And the budget isn’t insane either.
During dev he blew through 5 grand (high for an individual, but nothing compared to some startups)
For production, apparently building one of these yourself with the materials he’s provided would cost $1500 – again, really not that astronomical
This is really shining a lens on some companies charging $2000 for mid-tier laptop with half these features.
I’m… quite excited that we’re entering a new era of hardware, which would put an end to these needless hardware companies
This is a highly impressive project, not just for a high school senior, but it should be stressed that this is nowhere near as powerful as a similarly priced modern laptop. This is a legendary school project, impressive enough to open doors to universities and lay the foundation for a successful career in the computer industry, but not really something you should try and build yourself if you’re looking for a laptop in this price range.
A Geekbench 5 single-core score of 492 and a multi-core score of 2019 points are about comparable to a Macbook Pro from fifteen years ago. There is a small NPU present on the chip, which the old Macbook doesn’t have, but if that’s not important to your use case (which is very likely), then this device is not suitable for anything but the most basic tasks and will feel sluggish with any current software. There’s a reason the video barely shows the device in use, because it just wouldn’t be very pleasant to look at.
True, but I think that tech disparity (of say 15 years) between hobby-grade and consumer-grade hardware is closing, and that the disparity itself becomes less meaningful when you’re still able to do most things with older hardware.
Hell, my smartphone is 8 years old and runs a light modern OS which still enables me to use modern apps with ease.
This kid showed what was possible with just 6 months and 5 thousand dollars with today’s hobbyist chips.
I tremble with excitement when I think of what the next kid tomorrow might do.
1500$ because you don’t have bulk parts, otherwise it could go down by a significant amount.
However, the 5k doesn’t include all the hours of engineering, which costs a lot more than the hardware.
With that said, you are absolutely right that we get dog shit computers for the price. The amount of hours I’ve spent in my life reducing the cost for a board is insane. And bear in mind that this wasn’t for high volume production neither where hardware cost reductions have a big impact.
I hope that this guy go on to do his own thing and doesn’t get gobbled by the corporate machine (or become the corporate machine).
And the budget isn’t insane either.
During dev he blew through 5 grand (high for an individual, but nothing compared to some startups)
For production, apparently building one of these yourself with the materials he’s provided would cost $1500 – again, really not that astronomical
This is really shining a lens on some companies charging $2000 for mid-tier laptop with half these features.
I’m… quite excited that we’re entering a new era of hardware, which would put an end to these needless hardware companies
This is a highly impressive project, not just for a high school senior, but it should be stressed that this is nowhere near as powerful as a similarly priced modern laptop. This is a legendary school project, impressive enough to open doors to universities and lay the foundation for a successful career in the computer industry, but not really something you should try and build yourself if you’re looking for a laptop in this price range.
A Geekbench 5 single-core score of 492 and a multi-core score of 2019 points are about comparable to a Macbook Pro from fifteen years ago. There is a small NPU present on the chip, which the old Macbook doesn’t have, but if that’s not important to your use case (which is very likely), then this device is not suitable for anything but the most basic tasks and will feel sluggish with any current software. There’s a reason the video barely shows the device in use, because it just wouldn’t be very pleasant to look at.
True, but I think that tech disparity (of say 15 years) between hobby-grade and consumer-grade hardware is closing, and that the disparity itself becomes less meaningful when you’re still able to do most things with older hardware.
Hell, my smartphone is 8 years old and runs a light modern OS which still enables me to use modern apps with ease.
This kid showed what was possible with just 6 months and 5 thousand dollars with today’s hobbyist chips.
I tremble with excitement when I think of what the next kid tomorrow might do.
1500$ because you don’t have bulk parts, otherwise it could go down by a significant amount.
However, the 5k doesn’t include all the hours of engineering, which costs a lot more than the hardware.
With that said, you are absolutely right that we get dog shit computers for the price. The amount of hours I’ve spent in my life reducing the cost for a board is insane. And bear in mind that this wasn’t for high volume production neither where hardware cost reductions have a big impact.
I hope that this guy go on to do his own thing and doesn’t get gobbled by the corporate machine (or become the corporate machine).