I don’t spend money on things other than tech, really. I have never found the perfect tech, which is strange, since I don’t want anything all that extravagant. My demands are not remotely as precise or niche as those of gamers (who have my sympathies).
I am thrilled with what I have, and it’s a good template to discuss my ideal tech. I have an Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 (at Josh’s recommendation). I got it for $1500 CAD (after tax) with 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD open box from Best Buy. I also got a folding phone, a OnePlus Open (refurbished excellent on the Best Buy scale) for $1500 CAD after tax at base specs.
With an HDMI-USB cable and a monitor at my desk, I basically have five form factors in two devices which together weigh barely 3 pounds: phone, small tablet, large tablet, laptop, and desktop.
Still, there’s some things I’d love:
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less battery vs. performance trade-off. I rarely feel like I need the Snapdragon multi-core boost, but as great as Lunar Lake is, it’s still glaringly suboptimal: either we should all be on ARM and get Mac-level efficiency and power, or x86 needs to step up its game. I just don’t understand why this is still a compromise.
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a better keyboard: I was so close to getting the Yoga 9 2-in-1 with lunar lake, but chose the haptic touchpad (and the big discount) over the better pen functionality and keyboard. But I remember having an X1 Carbon years ago, and the keyboard was actually life-changingly good. Why, I mean actually why, can HP not just make a better keyboard? It’s fine, but why does it have to be fine? It was a better keyboard away from being hands down, no question the best 2-in-1 including compared to devices far more expensive. IMO, the Thinkpad X1 2-in-1 G10 (would love a review, Josh), is probably the best 2-in-1 because you can get a 3k/4k panel and haptic touchpad, but its almost $4k, and won’t go on many sales because it is a business laptop.
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a legitimate tri-fold competitor to Huawei (which is basically unusable in Canada): somehow, Samsung made a tri-fold that has no dual-screen mode? Only 1 or 3? I might be missing something but this is what the mock-ups seem to indicate. The only thing I don’t like about my OnePlus Open (aside from the battery which is good but could be better and I’m still unclear as to whether Silicon Carbon has good endurance) is that like all other two-screen foldables, it is the wrong aspect ratio for wide screen media.
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even more form factor versatility in general (e.g. modular products, larger foldable screens).
I suppose my ideal laptop would be something like the Asus Zenbook Duo with all-day dual-screen battery and/or a foldable screen like that folding Lenovo. Or at least a detachable 2-in-1 that is lap-able (I tried many cases with many surface pros, and it just never worked). The Surface Book got closest, but it’s battery always sucked and the tablet died super quickly. It was also insanely expensive and very heavy if you didn’t detach the tablet from the keyboard.
I could do an Apple transition, but they won’t have a foldable phone until late 2026/2027, and they are only very slowly stopping their practice of deliberately handicapping the macs by not making them 2-in-1 to give the iPad room to breathe. I get that people like iPad OS 26, so I guess the right case could make it essentially a laptop (assuming it had a large trackpad, solidity, good keyboard, and some sort of hinge to allow full screen angles). But the iPad Pro’s battery won’t can’t handle intensive desktop-powered (as opposed to app powered) applications in all-day use. Macs will get a touch screen, but who uses a touch screen without a 2-in-1 option?
It’s just frustrating to see so many products have things other products could incorporate but for whatever reason, don’t; as if the ingredients are all there, but I can’t just put the companies in a room and badger them until they make the devices I actually most want.
