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  • danielfranklin - Tuesday, November 19, 2019 - link

    Thats a lovely design and all and looks even better up close but seriously, a Y series chip?
    Most OEMs are struggling to make and sell 15" Ultrabooks (U series/15w) as people expect power and less throttling at that size.
    All that said, I firmly believe the 15" Ultrabook market will eventually take off as performance within 15w really holds up over the next couple years, starting with 10nm.

    15" devices are used for work,no other way around it. If anyone has used a Y series in a machine intended for work will tell you, they get very slow very quickly.
    They can't claim performance is good enough for glorified tablets/secondary machines like other manufacturers do with their odd shaped Y series machines.

    I really hope this isn't a trend...
    Beautiful machine, would love to see some of the specific design elements in practical machines.
    Lenovo/Dell/HP/Acer should hire some of the guys who made this...
  • PixyMisa - Tuesday, November 19, 2019 - link

    First rate design, reasonable amounts of memory and storage, good selection of ports, mediocre screen, crappy CPU.
  • deil - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    perfect TLDR.
  • yetanotherhuman - Thursday, November 21, 2019 - link

    Mediocre screen? You mean to say you don't love enormous lower bezels? Mhmm...
  • abufrejoval - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    I could have written the same, some time ago. But I since have played around with these devices a bit and taken the many articles that AT puts out on TDP to the heart and brain.

    We humans are suckers for instant gratification. But instant is somewhere around 20ms (fluid/video-like), 200-300ms (shortest reaction span) to perhaps a second (attention span cliff).

    So, depending on what type of interaction you do, from video game to complex transaction, you want things done in those time frames. Reactivity <20ms is a complete waste of effort, >1s causes unsocial behavior with human counterparts (not talking machine-to-machine interactions here).

    While the Y-type CPUs are designed to 5 Watt TDP, they really are the very same cores that power high-end desktops (although perhaps half the cores) and that used to power "35Watt" notebooks a couple of generations ago, which only went to 4 cores very recently.

    Yet they offer some IPC and even clock-rate advances, ~4GHz instead of ~3GHz for the first Skylakes at 15 Watts TDP.

    So I suggest you go and find a retailer that still physical presence and actual machines to play with and test them ("Pepsi challenge"). That's what I did with an Acer that had the same class of Y-CPU pretty soon after getting myself a Whiskey Lake i7 quad: There is very little difference, except that the Y-CPU didn't have a fan.

    Of course once you start compiling huge projects and run half a dozen VMs, that changes, but that's simply not what these machines are designed for.

    They are designed to give you as close to instant gratification on applications that were designed by people running high-powered desktops.

    And that they do, because they peak easily at 10 or perhaps even 12-15 Watts for a second or two, rev to 4GHz and then cool off while you think about what to do next. By which time they'll have built up cooling reserves to again serve at 4GHz etc., giving you effectively desktop performance at a netbook power envelope.

    While a "netbook class" 10Watt TDP Goldmont Plus Atom that shares the ability for passive cooling won't deliver even half that peak performance, yet may be able to deliver a similar level of *sustained* compute using 4 cores instead of 2.

    The latter machine will in many cases feel completely lame (but cheap), the "zero endurance sprinter" very much Porsche premium.

    Good thing those prices don't look Porsche: I don't think the Acers are much cheaper.
  • danielfranklin - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    I owned the Y series XPS 13 2in1 with the "i7" Y series CPU.
    Doing a quick test of the machine showed it wasnt too bad.
    As soon as you got going on it properly at home with a few tabs and apps open, it crawled to a halt.
    Investigation showed, it was all in the CPU.
    First time in 10 years i can rememeber doing desktop tasks and seeing CPU at 100% and everything else near idle.
    Needless to say i sold it, and that was very much a secondary machine i used at home, mainly after hours.
  • flyingpants265 - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    I can't get my head around laptops. 15" is too small to do any real work. 13" is WAY too small, but too big to be portable. I guess I need a 10" tablet and a 17"? Haha..
  • shabby - Tuesday, November 19, 2019 - link

    Umm what keyboard layout is that?
  • mjcutri - Tuesday, November 19, 2019 - link

    German
  • abufrejoval - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    mine!
  • peevee - Tuesday, November 19, 2019 - link

    I would not mind one of those if it had 10th gen 15W i7. As it is it is too weak, even phones nowadays are faster.
  • s.yu - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    The whole package is weak.
    https://www.notebookcheck.net/Porsche-Design-Ultra...
  • UltraWide - Tuesday, November 19, 2019 - link

    Nice design but there is too much strong competition out there at the price point they are targeting.
  • meacupla - Tuesday, November 19, 2019 - link

    I wonder who this is intended for... as in, what's the use case scenario?

    15" is not exactly portable. Fanless Y series means not very good performance at all. 1080p screen is perfect for watching videos, without adding extra strain on battery performance. Larger and easier to use keyboard for better typing experience... on a 16:9 screen 1080p screen...

    Yeah, the best I can come up with is watch youtube and type in some high precision comments for said videos, with some email action here and there.
  • khanikun - Tuesday, November 19, 2019 - link

    It's for Porsche owners who feel like blowing money on a laptop that they'll barely use.
  • ABR - Tuesday, November 19, 2019 - link

    It's for Porsche owners who want to keep their money in-house rather than buying the originals these imitate.
  • wr3zzz - Tuesday, November 19, 2019 - link

    It's for professionals who don't need to carry their notebook to every Starbucks or selfie hotspots in town but do need to take it around for work looking for bigger screen than 13". I will never bring another notebook with fans to business meetings but I do wish for more screen real estate than my Spectre Folio, albeit Porsche Design does not scream professionalism either.

    Those idiotic Y-series-sucks comments are from techies who never rose to managerial positions, or are not aware there are professionals who only need Office suites.
  • abufrejoval - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    I wouldn't express it quite that way, but yes: You should use one before you accuse Intel and Porsche and their customers as being fools.

    And not having fans has a huge impact on longetivity as well: Dust accumulates, chokes and eventually kills... unless you're willing to do the maintenance.

    My wife loves sewing and other stuff that includes cloth, thread, paper, etc. The amount of stuff I regularly remove from her notebooks are no reflection on how clean the household is being kept. More on how ironing and vacuuming is actually stirring up dust, that winds up in rapidly moving fans all around.
  • khanikun - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    Unless it's a completely sealed unit, the dust will still accumulate. Temp changes will cause air to flow around and with it, move dust.
  • khanikun - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    or your stuck on a network where a massive amount of your processing power is gobbled up by stupid McAfee, so even running just Office end up being a challenge. Especially with how bloated crap like Adobe and MS Office have gotten over the years.
  • MamiyaOtaru - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    can we please move away from the giant chins? No reason not to have a little more vertical room.
    Aesthetically, looks pretty nice otherwise
  • abufrejoval - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    A 4k screen would push thermals to the point where the CPU can longer give you deskop response times (and my eyes wouldn't benefit), but 1920x1200 should really be the new bottom line, if only to get rid of those fat useless logos under the screen.
  • vFunct - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    That has to be the worst keyboard layout I've ever seen.
  • Findecanor - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    That's just German layout, because Porsche Design is based in *drumroll* Germany.
    A US version of this keyboard would have the right legends on the keys for English and most likely a horizontal Enter key and long left Shift.

    The sizes of the keys is pretty much standard, and much better than what Apple offers. Their European Enter-key is shamefully skinny for instance.
  • Findecanor - Wednesday, November 20, 2019 - link

    Good selection of ports, but I think the headphone jack belongs on the left and the SD-card reader belongs on the right.
    Too bad that they don't have USB C for charging on both sides. It could otherwise be awkward to make the charging cable reach the power outlet in hotel rooms and other places.
    A HDMI port should also preferably be some distance from the USB A ports, to avoid confusion when fumbling around at the back.
  • Foeketijn - Sunday, November 24, 2019 - link

    I bought one of the first yoga pro's with a i5 ivy bridge I think. Still use it and I'm glad I paid extra for the sold design etc. And I never think the CPU should have been faster. I wonder if this Y type proc has more or less CPU power. I would try this one if it had a better resolution/ratio. at least 1920x1200.

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