That revenue number is almost meaningless, since they give out tokens at a loss. Especially with Composer 2.5 tokens are sold at a steep loss. They could certainly grow to $8 billion/year, with this negative revenue / heavily subsidized subs, but what will happen if Cursor decide to be profitable, or maybe to even just break even?
Consistency of titlebars has been dead in every OS for decades now. This is not even a flatpak problem anyway, but I do think wayland/gnome ought to have some kind of fallback decoration. This wouldn't even be meant to solve this problem, but would be a nice gesture for situations where a dev really don't care about how the decoration functions or looks, like when opening a game window or movie player like mpv or even just having a friction-less experience when creating your first window in a new app.
> tray icon w/light and dark mode support
Flatpak and specially gnome are championing the background app portals. I have reservations on how it's not a full replacement for tray icons, but Desktop Environments are free to implement it like a tray icon.
> global keyboard shortcut
AFAIK it's a solved problem, but there is an adoption lag for DE's and apps.
> redraw events after resizing
Not sure what you mean by that? Apps resize fine in flatpak
Every problem in flatpak can be addressed. It sucks they weren't addressed sooner but I suggest you look into the efforts being made for flatpak-next. Even right now it's the closest thing we got to a unified gui experience in linux.
What do you mean it's dead? It's up at: https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r23 with the last benchmark having been in February 2025, but they don't run their benchmarks that often, only once a year or less as its rounds history indicates.
Used laptops are such a good deal that you could something high quality in excellent condition for so little that I almost can't justify buying something like this. Like used Dell XPS laptops are ridiculously cheap and they're amazing for the used price.
Or really buy any laptop rated highly by Dave2D or other reviewers that's 4 to 5 years old.
"Bigger screen" (i.e. being bigger on the length/width dimension) is a bad thing in this discussion. Some people want a programming/writing laptop that fits in a handbag, so that they don't have to decide to bring it, but can just leave it in their bag the way many people do with an iPad.
Amen. I have a GPD Pocket 4 as my go to because it, a second screen, a 40% keyboard, and the arc mouse all fit in my surprisingly small bag along with chargers, cords, and a bunch of non laptop related stuff (e reader, pens/notebooks, some small tools, a miyoo, etc).
It is, however, an expensive fucking device. $2300 maxed out these days (which I think is $800ish more than i paid. Hurray ram...) or $1400 min specs (which are still quite nice).
I'm glad to see other options at that size (Pocket 4 is 8.8", but my second screen is 10") but a literal quarter of the cost. 80% of what I do on the pocket could be done something like this Minibook, and I don't give a shit if the keyboard/mouse sucks because I've got my own anyways so long as I can tent it.
There will be those days where I might need to do some local heavy lifting and regret not having the Pocket, but I'm also happy to know if it dies on me tomorrow I've got options that aren't shell out another $1k for a tool mostly used for coding.
I really liked the 12" MacBook (although my all time favourite computer was the 12" PowerBook G4 - chunky by today's standards but I just loved it).
I saw a review of the MacBook Neo where the reviewer was yearning after the 12" - but suggested that Apple has made UI elements so big with such ridiculous spacing and border radius that it would be almost unusable at anything less than 13".
Which would not surprise me in the least - I struggle with my 16" MBP and this crappy UI "framework".
> it would be almost unusable at anything less than 13"
Native resolution on a 13" MacBook Air is already pretty unusable. Out of the box, the 13" MacBook Air (physical screen resolution 2560x1664) is configured with display scaling so that the “looks like” resolution is 1470x956 (i.e., macOS renders everything at 2x1470x956 – 2940x1912 – and then scales it down to match the display for output). If you dial the “looks like” resolution down to 1280x832 (so that the rendering resolution matches the output resolution; because, say, you prefer that every UI element not be a little bit blurry from being scaled down), you'll find yourself unbelievably short (ha) on vertical resolution. You basically have to turn dock hiding on. Even then, fixed-position headers are very common on websites these days, so between that and browser chrome, you'll often find that actual webpage content is crammed into the bottom half of the display.
gotta have dock hiding & menu bar hiding & compact toolbar/tab settings for browser. only 80-90px of wasted height. The rest is web view. I can't think of any website I frequent having that fixed-position header either, so I'm gucci.
My partner (who isn't in tech, and isn't generally interested in tech) would probably literally stand in line for an updated version of the 12" MacBook on day one.
The _feel_ is very different though, even if the dimensions aren’t numerically. It was around half a cm at its thinnest, it was 250g lighter, and 23mm less deep.
I think at those sizes, what reads as small differences give an outsized experiential factor.
Timing. The core 2 generation was right before we hit a plateau in processors. An i5/i7 macbook from 2014-2015 felt pretty good for 5-6 years, until the m1 came out, and you can coast for another 2-4 years being annoyed some people have a faster machine before they start baking features into the OS that make your machine feel even slower. That’s 7-9 years of use depending on your tolerance for being behind the curve. Mine’s high, so I got 10 years out of it.
Conversely if you bought an i7 macbook in 2019 it would have felt out of date in just 2-4 years, when everyone has an m1 or better and things are starting to slow down from OS changes that expect apple silicon.
If you bought an m1 just a year later in 2020, i’d guess you’re feeling fine 6 years on.
Part of that I think was that it was the first SSD laptop many people had had, so the fast boot up times were mind blowing. I had two, a work and a personal one, and I miss them terribly.
Confirmed. Minibooks are amazing in cramped locations (for example, airplane seats), or just to always keep in the bag for support.
There's nothing in the market like them, which is a shame - I think a slightly better quality Minibook (Chuwis are plain crap) would be a very solid laptop.
I just responded above, but you might want to look at the GPD Pocket 4.
It is NOT cheap ($1300 min spec) but it's also quite a bit more powerful and with better ports (full size HDMI and Ethernet). It's not for everyone, but it blows my mind how little competition it has given how useful its been for me over the years.
8.8" is a bit too small for my use case, but... oh my, their Win Max 2 is a very impressive machine (10.1") - I'm really shocked at the size. I'm confused by the price, though - 6500$??
I so wanted to love the Steam Deck, but it's a device with a 7 inch screen that occupies a massive volume on your bag. Unless you know you're going to play a fair ammount, it's not worth carrying around.
It's a fantastic console, but a mediocre general purpose computer.
A Steam Deck is a bit more lumpy than the Minibook. I find it a lot easier to put my Minibook into a rucksack as it's thin, so it can just slide between stuff. The Steam Deck is quite a lot bigger, though I often take both on holiday as they fill different needs.
Legion Go (1st Gen with the removable controllers) would be better. Without the controllers, it's basically a 8.8 inch PC tablet. Would be a great portable machine. With an added bonus of the controllers converting to a desktop mouse.
Depends what code you are programming. Unless you are doing significant number crunching, 3D work, or local GenAI, there is an awful lot that spec can do. If you are working on a multi-user system and it is slow processing your actions as a single tester on this, then you have a heck of a lot of optimising ahead unless you want your production users to hate you!
Maybe you'd save running a large test suite until back at base with the branch checked out on something beefier, but for on-the-go coding I expect this spec would do just fine for many. The reviewer's comments about the keyboard would be my concern, not the limits if what it can run.
This laptop is plenty powerful enough. The N150[0] is similar single threaded to some 8th gen i7s which many still use to code (including myself). Should run many claude sessions at once, too. I am not sure I'd want to compile large Rust projects on it, but Node/C++/Java works fine.
I was running gentoo on a 2011 Macbook Air for years with no problems. These computers are more than fast enough to compile and run code. They aren't going to by my first choice for reencoding video or running a build server, but for local development you really don't need a lot unless you're working on the type of stuff that really actually requires special or very powerful hardware.
Or get what fits your preferred routine if available, instead of changing to match others?
Though my experience with this brand is mixed at best so I'd personally give this one a miss, especially given the reviewer's comments on the keyboard.
Agreed here, with prices for used x1s its a no brainer. Although I get the appeal of super small and lightweight devices and even had eee pc way back, but started having insane headaches after working with small screens, so guess its just not for me.
My x1 carbon gave me nothing but trouble from the beginning. I couldn't even move it too fast lest I risked it locking up. Additionally, my wrist strain got considerably better after ditching it for a comparably priced M2 that blows it out of the water in every conceivable category.
Sounds like you got a lemon. I also have an X1 carbon, and it's been a great upgrade for me. My biggest complaint is the eraser isn't as easy to use as my old toshiba. The eraser is important to me -- my hand gets numb using a trackpad.
As someone who always favors the smaller laptops that don't require me to gear up an entire backpack just to do a bit of work on the go, I'd argue that the difference between a 10" and 13" screen is not nearly as much as it sounds. I've found the Dell XPS 13's to be an excellent choice for stowing in my service bag so I have a small-but-functional machine on a job site. That and the Dell XPS 13 just has better hardware all around, when stood up against the Chuwi.
15", sure, that's a bit big, but smaller models are available.
The thing about a diagonal measurement is it doesn't tell you if it's going to fit on a shitty airline tray table or not. Some laptops with a larger diagonal measurement are not too deep. Others are way too deep.
If it was running Windows - no wonder, Windows is horrible at constantly writing … something to disk, and eMMC's are not high endurance devices. The flash itself had nothing to do with Chuwi and was most likely manufactured by either SanDisk or Kingston, it would have failed likewise in ASUS/Lenovo/whoever else made those crap Intel Atom + 4 GB RAM + 64 GB eMMC devices.
Battery can be an issue though. In particular, replacement batteries can be a PITA to get if the model gets discontinued or parts are only available through corporate channels.
13th Gen Intel, 14” screen, 16GB/512GB at about $350.
Lenovo and Dell both make similar business laptop models at around the same age and price point.
Businesses sell off perfectly functional laptops in bulk because they are on regular refresh cycles for employees, not because there’s anything wrong with them.
I'm starting to see 2020 M1 MacBooks CA$350 on Facebook Marketplace. That's the device I'm using to type this out. It still lasts all day, and it's still the only computer I use.
My daily driver is a refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad T14 gen2 with R5/16/512 GB. 360e last year from a trusted retailer with a 1y warranty. I expect I'll be happy with it for some years, as my previous T450s is still running as a homelab.
I also just acquired a 2014 MacBook Air for two packs of coffee to use as a distraction free tty writerdeck and toy around with, as it's my first piece of Apple hardware.
Why are you assuming there's something wrong with it? I'm not pointing to outliers that are only cheap because they're broken. The average market price for an M1 MacBook in my area is around $350.
I'm seeing a lot of M1 Macbook Airs around £200-250, and Pros in the £300-350 range.
What's wrong with them? The M1 was popular and now people selling them are competing against a lot of other people selling them which suppresses the price. Like it or not, Macs are mainstream and therefore aren't going hold a "magic" high price.
I just searched my area. There were plenty listed as having no issues at that price point. eBay has similar deals. No reason to think that $350 isn’t the market price.
Linux can run games better than both Windows and Mac. Steam's Proton derived from Steam now runs Windows games on Linux with better performance than Windows.
I'd like to see a study that compares Python and Ruby, against (1) Rust, (2) C, (3) C++, (4) Zig, (5) Go, (6) a JVM language (like Scala or Kotlin or Clojure), and (7) the main CLR language (C#).
I would imagine that all 7 of them absolutely trounce Python and Ruby.
Python and Ruby have been an immense environmental (and type safety) disaster.
JS though (via V8 and other engines) has been surprisingly fast. I've always wondered why Python and others couldn't copy some of the tricks V8 uses to be fast...
> Python and Ruby have been an immense environmental (and type safety) disaster.
The vast majority of code is not performance bottleknecked at the language level. I.e. Instagram still runs on an optimized version of Django as far as I know.
For most Web companies most of the optimization is at the query/ db/ storage/ network level.
I think it’s a question of investment. Google had incentive to pour tons of cash into V8. In recent years Shopify have been more involved with Ruby directly with yjit and zjit. The former bringing a pretty substantial performance improvements to the language.
He was Staff-level as well. That's minimum $500k a year or more. And tenure often grows pay disproportionately at Google. That's easily $20 million lost.
> You'll talk to people and it's like 25% of their brain has been taken over by a parasite that replicates itself by amplifying their tribe's Talking Point of The Day.
This is so true.
So many people just parrot whatever nonsensical talking point they heard.
Regurgitating things without an ounce of reflection or critical thought.
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