hardware//laptop

A laptop is a thermally constrained computer whose CPU, memory, storage, battery, radios, display, and input devices must behave as one portable system.

A laptop is a thermally constrained computer whose CPU, memory, storage, battery, radios, display, and input devices must behave as one portable system.

Unlike a desktop, performance is inseparable from power and temperature. The same processor can have radically different sustained performance depending on cooling, firmware, and power limits.

CPU, RAM, storage, and I/O specifications describe components; latency, fan behavior, battery degradation, repairability, and sleep reliability describe the machine people actually own.

Thinness moves engineering cost elsewhere: soldered parts, smaller batteries, louder fans, lower sustained clocks, or a more expensive enclosure.

The benchmark is a snapshot. The product is the control system deciding which benchmark result remains possible ten minutes later.