HW Hacker Andrew "Bunnie" Huang on The Setup

[pvdm]

There. He pretty much summarize what's wrong with the iPhone.

"I’m personally not a fan of the iPhone; the battery life sucks, it is too bandwidth inefficient and the virtual keyboard is pokey and requires you stay in dictionary words, which is terrible for typing borrowed-words in other languages and swear words in my own language. The iPhone is more of a toy for entertainment value and photo management, but that role is already filled by my Nintendo DSi and my camera."

[ableal]

Also this part, for those not on unlimited data plans (most of the world, I believe):

Blackberry is so bandwidth efficient [...] not exceed the allowance provided by a $25 fixed-rate international data plan. [...] iPhone [...] too bandwidth inefficient

(I think that's the purpose of Opera-mini, very much misunderstood ...)

[CamperBob]

He pretty much summarized what was wrong with the original 2G iPhone, except for the "requires you to stay in dictionary words" weirdness, which was never an issue to begin with. The point about foreign character sets may be valid, though.

I also have no idea what "bandwidth inefficient" means. If the iPhone uses more bandwidth than most other smartphones, it's because it's actually being used, unlike most other smartphones.

Battery life on the first model wasn't great, but I often run my 3GS for 2-3 days on a charge, which is fine by me. I'm not going to take it to the Moon, am I?

[sachinag]

Sigh. "The most important aspect of this laptop is its display. It has a 1920 x 1200 15.4” TFT LCD." The new 15" MBPs max out 1680x1050 even with the additional option.

[jokull]

He almost made me want to buy a Thinkpad. Why can't Apple do 15,4" with 1920x resolution? My dream laptop would be MBP unibody keyboard/frame, Intel 256GB SSD, 1920x1200, extra battery instead of SuperDrive.

[Jun8]

"well-prepared" does not even start to describe this guy! He has links to all the devices and everything, so now I have to buy some of this stuff.

[swah]

aka "bunnie", the guy who become famous for hacking Xbox, IIRC.

[_pius]

yeah, OP should add "bunnie" to the title, as most people know him by that, I'd imagine.

[duck]

I also carry the ultraslim AC/DC combo adapter that works with every airplane power outlet I’ve seen to date.

I only travel via plane a couple times a year and mostly try to sleep, but I had no clue that some seats offered power outlets. Now I do! That could come in handy one day.

http://www.seatguru.com/articles/in-seat_laptop_power.php

[jarek]

Heh. I've flown two times since 2001, both in 2008 on an A320 that had standard AC outlets nearly everywhere.

Until I clicked that link and double checked, I had assumed the same was true of nearly every plane on every carrier in general -- I mean, it's 2010 -- and the 757 I will be taking in a month in particular. It isn't. Bummer.

[wyclif]

It seems strange to expend 80 MB of RAM just to play an MP3.

I liked that bit a lot; iTunes is gigantic resource hog.

[statictype]

Nice. I like 'The Setup' and understand that he's looking for interesting people, not interesting setups, but all the same, I'm a little tired of seeing 'MacBook Pro with 30 inch cinema display'.

[thedjpetersen]

I like the fact that he focuses on protecting his hands. Kinesis keyboard+dvorak layout seems like a very good idea, and hopefully someday I will get to afford a kinesis keybard

[spudlyo]

I just switched to a kinesis from my 1984 IBM AT keyboard, and I have to say I am quite liking it. After three weeks my typing speed is almost what it used to be though I still occasionally make mistakes with the enter/space thumb buttons. I can work hard all day and while my hands are tired at the end of it, they don't hurt.

[asimjalis]

They have a full money back guarantee. Thing is, you'll never return it.

[stse]

The Microsoft Natural keyboard is surprisingly good for its price. Despite being to wide I really enjoyed it before getting the Kinesis Advantage.

[initself]

I agree with almost everything Bunnie says, except:

1) I use Strawberry Perl instead of Cygwin. I'm scared of Cygwin. The only Unix utility I have on my Windows XP box is wget.

http://strawberryperl.com

2) I can't get myself to jump to widescreen Thinkpad. I like reading everything as high up on the screen as I can. I'm worried about my neck!

[blasdel]

> I don’t personally use gmail, and I never will trust my email to a mail service that actively searches your email and tries to give you ads.

Do the people still complaining about this six years later not use spam filters?

[spudlyo]

I still complain about this, still refuse to use gmail, and SpamAssassin does a decent job of removing spam from my inbox.

[cdr]

Hard to believe the VX Nano is discontinued. I love mine, though not everyone loves the convertible scrollwheel. Hopefully the other models are somewhat comparable.

[mquander]

You might want to check out the Anywhere MX. I have one and I can vouch for it being a very pleasant mouse. It looks extremely similar to the Nano in form factor, and has the same scroll wheel.

[mey]

"my hands are too valuable to waste on a cheap keyboard."

[ptn]

Pretty extensive, full of goodies.

[ableal]

Well informed, full of good sense. Couple of points that stuck:

an aftermarket Samsung 256 GB SSD

I've seen a couple of sneers at those SSDs (which Apple also seems to use) as not the best performers. He may know better or just think they're good enough. (I can wait for the dust to settle.)

The only Apple product I use is their tiny USB power adapter

The one with the KindleDX looks even smaller - barely larger than a plug, my additional US-to-Euro plug adapter is about the same size. The small print says it's made by Flextronics.

P.S. I was straining my eyes to figure if the scope in the photo was a Tektronix. The text says it is.

[jarek]

He had a Crucial SSD which died on him, then ended up getting the Samsung part for its size, part for Samsung's vertical integration.

http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=592 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=770