
The tourist map of laptops - no_gravity
http://things.gnod.com/laptops/
======
buro9
Weight in kilograms would be helpful.

Resolution in DPI also would be helpful.

Some indicator of whether it's configurable would also be helpful... but then,
this is just an Amazon affiliate play and I guess that Amazon doesn't offer
the full range of config options so are you just restricting the results to
that which is available via Amazon?

Edit: Just found DPI as a side selector on the axis picker.

~~~
no_gravity
I will add more options over time. It is not restricted to Amazons data. To
enhance the data, I also look up data on the manufacturers websites.

~~~
nitid_name
Can you throw on a screen resolution axis option?

~~~
no_gravity
It already has it. Its called "DPI".

------
pmontra
Apparently all the ZBook HP laptops are missing. I'm writing this with one of
them.

At the time I bought it I would have been interested in a query like this:
screen 15", up to 32 GB RAM, 3 physical touchpad buttons, no number pad (which
turned out to be very hard for 15" laptops - I didn't want a Mac), at least
512 GB internal storage, 4 cores, 1080p or better, next business day on site
assistance. Price, battery life, optical drive: don't care. And of course
16:10 aspect ratio, but that would have returned an empty set.

I eventually had to compromise on the number pad even if I almost never used
one and I'm not using it now that I have one. I have to shift the laptop to
the right to keep the space bar right in front of me. The center of the screen
is aligned with my right hand. I wonder what all those PCs designers are
thinking about.

~~~
Igglyboo
You pretty much perfectly described a macbook pro. Any specific reason you
didn't want one or just personal preference?

~~~
cookiecaper
You may be able to get a MBP with 32GB RAM now (actually I just checked and it
doesn't look like you can still), but I was never able to get more than
slightly-above-normal memory loaded into the MBP from the factory. As new MBPs
have irreplaceable RAM modules, expanding the memory aftermarket is no longer
possible (instead of just a massive pain that required ordering several
special tools, like various sizes of Torx screwdriver heads, and a few hours
of assembly/disassembly time).

Besides the hardware issues, there are many reasons not to buy a Mac. Macs are
cool, and I'd like to have one lying around just for fun, but they're pretty
expensive toys and I'm not that rich. I can, in general, only justify that
kind of expense for a real computer.

~~~
sandipc
> a few hours of assembly/disassembly time

for replacing the RAM on a unibody aluminum MacBook Pro? it's one screwdriver
(Phillips 00), maybe 10 screws to remove from the edges of the back cover, and
the RAM modules are easily accessible without any additional tools. One of the
easiest RAM upgrades I've ever done... maybe 10 minutes max.

(not that it matters anymore since the retina models aren't user-upgradeable)

~~~
jtbigwoo
The 2006/2007 versions were definitely a chore to take apart and required
three or four different screwdrivers. The unibody ones starting in late 2008
are much easier to work on. (At least when replacing the RAM and HDD.)

~~~
judk
The hard drive was not user serviceable. The ram was, just behind the battery

------
ayrx
Few comments.

1\. I can't filter to a exact screen size. Inputting 13" \- 13" fails.

2\. What type of disk? SSD vs HDD is a huge concern in laptops. Having a
filter for that will be great.

3\. Some laptop models can be upgraded. This doesn't appear to cover that.

4\. How often are you updating the information?

~~~
_delirium
On #1, you can, there just aren't any laptops with exactly 13" screens in the
db, so nothing is returned (the closest are 13.3" and 12.5"). Try 13.3" \-
13.3" and you get results. For marketing purposes manufacturers often round
down to a whole number, e.g. Apple's 11.6" MacBook Air model is marketed as
11", and their 13.3" model is marketed as 13".

~~~
ayrx
Ah you are right, that makes sense yes. Maybe for usability it may be a good
idea to round down?

------
jasonkester
Would be cool if there were a checkbox for "sane keyboard layout" to filter
for only models that don't break up the sacred home/end/pgup/pgdown block.

Sadly, it would be easy to implement in 2014. Just map it to set the entire
grid to display:none.

~~~
Confusion
Or for my preferred layout, where pgup and pgdn are left and right of the up
arrow. Heresy, I know.

~~~
sergiosgc
Lenovo. On the most recent X1 they pulled another one I came to like: they got
rid of Caps-Lock and replaced it with Home and End.

~~~
Legogris
I was considering that model but ended up getting a T440s, a lot because of
the brainfart they had when designing the area around backspace/enter. Being
used to European keyboards, I can not see myself ever getting used to that
layout.

Not that I'm not satisfied with my T440s, though :)

~~~
mercurial
That generation is pretty good. Shame they totally ruined the touchpad with
the more recent models.

------
BuildTheRobots
Hmm, personally I'm more interested in the resolution of the screen rather
than it's size. -Though I might just be missing this filtering option...

~~~
no_gravity
Choose "DPI" for the y-axis and the highest resolution laptops will be on top.

~~~
aidenn0
How do you change the y-axis?

~~~
no_gravity
If you have a mouse, put it on the axis label. On a touchscreen, tap the axis
label.

------
balakk
Nice visualization, but could've been better.

My major gripe is those small round icons. If they had conveyed something
useful, say a brand name (L for lenovo, T for Toshiba and so on) that would've
been useful. Second, there's no scale. If a scale is tough to fit, at least
the plot area could've been split into color-coded regions.

------
S4M
I know it's gonna concern only a minority of viewers, but it would be helpful
if the degree of compatibility with Linux would be indicated.

~~~
BugBrother
On this website it ought to be more Linux users than Windows users? Last time
I went to the Ubuntu hardware compatibility chart.

(Or is OpenBSD the popular choice and I'm behind the times again? :-) )

~~~
S4M
I agree that Linux has probably more users that Windows here on HN, but when I
said "a minority of the viewers", I meant "the viewers of the gnod website".

------
Chirael
Thanks for making this site; another vote for SSD filter please. After reading
Jeff Atwood's almost religious endorsements (e.g.,
[http://blog.codinghorror.com/revisiting-solid-state-hard-
dri...](http://blog.codinghorror.com/revisiting-solid-state-hard-drives/)),
I've wanted one for years.

~~~
chroma
I'm curious. If you've wanted an SSD for so long, why haven't you bought one?

------
lvillani
It doesn't cover base models that can be upgraded to match the constraints.

E.g.: If I add a constraint "laptops with at least 16 GB of RAM" it doesn't
show the Retina MacBook Pro 13". Only the 15" model is shown, because there is
a default configuration with said amount of RAM.

~~~
smackfu
It seems like it should just add all those in as separate models. Pretty easy.

------
Aoyagi
Well, it's a handy tool, although I think it's missing some other filters
(battery life, GPU / CPU performance... and the obvious "Has SSD as primary
storage" filter.

------
mrweasel
Very nice, sadly it also illustrates that it's pretty hard to get the laptop
you want.

Most of the features I want are sort of "anti-features". No stupid touch
stuff, no "this converts into a table", no numpad, no special media keys, no
Windows only hardware, no VGA. Add to that: Must be well built, you pretty
much left with nothing.

It's nice to see screen resolutions getting high though. For a long time it
seems that you had to go with a MacBook to get a higher resolution without
paying over $3000.

------
gabriel34
Thanks for this, it sure is helpful I'm not a fan of this data visualization,
though. Here is my comment on it for "The tourist map of flash drives"
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7465980](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7465980)):

"IMHO you shouldn't do it in a grid, it's confusing as a graphic and in some
cases results in wrong representation of the data (which every graphical
representation of data should avoid), for example, outliers can be too close
to "normal" data, distance between two points is not representative of actual
variables variation (sorry for alliteration), overlapping points seem to be
different and you can't infer a drive price/cost to be better than other
unless they share one coordinate(the worst, because that's the purpose of the
graphic)

I'd say your points need to be smaller or you need to use less points in order
to represent your data correctly.(...)"

I would add this time that the chart screen size vs price doesn't make sense
to me. I would rather have a compound metric for performance/value in lieu of
screen size. This would be made according to "weights" attributed by the user
against the several aspects of a laptop, so, for me, screen resolution and
memory would be the most valued, followed by HD capacity.

I'm trying to give constructive criticism here, because I believe you have
something really good that needs some polishing. The fact that you made this
in its current state is already applause worthy. It can be better but it
already provides a very good service.

------
username3
Filter for CPU. I'd like to see where prices of i3 end and where i5 start.

~~~
Pxtl
It's a map. You don't want a filter, you want axes.

So for example, you could have "price" as the X axis and "processing power" as
the Y axis.

------
soylentcola
Didn't see mine on there (Asus N56JR). I do something similar on Newegg and
Microcenter's site when I shop for a laptop for myself or someone else--narrow
down based on specific specs I want and then compare the results based on
reviews and other details.

I wanted something I could use for mobile DJing/VJing and some 2d/3d content
creation capability. I was looking for 15" or larger, i7, decent nVidia GPU,
16GB RAM, 1920x1080 or better, and at least 500GB storage.

The Asus uses a 1TB HDD and not a SSD and the display is OK but not amazing.
Still, it was tough to find something similar for anywhere near the $900 it
cost and the relatively good build quality. It's obviously aping the look of a
Macbook but since I have stock in neither company that's not really important
to me. Couldn't find much else with those specs without spending several
hundred dollars more.

~~~
level
I got the N56VZ a while back and I found it using the same method. If you
don't use the blu-ray drive (and who does, really?) it's pretty trivial to
swap it out with a new drive caddy. I put the HDD in there because I heard
people had trouble booting from the caddy and put in a SSD where the HDD was.
This [1] is the caddy I used, and swapping out the face plate with the
original is pretty easy. Considering the price of the machine in the first
place, why not throw a second drive in there.

[1] [http://www.ebay.com/itm/Second-Hard-Drive-2nd-HDD-SSD-
Caddy-...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Second-Hard-Drive-2nd-HDD-SSD-Caddy-Bay-
For-ASUS-N56VZ-N56VZ-DS71-N56VZ-ES71-/320980699942)

~~~
soylentcola
Not sure if mine has Blu-ray. Think it's only DVD but I don't own any Blu-ray
discs anyway. Figured if I ever really need it or want a simple-ish upgrade
I'll just swap the HDD out for a SSD at some point.

Either way it works for what I use it for. It's not my main workhorse so it
doesn't need to be as fast as humanly possible. Just need to be able to handle
fairly processor or graphically intensive tasks outside of the house. For the
sub-$1k price it was a good deal. Macbook had a few more bells and whistles
that I didn't need but cost a good deal more.

------
tjbarbour
FYI: a spec error Toshiba Satellite S55T-B5260 15.6-Inch Stated Resolution:
3840 x 2160 Actual Resolution: 1366 x 768 I thought I found an amazing laptop
for a second there...(sad trombone) The toshiba website states it can be
upgraded to 1920x1080[1] There's 2 other Toshiba Satellites that also may be
off...

Otherwise, I really like this, I've always wanted to build a laptop search
tool / website. Feature Request: I would love a flag to say weather the
ram/hdd is upgradable. Also, maximum ram would be helpful (aside from
installed ram)

[1][http://www.toshiba.com/us/computers/laptops/satellite/S50/S5...](http://www.toshiba.com/us/computers/laptops/satellite/S50/S50-BBT2N22)

~~~
no_gravity
Thanks, I fixed the satellites!

> I've always wanted to build a laptop search tool

Get in contact, if you still do :)

------
MichaelGG
All I want is modern Thinkpad hardware (i7, 16GB or more RAM, at least 1080
screen, but hopefully 16:10 high res) with an X201 design. Even a T420 design
would do.

I'd pay a few hundred bucks for an aftermarket keyboard/trackpad system to
replace the crap Lenovo ships.

------
SwellJoe
Screen resolution is my first and most important selection criteria for a
laptop.

------
radisb
I wonder why it is not easy anymore to find a 15 inch laptop with resolution
above 1366x768. Right now I am using a 4 years old laptop with 15 inch matte
screen and 1680x1050 resolution which for me are the perfect specs for laptop
regarding screen. They dont the sell these specs anymore. It seems they
abandoned big resolutions at 15 inches, and to get more than 1366x768 you have
to go at 17 inches. Maybe there is an exception or two, but in previous years,
there were a lot of models featuring 1400x1050 or 1680x1050 at 15 inches.
Anyone knows why?

~~~
no_gravity
On the left, type between 14 and 16 inch, on the y-axis choose DPI. The upper
half of the screen is filled with a lot of laptops that meet your criteria
then.

~~~
radisb
oh... :)

------
barrkel
I never knew the 11" MBA was so heavy - MD712LL/B @ 5.8 lbs.

(But of course, it's not.)

My personal choice of axes for laptops would be weight, compute power and
price, in that order of priority.

~~~
no_gravity
Thanks, fixed!

There are a lot of laptops on Amazon with missing or wrong specs. Im planning
to have a "suggest spec changes" button, so we can have crowd-fixed-data.

------
no_gravity
Gnod Things is my "map products" project. This is my latest iteration. Now you
can change the axis and filter for parameters. Any feedback is much
appreciated.

~~~
daureg
That's really a handy tool when looking to buy a new laptop. But since I
already did it last week, I was wondering if you plan to do the same thing for
smartphone ;)

------
loxias
What a great overview!

Thanks for putting the time and effort into collating and normalizing all this
data, and making it accessible to the rest of us.

One peeve though, it seems you've missed what is probably the most important
criteria in selection a laptop, for active users: Namely, the screen
resolution. I can limit by physical panel size, and make educated guesses, but
that's pretty useless.

Please, consider adding a few categories for screen resolution of the
platforms!

------
pweissbrod
Sorry to supply the negative feedback but,

As a laptop search tool this is cool but lacks practicality because there are
so many missing search options. Just look at ebay laptops for example.

As a data visualization tool this is cool but nothing I have seen comes close
to silverlight deep zoom for displaying and filtering large image sets.

I do appreciate the difficulty of what this is trying to accomplish and I
commend the OP for making it this far! Dont stop now!

~~~
ygra
I guess you're thinking of Pivot here, which uses Deep Zoom for display, but
offers facets for filtering. I just noticed that there seems to be a
JavaScript implementation too:
[https://github.com/seajax/seajax/blob/master/v2/app/pivot/qu...](https://github.com/seajax/seajax/blob/master/v2/app/pivot/quickstart.html)

------
magikarp
What about the Surface Pro 3?

~~~
no_gravity
Thanks, added!

------
Totoradio
Nice! Could you add a filter for SSD Hard drives?

------
Hawkee
I used to be into affiliate marketing back in the datafeed hey-days on Google.
Now in order to succeed in this business you need to come up with something
viral and useful. I think this is a very good example. I'm not sure this can
compete with something like retailmenot in terms of revenue, but it's
certainly an innovation.

------
concernedctzn
The info bubble for this laptop: [http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-
Satellite-S55-B5292-15-6-Inch-...](http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-
Satellite-S55-B5292-15-6-Inch-Laptop/dp/B00KO6I8UO) incorrectly described the
resolution as 3840x2160 but on the Amazon page you can see the max resolution
is 1366x768

------
wyc
I really try not to buy consumer (or shoddy business) equipment that falls
apart within two years. I wonder if someone has aggregated average lifetime to
failure, because that would be very meaningful to me as an axis to consider
before purchase.

~~~
icebraining
How would you measure that for new laptops, though?

------
AriinPHD
Great idea. This exists, but all similar concepts lack a lot of search
abilities/filters. What I'd like is noise levels in dB as I'm only interested
in (require) silent machines. Would that be possible?

------
periferral
Very cool. A few suggestions

* touch screen would be nice * Screen resolutions would be nice * SSD drive options

Edit: Just notice DPI and other ways of sorting are available by clicking on
the axis. Should make this more intuitive.

Nice work overall

------
forrestthewoods
Awesome. Lots of more things necessary, of course. My initial requirements
are:

nvidia gtx 870

>= 256gb SSD

>= 12gb ram

After that there are a few things I look for. Size, resolution, weight, etc.
But those first three are my starting requirements.

------
sandymcm
Great idea, well executed. Others have made good suggestions to make it
better. I agree with those who have asked for more and more specific search
options.

------
stronglikedan
It really sucks that it's so difficult to find a business class 17" laptop.
Any suggestions?

~~~
keltex
Dell Precision line?

~~~
stronglikedan
Very nice, thanks. Comparable price to the Thinkpad (my current favorite). The
only think missing is the button mouse (probably the reason Thinkpads are my
favorite), but I just picked up a Logitech T650 trackpad this week, and am
forcing myself to get used to it, due to RSI issues. By gosh, this looks like
it just might work!

------
josefresco
You know you have a useful tool when most of your feedback on HN are feature
requests! Nice job.

------
foldor
I'd love to see Clevo/Sager laptops on that grid. Plus screen resolution
filters.

------
ErikRogneby
Some value tics on the axis for price points and screen size would improve
this.

------
LarryMade2
Processor and Graphics Chipsets are an important factors in my laptop
decision.

------
mcv
Useful, but also disappointing. Is really nobody making bigger laptops?

------
mrmattyboy
It would be good if you could choose minimum resolution and price

~~~
mrmattyboy
Ok, forget the price - I completely missed the price/screen size axis

------
Pxtl
It's worth noticing that Apple is the only one providing high-end 11" devices.
The computing industry should take note - quality is more important than size.

~~~
gambiting
Yeah but at the same time I guess it's easier to sell 11" laptops for $200
than it is to sell them for $999.

~~~
Pxtl
But then you're trying to sell a chunky ugly piece of plastic next to a sleek
sexy piece of metal. The number of Apple devices you see out in the wild
(outside of an office) vs other brands of laptops bears this out - in the
laptop industry there's Apple and then there's everybody else.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>* The number of Apple devices you see out in the wild (outside of an office)
vs other brands of laptops bears this out* //

None? Doesn't it just depend where you are. I see no (alright very few) Apple
laptops as people I know aren't made of money. Some students get them when
they first start college/uni because they've not budgeted correctly ... but
that's about it.

Tablets though, mostly iPads.

Flame wars ahead ...

------
TheLoneWolfling
Doesn't have GPU options.

------
wahsd
Lenovo Yoga 2 line?

------
nvr219
Who's paying $670 for a dell d620.... smh

------
sanju
simply amazing :).. i like it

