A lot of premium "high end" laptops still max out at 16: Alienware (pretty sure), HP Origin gaming system, Macbook Pros etc. Dropping 2k+ on a laptop I'd expect more but nope. 8GB is decent for a mid level machine. + the system has a o hum CPU so the users it is targeted for are probably not doing anything that requires > 8GB ram (watching videos, surfing, maybe in this posters case some sysadmin or dev work on relatively light weight editors/IDEs). My home computer just has 4GB which I can live with for those uses and then VPN into my work where I have a reasonably powerful beast (XPS 8700 special edition, i7-4770k with 32GB ram, 256SSD, 4TB HDD).

16 Is my problem thinking about a new laptop for personal use but also to do dev work on during my commute. I routinely use 15-16GB of ram and I'm pretty sure I peak over that by a bunch when debugging and what not. It pretty much removes all mainstream laptops from consideration. I instead need one of those ugly 7lb square beasts. Pay a $1000 premium for say a W541 but then have to pay more to get > 1080p screen that I would have gotten in say a Y50-70, have a much lower performance GPU etc. Pretty much all you get for the premium price is the expandablity, support for a docking station and conformance to a "professional" design you'd see in a corporate space versus a pretty "toy" design that the mainstream gets.

I hope by Skylark timeframe 32GB of ram becomes the new preimium non-workstation replacement tank standard.

Fair enough. Some reviews I read said the single USB C port was going to be the new "standard" for laptops. ... I hope not. At least for Mac users "buy something else" doesn't really leave a lot of options: if Apple screws up the Air and doesn't update the other Macbooks significantly for a couple years ... you are stuck buying old or buying the new without something you want.

Oh and the next spokemen to market their product as X mm thin is getting a punch in the face. Thin is not a unit of measure. It was quite the first time I heard it no it is just silly. Especially since they are usually asking you to sacrifice functionality like ports, or mini vs full sized ports, or pay them an extra $200 for the privilege etc. Thin is just one aspect of the buying choice and like all features at some point it stops mattering, like arguing over a 300dpi screen vs a 400dpi screen: who other than the guy selling it to you cares?

Steve Jobs design is still kicking. Eventually they'll make a 1lb screen. You'll use a cable to attach a hub which will have the keyboard, battery, usb ports etc on it. All so they can say it is %20 thinner than last years razor blade and weighs less (even though you have to lug around all the other awkward crap with you).

Also: what about estate taxes? When they die does their estate have to pay the US + Belgium then their kids? Each to their own I guess but my preference would be citizenship wherever I'm living at the time and no other citizenships so their is no issue (hopefully) of falling on both sides of a war and ending up in an internment camp, double taxation, less hold on me in terms of if anyone ever decided they wanted to extradite me for something that is legal where I was living etc. I don't imply you plan on doing something seriously illegal just say run an online casino. You have US customers and they find out you are a US citizen. You might find a letter and a plane ride in your future since I suspect they could "bring you home" to face trial. Dido DMCA, RIAA, and the like. You can laugh at them when they send you letters telling you you face fines under a US law when you aren't a US citizen but once you have dual citizenship now you might have to worry every time you travel.

I'm not sure that is the case maybe just recompiled. I'd suspect the majority of apps are using APIs/libraries supplied by the vendors (Andriod, iOS), or tooling (ex. Xamarin). The APIs tooling would need to be ported/optimized but hopefully few changes at the "put widget here" side of the fence.

My understanding is the WP10 = W10 mobile. So things using Atom processors, tablets etc will be using the same OS as windows phone. At least that is what I heard in tech press speculation not directly from the beast. So if that is the case modern apps, including the new modern Office will work on both. Maybe more x86 products will move down to the smaller form factor just so you can get the desktop apps too but I think the size of the screen in practice you rarely would want it anyways.

Modern is both native and managed. You can use pretty much whatever you want to write it: C++, HTML5, javascript, .net languages and via ports a whole lot of other languages that can target .Net (ruby, python, haskell etc). The actual apis you use either way are native under the hood. So expensive stuff like window management and the like are all native.

WP10 you are (promised) to be able to run a lot of windows apps though. That said there isn't really that great a number of windows store apps to chose from anyways. I think in many ways MS is going the way Sun did in its last days. Open source everything, run it on all platforms and ??? profit? At least they have hardware (XBox, perferals, Surface), non-server room corporate customers and services worth paying for (Azure, OneDrive, Office 365) to some people. But still cloud (and I'm a cloud dev) is a great idea but it shrinks the margins for everyone. Computing systems are becoming commodity/interchangeable.

I guess maybe I should care more about the low end market I guess. I'm not that customer nor are most/all corporate customers. I buy $500 monitors not $500 computers. But I guess a lot of the market goes to ~$700 laptops and $500 desktops so in consumer land they might have a winner.

South bridge is pretty cheap: http://www.aliexpress.com/pric... . I guess the mobo would be simpler too giving you more savings but I don't think it would do it. Still say $300 for a crappy AMD based system and $500 for a 2X faster intel system: other than the dirt poor I know which one I'd recommend. Anyone using a computer for more than a glorified smartphone has time with a value. It doesn't take many minutes throughout the year to equal the cost difference. IMO you are almost guaranteed for professional use that all but the top end $5000 gaming rigs will earn their money back in their lifetime in employee productivity/retention.

I agree. But they haven't really been competitive in the desktop market for about 7 years. I hope they do better because I'm not a fan of monopolies. Strictly on price isn't the way to go IMO. Other than the most basic users (secretaries, store clerks and the like) I think the computer as a tool to do work well it never pays to be (far) off the current best of breed. AMD has been in the bargain basement i7 territory for a while. I'm not convinced this architecture is going to do it though. We'll see.

Even if they go on sale for $59 they are harmless IMO. It would only knock a couple hundred off a intel based system and still suck balls compared to them. Even swapping computers every couple years if your time savings isn't worth $200 to you you need a better job.

Also if you are buying mainstream hardware not building your own things are much closer. Ex: Dell XPS using i7 4770k I think. If you compare that to the ~2500 upgraded i7 version of a macbook pro they are only about 200 points difference between the CPU mark scores. Sure the mac has a newer CPU but that might be the way of things: laptops get updated every year or so but desktops are allowed to age their way into budget market and then sit their for a couple years before the manufacturer finally has to make a new "premium" PC. If you build your own you can do better but personally messing with hardware isn't my thing and I just don't care enough (as I'd guess the majority of people).

Like a cheerleader the big ones will be happy first but by the time it gets to the little ones it will be fairly old and unimpressive.

Laptop manufacturers have you but the short hairs because if you want to do work while mobile they really are the best option. Since (at least till the last say 10 years) business was the main reason for the devices margins could be a bit higher. Anyways it isn't like they just said: hey lets make a low powered device. There are more thermal and energy considerations in something that has to sit on your lap, be thin and run on a battery versus a big honking box, not touching you that has continual access to power.