID has pointed out.

I am suffering Mint Forum withdrawal symptoms so I have the laptop at the restaurant. Plus I am a take it to the coffee shop and get the heck out of the house kind of guy. Hope you are doing well.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

...I am suffering Mint Forum withdrawal symptoms so I have the laptop at the restaurant. Plus I am a take it to the coffee shop and get the heck out of the house kind of guy. Hope you are doing well.

While I'm dependent on Mint and the Mint Forum, I'm lucky that I don't suffer from withdrawal symptoms when away for a while.

Other than my idiot allergies and retaining water (the only thing I retain well anymore) like Hoover Dam used to, I'm doing well enough, thank you. I hope you are also doing well.

[Night Wing]

I have 4 computers (2 desktop towers, 2 laptops). Both of the laptops are 14" laptops. I gave one of my laptops to my wife and that is "her" computer now. The 14" laptop I use for experimentation purposes because I can change out the hard drives in it in about 3 minutes of time and it has 16 GB of memory in it.

The model is an old HP dv4-5113cl which I bought in 2012.

[MurphCID]

...I am suffering Mint Forum withdrawal symptoms so I have the laptop at the restaurant. Plus I am a take it to the coffee shop and get the heck out of the house kind of guy. Hope you are doing well.

While I'm dependent on Mint and the Mint Forum, I'm lucky that I don't suffer from withdrawal symptoms when away for a while.

Other than my idiot allergies and retaining water (the only thing I retain well anymore) like Hoover Dam used to, I'm doing well enough, thank you. I hope you are also doing well.

I was also BORED waiting on the wife and daughter to get their hair done, etc. So why not spend some quality time for "me time" since I was doing most of the driving (and walking) at the University.

[MurphCID]

I have 4 computers (2 desktop towers, 2 laptops). Both of the laptops are 14" laptops. I gave one of my laptops to my wife and that is "her" computer now. The 14" laptop I use for experimentation purposes because I can change out the hard drives in it in about 3 minutes of time and it has 16 GB of memory in it.

The model is an old HP dv4-5113cl which I bought in 2012.

Those HP laptops are great. My only nitpick is battery life.

[ZakGordon]

Most of the ones i've used have been 15.6" screen size, and that is ok in terms of general usability. Any smaller and either i start to worry about my eyes or the keyboards become too cramped.

Having said that I will now try to buy only 17" screen sized ones (less of them around so not so easy) with a minimum of 1600x900 display (pref IPS) as i have one of those and it was a perfect desktop replacement in terms of comfort of use etc.

So yeah with laptops i'm sort of a 'bigger is better' guy, but overall i still use desktops most.

[Minux1]

8.9" & 10.1" Acer netbooks to 15" Acer, Lenovo, MacBook Pro laptops ... like 'em all.

I had two 10" Acer netbooks; both of them permanently black-screened in a year or so (even the firmware "fix" they put out wouldn't work). The ASUS netbook that I got after the Acers developed keyboard bounce within a year, about the time the screen cable wore out and the screen had to be placed at just the right angle to get a display. The 15" Lenovo notebooks I got after that were far more reliable and are still usable (I'm now avoiding Lenovo, however, because they DRM their batteries so aftermarket batteries will not work with them).

My Lenovo ThinkPad X201 + dock running MX Linux is my favorite laptop.
This is the one with the i7 chip.
Upgraded it to 8GB RAM & a 1 TB SSD.
Love that IBM quality keyboard.

[ivar]

For some reason I have a soft spot for really compact laptops. I reuse old laptops @ work for different purposes. Got a Lenovo Yoga with 12.5" screen but I find it a little cramped for general use. The Yoga 2 I've using as my home pc is 13.3" and works better for everyday tasks. Its got a really high resolution, 3840X1920 or something, but scaling works good on mint 20.x. Also have a Lenovo T480s with 14", with windows 10 and all the company stuff. Have been on vacation now for 5 weeks but luckily havent had to use it much
At my office desk, its a desktop with 2x 27" monitors.

[MurphCID]

I have pretty much decided I love the 14" size laptops as a good balance between usability and portability.

[MurphCID]

I have noticed that both of my daughters, as well as the youngest's boyfriend both prefer the smaller (13.3/14") laptops over the larger ones. It seems kids (oops young people) want the smaller more portable devices. I, myself, prefer the 14" Lemur Pro over the 15.6" Darter Pro when I am going out to the coffee shop on my fridays. For desktop use, I like the larger one, but for overall out of the house use, give me the Lemur Pro. My youngest told me that she wishes that I had made her get the 13.3" Spectre x360 instead of her 15.6" one. Music to my ears. "You were right dad. SAY IT AGAIN!

After I took the daughters BF to look at computers he decided that the 17" laptop was not what he wanted after all. The Spouse-Unit is one of the ones who wants the 15.6 NOT a 13.3/14" laptop, she wants the bigger screen. At work we were issued 15.6 HP Probooks, which are VERY nice laptops.

[legacypowers]

15.6 with at least a 1920x1080, one thing that i also try to have on my laptop is a numpad

[DisturbedDragon]

Not old yet, I don't think, but no spring chicken at 45. Always had perfect vision, but it was affected a bit recently after some aggressive chemotherapy. Still, all my laptops are 13" or 14" with 1080 monitors. Larger laptops just don't make sense to me, but to each their own. Desktops are a different story. Main desktop has a 34" ultrawide.

[absque fenestris]

Have been using a small 13.9" laptop with a Hi-DPI monitor (3000x2000 pixels set to high resolution workspace of 1500x1000) for two years now.
It's perfect for me - but would never recommend it to anyone else.
The vast majority of people can't handle very small system fonts. By the way, neither does Microsoft Windows, nor various program suppliers.
Cinnamon and KDE Plasma, on the other hand, do.
If there was a reasonable Linux font management like Adobe Type Manager from 20 years ago, they would be perfect ...

[CyberCodeDroid]

17.3"

[MurphCID]

Have been using a small 13.9" laptop with a Hi-DPI monitor (3000x2000 pixels set to high resolution workspace of 1500x1000) for two years now.
It's perfect for me - but would never recommend it to anyone else.
The vast majority of people can't handle very small system fonts. By the way, neither does Microsoft Windows, nor various program suppliers.
Cinnamon and KDE Plasma, on the other hand, do.
If there was a reasonable Linux font management like Adobe Type Manager from 20 years ago, they would be perfect ...

True as I get older my eyesight is not what it should be, but I really like the 14" size 1080p monitor Lemur Pro. It works for me.

[ivar]

Have been using a small 13.9" laptop with a Hi-DPI monitor (3000x2000 pixels set to high resolution workspace of 1500x1000) for two years now.
It's perfect for me - but would never recommend it to anyone else.

A 13.3" lenovo yoga with 3200x1800 here. Runs fine in cinnamon with 2x scaling, with normal size fonts. Tried fractional scaling but gave up on that, lol
My most annoying screen problem has been that screen autorotate enables itself in the display settings. (its a 2 in 1 laptop)

[Kendoori]

I was a long-time X series Thinkpad guy (12.5") and always used their docks. My last of these was an X230. This time around I went with a 14" T480 with no dock. I mostly used my laptop with an external monitor and use the actual laptop screen as a secondary screen on a tilted stand offset to my right. Me personally, I just couldn't spend a lot of time on on a small screen device without a proper keyboard and mouse if I had any serious work to do (and small in my mind would also include a pluggable 17" laptop). I have had a desktop machine in 15 years. When I need to be mobile, this machine works fine on the go.

My daughter lives on a MacBook Air and it drives me crazy watching her work.